To: ALL Date: 07/26
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 10:53 PM
MAN'S FATE by Andre Malraux
First of all I find this title to be a strange translation
of the French LA CONDITION HUMAINE (the human condition).
But I am ready to take the plunge. Here is a little
background information taken from a graduate course taught
by one of my favorite professors at Indiana U. where I got
my Master's, Charlotte Gerrard.
Malrau led a mysterious life. He traveled in Asia including
Cambodia and China. On his return to France he published
three novels, one of which was MAN'S FATE. For this novel
he received LE PRIX GONCOURT (the French Pullitzer).
During his life, he fought for the Communist cause, against
Facism. During WWII, he was so impressed with Charles
DeGaulle that he wanted to be in his government. Prior to
WWII, he commanded a tank in the Spanish Civil War against
the Facists.
He also wrote books on art. His writing style is one of non
description. He tries as much as possible to not write more
that the characters see. He is a precursor to
existentialism. He puts the reader into the head of the
characters.
Please excuse the choppy style. I was translating from my
notes (taken on Nov. 7, 1969).
I will post more when I have finished rereading this book.
To tell you the truth I don't remember ever having read it
before, but I know I did because I see my hand-written notes
in the margin. I think I have no recollection of it because
I read it so fast the first time.
Jane who has 50 pages to go.
=============== Reply 1 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/26
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 11:21 PM
Thanks Jane, for the interesting backgrounder. I bought
Andre Malraux's THE VOICES OF SILENCE sometime in the late
1970's. It's about art and I tried valiently to read it,
but gave up not even halfway through it. I can safely say
that as of this writing I have retained nothing from that
experience.
I didn't even realize Malraux wrote novels until MAN'S FATE
popped up here. Just got it out of the library and
anticipate starting it this pm.
Thanks for the post
Ruth
=============== Reply 2 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/27
From: KGXC73A GAIL SINGER GROSS Time: 9:08 AM
greetings MADEMOISELLE JANE..
thanks for the bio information...coincidentally i ordered
the book from the library...anxious to read MALRAUX...
gail..hp..a passionate reader in the wee small hours of the
morning...
=============== Reply 3 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/27
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 10:03 AM
Jane, Ruth & gail: I'm midway through MAN'S FATE and am
enjoying it a great deal, though not without some rough
going in spots. The roughest going was the second chapter,
or section. After the book's pulse-pounding opening, of the
young revolutionary trying to steel himself to kill the
sleeping man, I was overwhelmed to be dropped squarely into
the *internal* lives of so many characters who were (a) new
to me, and (b) of so many different backgrounds and
ideologies at a complicated time in history, i.e. a
revolution.
It was almost as if Malraux self-consciously wanted to
avoid the book being "just" a thriller and tried to get a
lot of scene-setting and motivation in quick. Once the
action started up again, though, the story really took off
for me. Some powerful, heart-rending stuff.
Jane's teacher is right, I think, about Malraux's gift for
getting inside his characters' heads. Even the panoramic
scenes of fighting and other violence are rendered through
the perceptions of discrete individuals, rather than mob
fashion like a movie director doing a crowd scene.
Though I don't read French, it seems to me the language
holds up extremely well in translation--the odd rendering of
the title aside. Has anybody read Malraux in the original?
Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 4 of Note 69 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 07/27
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 10:57 PM
Dale,
I am reading MAN'S FATE in the original. I also have an
English copy that I refer to now and then to see how the
words have been translated. I find it interesting that
Malraux's writing is much more spare than the English
translation. I find that the translator will explain
something in four or five sentences that Malraux wrote in
two. Other than that, the translation I have is pretty
good. Jane who will always read the French original when it
is available.
=============== Reply 5 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/27
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 11:36 PM
Jane & All: My favorite part, so far, of Malraux's MAN'S
FATE...from the point of view of the character called Old
Gisors, a retired sociology professor at the University of
Peking (and long-time opium addict), whose son Kyo is one of
the organizers of the Chinese insurrection. (Any novelist
who can combine aging, parenthood, addiction, and politics
so seamlessly has my admiration...)
***
He got up, opened the drawer of the low table where he
kept his opium tray, above a collection of small cactuses.
Under the tray, a photograph: Kyo. He pulled it out, looked
at it without any precise thoughts, sank bitterly into the
certainty that, at the point he had reached, no one knew
anyone--and that even the presence of Kyo, which he had so
longed for just now, would have changed nothing, would only
have rendered their separation more desperate, like that of
friends whom one embraces in a dream and who have been dead
for years. He kept the photograph between his fingers: it
was as warm as a hand. He let it drop back into the drawer,
took out the tray, turned out the electric light and lit the
lamp.
