The simple fact is: Malraux was obviously a genius. What exactly he was a genius at, however, is not quite clear.
Nearly all those who came in direct contact with him fell under his spell — and I am not talking here of naïve schoolboys but of famous writers, some of whom were twice his age, as well as eminent thinkers, statesmen, leaders of men, saintly monks, cunning old politicians, glamorous socialites, cynical journalists, unworldly priests. When young, he appeared to them as a prodigy; in middle age, he was their hero; old, he became a prophet. At every stage in his life, he mesmerised and dazzled a vast and diverse audience. The old Trotsky in exile was so impressed after meeting the feverish and voluble young adventurer that he wrote at once to his New York publishers, urging them to bring out an American edition of La Condition humaine. André Gide — whom the French literati believed to be the twentieth-century Goethe, and who was thirty years Malraux’s senior — was overwhelmed by his conversation and privately complained that he could not keep up with such uninterrupted intellectual fireworks.
Malraux himself had little patience for dull minds: “I do not argue with imbeciles.” (Which, by the way, might explain why he was such a bad novelist: what is life, after all, but a long dialogue with imbeciles?) The most intelligent interlocutors, subjected to his rapid-fire monologues in relentless and stupefying bursts, felt like inarticulate fools, and the sharpest wits turned speechless. His rather offensive machismo never discouraged bright and talented women from offering him their passionate love. His first wife was a woman of cosmopolitan culture, who supported him intellectually, spiritually and financially. (Malraux quickly managed to gamble and lose her entire fortune on the stock market — and then told her defiantly: “You really don’t think I am going to work now?”) When she dared to entertain literary ambitions of her own, he warned her: “It is better for you to be my wife than a second-rate writer.”
With his fanciful military record, he still succeeded in inspiring the blind loyalty of authentic war heroes. Though singularly devoid of humour, he won the steadfast affection of one of the wittiest women of his time (Louise de Vilmorin). And even General de Gaulle (who appointed him as his Minister for Cultural Affairs) endured his most bizarre and ludicrous initiatives with uncharacteristic patience; his cabinet colleagues were puzzled at first, then concluded philosophically: “Malraux is mad, but he amuses the Général.”
His singular magnetism was originally built on impudent lies, then further enriched by a permanent and compulsive mythomania, expressed in an unremitting verbal flow. But in the end, his theatrical performances became convincing and even respectable, for they were sustained by a gallantry that was not counterfeit. When he ventured with his young wife into the Cambodian jungle to dismantle and steal monumental Khmer sculptures, and when he had himself flown over Yemen without maps and without adequate fuel supplies in search of the mythical capital of the Queen of Sheba, he was engaging in questionable or hare-brained enterprises, but these also demanded considerable physical courage. He constantly took enormous risks; he led a restless and dramatic life in restless and dramatic times.
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Today, Malraux’s writings are hardly readable à froid—they are stilted, pompous, hollow, confused, verbose, obscure. But whenever we encounter the man himself — for instance, in the record of his conversations with Roger Stéphane, his faithful and lively Boswell, or in a good biography such as Cate’s — something of his old magic seems to be operating again. Malraux’s young and beautiful mistress (whose early death in a horrible accident was to shatter him) was once advised by a well-meaning acquaintance to give up a liaison which could hold no future for the daughter of staid bourgeois. She replied: “I prefer a liaison with a fellow like him to a marriage with a tax collector.” Her quixotic choice was to entail much pain and sacrifice, but one can appreciate her wisdom. Malraux could in turns be inspiring and ridiculous, heroic and absurd — he was never mediocre. (And his adventures fired our enthusiasm when we were twenty: if we were to forget this, we would forget the better part of our own youth.)
