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Rating: Why do we call the images and sensations we see and experience while awake "reality"? Why do we call those we see and experience while asleep "dream"?
Is it just a matter of time?
If we slept much more than we were awake, could we say with the same certainty which chaos is "reality" and which is "dream"? What perceptions of life does a person have who remains in a coma for days, months, years?
And consciousness?
But are we really? Conscious, I mean. And then, do we really make any use of consciousness? I believe we would all be stunned if we could ascertain how little part this blunt scalpel, this limping stallion, this breathless nightingale that we call "consciousness" plays in the decisions we make in our lives.
We mostly swim haphazardly in a sea of distortions, missing pieces, and approximations; above all, we rely on our own personal "acts of faith," towards something or someone that was, that is, or perhaps will be.
In short, "reality" and "dream" could be two identical muddles perceived differently. Nothing more, nothing less.
In France, in the second half of the 19th century, the Naturalist school prevailed: a doctrine that sought to illustrate reality and human beings as if they were algorithms or mechanisms explainable solely through mere hereditary and environmental causes. Emile Zola, an author endowed with a vigorous and persuasive style (but also with narrow-mindedness and limited imagination), was the prophet of this school and did not allow for himself or his disciples any variation on the theme: characters had to behave in a manner consistent with the environment where they were raised and have a personality conforming to that of the family members of their origin. No "exceptional cases" or "black sheep" were allowed.
To be honest, I believe there has never been a literary school that understood life and human beings less than Naturalism, and among the first to notice this narrowness of perspective was Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.
Hailing from a family of noble lineage and the architect of an errant and irregular life, this forgotten yet great author was endowed with a sumptuous and velvety style and a hyperbolic imagination branded with dark irony.
From Baudelaire (albeit without his critical consciousness) he had the ability to lift the veil of the everyday to find secret connections with other worlds, from Poe the gloominess of landscapes and situations, from Corbière the iconoclastic sarcasm towards the "idols" of his time, even from Flaubert (though not his formal perfection and semantic elegance) the craft of adapting style according to the story told.
"Cruel Tales", written in 1883, is, in my opinion, his most representative work. It is here, in these 28 short stories, that we can have a precise idea of his multifaceted personality, his dexterity in changing register. It ranges from hilarious "vaudevilles" where he mocks the naive faith in the science of the time's society to true horror stories set in a Paris painted with gothic strokes; from hints tinged with sweet melancholy to scathing attacks on bourgeois obfuscation.
But what is treated cruelly? Precisely reality: the pre-established order is torn to pieces, literary canons are literally turned upside down, life seems to pause in certain privileged moments where people, things, events gain eternal and paradigmatic symbolism.
Recurring are the archaic and exotic words that seem to chisel the tales into fine antique wooden furniture, and it is no coincidence that, a year later, the refined Des Esseintes (protagonist of "Against the Grain" by Joris-Karl Huysmans, a true Decadentist "Bible") points to Villiers de L'Isle-Adam as his favorite author.
He never knew much success in life, perhaps because he scared the audience too much or maybe the audience itself didn't take him too seriously, who knows.
He went his own way, and I like to remember him as a forerunner and visionary, a saint and a magician who at every turn intertwined and fused what we call "reality" and what we call "dream".
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