***Writers' Corner- Andre Malraux In His Prime

***Writers' Corner- Andre Malraux In His Prime

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's sentry for French writer and politician Andre Malraux.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Malraux

Markin comment:

Leon Trotsky, early on, praised Malraux's literary talents in "The Conquerors" and "Man's Fate", tales of the Chinese Revolution. He was, and would have been, less enamored of Malraux's later career as Stalin admirer and subsequently in the post World II era a minister of culture under France's strongman Charles DeGaulle. Oh, well, everyone familiar with the biographic sketches of past literary figures knows that that milieu is replete with writers who cannot resist being in the circles of power-no matter the political cost. Still, in his prime Malraux could write thoughtful novels and write circles around most of his contemporaries. Trotsky was not wrong on that score, although he also seemed to be aware of certain moral flabbiness in Malraux. He was not wrong there either.

***Where The Communist Fellow-Traveler Meets The Existentialist Fellow-Traveler- The Early Career of French Novelist Andre Malraux- Some Essays

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for French novelist Andre Malraux

Book Review

Malraux: A Collection Of Critical Essays, edited by R.W.B Lewis, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1964

No question that the early novels of Andre Malraux, Man’s Fate and The Conquerors about the motivations, hopes and understanding developed by the second Chinese Revolution in the 1920s and Man’s Hope about the seemingly absurd nature of the hard-bitten struggle against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s caught my imagination in my early years as a communist. Written when Malraux was enthralled by the heroic days of the communist movement in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and of its leaders at first the huge heroic figure of Leon Trotsky and then the arch symbol of power Stalin he had the pulse of the struggle in hand. If not, in the end, of the plebeian aspects of the struggle then the travails of the lonely intellectual as he (or she but for Malraux almost exclusively he) tries to come to grips with the modern age and its challenges. Later Malraux just as easily changed hats and explored the lonely pursuits of the intellectual as bureaucrat as he took his place as official cultural mouthpiece for French imperialism under Charles DeGaulle.

Those two poles of attraction pretty well sum up the examination of Malraux life as various literary critics, including Leon Trotsky wearing his literary hat on this one, and others try to get some measure of the man. His influence on communist literary theory was minimal as one would expect of a fellow-traveler in an age of “proletarian culture” and “socialist realism” although his attempts to bring the heroic individual element into play as a factor in mass struggles is a subject well worth exploring for those interested in social struggle down at the bottom of society. There is always a sense though that Malraux stood outside the struggle and viewed himself as a mere spectator even then as Trotsky captures in his essay (book review) on The Conquerors.

Malraux fares better, if not literarily then philosophically, when he later breaks with communism or his idealized Stalin-influenced version of it under the impact of the Hitler-Stalin Pact (he was hardly the first or last to break over that one) and explores humankind’s futile modern sense of loneliness and estrangement as he flirts with existentialism. This was done in a series of lesser novels around World War II and essays on art and art history although the work and the essays on them here are the weakest parts of the collection. Probably the best overall essay is the last one by Gaetan Picon, Malraux on Malraux, where the essayist understands that whatever else Malraux has always been concerned about the role of the intellectual, his passions, his hurts and his “place in the sun” in modern society. That more than anything explains why Malraux was able to so adroitly move from one captain to another as his life drifted along. Read Man’s Fate, Man’s Hope, and The Conquerors and then read these critical essays about an important author from the first half of the 20th century.

***A Saga Of The Spanish Civil War- Andre Malraux's "Man's Hope"

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's sentry for French writer and politician Andre Malraux.

Markin comment:

Leon Trotsky, early on, praised Malraux's literary talents. He was, and would have been, less enamored of Malraux's later career as Stalin admirer and subsequently in the post World II era a minister of culture under France's strongman Charles DeGaulle. Oh, well, everyone familiar with the biographic sketches of past literary figures knows that that milieu is replete with writers who cannot resist being in the circles of power-no matter the political cost. Still, in his prime Malraux could write thoughtful novels and write circles around most of his contemporaries. Trotsky was not wrong on that score, although he also seemed to be aware of certain moral flabbiness in Malraux. He was not wrong there either.

BOOK REVIEW

MAN'S HOPE, ANDRE MALRAUX, EVERGREEN BOOKS, 1979

As I wrote in recent review of Man’s Fate by this same author as a young man, in the late 1920’s, many held out high hopes that French writer Andre Malraux would become an accomplished revolutionary writer, or at least an extraordinary writer of revolutionary sagas. No less a communist literary critic than Leon Trotsky, the consummate man of action and letters, praised his early work. "Man’s Hope" is another prime example of the reason that leftist critics praised his work, although it is a more uneven work which reflects the author’s ambiguity toward the events of the subject of the novel, the Spanish Civil.

