PARIS LETTER
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a political stand. But who could deny that the appeal itself
is
in order?
The effectiveness of Camus' intervention in public matters is not in
his answers, but in the tone of his protest, and in the fact that the issues
he takes up: violence, bureaucratic tyranny, the deadliness
of
modern
ideologies, are all to the point. Hence, even though we may be disap–
pointed by his conclusions, we cannot help being the accomplices of
his yearning. And who is giving the correct answers, anyway?
In a public speech, in which he pleaded against the notion of the
«artiste engage"
and in favor of that of the artist as "the witness for
freedom," Camus said, among other things: "There is no life without
persuasion. Contemporary history, however, knows only intimidation.
Men live, and cannot but live, by the idea that they have something
in common in the name of which they can eventually always recognize
each other. But we have discovered that there are men that cannot be
persuaded.... H e who wants to dominate is deaf. Confronted by
him,
one can only fight or die. That is why men today live in terror.... It
is not astonishing that these terrorized silhouettes, whose entire life is
summarized in a police filing card, can be treated like anonymous ab–
stractions.... All this is logical.
If
one wants to unify the whole world
in the name of a theory, one is bound to make the world as fleshless, as
blind, and as deaf, as the theory itself. . . . Everything that makes for
the dignity of art opposes such a world, and rejects it. Art, by the mere
fact of its existence, denies the conquests of ideology. . . . The artist
distinguishes whereas the conqueror levels. The artist lives and creates
on the level of the flesh, and of passion ; he knows that nothing is simple,
and that the other man exists. For the conqueror, the other man is
simply an obstacle, his world is a world of masters and slaves, the very
world in which we are living.. . . And that is why it is futile and derisive
to ask us for justification and commitment."
These are the main themes of Camus' protest, and they surely ex–
plain why we cannot expect logical developments from him, but only a
halting succession of impassioned appeals.
If,
now, one were to look for a writer who is authentically non–
committed to the questions of our time, and entirely free from any
anguish, one should surely mention Marcel Ayme, whose latest play,
Clirambard,
has been the greatest success of the season. His answer to
the absurdity of our world is farce unlimited, and no morality.
CLerambard
is the story of a ruined nobleman, who (unlike so many
middle class people in France, who have simply resigned themselves to
economic ruin) , has found a bold answer to his extreme situation. He
has transformed the castle of his ancestors into a slave State of his own.