Cate’s account does not pass judgement, but conveys vividly these contradictions, which makes his book fascinating to read. At times, it can be quite funny too — witness this page describing the encounter between Malraux and Hemingway shortly after the liberation of Paris in 1944:
During his brief visit to Paris, Malraux heard that Ernest Hemingway had arrived with the US Fourth Infantry Division and had flamboyantly “liberated” the Hôtel Ritz. This was too much for Malraux, who decided that he was not going to be upstaged in his home town by the author of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Crossing the Tuileries Gardens, he headed for the Place Vendôme. In his bedroom at the Ritz, Hemingway had just removed his army boots and was busy stripping some weapons with several “bodyguards” (FFI “patriots” he had picked up on his way to the festive capital), when the tall, lean figure of André Malraux appeared in the doorway. He was in uniform, with the five distinctive silver bars of a colonel’s rank on his shoulders.
“Bonjour, André,” said Hemingway, as affably as he could.
“Bonjour, Ernest,” replied Malraux.
It is not recorded if they shook hands, but since Hemingway’s were smeared with oil, it is quite possible that they dispensed with this formality.
“How many men have you commanded?” Malraux asked.
“Dix ou douze,” answered Hemingway casually. “Au plus, deux cents.” Since he was supposed to be a war correspondent, he could not reasonably boast of having commanded more.
“Moi, deux mille,” announced Malraux, whose look of triumph was ruined by a facial tic.
This was an affront Hemingway was not prepared to take lying down, particularly from a Frenchman who had rushed to the support of Republican Spain months before his own tardy appearance on the scene, and whose novel L’Espoir had outpaced his For Whom the Bell Tolls by several years.
“Quel dommage!” said Hemingway with icy sarcasm, “that we didn’t have the assistance of your force when we took this small town of Paris!”
If Malraux winced, Hemingway later did not bother to record it. Their conversation, in any case, must have been lacking in cordiality. For we have his word for it — it became one of Ernest’s favourite dinner table stories — that one of his bodyguards beckoned Hemingway into the bathroom and asked, “Papa, on peut fusiller ce con?”
But didn’t Malraux himself warn us? “There are no grown-ups…”
THE INTIMATE ORWELL
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THE INTIMATE Orwell? For an article dealing with a volume of his diaries and a selection of his letters—Diaries (London: Harvill Secker, 2009); A Life in Letters (London: Harvill Secker, 2010) — at first such a title seemed appropriate; yet it could also be misleading inasmuch as it might suggest an artificial distinction — or even an opposition — between Eric Blair, the private man, and George Orwell, the published writer. The former, it is true, was a naturally reserved, reticent, even awkward individual, whereas Orwell, with pen (or gun) in hand, was a bold fighter. In fact — and this becomes even more evident after reading these two volumes — Blair’s personal life and Orwell’s public activity both reflected one powerfully single-minded personality; Blair-Orwell was made of one piece. A recurrent theme in the testimonies of all those who knew him at close hand was his “terrible simplicity”; he had “the innocence of a savage.” Contrary to what some commentators had earlier assumed (myself included[8]), his adoption of a pen-name was a mere accident and never carried for him any particular significance. Simply, at the time of publishing his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), he wished to spare his parents any potential embarrassment: old Mr. and Mrs. Blair belonged to “the lower-upper-middle class” (i.e. “the upper middle class that is short of money”) and were painfully concerned with social respectability. They could have been distressed to see it publicised that their only son had led the life of an out-of-work drifter and penniless tramp. His pen-name was thus chosen at random, as an after-thought, at the last minute before publication; but afterwards he kept using it for all his publications — journalism, essays, novels — and somehow remained stuck with it. In his private correspondence, till the very end of his life, he still signed his letters now Eric Blair (or Eric), now George Orwell (or George), simply following the form of address originally used by his various correspondents, who were either early acquaintances or later colleagues and friends. His first wife, Eileen (who died prematurely in 1945), and their adopted son, Richard, both took the name Blair; his second wife, Sonia (whom he married virtually on his deathbed), took the name Orwell. Shortly before the end of his life, he himself explained the matter very clearly to his old Eton tutor (who knew him as Blair): “About my name, I have used the name Orwell as a pen-name for a dozen years or more, and most of the people I know call me George, but I have never actually changed my name and some people still call me Blair. It is getting such a nuisance that I keep meaning to change it by deed-poll; but you have to go to a solicitor, etc., which puts me off.”