Down to Earth: André Malraux’s Political Itinerary
251
of the early novels and the natural world is that which exists between
Camus’s homme absurde and the world, more generally characterized
as “cette confrontation entre l’appel humain et le silence déraisonnable
du monde”.
8
This confrontational relationship also expresses itself in the
hostility that Malraux’s heroes discern in their relationship with the
world around them. For Claude in La Voie royale, the forest becomes
the enemy with which he must do battle as he attempts to disengage
artworks from the ruins of temples that have been reclaimed by everencroaching nature. In the case of Perken and Garine, it is the Asian
climate more generally that undermines both heroes’ health.
While such a conceptualization of the natural world reflects
Malraux’s understanding of the human condition more generally, it
also results directly from the characters’ engagement in action. As
Bakhtin writes, action shapes our perception of the world around us,
transforming the “given makeup of the external world of objects,
[breaking] up the body of an object’s present state. The anticipation of
a future actualization permeates the entire horizon of the actionperforming consciousness and dissolves its stability” (p. 45). For the
characters of the Asiatic novels, therefore, the world constitutes a horizon against which they act, the natural world being seen as at best an
obstacle, at worst an adversary. Thus, as Claude attempts to dislodge a
statue from the walls of one ruined temple, the jungle around him, the
very rock of the temple wall, and Claude’s consciousness itself merge
into the act of chiselling: “Claude frappait presque sans conscience
[…]. Sa pensée en miettes, effondrée comme le temple, ne tressaillait
plus que de l’exaltation de compter les coups: un de plus, toujours un
de plus… Désagrégation de la forêt, du temple, de tout…” (La Voie
royale, p. 82). Claude fails, however, and the jungle triumphs: “après
tant d’efforts, la forêt reprenait sa puissance de prison” (p. 83), the
narrator notes.
Although Claude’s act lacks the political dimensions of those
of other Malrucian heroes, it stems from an impulse shared by the heroes of the Asiatic novels: to reclaim a form of dignity in the confrontation with the natural world in what Vin Dao considers “la résistance
de l’homme contre la déchéance et l’humiliation. […] Être homme,
___________________________
8 Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), p.
46.
251
of the early novels and the natural world is that which exists between
Camus’s homme absurde and the world, more generally characterized
as “cette confrontation entre l’appel humain et le silence déraisonnable
du monde”.
8
This confrontational relationship also expresses itself in the
hostility that Malraux’s heroes discern in their relationship with the
world around them. For Claude in La Voie royale, the forest becomes
the enemy with which he must do battle as he attempts to disengage
artworks from the ruins of temples that have been reclaimed by everencroaching nature. In the case of Perken and Garine, it is the Asian
climate more generally that undermines both heroes’ health.
While such a conceptualization of the natural world reflects
Malraux’s understanding of the human condition more generally, it
also results directly from the characters’ engagement in action. As
Bakhtin writes, action shapes our perception of the world around us,
transforming the “given makeup of the external world of objects,
[breaking] up the body of an object’s present state. The anticipation of
a future actualization permeates the entire horizon of the actionperforming consciousness and dissolves its stability” (p. 45). For the
characters of the Asiatic novels, therefore, the world constitutes a horizon against which they act, the natural world being seen as at best an
obstacle, at worst an adversary. Thus, as Claude attempts to dislodge a
statue from the walls of one ruined temple, the jungle around him, the
very rock of the temple wall, and Claude’s consciousness itself merge
into the act of chiselling: “Claude frappait presque sans conscience
[…]. Sa pensée en miettes, effondrée comme le temple, ne tressaillait
plus que de l’exaltation de compter les coups: un de plus, toujours un
de plus… Désagrégation de la forêt, du temple, de tout…” (La Voie
royale, p. 82). Claude fails, however, and the jungle triumphs: “après
tant d’efforts, la forêt reprenait sa puissance de prison” (p. 83), the
narrator notes.
Although Claude’s act lacks the political dimensions of those
of other Malrucian heroes, it stems from an impulse shared by the heroes of the Asiatic novels: to reclaim a form of dignity in the confrontation with the natural world in what Vin Dao considers “la résistance
de l’homme contre la déchéance et l’humiliation. […] Être homme,
___________________________
8 Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), p.
46.