Malraux: Ideologue and Witness

Abstract

How can one speak about Malraux without retracing his mythology, this imperial signature with which he authenticated his work and his life? I first met Malraux in 1948, the same year in which I met General de Gaulle. The former was 47 years old and looked like a young man to me; the latter had just turned sixty, but he was in full command of his astonishing capabilities. In the encounter of a young man with a great writer (as with a political leader), there is always some element of awe. What impressed me most in Malraux was less the author than the hero. For my generation-the young people who turned 18 the year of the liberation of France-Malraux was an example of energy, particularly because he had been first of all a fighter. I have always felt that there is nothing more admirable in a man-and nothing so rare in a writer-as the combination of courage and intelligence. Along with Saint-Exupery, Malraux set an example. He could rightly talk about death because he had faced it in combat; about history, because he was making it; about destiny, because his life exemplified the proud motto of General Jean de Lattre: Never submit. Malraux never submitted to anything; on the contrary, he assumed everything. To overcome his family's financial difficulties, as soon as he was 20 he gambled for the highest stakes. Entre dix-huit et vingt ans, la vie est comme un marche ou l'on achete des valeurs, non pas avec de l'argent, mais avec des actes. La plupart des hommes n'achetent rien, he once confided to Julien Green.' For a long time, Malraux's life has remained obscure, not because of the neglect of biographers, but because-as he himself once put it: Je ne m'interesse pas. Moreover, in his view, Pour l'essentiel, l'homme est ce qu'il cache ... un miserable petit tas de secrets.2 These family secrets Malraux hid with the utmost care. He detested his origins, which were modest but honorable, and he wished to forget his