Baudelaire's Absurd Academic Candidacy and Allen S. Weiss's 'Le Livre bouffon'

In December 1861, a sick, impoverished, and debt-ridden Charles Baudelaire, under the guardianship of M. Ancelle, absurdly decided to run for a seat at the Académie française. This ill-fated endeavor added humiliations from visits to the decrepit 'Old Lady of Quai Conti' to his existing miseries. Allen S. Weiss recounts this episode in his captivating narrative 'Le Livre bouffon' (Seuil, Fiction & Cie), a work woven from citations and apocryphal sayings of the poet and his contemporaries (Vigny, Hugo, Lamartine). The book imagines Baudelaire's vengeful account of his degrading visits to what he called 'absolute nullities.' The article also notes a modern parallel: at the time of Weiss's book release, a race for academic chairs occurred among young aspirants, with the politically correct Académie electing François Weyergans over two right-leaning candidates, despite his anti-conformist left-leaning reputation. Weyergans took the seat of Maurice Rheims, while Alain Robbe-Grillet, elected to a chair, never donned the habit and was never formally received. The piece questions whether rejected candidates will write their own 'bouffon' books. Additionally, the article reports the death of writer Pierre Bourgeade on March 11 at age 81, a novelist, playwright, and essayist with over fifty books, with new works forthcoming.