MALRAUX AND THE DEMONS OF ACTION
Man's Fate,
he has one of his characters, Hemmelrich, make his
escape to Moscow and find some so,lace in the Five-Year Plan. Surely,
this is weak, since it presumes the acceptance of a "First Communion"
attitude toward such an abstruse enterprise as the Plan. It is curious
to see a poet of tragic actions trying to avoid the implications of
tragedy.
Man's Hope
was published at the end of 1937, when the
Spanish Republic was being subjected to a slow agony, and Stalin
had already judiciously stopped all help. Yet Malraux made a point
of ending the book with the victory of Guadalajara. Manuel and
Garcia could find justification only in victory. They would have
become just two more images of human impotence if the author had
waited until 1939 and, for example, chosen to end his novel with
the scene that took place in .a Madrid square a few moments before
the entry of Franco's troops: some of the last defenders forming a
<;ircle, standing at arm's length, and shooting each other.
(This is the first section of a iwo-part article on Malraux,
which will be concluded in the August number.)
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