Paul Morand et la Roumanie by Gavin Bowd (review)

Abstract

MLR, 100.3, 2005 831 involvement with her. Pilling sees this poetic endeavour, this homage, as Becker's resistance to the lure of despair. '[T]he miracle of a woman's flesh' is the source of renewal (p. 9). For indeed, Plein amour speaks exclusively of physical love. Such a restriction may seem to some readers a touch limited in a book of this length ifit is not part of a larger account of what it is to be human. Consequently, Plein amour tends to uniformity, an earnest, awestruck set of variations on a theme. Although much is pleasing, and occasionally stirring?there are some fineindividual stanzas?the reader might expect to be taken more by surprise, be more challenged, become more unsettled. At his best, though, Becker is urgently and discreetly erotic. Sometimes he recalls Eluard, though he does not quite have the latter's power to disturb. There is perhaps a touch ofAndre Breton about him too, although Becker is surely the better poet. Pilling is a terrifictranslator of French poetry. His wonderful version of Corbiere's Amours jaunes is a landmark. For the so-different Becker, Pilling has found a quieter tone. His translations loosen up the French slightly, yet remain loyal and accurate. His English free verse is lighter than Becker's organized French metres. Overall, he has managed to find a more relaxed diction for Becker's fairly formal language and syntax. Pilling's touch fails him once, though. His translation of the uncollected poem given on pp. 14-15 has ungrammatical like for as. This is not a question of academic stuffiness; the line jars badly, the register is wrong, the more so since elsewhere as is used as it should be. Becker may not be a poet of the firstorder, but this well-produced edition of Plein amour, from the seductive painting on its cover to the selection of critical comments at the end, will be of value to anyone interested in modern French poetry and its translation. University of Exeter Martin Sorrell Paul Morandet la Roumanie. By Gavin Bowd. Paris: L'Harmattan. 2002. 153 pp. ?13. ISBN 2-7475-4240-8. Like Paul Claudel, for example, and Jean Giraudoux, Paul Morand successfully combined being a best-selling author and an important representative of the French government. Trained in political science, he was recruited into the diplomatic service. At the outbreak ofthe First World War he was in London, where he met a number of Romanian diplomats; in 1916 he returned to Paris, where he continued to mix with members ofthe Romanian aristocracy and met his futurewife, Helene Chrissoveloni, at the time still married to Prince Soutzo. In 1930 he made his firstvisit to Bucharest. During the inter-war years he was deeply pessimistic about what he considered to be the decadent state of French society during the Third Republic, and Romania quickly became the realization of the kind of society he admired. With the Occupa? tion of France he was unequivocally behind Petain and strongly supportive of Laval, whom he knew personally. In August 1943 he was nominated French Minister in Bucharest, where he would stay until July 1944, whereupon he became French ambassadorto Switzerland, much to the displeasureof that country's government. Gavin Bowd's account has two strands. The first,based on private correspondence, diaries, and Morand's imaginative writing, describes Morand's relationship with Romania and provides an interesting commentary on Franco-Romanian affairsin general and on the complex development of Romania as the country was forced to submit to Communist control. The second throws light on Morand's ideological position. Like Drieu, Brasillach, Bonnard, and others whose political sympathies lay clearly with the Right, he admired Hitler's policies (if not the man) and was anti-republican, vi? olently nationalistic, and anti-Semitic. He welcomed collaboration, was naive in his 832 Reviews assessment of the Soviet Union's plans, but astutely arranged his move to Switzer? land to avoid the inevitable accusations and possibly worse that would have awaited him in France at the Liberation. Not surprisingly, in his absence he was condemned by those on the Left and by De Gaulle, and amazingly expressed surprise that his...