Two pipes. Formerly, as soon as his craving began to be
quenched, he would contemplate man with benevolence, and the
world as an infinite of possibilities. Now, in his innermost
being, the possibilities found no place: he was sixty, and
his memories were full of tombs...
Five pellets. For years he had limited himself to that,
not without difficulty, not without pain sometimes. He
scratched the bowl of his pipe; the shadow of his hand
slipped from the wall to the ceiling. He pushed back the
lamp a fraction of an inch; the contours of the shadow
became lost. The objects also were vanishing: without
changing their form they ceased to be distinct from himself,
joined him in the depth of a familiar world where a benign
indifference mingled all things--a world more true than the
other because more constant, more like himself; sure as a
friendship, always indulgent and always accessible: forms,
memories, ideas, all plunged slowly toward a liberated
universe.
He remembered a September afternoon when the solid gray of
the sky made a lake's surface appear milky, in the meshes of
vast fields of water-lilies; from the moldy gables of an
abandoned pavilion to the magnificent and desolate horizon
he saw only a world suffused with a solemn melancholy. Near
his idle bell, a Buddhist priest leaned on the balustrade of
the pavilion, abandoned his sanctuary to the dust, to the
fragrance of burning aromatic woods. Peasants gathering
water-lily seeds passed by in a boat without the slightest
sound. At the edge of the farthest flowers two long waves
grew from the rudder, melted listlessly in the gray water.
They were vanishing now in himself, gathering in their fan
all the oppressiveness of the world, but an oppressiveness
without bitterness, brought by opium to an ultimate purity.
His eyes shut, carried by great motionless wings, Gisors
contemplated his solitude: a desolation that joined the
divine, while at the same time the wave of serenity that
gently covered the depths of death widened to infinity.
***
I think this Malraux guy is a force to be reckoned with.
Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 6 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/28
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:08 AM
Jane,
Interesting that you should say that about the French being
more spare than the English translation. I'm only about 30
pages in, but the rather flowery, kind of old-fashioned
style of writing puts me off a bit. I was wondering how it
compared to the French original. Whose translation do you
have?
Another interesting bit on the translation thing. The book
I have was translated by Haakon Chevalier. At first I was
amused merely by the name's combination of nationalities.
Then, both Leif and I realized it was familiar. After a
time of puzzling over where we had run into this name before
we remembered the PBS (was it a series or a single program?)
about J Robert Oppenheimer. Someone by the name of Haakon
Chevalier (can there possibly be two people with that name?)
figured in the business with Oppenheimer and the House
Unamerican Activities Committee. Anyone know anything about
this? Do you know him as a French translator Jane?
I'm composing this on line. First thing when I get off I'll
see if I can find him in any of my reference material.
Ruth, home from LA, ready to post about the Keinholz show
tomorrow
=============== Reply 7 of Note 69 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 07/28
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 11:07 AM
Ruth: Actually, I went to grade school with a couple of guys
named Haakon Chevalier. Fortunately one of them spelled his
first name with a single "a" or the teacher would've had
the dickens telling 'em apart.
Seriously, though...I just noticed my translation of MAN'S
FATE is by Chevalier too, about whom the Homeworker Helper
database says this:
***
Haakon Chevalier was a well-known French translator, a
friend of Oppenheimer's, and a key player in the
"Oppenheimer Case."
Talking with Oppenheimer after the start of the atomic
program at Berkeley, he said he had a friend who wanted to
arrange for Oppenheimer to talk with people at the Soviet
consulate about scientific matters. Oppenheimer reported the
conversation to security officers but said he had heard it
take place with someone else. Questioned later, he admitted
he had lied. That he had been in Paris also brought sharp
criticism at his security hearing before the Atomic Energy
Commission.
***
Is it my imagination, or have far more European writers
and scholars moved in military, diplomatic, and
intelligence-gathering circles than those elsewhere?
Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 8 of Note 69 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 07/28
From: ACCR69A JOSEPH BARREIRO Time: 12:14 PM
Dale - I have just about finished MAN'S FATE, about 20
pp to go. I see it as a novel more about ideas than as a
pot-boiler, or rather as about ideas in the context
of action. It did prompt me to dig up some
historical background on the Shanghai revolution. No
surprise, Paul Johnson in MODERN TIMES points to the money
trail which Malraux talks about in the character of Ferral.
