Martin Hurcombe
256
amidst “l’indifférence géologique” (p. 549), feeding off the ring of
apples rotting at its roots, suggests both the world’s indifference to
human activities and its natural permanence in contrast to humanity’s
fragility.
Magnin’s encounter with the local peasants reveals them to be
“sans époque” (p. 560), however, possessing a timelessness that results from the struggle with this inhospitable environment. The description of the wounded then suggests a parallel between the
seemingly eternal suffering of the Spanish people, suggested earlier in
the novel through a series of biblical allusions likening their misery to
that endured during the Exodus, and that now endured by Magnin’s
aviators.
14 The wounded thus remind Magnin of “des gravures de
vieux supplices […]” (p. 500), while Gardet’s disfigured face suggests
“une Présentation du combat” (p. 554). This recognition of the eternity
of suffering is echoed in the peasants’ recognition in Gardet of
“l’image même que, depuis des siècles, les paysans se faisaient de la
guerre” (p. 561).
As the cortege descends the mountain, it takes on a rhythm
which itself suggests an affinity between the suffering of humanity
and the eternal, cyclical movement of nature: “Et ce rythme accordé à
la douleur sur un si long chemin semblait emplir la gorge immense où
criaient là-haut les derniers oiseaux, comme l’eût emplie le battement
solennel des tambours d’une marche funèbre” (p. 559). In the descent
from the mountain, Malraux’s aviators appear to Magnin to share in
nature’s eternal rhythm not through a transcendental relationship with
the natural world itself, but through the recognition of what binds
them to the people: the shared suffering reflected in a people engaged
in an age-old struggle with the earth and thereby bound up in its eternal rhythm.
Similarly, the descent from the mountain in Sierra de Teruel,
which virtually mirrors that of Malraux’s Spanish Civil War novel,
seems to replace the characters within a continuum of eternal human
suffering. This is suggested here by the visual parallels between the
descent from the mountain and the descent of Jesus from the cross in
___________________________
14 See Martin Hurcombe, “The Ideology of the Early Twentieth-Century Novel as a
False Ending” in Dialogues 2: Endings (Exeter: Elm Bank, 1999), ed. by Ann Amherst and Katherine Astbury, pp. 67-75.
256
amidst “l’indifférence géologique” (p. 549), feeding off the ring of
apples rotting at its roots, suggests both the world’s indifference to
human activities and its natural permanence in contrast to humanity’s
fragility.
Magnin’s encounter with the local peasants reveals them to be
“sans époque” (p. 560), however, possessing a timelessness that results from the struggle with this inhospitable environment. The description of the wounded then suggests a parallel between the
seemingly eternal suffering of the Spanish people, suggested earlier in
the novel through a series of biblical allusions likening their misery to
that endured during the Exodus, and that now endured by Magnin’s
aviators.
14 The wounded thus remind Magnin of “des gravures de
vieux supplices […]” (p. 500), while Gardet’s disfigured face suggests
“une Présentation du combat” (p. 554). This recognition of the eternity
of suffering is echoed in the peasants’ recognition in Gardet of
“l’image même que, depuis des siècles, les paysans se faisaient de la
guerre” (p. 561).
As the cortege descends the mountain, it takes on a rhythm
which itself suggests an affinity between the suffering of humanity
and the eternal, cyclical movement of nature: “Et ce rythme accordé à
la douleur sur un si long chemin semblait emplir la gorge immense où
criaient là-haut les derniers oiseaux, comme l’eût emplie le battement
solennel des tambours d’une marche funèbre” (p. 559). In the descent
from the mountain, Malraux’s aviators appear to Magnin to share in
nature’s eternal rhythm not through a transcendental relationship with
the natural world itself, but through the recognition of what binds
them to the people: the shared suffering reflected in a people engaged
in an age-old struggle with the earth and thereby bound up in its eternal rhythm.
Similarly, the descent from the mountain in Sierra de Teruel,
which virtually mirrors that of Malraux’s Spanish Civil War novel,
seems to replace the characters within a continuum of eternal human
suffering. This is suggested here by the visual parallels between the
descent from the mountain and the descent of Jesus from the cross in
___________________________
14 See Martin Hurcombe, “The Ideology of the Early Twentieth-Century Novel as a
False Ending” in Dialogues 2: Endings (Exeter: Elm Bank, 1999), ed. by Ann Amherst and Katherine Astbury, pp. 67-75.