,
Andre Malraux
REPLIES TO 13 QUESTIONS*
To what extent will the American influence be a factor
in Europe in the years ahead?
I am not thinking here of Eru;tern Europe, that
is
another side
of
the question. It is clear that the entire Slavic world will be part
of the Russian world. But I believe that the metamorphosis of France
will be oriented toward the Atlantic. Even a France in which Com–
munism plays an important part. Politics plays an important role in
culture, but in unpredictable and not very rational ways. I know
that France is afraid of the "American" influence; but the question
is
not really one of influence.
As
everyone knows, not only does in–
fluence have a double meaning (Greek influence on Rome, Persian
on the Arabs); but more important, a new culture is not the sum
total of those that preceded it, it is their metamorphosis. There
is
something which, in a rather subtle way, serves ru; an area of agree–
ment between the America of the eru;tern seaboard, England, France
and Portugal (and extending to the European democracies, even
when the latter are "racially" partly germanic: Belgium, Holland,
Switzerland, Scandinavia). The Atlantic element is something quite
different from the Anglo-Saxon element. Portugal figures in the At–
lantic culture, Spain in a much less direct way. South America
is
beginning to come into the constellation.
What do you call a culture?
It isn't easy to improvise that kind of definition. Let's say: the
incarnation of a system of values; and more modestly, a coinciding of
sensibilities.
• This is a composite of several interviews
with
Malraux, the
fun
text
of
which
WIll
recently published in the French magazine
Pr8uves.
