PARIS LETTER
709
been refused not only by Gallimard but by most publishers in France.
Today not only are they published but they are best-sellers (Abellio's
second novel has sold forty thousand copies). In addition to this, they
have been favorably reviewed by authoritative critics like Andre Rous–
seaux of
Le Figaro Litteraire
and Emile Henriot (of the Academie Fran.
c;aise) of
Le Monde.
A much better critic than these two, Andre Fonatine,
also of
Le M onde,
while insisting that Abellio's ideas cannot be taken
seriously has nevertheless devoted two columns to the demonstration.
Abellio starts from the postulate that since the only truth modern
man can obtain is in deciphering historical destiny, since all world-his–
torical systems built by modern man have been found both faulty and
catastrophic in essence, something better than world historical systems
has to be found. And what can be better than prophecy, the divination
and announcement of God's true design which is, finally, the essence of
all world historical speculation? As for catastrophe, men of M. Abellio's
temper are not going to find consolation in messianic hopes; on the
contrary, they brace themselves with the thought that catastrophe, anni–
hilation, a new Flood shall and must come. In fact, the role of the
prophet sage today is not to warn men and call on them to repent, but
rather to smoothe the path before the Four Horsemen, to act literally
as the agent provocateur of universal disintegration. Hence, for example,
Abellio regards the present struggle between capitalism and Communism
as just a skirmish between two equally blind instruments of Fate (with
a slight advantage in favor of the Communists insofar as they are more
consistently nihilistic than their
adver~aries,
hence more in accord with
present-day entropy). To take sides in such a struggle is for Abellio a
crude kind of stupidity reserved for the masses and for individuals whose
souls are irremediably plebeian. Except, of course, in case one acts in utter
disbelief, keeping in mind the superior aim of cosmic defeatism. Such
an aim, however, is best served by Abellio's own brand of sages and
saints, who, it goes without saying, are rather on the Nietzschean, or, as
their inventor chooses to say, the "Luciferian" side.
What Abellio's books lack is not talent, but simply sense and taste.
His novels can best be described as a mixture of Dekobra and Malraux.
As for his "system" of prophecy, it is Nietzsche, plus the Bible, plus an
indigestion of esoteric literature. Why, then, are serious critics discussing
such a writer? Why am I myself reporting his apparition? Perhaps simply
because in a world where the boundaries between sense and nonsense,
ordered thought and frenzy, are becoming thinner and thinner, it would
not be "objective" to neglect such a phenomenon.
In addition to this, and sociologically most revealing, there is
