Category: French

Loving Gertrude – Sin or Moral Duty?

André Gide: La Symphonie pastorale (English title: The Pastoral Symphony) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ISBN 978-207-035687-4 How I loathed this book at school! How I loved this book when I read it a second time some 30 years later! The simplicity of the story. The beauty of the language. The multi-layered message it contains. What bore me to death when I was young (too young for this book!), amazes me now. I was surprised myself by the pleasure I took in reading this novel, published for the first time in 1919. The bonus material added in this specific French edition for the benefit of students was very interesting too as it sets the novel in a historic and biographical context.

Here’s the plot: A married Protestant priest takes care of a blind orphan, Gertrude. He draws her soul out of its seclusion and offers the girl a way to discover the word if not through her eyes, but through her other senses and her intellect. A key moment is the evening when Gertrude hears in the company of the priest Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F major “Pastorale” (Op. 68). She seems to grasp for the first time the beauty of the world by listening to this piece of music. The priest takes care to hide anything evil from Gertrude as he wants to preserve her innocence. He feels a deep commitment to protect the girl, a commitment borne out of his faith. However he fails to realize that he falls in love with the girl at some point.

To do the right thing…

I will not spoil your pleasure by going into the details of the troubles the priest runs into. What’s more important here is the question the priest is confronted with: What is my exact motivation to do something? To do what seemed to be the right thing? How do I not fool myself about my feelings, my motives, my actions? How much can you bent the word of the Gospel to align it with your behaviour and how high is the price you are willing to pay while trying to justify your behaviour.

Gide (1869 – 1951) succeeds in packing wisdom and beauty in a very short novel, written in an admirable style – a philosophical miniature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947 “for his comprehensive and artistically significant writings, in which human problems and conditions have been presented with a fearless love of truth and keen psychological insight”. The novel “La Symphonie pastorale” is a first class example of Gide’s talent. Even if the author set the story in the late 19th century, the moral questions reflected in the novel are relevant today. Seeing through one’s own intention – that’s about the biggest challenge for a human being considering his natural inclination to live in denial – be it in the context of politics or the position one takes in the #metoo discussion.

And since Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 plays such an important part in this novel, enjoy a moment of exceptional musical beauty:

A book and a symphony – two extremes remembered

The Übermensch in Search of His Soul

David Khara: La trilogie Bleiberg (English title: 1. The Bleiberg Project 2. The Shiro Project 3. The Morgenstern Project) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ISBN 978-2290149942 The plot is quickly told: Aytan Morgenstern is a Mossad agent tasked to hunt down war criminals. In the first part of the Bleiberg trilogy he  sets out to triumph over a international criminal organisation that facilitated in the past the rise of Hitler and in the Nazis’ wake gruesome medical experiments undertaken by the SS to create the Aryan Übermensch.

Agent Morg’s personal fate is linked to those experiments, the link is a key element of his determination to fight his mysterious opponent. His enemy – the Consortium – however is not a shadow of the past, it determines the present too because it controls pharmaceutical companies and research labs and under th guidance of Viktor Bleiberg it tries to manipulate genetically a substantial part of the earth’ population – the Bleiberg project is at the center of the first part of David Khara’s riveting trilogy.

The second part – the Shiro Project – has a related background, the horrifying Japanese experiments in Manchuria during World War II. Nonetheless it follows a different line. Morgenstern has to team up with a killer of the Consortium. Biological attacks shake Moscow and the Czech Republic and threaten the Consortium’s economic interests. The virus used by the attackers came from a lab controlled by the Consortium and, being a criminal organisation, the mess requires an in-house solution. It kidnaps a person dear to the Mossad agent and blackmails him into cooperation. This framework allows the French writer to sketch the complex personality of Aytan Morgenstern.

While the first novel is abundant with violent action, fast-paced and a descent into Dante’s inferno recreated my mankind, the second novel is more subtle, interesting psychological and philosophical questions are integral part of the plot and emphasize the idea of the writer to see what mankind can learn from the past. It also tries to cast a definition of heroism very different of what you might imagine from a standard Mossad agent character.

The last volume – The Morgenstern Project – picks up a thread of the first volume: overcoming man’s natural physical and psychic limitations through technology. Transhumanism is the keyword – fusing man’s body with sophisticated technology to produce super-humans. Aytan Morgenstern – victim and benefactor of Bleiberg’s experiments – is being chased by people interested in his exceptional strength, intelligence and fighting capacities. The Consortium, the CIA, the Pentagon – all the usual suspects are involved and again a lot of action is seen e.g. in down-town New York. The head of the Consortium – Cypher – is the mastermind behind a diabolical plan that Morgenstern is beginning to decrypt, and the agent is more resolved than ever to neutralize the threat emanating from the Consortium

Morgenstern gets a lot of help in the last volume of the trilogy : two former colleagues, two characters from the first volume and a mole inside the Consortium. Furthermore the Mossad officially has broken of all contact to the “former agent Morg” to give him additional operational leeway. All seems to work according to the plan – but whose plan? Is Morgenstern being manipulated? If so, to what end? I will not spoil anyone’s pleasure by giving away the key to the mystery and let you enjoy the 983 pages up to the very last.

