Jacques Sternberg : le mépris par alphabet

Jacques Sternberg (1923-2006) was a singular figure of the Parisian literary life of the 60s and 70s, but today his name is mostly associated with Alain Resnais and Roland Topor. In 1973, he published a Dictionnaire du mépris, in which the humorist expressed his detestation of mankind in general and of French society under president Pompidou in particular. It was expanded in 1985 under the title Dictionnaire des idées revues. Neither book aims to be funny. Their main interest lies in their titles and in their form. Following in the footsteps of Voltaire, Gustave Flaubert and Ambrose Bierce, Sternberg establishes a strong connection between satire and the dictionary form; but his all-encompassing contempt – an essential ingredient of « true humour » – is of a different brand. He pretends to dislike not only people but literature. The key to this radicality is perhaps to be found in the young man’s experience of the horrors of WW2 and of the camps where his father lost his life