Although later events would destroy Malraux’s reputation as a writer and as a man of action on the left this novel takes its place in the pantheon of well written expressions of the dilemma of modern humankind confronted as it is with one half of itself mired in the mundane bourgeois world and the other half striving toward a more just and equitable society. This was a central preoccupation of 20th century leftist literary endeavor, and early Malraux was one of the better exponents of that thesis.

The action of the novel takes place in the throes of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, a decisive event in pre-World War II history, especially international working class history. Malraux, himself, had organized an air force squadron of international volunteers on behalf of the Republican forces early on and so this novel benefits from a more realistic interpretation of the action described in the novel. Moreover, like Russia and China before it, everyone knew that the events which led up to 1936 Fascist uprising against the elected Popular Front Republican government in Spain portended a revolutionary outcome. The only question at that point was whether it was to be a fascist counter-revolution like in Germany and Italy or a socialist revolution that would go a long way to helping the Soviet Union of the 1930’s break out of its isolation after various unsuccessful revolutionary attempts in the West had failed. We know the outcome, to our regret. These tensions, and especially the tensions produced among the Communists who were under orders from the Communist International, and hence Moscow, to subordinate themselves to the various Popular Front governments, is what drives the action.

The novel is also a snapshot of what the Communist International’s ‘high policy’ looked like as it was implemented on the ground among the secondary cadre and rank and filers of the Spanish Communist Party, their allies, semi-allies, adversaries and the merely indifferent. But beyond that epic struggle the novel betrays in its dialogue among the leading characters something of Malraux's disillusionment with leftist politics at this time. Hereafter Malraux would become something of a ‘premature’ existentialist and searcher after the ‘great men’ of history like Stalin and DeGaulle.

Yes, war is hell. Yes, war is banal. Yes, war does not bring out the better instincts of humankind, even in just wars like that fought by Republican Spain. Despite the caveat mentioned above, Malraux nevertheless tells that part of the story well, in the tradition of Hemingway and Dos Passos. That is fast company, indeed. Read on.

*** A Saga Of The Second Chinese Revolution, 1925-27-Andre Malraux's "Man's Fate"

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's sentry for French writer and politician Andre Malraux.

Markin comment:

Leon Trotsky, early on, praised Malraux's literary talents. He was, and would have been, less enamored of Malraux's later career as Stalin admirer and subsequently in the post World II era a minister of culture under France's strongman Charles DeGaulle. Oh, well, everyone familiar with the biographic sketches of past literary figures knows that that milieu is replete with writers who cannot resist being in the circles of power-no matter the political cost. Still, in his prime Malraux could write thoughtful novels and write circles around most of his contemporaries. Trotsky was not wrong on that score, although he also seemed to be aware of certain moral flabbiness in Malraux. He was not wrong there either.


BOOK REVIEW

MAN'S FATE, ANDRE MALRAUX, VINTAGE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1990

As a young man many held out high hopes that the French writer Andre Malraux would become an accomplished revolutionary writer, or at least an extraordinary writer of revolutionary sagas. No less a communist literary critic than Leon Trotsky, the consummate man of action and letters, praised his early work. "Man’s Fate" is a prime example of the reason that leftist critics praised his work. Although later events would destroy his reputation as a writer and as a man of action on the left this novel takes its place in the pantheon of well-written expressions of the dilemma of modern humankind confronted as it is with one half of itself mired in the mundane bourgeois,and as is the case in this book also the feudal,world and the other half striving toward a more just and equitable society.

The action of the novel takes place in the throes of the Second Chinese revolution at a point where the alliance between Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party had broken down and Chiang was ready to butcher the Communists in order to take undisputed control of the Chinese state. Like Russia before it, everyone had known that a second Chinese Revolution was coming. The only question at that point was whether it was to be a bourgeois revolution in the classic Western sense or a socialist revolution that would go a long way to helping the Soviet Union of the 1920’s break out of its isolation after various unsuccessful revolutionary attempts in the West had failed. As it turned out neither event occurred at that time. This tension, and especially the tension of the Communists who were under orders from the Communist International, and hence Moscow, to subordinate themselves to Chiang unconditionally, is what drives the action.

The novel is also a snapshot of what the Communist International's ‘high policy’ of collaboration with Chiang looked like as it was implemented on the ground among the secondary cadre and rank and filers of the Chinese Communist Party, their allies, semi-allies, adversaries and the merely indifferent. In that context, it is additionally an early literary expose of the relationship between those who carry out, even if in small ways, Western imperialist policy in their separate and exclusive colonial enclaves and those ‘natives’ who do the ‘coolie’ work. That tension exists today, as can readily be seen in places like Iraq, so one should pay particular attention to that dynamic. Read on.