Maura A. Daly
AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL TOURNIER
Thefollowing interview with Tournier took place on a sunny sum–
mer day in Paris, in the offices of his publisher, Gallimard, after he had just
published his seventh major fictional work,
Gaspard, Melchior and Bal–
thazar (The Four Wise Men).
MD:
Why did you choose the three Magi as the subject for
Gaspard,
Melchior and Balthazar?
MT:
I always wanted to do something with my Christian background
which is very important to me because I was brought up in Chris–
tian schools . Consequently, it was one of the things I wanted to
talk about. I think that the choice of the three wise men was a par–
ticularly appropriate subject for me. First of all, no one had ever
talked about it; second, on the contrary, there is an immense
iconographical wealth concerning the three kings. The paintings
are wonderful, aren't they?
MD:
In
The Four Wise Men,
did you try to relate the Christian philo–
sophical system to any other philosophical system?
MT:
No. There is only one thing that is very modern in
The Four
Wise Men;
it is the idea of image and likeness which is Balthazar's
problem. As you know, I am preoccupied with photography; I am
very interested it it. That's very modern and is, at the same time,
biblical because the question of image and likeness is in the begin–
ning of the Bible . The political problem of Melchior is also very
modern; in the problem of Herod's tyranny, there are characteris–
tics that bring Stalin to mind: the idea of killing anyone however
little he may be suspected. The person is destroyed, that's Stalin.
The idea of telling the story of one's life at the end of a meal during
the last courses-that was Hitler-he did it all the time. The por–
traits [in
The Four Wise Men]
are of rather modern tyrants, but
there isn't any philosophy.
MD:
Nonetheless, concerning what you said, I think that perhaps
one can make a connection between
The Four Wise Men
and
Heidegger's essay
"Das Ding"
["The Thing"] which speaks of pour–
ing oneself out in order to attain a sort of immortality, to attain a
fully human status. Couldn't one make an analogy between that
idea and the life of Taor, the fourth king in
The Four Wise Men?
