350
PARTISAN REVIEW
nothing better to do than to explore their navel, that is, their intimate
feelings. The recent novel by Eugenio Scalcari is a case
in
point.
n
labirinto
(Rizzoli, 1998) is the story of a feeling. But one would look in vain for some
practical problem of everyday life, such as paying the rent, taking care of a
leaking roof, and so on. No, everything centers on the inner feelings of the
evanescent protagonists. Society with its boring problems simply does not
exist.
In France the autobiographical trend also seems strong. Two eminent
social scientists, Jean Duvignaud and Georges Balandier, perhaps feel old
enough to look backward, to their past. With a widely different eye, how–
ever: poetical and inspiring in the case of Duvignaud; down to earth,
Balandier. In his
L'oubli
(Actes Sud, 1996), Duvignaud offers a vivid
account of how a whole generation lost faith in Communism and got
away from Marxism. Talking about the meetings in Paris in somebody's
obscure apartment of a group of intellectuals who wanted to leave the
Parti Communiste Franc;:ais without becoming
renegats,
that is without
joining the extreme right, Duvignaud depicts a struggle which is neither
ideological nor purely intellectual. It is, first of all, moral and highly per–
sonal: how to face isolation and even hostility from former friends who
have remained in the party; how to turn emargination into a splendid occa–
sion, a real chance for individual creativity. Thus, the bulletin (not review,
too pompous!)
Arguments
was born. It did not live too long, but long
enough to make a mark. Balandier in his
Conjugaisons
(Fayard, 1997) is
more academically oriented. The author of
Eloge du desorire
identifies in his
own intellectual itinerary the long way, and all the detours, toward a post–
disciplinary approach to social research. Would this mean also an
acceptance, on the part of such a self-conscious culture as the French one,
of a general multicultural orientation? I don't know. Perhaps it is 'still too
soon to tell.
The problem does not concern France alone. It is said that the force
of Europe has been historical in its differences. But the future United
Europe has to learn to make differences live together and to understand, at
least to tolerate, each other: a new version of the medieval
condordia discors.
It is certainly more easily said than done. The difficulty is real and has
nothing or little to do with a literary game: how to make German
Leistung,
French sense of "grandeur," and Italian genius for "improvisation" com–
bine in an untried and perhaps impossible synthesis is enough to make
your head spin.
It
does not seem sufficient to sing the praises of the South
of
Europe versus the North as Dominique Fernandez recently has done (in
D.
F.,
Le voyage d'Italie--Dictionnaire amoureux,
with photographs by
Ferrante Ferranti, PIon, 1998). The Italian character depicted in his
research is not new. From Goethe on, as well as from Michel de
