Novels in Three Lines or, The News in Three Lines
In 1906, Felix Feneon wrote 1,220 news items for a French newspaper. A sampling of his journalistic genius appears below.
"To die like Joan of Arc!" cried Terborgh, from the top of a pyre made of his furniture. The firemen of Saint-Ouen stifled his ambition.
Frogs, sucked up from the Belgian ponds by the storm, rained down upon the streets of the red-light district of Dunkirk.
There was a gas explosion at the home of Larrieux, in Bordeaux. He was injured. His mother-in-law's hair caught on fire. The ceiling caved in.
Responding to a call at night, M. Sirvent, café owner of Caissargues, Gard, opened his window; a rifle shot destroyed his face.
Mme Fournier, M. Vouin, M. Septeuil, of Sucy, Tripleval, Septeuil,hanged themselves: neurasthenia, cancer, unemployment.
At five o'clock in the morning, M.P. Bouget was accosted by two men on Rue Fondary. One put out his right eye, the other his left. In Necker.
The schoolchildren of Niort were being crowned. The chandelier fell,and the laurels of three among them were spotted with a little blood.
A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frérotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.
Finding his daughter, 19, insufficiently austere, Jallat, watchmaker of Saint-Étienne, killed her. It is true that he has eleven children left.
On the bowling lawn a stroke leveled M. André, 75, of Levallois. While his ball was still rolling he was no more.
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I wish someone would be so bold with the 6 o'clock news! I never watch it any more; the sensationalism and melodrama wears me thin. Just imagine how any of these stories would have been treated by our popular news broadcasts. No, I thank you. I'll take Feneon's brief, well-crafted stories of action and desire.
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