The Salt Smugglers
If ever a writer . . . sought to define himself painstakingly to himself, to grasp and bring light to the murky shadings, the deepest laws and most elusive impressions of the human soul, it was Gérard de Nerval.—Marcel ProustEvery intelligent English-speaking reader must be grateful to Richard Sieburth and Archi- pelago Books for rescuing from oblivion this gem of factual fiction, revealing a Nerval poised somewhere between the subversive Diderot and the vitriolic Voltaire. The Salt Smugglers now has pride of place in my ideal library.—Alberto ManguelThe octrois of reason exact a cruel tithe compounded of the flesh and blood of mankind. The arbitrary authority of fate casts our lives into Bastilles far more terrible than those stormed by revolutions. This is why we so love and admire all those salt smugglers of the spirit, all those bootleggers of contraband ideas who thumb their noses at the black-shirted guards of narrow logic.—Michel Leiris