While Khara definitely wrote a work of fiction, the three volumes touch some very real issues: Man’s ambition to rule over others. Man’s temptation to abuse of its power. Man’s greed and vanity leading to the abolition of moral values. Man’s ability to inflict harm and man’s ability to suffer. Repentance is a thought that came to my mind several times while I read this page-turner. At times I had to get away from the fascinating plots to ponder the implications of man’s many failings in the world of today. In 1881, the German composer Max Bruch set to music a jewish prayer of repentance: Kol Nidrei, the Adagio for Cello, Op. 47.

A light is sown for the repenting sinner

From the Cradle of Bolshevism to the Ghetto of Lvov

albert londres

Pierre Assouline: Albert Londres. Vie et mort d’un grand reporter 1884-1932 ISBN 978-2-07-038236-2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Superbe en français, outstanding English. Having worked as a journalist myself I make a point of avoiding books about a journalist. I have already read too many bad memoirs. This book is an exception. The biography of the French special envoy Albert Londres deserves the highest praise.

A thrilling story, the story of a thrilling life. A tour de force through the history of World War I, the birth of Bolshevism, the upheavals in the Balkans after the retreat of the Ottoman Empire. A discovery tour to the dark side of the French colonial empire with its prison camps and construction sites where French colonial officers supervise African foremen exploiting African slaves. A descent into the hell of French lunatic asylums, Jewish ghettos in Eastern Europe and Brazilian brothels were French prostitutes, bought and sold by unscrupulous businessman, satisfy their customers.

Londres didn’t spare his readers in Paris in the 1920s and his growing audience – by 1929 he was a journalistic celebrity unable to cope with fan mail – witnessed how his job transformed his view on the world. He started as an observer and recorder of facts to report and inform, but by experiencing the personal misery of man and chosing the individual experience – the men and women who either made or suffered from the making of history – as the focal point of his stories, he became a fighter against social and racial injustice making enemies left, right and center in France and its colonies.

Pierre Assouline, a successful editor and a gifted writer, does a brilliant job in retracing the path that Londres took and the personal development that the journalist underwent. What captivated me most was Assouline’s style in the tradition of the great French romanciers, mimicking Londres’s sense of irony, descriptive precision and expressive excellence. Reading a French book has not often given me so much joy only for its style.

While Albert Londres fought against corruption, abuse of power and social injustice, the Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg persued his own way to democracy and equality – in the realm of chamber music – inspired by the generally progressive ideas that were in the air all over Europe. His String Quartet No. 3 picked up the mood of the time:

A democratic revolution – all notes are equal

Robespierre – the face of the Terror

Max Gallo: L’homme Robespierre. Histoire d’une solitude. ISBN 978-2-262-02863-3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Maximilien de Robespierre is one of the great names linked to the French Revolution. His name stands for demagogic speeches and bloodshed; already shortly before his own execution, he had become a scapegoat for the indiscriminate violence accompanying the revolt against the nobility and the fight against anyone deemed opposed to the revolution – the Terror. And that is what Robespierre’s name stands for until today.

The brilliant French writer and historian Max Gallo traces a portrait of the man Robespierre behind the politician Robespierre – at times ironic, but usually well researched. Robespierre appears as a man constantly looking to bolster his ego, nothing seems more important than the recognition by his peers. Gallo defines the disappearance of Robespierre’s father as the source of the man’s emotional vulnerability and his vanity. At the same time Robespierre is convinced of the rightness of his principles and ideas – a dangerous mix leading to the catastrophic “collateral damages” of the French Revolution.

Now, if Gallo’s typology reminds you of the current US president, you would do Robespierre unjustice. Robespierre, a well-read man, had consistent political ideas, a strict sense of duty and was called “The Incorruptible”. Mastering the challenge to rise from being an unknown provincial lawyer to becoming the head and face of the French Revolution fueled his arrogance, no doubt, but at the same time it was a great personal achievement. Trump, the son of a rich father, did nothing of that sort and his vanity is self-serving. Trump has no other policy than promoting Trump. Robespierre was an idealist politician, a relentless agitator ready to sacrifice himself to empower ordinary people. Trump is a salesman for his own interests, ready to sacrifice anyone else for his personal desire for power. Trumpesque.

The French Revolution and later European revolutions around 1848 had lasting impressions on artists in Germany, France and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. In this context I would like to point you to a piano cycle named “Hexaméron” and composed by Franz Liszt, a sympathizer of German and Italian revolutionaries, a musical genius and at times a very arrogant man:

Liszt gives the “Young Italians” a voice

Sailing with the Vikings, Magellan and Black Beard 

Olivier & Patrick Poivre d’Arvor: L’odyssée des marins ISBN 9-78221-116760 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book is a treasure trove! Two brothers from Brittany, both in love with all things connected to ships, travel the world to research the life and deeds of navigators, explorers, treasure hunters, colonists, pirates, corsairs, famous admirals and sailing champions. An exhaustive study, extremely well written, a book that reactivated many a childhood dream of mine sailing the oceans and diving for sunken ships ladden with gold and rubies.

The longing for exotic worlds, a long sea voyage and the discovery of new realms leads me to a famous composing naval officer: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He wrote a wonderful symphonic poem callled “Sheherazade”:

Sailing with Sindbad the Seafarer