Martin Hurcombe
258
In this way, the return to earth enables Malraux’s heroes to
discover the human community. More importantly perhaps, it allows
them to gain a sense of their place in the world, not as individuals cast
forever against the world as horizon, to return to Bakhtin’s terminology, but as part of an encompassing environment where the present is
experienced in relation to a past rather than purely in terms of a project to be completed. The Spanish people in Malraux’s Spanish Civil
War works therefore possess a temporal depth that results from their
engagement with the natural world, but this temporal depth and the
awareness of the resulting human permanence derive from the aviator’s experience and perception. It is he who has encountered the force
of the cosmos, Kassner in Le Temps du mépris and Magnin in
L’Espoir, who is then able to bestow a sense of permanence on the
human community in his subsequent encounters with the earth. In this,
and as Raymond argues, Malraux’s aviators are promethean, engaged
in an act of revolt on behalf of humanity.
19
The Experience of the Second World War
The anti-fascist novels adumbrate a new conception of time and space
in Malraux’s work. Here, the political activities of Malraux’s characters begin to be understood within the framework of a constant human
struggle that traverses time and is not simply the result of an immediate set of politically determined circumstances. As such, they are understood, through parallels to other cultural representations of human
suffering, as aesthetic as well as political events. They are equally
possessed by a rhythm that is born of the fraternal struggle for human
permanence. For Bakhtin, rhythm is primarily perceived in the other,
“a form of relating to the other [rather than] a form of relating to myself […]” (p. 120). Yet, the individual experiences rhythm by participating in the rhythm of “a communal mode of existence […]” (pp.
120-21). Rhythm therefore integrates the future-orientated activities of
the individual into a broader context, translating these from the plane
of the horizon to that of the encompassing environment. In the resulting reconfiguration of time and space, a solution is offered to those of
Malraux’s heroes previously prone to experiencing what Paul Ricœur
___________________________
19 Raymond, André Malraux: Politics and the Temptation of Myth, p. 182.
258
In this way, the return to earth enables Malraux’s heroes to
discover the human community. More importantly perhaps, it allows
them to gain a sense of their place in the world, not as individuals cast
forever against the world as horizon, to return to Bakhtin’s terminology, but as part of an encompassing environment where the present is
experienced in relation to a past rather than purely in terms of a project to be completed. The Spanish people in Malraux’s Spanish Civil
War works therefore possess a temporal depth that results from their
engagement with the natural world, but this temporal depth and the
awareness of the resulting human permanence derive from the aviator’s experience and perception. It is he who has encountered the force
of the cosmos, Kassner in Le Temps du mépris and Magnin in
L’Espoir, who is then able to bestow a sense of permanence on the
human community in his subsequent encounters with the earth. In this,
and as Raymond argues, Malraux’s aviators are promethean, engaged
in an act of revolt on behalf of humanity.
19
The Experience of the Second World War
The anti-fascist novels adumbrate a new conception of time and space
in Malraux’s work. Here, the political activities of Malraux’s characters begin to be understood within the framework of a constant human
struggle that traverses time and is not simply the result of an immediate set of politically determined circumstances. As such, they are understood, through parallels to other cultural representations of human
suffering, as aesthetic as well as political events. They are equally
possessed by a rhythm that is born of the fraternal struggle for human
permanence. For Bakhtin, rhythm is primarily perceived in the other,
“a form of relating to the other [rather than] a form of relating to myself […]” (p. 120). Yet, the individual experiences rhythm by participating in the rhythm of “a communal mode of existence […]” (pp.
120-21). Rhythm therefore integrates the future-orientated activities of
the individual into a broader context, translating these from the plane
of the horizon to that of the encompassing environment. In the resulting reconfiguration of time and space, a solution is offered to those of
Malraux’s heroes previously prone to experiencing what Paul Ricœur
___________________________
19 Raymond, André Malraux: Politics and the Temptation of Myth, p. 182.