The wonder of a literature whose only claim is to entertain

The military, the judges, the bureaucrats. Posthumous – but very lively – ode to Georges Courtline, an exquisite and playful French humorous writer who, having lived between the 19th and 20th centuries, with no other pretension than to entertain, with no messages to convey, with no catapult-morale, dealt the cruelest slaps to the most prominent categories of his time. As a civil servant in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, for fourteen years – all of indefatigable idleness – Courteline sharpened her gaze and her blades until she composed the six scenes collected in this Desk types (Elliot, 154 pp., 16.50 euros), at the time published in installments, and with great success, for L’Écho de Paris between 1891 and 1892. Power of boredom, supreme arrow in the writer’s bow. And a bit of a feeling of revenge. It’s a pity that boredom no longer exists – literature will die out not so much for lack of readers as for lack of bored people; yet it should be protected, it is the engine of observation.