Monday, February 22, 2021

Histoire du Veritable Gribouille by George Sand

 What a beautiful gem is the Histoire of Veritable


Gribouille by George Sand. One of the many used french books I presented to me for my birthday time ago.


It was from a long time  that I didn't read a book so intense, inspired and powerful and at the same time, dreaming.


Gribouille is part of a numerous family and would want to be loved so badly. No one loves him in that family and it is causes of great sufferance; nor his parents, because they think that he is not useful, neither his numerous siblings. 


One day, during an enchanting meeting, he finds a magical creatures and because of his goodness, the magical creature tells him that he wants to help him, magically as well. 


Oh, Gribouille would want to be loved by his family, more than anything else, but that one is a wish and dream that, unfortunately is impossible to realize. 

Monsieur Bourdon at the same time promises him, if he wants, to join him; he would want to teach him the art of necromancy and magic. 


Gribouille would want to stay with his family, and would want to be loved, but then he understood that not being loved maybe it is better to join Bourdon. But Bourdon is not a good creature and no, Gribouille can't understand any spells, any magic. He is treated well, he eats regularly but he sees that there is no future in a land like the one of Bourdon, so he asks him to return at the house of his parents. The punishment is immense.


Gribouille understands that after all the house of his parents can't be the answer of his problems and finds the magical world of the Queen of Fairies. 


In this case Gribouille finds a wonderful place where to staying in and the Queen helps him to understand goodness; there is great peace and harmony in her world in contrapposition to the world created by Bourdon, plenty of injustices, disharmonies and wars.


The queen tells to Gribouille: "Il a sédut et corrompu les hommes de ton pays par se richesses. .....Il a rendu beacucoup de gens très riches et le pays florissant en apparence; mais, manière à les laisser mourir de faim, parce qu'il a ru rendre le riches ègoistes et durs." 

"He seduced and corrupted the men of your country for his personal richness...True, he kept a lot of people rich and his countries florid, apparently; but, most people died starved because he created rich egoists, hard people. 


Not only; the queen of fairies tells him that also his parents are dead and all the people he had previously known.


There was in the reign of the Queen of Fairies only happiness and her feasts were long 100 years! emanating just good vibes. Gribouille understood much more good values, and goodness enjoying a lot the positive presence of the Queen of Fairies. Although he stayed very well in the reign of the Queen of Fairies, at a certain point decided of asking her if he could leave her realm of goodness. 


The queen objected that in her realm Gribouille was immortal and although of course he could help, cures and saves the citizens of his country, it would be risky. Sure: the queen using her wisdom understood that the desire of Gribouille of being helpful for and in his community was more than good and donated him as a protection, a talisman because being mortal, for fighting against injustice he could also risk his own existence.


Flowers, a rose, special, was brought away by Gribouille, who wanted to return to fight for the rights of his people, without forgetting the sweetness of the realm of the Queen of Fairies.


Gribouille starts to tell to everyone his experience: he went in a wonderful place, where after all everyone could go: a place where the only condition was to be a decent person, good, with an open heart, ready to love; oh what a wonderful place that one, where everyone breathed goodness, happiness, joy, beauty, tranquillity, freedom, enjoying the good, and pacific temper of its citizens.


He tells to his citizens that science: the one of loving and being loved.


Thanks also to the presence of that flowers he brought with him, he was accepted wherever he went. People were enchanted by his songs, his way of telling, his fantastic places, and the prrsonal message Gribouille wanted to spread everywhere. 


Gribouille started to enter in the hearts of everyone and the voice of his passage arrived at the ears of terrible Bourdon.

He invited Gribouille in the capital of his realm and Gribouille accepted, thinking that he wanted anyway to tell to everyone what he thought important: "Pourvu que je fasse de bien, qu'importe le mal que pourra m'arriver!" 


"Because I am spreading the goodness, who cares the badness I could receive!"


The king didn't change at all, noticed Gribouille. Once destroyed his bouquet of flowers, and once put in jail, Gribouille understands that many more people became beasts in the country of Bourdon. In fact he met some animals in his cell, and they told him all the truth: that they were transformed by the King in something else. It is wonderfully important this passage to my point of view, because it gives the perception of the sickness of a society, where lack of dignity, lack of decency can transform people in different shapes, not because they would want, but because constricted by what they are seeing, living and experiencing.


At the end, withouth protection and during a battle Gribouille will lose his existence, but he is still venerated by everyone: a temple was built in his honor, and every year, in particular during the day of his birthday they love to sing the songs Gribouille sang to them.


In the realm of the Queen of Fairies, Gribouille became a beautiful flower and once passed 100 years a sylph, who chanted, laughed, loved, and made a perennial feast to his loving godmother.


A masterpiece this one; not just a fairy-tale but also a message that should reach everyone about the role that each of us should play in a society and in particular how the world should be ruled.


Anna Maria Polidori 



 


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