Bathroom Literature, not Bathroom Reading

Today I head to the Internet for bathroom novels. I am on the quest, because I have almost, finally finished reading Clochemerle (translated in its most recent version as The Scandals of Clochemerle for some reason) by Gabriel Chevallier. I have been reading it in old Penguin edition that was my father's. Why I have been reading this so slowly, I do not know. However, one reason is that if for some reason became a bathroom book, for which my New Yorker usually takes precedence. More pertinent to this exercise is that the novel deals with the ramifications over plans to install a new urinal in the village square of the small French town of Clochemerle (based on the real village of Vaux- en-Beaujolais).

[I do need to put in an aside. Clochemerte is certainly not well known in the United States or, even in France if you believe this blogger. However, it is an entertaining read, and there was what appears to be a fairly memorable 1972 BBC production, which I am looking forward to watching. It could be worth its own essay at some point.]

Among other books that I have read during the long reading of this book was Sanitary Centennial: And Selected Short Stories (Texas Pan American Series) by the Argentinian Fernando Sorrentino. A collection of shorter fiction, the title piece is a novella about an advertising copywriter who is assigned to write stirring hype trumpeting a toilet manufacturer's centennial. Thus, the connection--bathroom facilities.

Curious to know if anyone else has connected these two books and, if so, whether there are others that I should be reading in this "genre" of bathroom fiction, I began my Google search for "sanitary centennial" and clochemerle and, behold, ZERO hits! Enough to get the internet wanderlust moving!!

I begin my search for "bathroom novels" (although the search was not done in quotes). There is a long tradition of bathroom reading and even publishing of bathroom readers, but I want none of that, which includes the very first hit--performance art piece called "The Great American Bathroom Novels" by Kara Dunne. So, I will skip her efforts, but will return here only if I find a site worth reporting on bathroom reading. [I lied: I come back to add a link to a story about a Japanese novel published on toilet paper.]

The next two hits are legitimate, but, of course, force me to consider what should be considered part of this genre. First, I find out about the Belgian novel The Bathroom by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. According to Amazon, Toussaint writes about a young Parisian researcher who lives inside his bathroom, but is faced with leaving it to accept an invitation to the Austrian embassy. Second, I find an article from the Guardian book club discussing the role of bathrooms in A.S. Byatt's fiction, after a reader confronted her about her "involvement" with bathrooms , citing several examples where characters are in bathrooms.

Byatt admitted it. For the modern novelist, the bathroom was fascinating as the only truly private domestic space. But she also had private reasons: she was intrigued by all the glass and reflections, yet also neurotically fearful of mirrors. Perhaps it was her Quaker upbringing, which had inculcated the dangers of self-admiration. She confided that the picture of Cropper [Mortimer Cropper, one of her creations, who is found copying manuscripts in a bathroom] was based on the great George Eliot biographer Gordon Haight, who used to sit at night in the bathrooms of the owners of Eliot manuscripts, examining her letters in case he was never allowed back to see them again. "He told me that himself."

Well, my immediate reaction is that Toussaint's novel seems relevant, but may have more to do with the individual rather than the fact that the plumbing itself is the focus of the story. This is even more the case with Byatt; I clearly am not going to be adding books to my reading list just because characters take a break in the privacy of the privy. However, I believe I should not be too picky, and Toussaint probably fulfills my original quest--one more book that I should read in my newly-established genre of the bathroom novel. This decision if reenforced as several more searches for different words and combination of words yields me no more pieces of bathroom literature. So, that will be it until some random reader of these words points me in another direction.