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Gentlemen the Pencil-Pushers: A novel about office life
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Nov 7 2025
Pages: 106
Weight: 0.34
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Gentlemen the Pencil-Pushers
A Novel About Office Life
by Georges Courteline
Translated from the French by N. B. Castillo
Welcome to the Ministry of Donations and Bequests, where time crawls, tempers flare, and paperwork multiplies like ivy in the dark. Georges Courteline's Messieurs les ronds-de-cuir-a biting comedy of bureaucracy first published in 1893-exposes the absurd rituals and petty tyrannies of office life with merciless precision and laughter that still rings true today.
Meet Lahrier, the weary civil servant whose eternal struggle between duty and laziness leads him into ever more ridiculous predicaments; Father Soupe, the senile clerk who mistakes obstinacy for virtue; and a parade of minor officials whose entire existence revolves around stamps, signatures, and self-importance. In their dusty offices and endless corridors, the machinery of the state turns, creaks, and collapses under the weight of its own paperwork.
This new English translation by N. B. Castillo captures Courteline's dry wit and sharply drawn characters with contemporary clarity while preserving the charm and elegance of his 19th-century prose. Both hilariously absurd and painfully recognizable, Gentlemen the Pencil-Pushers remains one of literature's great satires on bureaucratic life-the ancestor of every modern office comedy.
Perfect for readers who enjoy:
- Classic French satire and social comedy
- Works by Gogol, Dickens, or Kafka
- Absurdist and bureaucratic humor (The Office, Catch-22, The Trial)
- Rediscovered literary gems in fresh modern translation
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