4 ms·

Romain Gary: The Greatest Literary Conman?

29 points by samclemens 8y ago

simulate 8y ago
Adam Gopnik wrote about Romain Gary in the New Yorker six months ago. Gopnik's article is a nice companion piece to this one: The Made-Up Man https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-made-up-man https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-made-up-ma... The writer Romain Gary was an inveterate fabulist. But his work is sustained by an authentic moral vision.
- frandroid 8y ago
  > The writer Romain Gary was an inveterate fabulist. So he was writing up his life as well. :)
deleted 8y ago
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idoubtit 8y ago
> In the past decade, his reputation has shown signs of renewed vigour. I haven't seen anything like this "renewed vigour" in France. There was a TV documentary and an exposition in Paris for the 30th anniversary of its death in 2010, but even that went quite unnoticed. Romain Gary is still known today mostly for his trickery as Émile Ajar, and because some of its books are sometimes studied in school. For the first time this year, I met someone who placed Romain Gary in his personal Pantheon. But I suspect his fan base is very small, unlike contemporaneous authors like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who also had a heroic life) or Boris Vian (who also published under pseudonyms). When I read "La vie devant soi" (The Life Before Us) as a late teenager, I thought it was a good but not great book, with lovable characters. A bit too lovable maybe, because it felt too nice and too sympathetic on all these marginal characters with a lack of anything deeper. But I think much worse of the three Romain Gary novels I've read since then. I feel he's always trying to be smart, to impress the reader. He can write a touching scene and break it for a witty word. > In fact, when he was living in LA, he wrote in English, rebelling against slyly anti-Semitic criticism that he used the French language improperly. I've never read anything about this, I'd be interested in the source. Romain Gary wrote "Lady L." in English in 1958, but he soon translated it himself to French, so I fail to see any kind of rebellion against the French language in this. The text isn't clear on who thought these criticisms were "slyly anti-Semitic". R.G. did arrive in France at 14, so any language mistake on his part would be logically related to this personal past more than his family religion. Moreover, I can't imagine any prominent criticism with anti-semitic subtitle in the late 50s in France.
- sbergot 8y ago
  I don't know. Some of my friends are die hard fans. I really liked la vie devant soi and adieu Gary Cooper.
- nbabitskiy 8y ago
  Gary was superfluous and needlessly impressive, he owned it, confessed it, and wrote its marvelous onthogenesis (la promesse de l'aube), it seems strange to blame him for the lack of depth - it's his point. Also, could you please advise me some deep french novels, written after WWII? I've read and loved plenty of Camus and l'ecume des jours, but can't stand stalinists, so wouldn't touch Gide, Sartre etc.
  - idoubtit 8y ago
    Gide was communist for about 5 years, and when he discovered what life in the USSR really was, he wrote a pamphlet that caused him many troubles with his former friends. Anyway, I recommend "Les faux-monnayeurs" if you can forget Gide's personal flaws. One last word on Gary: he did try to add depth to some of its novels. In "Clair de femmes", he portrays people living after the death of their loved ones. A few times, I felt empathy for the characters, but more than often the writer added some kind of witty "special effects" that completely broke the mood. Now for the advice for deep French novels: - Marguerite Yourcenar, "Les mémoires d'Hadrien", "L'œuvre au noir" - Vercors, "Les animaux dénaturés" - Julien Gracq, "Le rivage des Syrtes" (only if you enjoy reading sophisticated French) - Drieu La rochelle, "Gilles" (if you can disregard the author's political views) - Robe-Grillet, "La jalousie" - Joseph Kessel, "Les cavaliers" - Tournier, "Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique" - Roger Martin du Gard, "Jean Barois" (a little known novel showing the intellectual life in France at the beginning of the 20th century), "Les Thibault" (if you like long saga and can stand a character that became engrossed with the ideal of socialism) (I know I'm cheating with the request, this was written before WWII). This is of course a very personal choice, and I did not list famous authors I haven't enjoyed, like M. Duras or G. Perec.
    - nbabitskiy 8y ago
      Thank you very much, that's way more than I hoped for! To clarify, I don't necceserily hate communists, I can't stand apology of cannibalism even allegedly repented.
asimeqi 8y ago
On the subject of forgotten authors, during the eighties I read most of A.J.Cronin's books. He was one of my preferred authors. He was very famous when he was alive but now it seems he is almost entirely forgotten. Are there other people in this forum who read his books?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

