Encerrado en la habitación de un hotel, un hombre observa por una rendija abierta en la pared a los huéspedes que, sucesivamente, ocupan el cuarto de al lado. El mirón contempla sin ser visto a clientes solitarios, amantes adolescentes, parejas adúlteras… Con un lenguaje directo y preciso, que encierra un hondo aliento poético, Henri Barbusse construye una novela inimitable, en la que se dan cita todas las obsesiones del hombre: el amor, el engaño, la sexualidad, la religión, la muerte…

Hell by Henri Barbusse was originally published in 1908. I found it a rather unusual book as the unnamed narrator, a young man staying in a Paris boarding house, spies on his fellow house guests through a peephole in his wall and after he has studied the private moments and secret activities he then makes assessments on their behaviour and their motivation.

I found being locked inside this voyeur’s head was a very claustrophobic experience. It appears this young man drifts through life without making a huge impression yet his morbid curiosity encourages him to watch others and then philosophize about human behaviour. But does he have the right to make these judgments or is he simply projecting his views on others.

I have seen reviews that give this book a very high rating but frankly, it creeped me out. The young man is annoying and arrogant and all his fancy musings cannot change the fact that he is a peeping tom taking advantage of the hole in his wall to leer at others. Obviously Hell is not a book that I enjoyed or even could see a lot of merit in. ( )

The Inferno (alternate title - Hell) by Henri Barbusse makes for one strange reading experience. We have our first-person narrator, a thirty-year-old gent who takes up residence in a Paris rooming house only to discover a crack in the wall where he can remain undetected as he observes the happenings in the next room.

Then there’s the dialogue and action of the various occupants of that next room who come and go, all filtered through the alembic of the voyeuristic narrator. And what intriguing characters they are, acting out the drama of their lives under the voyeur’s watchful eye. Among others, two preadolescent fledgling lovers; a sentimental romantic and her tall mustachioed, stiff, jaundiced heartthrob; a pregnant young woman tending to a dying old poet who is her lover.

What exactly is it about being a voyeur? We all have had the legitimate experience of being watchers of films and plays and readers of books full to the brim with comedy and drama of character's lives but what of observing real people in real situations?

Yet to be a viewer unbeknownst to those being viewed living their "real" lives is something else again, quite different from books or movies. The enchantment of this short novel provides us an opportunity to join the young voyeur as he peeps through a crack into the next room.

Does reading a story told by voyeur make us voyeurs? Certainly not, but then again, there is something about partaking in the voyeur’s peeping. By way of example, here is a snatch of dialogue from the next room:

“I love you so much,” he said simply.
“Ah,” she answered, “you will not die!”
“Think of all you have done for me!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and bending her magnificent body toward him, as if prostrating herself before him.
Then the voyeur/narrator observes: You could tell that they were speaking open-heartedly. What a good thing it is to be frank and speak without reticence, without the shame and guilt of not knowing what one is saying and for each to go straight to the other. It is almost a miracle.

Thus, we as readers are given two separate dramas: the participants in the next room in their various combinations and also the life of the young voyeur - his emotional response, his philosophical reflections on his own life and on the lives of those he observes.

And perhaps that’s not such a bad thing after all, the author providing us with an alternate rhythm of observing the next room and the mind of the voyeur, squeezing the novel as art form with such a unique twist. Ah, the French! Toward the end of his stay at the rooming house, we read:

"I wanted to know the secret of life. I had seen men, groups, deeds, faces. In the twilight I had seen the tremulous eyes of beings as deep as wells. I had seen the mouth that said in a burst of glory, "I am more sensitive than others." I had seen the struggle to love and make one's self understood, the refusal of two persons in conversation to give themselves to each other, the coming together of two lovers, the lovers with an infectious smile, who are lovers in name only, who bury themselves in kisses, who press wound to wound to cure themselves, between whom there is really no attachment, and who, in spite of their ecstasy deriving light from shadow, are strangers as much as the sun and mood are strangers."


