I have had to extend my stay in Paris for a few days. I know, what a pain... I used the opportunity of these stolen days to read through the volumes of Pierre Herbart still in my library. Le Promeneur has recently published En URSS: 1936 which was out of print. It must be read together with Ligne de force, the more personal memoir published many years later in 1958, where, in his beautiful dry style, Herbart discloses the reasons behind his sudden departure from the USSR in 1936: he had fallen in love with a young man, N., and was afraid of endangering him. He had discovered that in the Country of Socialism, "Homosexuals redeem themselves by reading Marx in concentration camps." In fact he had, lucidly, become disillusioned with the regime, writing at the beginning of En URSS : 1936: "We can now no more defend the USSR without lying and without knowing that we are lying." When he left, he made N. believe he would return. N. wrote several letters to him: "But I could not answer. The slightest note could put N. at risk of loosing his freedom, or could even cost him his life. I felt as if I were repeatedly hitting with a stick a wounded bird that would not die. Eventually, there was silence..." Pierre Herbart has been unduly neglected by the literary criticism. His short, concise memoirs (L'Âge d'or, Souvenirs imaginaires and La ligne de force) are among the great books of the twentieth century. They deserve an English translation...
François Mauriac is the exact opposite of Pierre Herbart. Jean, François Mauriac's second son, was, for more than 30 years, a journalist for the French news agency AFP. He was assigned to covering Charles de Gaulle. Most of the book he wrote with historian Jean-Luc Barré in the form of an interview, Le Général et le journaliste (Paris, Fayard, 2008), is dedicated to his recollections of the great statesman. In the first chapter however he discusses his youth under the shadow of his father ("Une jeunesse mauriacienne"). Jean-Luc Barré, who is writing a biography of F. Mauriac, points out that the famous author liked to be surrounded by young men and wonders whether... "François Mauriac fancied the company of young men. Homosexual, my father? No, certainly not in the sense used in reference to Gide, Cocteau, Jouhandeau or Montherlant ." "He certainly felt friendship, affection, tenderness, even passion for some of these young men. He would suffer." "To tell you the truth we have lived by his side without really understanding François Mauriac. It is unbelievable, isn't it? Only after his death, when his letters were published, when some of his notes were made available, the assessment of the real nature of his homosexuality was possible." "François Mauriac did not need to fight against his sex, but against his heart." "He felt he had to hide his feelings because of religion, his family, his stubborn provincial milieu, his reputation. But let's not regret it: without this true internal drama, never would François Mauriac have been capable of writing the burning, bleak, panting, tragic novels he has written." To be continued...
2008.06.01
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