André Malraux: Across Boundaries ed. by Geoffrey T. Harris (review)

Abstract

MLR, 99.2, 2004 501 Andre Malraux: Across Boundaries. Ed. by Geoffrey T. Harris. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. 2000. vii + 29ipp. ?64. ISBN 9-0420-1011-8. In this age of globalization, of interdisciplinary (and even post-disciplinary) method, the traversing of borders, barriers, and divisions is, it seems, easier than it ever has been. It is not surprising then that important writers and political figures such as Andre Malraux should be subjected to the crossover treatment. Indeed, this collection ofessays, emerging no doubt froma set ofconference papers, aims to put together,with fruitfulresults, themes in Malraux's lifeand work not normally expected to be linked. It would be not unfair to say that Malraux's novels and his post-war political alignment with de Gaulle have tended, in equal measure, to eclipse Malraux's authoritative and influential work on the visual arts. So it is helpful to see this interest in visuality traced through Malraux's art ofthe novel. His early interest in cinema and photogra? phy, as well as fine art, allows Christopher Shorley to examine 'painting' in the early novels. Not only do we follow Mac Orlan's injunction that photography is a 'literary art' (p. 26), we also watch Malraux incorporating visuality into his literature. Simi? larly,in his chapter on Malraux and the visual arts, Edson Rosa da Silva considers the importance of Malraux's 'Musee imaginaire', revisitingthe imaginary dialogues with Picasso, in the 1974 piece La Tete d'Obsidienne, to show how Malraux appropriates Picasso's words to reflect on Art. Da Silva's point is that Malraux melds his own voice with that of Picasso, to produce a humanist account of the forms that modern Art takes. Similar attempts to show crossover in Malraux's work are in evidence. There is a persuasive fictional 'encounter' of Malraux with philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, Karen Levy's suggestive account treating Malraux's epiphanic experience of the 'intemporel' in Japan as a Levinasian moment. Jacqueline Machabeis paints Malraux as the eternal mystical pilgrim fascinated by the Saint-Soleil artists of Haiti as much by Western and oriental art forms: all gesture towards the 'intemporel'. Inevitably, however, it is the political and historical figure that dominates discus? sion. Jean-Claude Larrat considers the novelist as a lyricist at pains to resist the traps of narrative form. In the same vein, Robert Thornberry traces Malraux's distaste in the twenties for the roman d'aventure, considering La Voie royale as a 'demysti? fication' (if not parody) of the travel story. Walter G Langlois adds to this idea of irony in Malraux's travel experiences in his account of how Malraux organized his flightover Saba in Yemen in 1934. Langlois evokes the Fascist 'moment' in Febru? ary 1934 in France, and more importantly how the Left triumphed in repelling the 'Croix de feu', to suggest Malraux's wavering political optimism. The Saba escapade is considered then as this crazy whim, at a time when Malraux was seeing the world in topsy-turvy mode. John Romeiser sees the writer Malraux as able, at the same time, to be part of real politics, defeating Brecht's view that there are those who take part in battle, and then those who merely design the flags for the battle. Thus his novel L'Espoir and his tour of Spain in 1937 show a Malraux able to cross between being flag-designer and flag-waver. For Peter Tame, the pivotal moment, or key text, in Malraux's 'right-turn' is his wartime (and final) novel Les Noyers de I'Altenburg. Here, Tame argues, history takes on a new significance. It is no longer the space within which to effect social change, but an imaginary source of myths about hu? manity and its eternal (Nietzschean) desire fortranscendence. Gino Raymond echoes this 'mystical' Malraux in his attempt to distance Malraux from the engagement of a Sartre. Such a political view mushrooms into the 'postmodern' view of Malraux: all things to all men. This 'crossover', which sees Self as both fact and fiction, and the public as less significant than the private self, is finally discussed by Christiane Moatti. The editor Geoffrey Harris finishes with musings on the...