| Posted: 07 October 2006 at 8:46am | IP Logged
|
|
|
1937-A BIG YEAR
Hemingway arrived in Spain in March 1937 along with fellow journalist Martha Gellhorn and co-worker Joris Ivens with whom he would collaborate on a fund-raising film for the Spanish Republic. Meanwhile Andre Malraux, the French philosopher and novelist, had returned to France in early 1937. He went back to Spain again in July of 1937. Hemingway, unlike Malraux, had missed the decisive first eight months of the war on which Malraux's novel L'espoir was based. When Malraux returned to France for his novel’s publication in 1937, Hemingway, perhaps envious, accused him of pulling out of the war too soon. He accused him "of pussyfooting off to resume his career of opportunist, high-wire artist, and political charlatan…..while the Spanish Republic bled to death from its wounds."
Despite their emerging antipathy Malraux and Hemingway were much alike. In their lives and works they projected a total artistic construct, what Bickford Sylvester calls "an orchestrated amalgamation of fictional texts and fictionalized authorial persona." They both manipulated the public into identifying their novels with their lives. They were also cat lovers, middle class, short on formal education and had fathers who committed suicide. They were both going through marital break-ups in Spain and were starting over again with new partners. They distrusted intellectuals and they adored T. E. Lawrence, the quintessential man of action who was also a writer.--Ron Price with thanks to Ben Stoltzfus, "Hemingway, Malraux and Spain: For Whom the Bell Tolls and L'espoir," Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1999, pp. 179-194.
On May 1st 1937 Shoghi Effendi wrote: "….prosecute uninterruptedly teaching campaign inaugurated….in accordance with Divine Plan."
I wonder what a fictionalized chronicle
of the first months of that spiritual war
would be like?1 Changing perspectives,
an alternation of dialogue and action,
from one city to another, character
development and linear chronology,
in the context of a mission sublime—
these descendants of heroes
of an age gone by—just ended.2
In this newborn war the novelist
might present moments of crisis
when men become aware of destiny,
when they become aware
of their human condition, its tragedy,
its glory and its potentialities
as they try to transform into consciousness
as vast an experience as possible.3
1 L’espoir was a fictionalized chronicle of the first months of the Spanish Civil War.
2 In 1932 the last remanant of the heroic age died: the Greatest Holy Leaf.
3 Malreaux’s aim in writing and his aim for human beings.
Ron Price
May 24th 2005
__________________
married for 37 years, teacher for 30 years; Baha'i for 47 years, living in Australia for 34 years.
|
Active Topics
Memberlist
Search
Help
Register
Login
Forum Locked)
Topic: A Context for the Book: 1937-1940
