A review by braincabbage
Torture Garden, by Octave Mirbeau
4.0
Mirbeau might actually be the most misanthropic author I've ever read. The translator's introduction mentioned misogyny, but judging from what I've read so far he justs hates everyone. In a weird way, I felt he did women more justice in this book than other male authors did at the time: his female characters are not the stereotypical innocent virtuous ladies in need of a strong man to shield them from the unpleasantries of the world that other men at the time liked to imagine they were. Mirbeau's female characters are just as vile and corrupted as the men are, strangely equalised in their cruelty. I think he doesn't see people on a spectrum of fluctuating between good and evil, I think he only sees people as either openly diabolical or hypocritical.
Not gonna lie, some parts of this did remind me of shock fics I read years ago, the rat torture especially squicked me. But most of the novel is more literary, because unlike shock fics I don't think Mirbeau set out to shock the audience as much as he could with this, but rather uncover the hypocrisy and moral corruption of humanity at large.
Not gonna lie, some parts of this did remind me of shock fics I read years ago, the rat torture especially squicked me. But most of the novel is more literary, because unlike shock fics I don't think Mirbeau set out to shock the audience as much as he could with this, but rather uncover the hypocrisy and moral corruption of humanity at large.