Martin Hurcombe
262
between the nation and its destiny, since he is “un personnage hanté,
dont ce destin qu’il devait découvrir et affirmer emplissait l’esprit.
Chez un religieux: la personne, le sacerdoce, la transcendance” (p.
135). Malraux’s Antimémoires therefore suggests that his adoption of
the politics of Gaullist nationalism derives from a movement that is already discernible, ironically, in those works most closely associated
with the politics of the French left. The substitution of the national
community for the fraternal revolutionary community is predicated
upon a need shared by Malraux’s characters and by Malraux the essayist and politician for a sense of human permanence in a world that
would deny this.
The nation therefore supplies Malraux with another example
of a human environment that, through its struggle for meaning in a
world inherently devoid of this, gains a sense of its own permanence
and becomes attuned to cosmic time. The latter, as Malraux writes in
Antimémoires, whilst bound in a constant cycle, is not immune to
change. In this way, he distinguishes eternity from cosmic time. The
latter is: “ce temps animé par la naissance, la vie et la mort de ses
cycles, [qui] entre dans une dialectique sans fin avec l’essence du
monde, qui ne renaîtra point semblable à ce qu’elle est – malgré
l’inéluctable retour à son origine éternelle” (p. 267). The nation derives its strength from its past, but will change with time whilst remaining true to itself; a key tenet of Gaullist thought that allowed for
the modernization of France and the defence of national hegemony
throughout some of the coldest years of the Cold War.
For Malraux, the nation is not an organic, natural entity, as it
was for Maurice Barrès, for example; there is no human integration
into the natural order. As much as they may echo nature’s permanence, Malraux’s communities, like the Spanish peasants at the end of
Sierra de Teruel, stand apart from the natural world whilst remaining
attuned to it. The reconfiguration of time and space through the discovery of permanence in humanity’s eternal struggle with the natural
world, and which follows the return to earth, allows for the creation of
what might be termed a second nature: a world mirroring cosmic time,
but essentially a human creation in a meaningless universe. The contingency of human existence in relation to the natural world therefore
remains a constant throughout the works discussed here. While the
chronotopic tension observed in the Asiatic novels is eased by Malraux’s reconfiguration of time and space, it is never entirely eradi-
262
between the nation and its destiny, since he is “un personnage hanté,
dont ce destin qu’il devait découvrir et affirmer emplissait l’esprit.
Chez un religieux: la personne, le sacerdoce, la transcendance” (p.
135). Malraux’s Antimémoires therefore suggests that his adoption of
the politics of Gaullist nationalism derives from a movement that is already discernible, ironically, in those works most closely associated
with the politics of the French left. The substitution of the national
community for the fraternal revolutionary community is predicated
upon a need shared by Malraux’s characters and by Malraux the essayist and politician for a sense of human permanence in a world that
would deny this.
The nation therefore supplies Malraux with another example
of a human environment that, through its struggle for meaning in a
world inherently devoid of this, gains a sense of its own permanence
and becomes attuned to cosmic time. The latter, as Malraux writes in
Antimémoires, whilst bound in a constant cycle, is not immune to
change. In this way, he distinguishes eternity from cosmic time. The
latter is: “ce temps animé par la naissance, la vie et la mort de ses
cycles, [qui] entre dans une dialectique sans fin avec l’essence du
monde, qui ne renaîtra point semblable à ce qu’elle est – malgré
l’inéluctable retour à son origine éternelle” (p. 267). The nation derives its strength from its past, but will change with time whilst remaining true to itself; a key tenet of Gaullist thought that allowed for
the modernization of France and the defence of national hegemony
throughout some of the coldest years of the Cold War.
For Malraux, the nation is not an organic, natural entity, as it
was for Maurice Barrès, for example; there is no human integration
into the natural order. As much as they may echo nature’s permanence, Malraux’s communities, like the Spanish peasants at the end of
Sierra de Teruel, stand apart from the natural world whilst remaining
attuned to it. The reconfiguration of time and space through the discovery of permanence in humanity’s eternal struggle with the natural
world, and which follows the return to earth, allows for the creation of
what might be termed a second nature: a world mirroring cosmic time,
but essentially a human creation in a meaningless universe. The contingency of human existence in relation to the natural world therefore
remains a constant throughout the works discussed here. While the
chronotopic tension observed in the Asiatic novels is eased by Malraux’s reconfiguration of time and space, it is never entirely eradi-