PARTISAN REVIEW
what it owes to the sacrifice. In itself, it is without meaning....
Is barbarism the less barbaric because it is powerful?" To which the
Frenchman replies with a striking definition: "The will to power ...
the consequence of a reverie which would borrow from intelligence
the means to force upon the world the acceptance of its folly....
[We] are a race committed to the test of the
act,
hence pledged to
the bloodiest fate."
Here Malraux is already stating what will continue to be his
main theme. The very statement of this theme .also contains a radical
questioning of it. The Frenchman's remarks imply, in fact, the psy–
chological notion that a man's soul is, to start with, nothing but an
excess of dreams and formless desires. The permanence of the external
world makes outlines of possible acts from the swarming images.
From dream to act, however, there is no rational transition. Dreams
breed dreams indefinitely. Only the jolt of choice, action, can put an
end to the "pestilence" of desire. After which, what was inane foolish–
ness becomes bloody madness. But man
must
choose between being an
individual and being, literally, nobody. Only in action can he find
some clear necessity,
if
not rationality. Such is, briefly stated, the
problem of .action and its ultimate meaning which all of Malraux's
work illustrates.
A number of remarks in the short essay "On Certain Young
Europeans" ( 1927), take us a step closer towards Andre Malraux's
point of departure as a novelist and a man of action. Our civilization,
having rejected security
in,
and submission to, the Catholic Church,
.and having "lost the hope of finding the meaning of the world in
science ... has been deprived of any spiritual aim." This means the
breakdown both of the world in which we live and also of the self,
the only reality from which we can start any search at all. The situa–
tion is absurd. "Lacking a doctrine, [the young European] has noth–
ing left but .a resolute will to give battle.
And there is nothing in that
will excep·t weakness and fear.
Our epoch ... does not dare reveal
the core of its thought, which is nihilistic, destructive, fundamentally
negative."
An amazingly lucid confession, and one which seems to leave
little room for anything but bad faith. One should not forget, how–
ever, what is implied in this trend of thought; namely, that the
moment we are confronted with a situation in which we
may
hope
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