I am surprised that Chou En Lai's name never appears in the
text. I also downloaded some info from Homework Helper
that I will review after I've finished the novel. Malraux
himself was a complicated and colorful character, one of
the larger-than-life personalities that populated the early
and middle part of this century's historical record and
which our post-war generation seems to lack. Joe B
=============== Reply 9 of Note 69 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 07/28
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 7:23 PM
Dale,
Thanks for the info. So it WAS the same guy!
BUT, BUT, BUT -- You went to school with TWO Haakon
Chevaliers in Shanghi, Alabama? You have GOT to be pulling
my leg
Ruth
=============== Reply 10 of Note 69 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 07/28
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 11:02 PM
WOMEN as portrayed in MAN'S FATE
I find it interesting that Malraux did not portray the
women in this book in a very sympathetic manner, but
neither did he show their partners/husbands in a good
light.
There are three main couples: May and Kyo Gisors,
Hemmelrich and his Chinese wife, and Ferral and his
mistress Valerie.
It seems that May and Kyo have set up a marriage
based on sexual freedom, but when May takes Kyo at
his word that it is OK to go to bed with a colleague
and indeed does, Kyo is jealous and upset. He states
that it is her business, but his actions show otherwise.
"...it seemed to him that he was watching May die
thus, watching the form of his happiness absurdly
disappear like a cloud absorbed by the gray sky. As
though she had died twice - from the effect of time,
and from what she was telling him."
Hemmelrich is miserable because he is burdened with
a wife and child and is only liberated after they are
brutally murdered during the reprisal for the revolution.
He only begins to grieve when he goes back to close
the door of his shop. "His shoulders thrust forward,
he pushed ahead like a barge-tower towards a dim
country of which he knew only that one killed there,
pulling with his shoulders and with his brain the weight
of all his dead who, at last! no longer prevented him
from advancing."
Ferral receives a letter from Valerie in which she tells
him, "I refuse to be regarded as a body, just as you
refuse to be regarded as a checkbook." As part of his
revenge, Ferral decides to hire a geisha for his
satisfaction at which time he makes his most damning
statement, "...but if he had never in his life possessed
a single woman, he had possessed, he would possess
through this Chinese woman who was awaiting him,
the only thing he was eager for: himself."
Malraux is brutally honest about all of these
relationships and the most PC person around can't
find fault with him I think. Do we feel any sympathy
for Ferral. I think not? Such candor.
Jane the fan of French literature.
=============== Reply 11 of Note 69 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 07/28
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 11:08 PM
Yes Ruth,
My translation is by the one and only Haakon M. Chevalier.
An example of the liberties that he takes is in part seven
at the end of the first paragraph. Malraux says,
"Everything separated them: what he thought of them, what
they thought of him, their manner of dress. Two races."
Chevalier translates and adds, "Everything separated them:
what he thought of them, what they thought of him, their
manner of dress: almost all were dressed with an impersonal
carelessness, and Ferral was wearing his wrinkled tweed suit
and the gray silk shirt with a soft collar from Shanghai.
Two races."
Jane wondering what Malraux thought of the translation.
=============== Reply 12 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/29
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:14 AM
Sigh. I think its Haakon's fault entirely that I'm about to
throw in the towel on this one. Anyone want to talk me out
of it.
Ruth
=============== Reply 13 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/29
From: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Time: 8:12 AM
Jane,
That translation is not a translation at all. It's absurd.
It's more like a rewrite for people who are
reading-between-the-lines impaired. I haven't started this
one yet. I read it decades ago and don't know who the
translator is. Probably old Chevalier. Maybe Maurice would
have done a better job.
Sherry
=============== Reply 14 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/29
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 9:30 AM
Hi, Jane: Enjoyed your note. "Brutally honest" is definitely
the right descriptor for Malraux's treatment of his
characters, I think.
I'm a lot less clear, though, on the chicken-or-egg aspect
of this in connection with the book's political setting. Do
you think Malraux sees the bleakness of their emotional and
romantic lives as fallout from the revolution, or at least
the repression and inequities that lead to one, or are homo
sapiens a pretty sorry lot from the get-go, and at least a
revolution gives them a chance to be useful? In MAN'S FATE,
I get signals of both.
Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 15 of Note 69 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 07/29
From: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Time: 8:40 PM
Malraux holds each of his characters up in judgement
according to how he copes with the "conditions" of his
existence. The two characters who contrast with the many
unredeemable characters are Kyo and Katov who are dedicated
to a cause directed to the improvement of the human
condition. Set against the decaying city of Shanghai at the
time of the Shanghai uprising adds to the bleakness of their
lives.
Barb Hill in Oregon
=============== Reply 16 of Note 69 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 07/29
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 9:05 PM
Dale, mon ami,
I think that Ferral has always been a cold-hearted person,
and that he was only interested in the revolution because it
was harming him economically. Hemmelrich and Kyo were of
course victims (is that the right word?) of the times. Jane
in rainy !! Colorado
=============== Reply 17 of Note 69 =================
To: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Date: 07/29
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 10:38 PM
Jane: This is a pretty dry book, which for want of a better
target, I'll blame on that Norwegian song and dance man,
Haakon Chevalier. However, dryness aside, shouldn't we
consider the fact that the author (at the time he wrote
this) was a raging Marxist, and up to his lean, French butt
in dialectical analysis and revolutionary ardor? Aren't we
missing something here by ignoring the rather substantial
(if incredibly outdated) politics that were at work here?
Dick in Alaska, where Marxism is now only a form of
discrimination based on the public school grading system
=============== Reply 18 of Note 69 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 07/29
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 10:42 PM
So dry I needed a transfusion of Perrier every time I picked
it up, Dick. I have thrown in the towel and I do note that
no one tried to talk me out of it.
Ruth, planning on Richard Feynman for tonight's reading
=============== Reply 19 of Note 69 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 07/30
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 9:21 PM
Sir R.,
Take it away. Please do post about the Marxism in this
work. I was looking at my college notes again last night
during the commericial-filled Olympics and my professor
chose to follow the theme of death and how each of the
characters faced his/her death. This is an interesting
topic for someone to develop. I also like the accents that
Malraux used for several of the characters, and I don't know
if this is true of the English translation. For example,
Tchen said "nong" instead of "non" and another character
dropped syllables when he was speaking French but didn't do
this in Chinese. Jane who would also like to discuss
the existential aspects (Steve??) of LA CONDITION HUMAINE.
To: ALL Date: 09/07
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 1:57 AM
MAN'S FATE by Andre Malraux
Well, I've finally managed to read this, and having
looked through the notes am finally ready to add my mite,
such as it may be.
I came into MAN'S FATE with rather more preconceived
attitudes than I bring to the average work of fiction.
The very title of the book (or its original, La Condition
Humaine) signals that here is a work that takes itself
very seriously indeed -- written by an author determined
to bring the reader the living Truth itself. So as I
began I pretty much figured I was in for a sterile exercise
in Marxist theorizing, where the characters exist only as
puppets to make political points, and challenged Malraux
to prove me wrong.
To some extent, I'm happy to report, he did. I have to
agree with those who thought MF rather dry and stodgily
written, and the character of Ferral, the French official,
is all too obviously a symbol of capitalism and foreign
exploiters of China. However, I found the earlier and later
parts of the novel, dealing with the insurrection and the
following reprisals to be wholly interesting and often
gripping. (Particularly the scene in the prison where the
wounded, defeated revolutionaries wait to be taken off to
be executed, and the Russion Katov gives his cyanide to
two comrades that they might be spared death by torture.)
MF is, to some degree, a work of subtle propaganda, but
there's a good deal more to it than that.
Any modern reader's enjoyment of MF is necessarily
compromised by the knowledge of what resulted from the
revolution whose early battles the novel depicts. Certainly
Kyo, Katov Ch'en, and the rest could hardly fail to be
appalled at the many tens of millions of lives that have
been destroyed by the cause they took up with idealism and
ultimately, and without regrets, died for. (I wonder what
Malraux himself thought of the totalitarian monster he did
his bit to help spawn? Ideologues of all stripes are good
at rationalizing away inconvenient facts that threaten
their beliefs.) While reading, one must often remind one's
self that at the time of the events depicted, and the
book's writing, that the outcome was very much in doubt
and that those who fought the old regime could have no
inkling of the unimaginable tyranny to which the rev-
olution would give birth.
I found MAN'S FATE of most interest as a study of
people caught up in some of the most extreme situations
imaginable and what motivated them to act as they did.
