534
PARTISAN REVIEW
illustrate his determined superficiality about character. Because it uses
mythological characters whom we may allow to act like "forces" rather
than people,
The Flies
is the more successful as a work of art, but un–
fortunately too much of its power depends upon its allegorical similarity
to the German occupation of Paris for the play to have lasting value.
No Exit
is much more interesting, but it uses people snatched from
the real world, the world we know, and immediately we resent Sartre's
wanton creation of pure "types." The faults of
No Exit
are increased in
The Age of Reason
and are extremely crucial because in this latter work
Sartre hasn't even got the help of a first-rate situation. The book is a
mistake, the kind often made by writers whose equipment is specialized,
but nevertheless valid when they have the good fortune to find just the
right material.
There is an intriguing unknowingness about
The Age of Reason,
a literary naivete that clings to every page and leads one to speculate
that Sartre, far from having consciously chosen to use these methods, has,
in his rejection of many of the older French writers, decided that he
doesn't need to bother at all with aesthetic problems. This negation of
the relevance of "art" is optimistic and, no doubt, wholesome and
manly, but there's not enough sheer, raw, novelistic verve in this book
to make its simplicity anything except annoying. One almost wishes
Sartre were disingenuous enough to try to hide his deficiencies, he
might even
pose
a bit, if posing may be considered the homage one
pays to his betters by indicating, through these tricks and deceptions, that
literature is a challenge which, if you can't meet it honestly, you try to
outwit.
In technique
The Age of Reason
is particularly crude. The charac–
ter; are neatly lined up and each goes through his first scene, then they
trot back out and each has his second scene, and so on, until in the end
they are all there, like soldiers, to get their final orders before marching
off forever. Most of the characters have been snoozing in the bookshops
for twenty years, but they aren't entirely dull; indeed they are like old
acquaintances we would not go out of our way to meet again, but having
unexpectedly run upon them we can take a certain interest in finding
them unchanged. They are identified efficiently : the compulsive, self–
destructive young girl, Ivich; the passive woman, Marcelle; the criminal
disciple, Boris; the aging actress, Lola; the romantic Communist, Brunet;
the homosexual, Daniel; and the hero, Mathieu. Of these characters the
only one who acts convincingly is the homosexual, Daniel, and the
only character whose conception is original is Mathieu. But unfortunately
the hero is rather preposterous and hasn't enough personality to enliven
any conception, existential or otherwise. Mathieu values his freedom
more than anything else and it is suddenly threatened by the pregnancy of
his mistress, Marcelle, whom he doesn't want to marry. In the end,
