{"product_id":"the-thief","title":"The Thief","description":"\u003cb\u003eMade into a 1967 film by Louis Malle and never before available in English, this classic of anarchist literature follows a once well-to-do young man forced into an itinerant life of crime.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Thief\u003c\/i\u003e is a picture of the sleezy underbelly of the Belle Époque, a broadside fired against the corruptions of power and privilege. Written by the anarchist activist Georges Darien (a pseudonym that can be translated as \"Lord Nothing\"), it found almost no readers when it came out at the end of the nineteenth century, though Alfred Jarry embraced it as one of his favorite books. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOver the years, however, this picaresque masterpiece with shades of black comedy has found a growing number of admirers, from the surrealist \u003ci\u003ecapo dei capi\u003c\/i\u003e André Breton to Lucy Sante. It is a book of wild, comic, profane energy that, in its luxuriant nihilism, anticipates Céline's \u003ci\u003eJourney to the End of Night\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGeorges Randal is the titular thief, a young Frenchman of good family who, having been deprived of his inheritance by a conniving uncle, takes to a life of crime. Moving between London, Brussels, and Paris, in a world of hookers, drifters and grifters, revolutionaries and politicians, bankers and thieves, he is in a position to reveal modern society in all its teeming corruption. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe thief is no hero. Like everyone else in this decadent society, he is a trafficker and exploiter--and a wounded soul. At least, however, he has the courage of his disaffection, his fury warmed by self-hatred. And he does seem a somewhat distant cousin of Robin Hood, targeting the wealthy and helping the needy when the opportunity arises. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter more than a hundred years, Georges Darien's vision of our fallen modern world--the inhuman comedy he proposed to set beside Balzac's human one--seems especially pertinent to our current Gilded Age. Jacques Houis's new translation is the first ever into English.","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51947339088103,"sku":"9781681378121","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0449\/4075\/5096\/files\/imageloader_28a5e1c9-d009-4fe9-b1b2-2600d0827d03.jpg?v=1775487301","url":"https:\/\/arvidabookco.com\/products\/the-thief","provider":"Arvida Book Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}