29 points by samclemens 8y ago

Adam Gopnik wrote about Romain Gary in the New Yorker six months ago. Gopnik's article is a nice companion piece to this one: The Made-Up Man https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-made-up-man https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-made-up-ma... The writer Romain Gary was an inveterate fabulist. But his work is sustained by an authentic moral vision.

frandroid 8y ago
> The writer Romain Gary was an inveterate fabulist. So he was writing up his life as well. :)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

idoubtit 8y ago

> In the past decade, his reputation has shown signs of renewed vigour. I haven't seen anything like this "renewed vigour" in France. There was a TV documentary and an exposition in Paris for the 30th anniversary of its death in 2010, but even that went quite unnoticed. Romain Gary is still known today mostly for his trickery as Émile Ajar, and because some of its books are sometimes studied in school. For the first time this year, I met someone who placed Romain Gary in his personal Pantheon. But I suspect his fan base is very small, unlike contemporaneous authors like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who also had a heroic life) or Boris Vian (who also published under pseudonyms). When I read "La vie devant soi" (The Life Before Us) as a late teenager, I thought it was a good but not great book, with lovable characters. A bit too lovable maybe, because it felt too nice and too sympathetic on all these marginal characters with a lack of anything deeper. But I think much worse of the three Romain Gary novels I've read since then. I feel he's always trying to be smart, to impress the reader. He can write a touching scene and break it for a witty word. > In fact, when he was living in LA, he wrote in English, rebelling against slyly anti-Semitic criticism that he used the French language improperly. I've never read anything about this, I'd be interested in the source. Romain Gary wrote "Lady L." in English in 1958, but he soon translated it himself to French, so I fail to see any kind of rebellion against the French language in this. The text isn't clear on who thought these criticisms were "slyly anti-Semitic". R.G. did arrive in France at 14, so any language mistake on his part would be logically related to this personal past more than his family religion. Moreover, I can't imagine any prominent criticism with anti-semitic subtitle in the late 50s in France.

sbergot 8y ago
I don't know. Some of my friends are die hard fans. I really liked la vie devant soi and adieu Gary Cooper.
nbabitskiy 8y ago
Gary was superfluous and needlessly impressive, he owned it, confessed it, and wrote its marvelous onthogenesis (la promesse de l'aube), it seems strange to blame him for the lack of depth - it's his point. Also, could you please advise me some deep french novels, written after WWII? I've read and loved plenty of Camus and l'ecume des jours, but can't stand stalinists, so wouldn't touch Gide, Sartre etc.
- idoubtit 8y ago
  Gide was communist for about 5 years, and when he discovered what life in the USSR really was, he wrote a pamphlet that caused him many troubles with his former friends. Anyway, I recommend "Les faux-monnayeurs" if you can forget Gide's personal flaws. One last word on Gary: he did try to add depth to some of its novels. In "Clair de femmes", he portrays people living after the death of their loved ones. A few times, I felt empathy for the characters, but more than often the writer added some kind of witty "special effects" that completely broke the mood. Now for the advice for deep French novels: - Marguerite Yourcenar, "Les mémoires d'Hadrien", "L'œuvre au noir" - Vercors, "Les animaux dénaturés" - Julien Gracq, "Le rivage des Syrtes" (only if you enjoy reading sophisticated French) - Drieu La rochelle, "Gilles" (if you can disregard the author's political views) - Robe-Grillet, "La jalousie" - Joseph Kessel, "Les cavaliers" - Tournier, "Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique" - Roger Martin du Gard, "Jean Barois" (a little known novel showing the intellectual life in France at the beginning of the 20th century), "Les Thibault" (if you like long saga and can stand a character that became engrossed with the ideal of socialism) (I know I'm cheating with the request, this was written before WWII). This is of course a very personal choice, and I did not list famous authors I haven't enjoyed, like M. Duras or G. Perec.
  - nbabitskiy 8y ago
    Thank you very much, that's way more than I hoped for! To clarify, I don't necceserily hate communists, I can't stand apology of cannibalism even allegedly repented.

asimeqi 8y ago

On the subject of forgotten authors, during the eighties I read most of A.J.Cronin's books. He was one of my preferred authors. He was very famous when he was alive but now it seems he is almost entirely forgotten. Are there other people in this forum who read his books?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]