French author Henri Barbusse, 1873-1935

“I believe that around us there is only one word on all sides, one immense word which reveals our solitude and extinguishes our radiance: Nothing! I believe that that word does not point to our insignificance or our unhappiness, but on the contrary to our fulfillment and our divinity, since everything is in ourselves.”
― Henri Barbusse, The Inferno
( )

The Inferno (alternate title - Hell) by Henri Barbusse makes for one strange reading experience. First off we have our first-person narrator, a thirty-year-old who takes up residence in a Paris rooming house only to discover a crack in the wall where he can remain undetected as he observes the happenings in the next room. Then there’s the dialogue and action of the occupants of that next room filtered through the alembic of the voyeuristic narrator – and what intriguing character they are, acting out the drama of their lives under the voyeur’s watchful eye: among others, two preadolescent fledgling lovers, a sentimental romantic and her tall mustachioed heartthrob, the husband, stiff and jaundiced in the extreme, a pregnant young woman tending a dying old poet who is her lover.

What exactly is it about being a voyeur? We all have had the legitimate experience of being watchers of films and plays and readers of books full to the brim with comedy and drama of character's lives. Yet to be a viewer unbeknownst to those being viewed living their 'real' lives is something else again. The enchantment of this short novel provides us an opportunity to join the young voyeur as he peeps through a crack into the next room. Does reading a story told by voyeur make us voyeurs? Certainly not, but then again, there is something about partaking in the voyeur’s peeping. By way of example, here is a snatch of dialogue from the next room:

“I love you so much,” he said simply.
“Ah,” she answered, “you will not die!”
“Think of all you have done for me!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and bending her magnificent body toward him, as if prostrating herself before him.
Then the voyeur/narrator observes: You could tell that they were speaking open-heartedly. What a good thing it is to be frank and speak without reticence, without the shame and guilt of not knowing what one is saying and for each to go straight to the other. It is almost a miracle.

Thus, we as readers are given two separate dramas: the participants in the next room in their various combinations and also the life of the young voyeur, his emotional response, his philosophical reflections on his own life and on the lives of those he observes. And perhaps that’s not such a bad thing after all, the author providing us with an alternate rhythm of observing the next room and the mind of the voyeur, squeezing the novel as art form with such a unique twist. Ah, the French! Toward the end of his stay at the rooming house, we read:

"I wanted to know the secret of life. I had seen men, groups, deeds, faces. In the twilight I had seen the tremulous eyes of beings as deep as wells. I had seen the mouth that said in a burst of glory, "I am more sensitive than others." I had seen the struggle to love and make one's self understood, the refusal of two persons in conversation to give themselves to each other, the coming together of two lovers, the lovers with an infectious smile, who are lovers in name only, who bury themselves in kisses, who press wound to wound to cure themselves, between whom there is really no attachment, and who, in spite of their ecstasy deriving light from shadow, are strangers as much as the sun and mood are strangers." ( )

Not a very long novel and not a completely entertaining one either. Barbusse has constructed a hotel room where the unnamed protagonist discovers a hole which allows him to see into the next room undetected. Through this, he manages to view a wide range of events, overhear every single word of every conversation and thereby satisfy his every voyeuristic whim. It’s not entirely edifying.

I read somewhere that the idea is that the hole enables a view of the full range of life. There are illicit lovers, obscure conversations about life, betrayals and even a death. Every conversation is laden with pathos and melodrama. Trouble is, life, especially that in hotel rooms, is usually banal and humdrum. This seems to have been lost on Barbusse.

Putting aside the contrived plot device of a small hole conveying omniprescience, there’s still little here that’s going to engage many modern readers. Nor did I feel that there was anything scintillating that Barbusse had to say about the human condition that wasn’t idealistic somehow. That would come later when WW1 gave him plenty of material to work with.

In the interim, Barbusse was just sharpening his quill as a writer and revolutionary. By all accounts, he would go on to better things. ( )