This is all the more intriguing for being so far removed
from our everyday experience -- how many of us can easily
imagine such total commitment to a cause that we would not
hesitate to die for it? Malraux shows what seems to be an
honest glimpse into the hearts, minds and lives of some
who did make that commitment, and pay the price for doing
so, and thereby transcends the historical limitations
of his book's setting and achieves at least some measure
of the human universality he so earnestly sought. --->>>
All right, then ....on to Becker's ESCAPE FROM EVIL and
the first reading list, at least as far as I'm concerned,
will be done.
Allen
=============== Reply 1 of Note 23 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 09/07
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:48 AM
Congratulations on making it through this one, Allen. It
was not an easy read. I'm glad to hear you say it had it's
interesting parts, though.
I enjoyed your ruminations on history, revolutions and the
consequences thereof, and of commitment to a cause. Thanks
for giving those of us who threw in the towel on this one
some interesting reflections.
Ruth, noticing how late you stay up
=============== Reply 2 of Note 23 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 09/08
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 11:51 PM
I managed only a small part of this one, but it possess
'certain features of interest'. I noted the diverse
nationalities of these rather tormented, alienated people
who somehow came together to form a movement. Also, there
was quite a lot of study of the characters as people,
something you hardly expect on revolutionary territory.
I found myself wondering how many people understood that
business of the language records and how they got by with
faked labels. I wouldn't have understood it myself if I
hadn't read some references here and there to the way labels
were stuck on each individual record. These were the old
breakable 78s, too; wonder how they fared in actual life!!
As a point of interest, a number of jazz pieces by German
and German Jewish bands survived WWII because some
enthusiast stuck labels from the Horst Wessell song over the
true labels. The technology of small things has changed so
much and had just as much effect as changes in weaponry
technology. For instance, early Perry Masons have pivotal
parts for steamer trunks and running boards.
Cathy
=============== Reply 3 of Note 23 =================
To: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Date: 09/13
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 11:24 PM
Cathy, I found this way of sending messages via pairs of
records intriguing, but on further reflection have decided
that this is more likely to be a product of Malraux' imag-
ination than a method that saw much actual use. (For those
who have not read MAN'S FATE, AM has his revolutionaries
communicating secrets by use of matched pairs of phonograph
records, which the recipients were to play simultaneously.
The words that could be heard from one record during the
silences of the second made up the message.) The practical
difficulties of just getting the system to work (starting
the two records at just the right moment, synchronizing
speeds, etc.) and its overall cost, unwieldliness and lack
of reliability (those brittle old shellac discs are not the
first thing I'd pick to send vital information) all argue
against it. Besides, at the time Malraux wrote MF, his old
comrades were still back in China fighting the good fight,
and he would hardly give away any of their actual working
methods if he could help it. This all strikes me more as
a smokescreen AM is using so as not to even hint at the
real ways the revolutionaries communicated.
Malraux certainly had a remarkable career, not just with
the Chinese Communists but in the Spanish Civil War and
with the French Resistance. I'm sure I'd find a biography
of the man of more interest than his own work. While read-
ing MF I sometimes found myself wishing it had been written
by someone without an ideological agenda to push, but this
was the price of the book's authenticity -- it gains tre-
mendously from the reader knowing that the story is being
told by someone who took part in, or witnessed, or knew
those who did, the events it depicts.
(Cathy: an aside on the new meanings one can find on
revisiting a book years after one's first reading; I con-
sulted a history of the Resistance, SOLDIERS OF THE NIGHT
by David Schoenbrun, that I read back in the early 80's to
see what I could find out about AM's doings in that period.
(He rated two brief mentions.) Quite incidentally I noted
the term the French used for their armed encampments in
the woods -- the "maquis."
Allen
=============== Reply 4 of Note 23 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 09/15
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:38 AM
Did you read about Nancy Wake, the "white mouse" in code
terminology? I found her career extraordinary. Sucked into
the Resistance almost by accident, this tiny woman came to
command one of those maquis groups. They were particularly
pleased with her accuracy with a Sten gun (I believe that
was the model type mentioned). It seems the relative
weakness of her wrists counteracted the weapon's vicious
recoil to some extent.
Cathy
|
Andre Malraux
It was almost as if Malraux self-consciously wanted to avoid the book being "just" a thriller and tried to get a lot of scene-setting and motivation in quick. Once the
action started up again, though, the story really took off
for me. Some powerful, heart-rending stuff.
Dale
The two characters who contrast with the many unredeemable characters are Kyo and Katov who are dedicated to a cause directed to the improvement of the human
condition. Set against the decaying city of Shanghai at the
time of the Shanghai uprising adds to the bleakness of their
lives.
Barb Hill
|
