Customer Reviews

Chaos and Night (New York Review Books Classics)

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I don't know how this book ended up on my reading list, but there it was and the text was short, so I thought I'd take the plunge. And I'm glad I did. Besides being an engaging character study (the entire time you are reading this you are wondering whether this guy was truly a revolutionary or someone who is merely manufacturing his past), the ending was simply ... well ... magnificently executed. Read it.

As of this writing, there is only one other reader's review of Montherlant's _Chaos and Night_. Dear reader, if you're tired of mediocre novels just off the press by so-called living authors who have sold out or cut back on their ambition--and there seem to be many--you better try this novel. Yes, "back to the classics" will be my cry.

You might have read the basic plot outlines, namely, that an aging Spaniard named Celestino Marcilla has been living in exile in Paris for over twenty years because he was on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War against General Franco and his Fascists; his sister dies in Madrid and Celestino goes back to settle the estate. The "action" of the novel takes place inside Celestino's troubled head--but what a mind! Celestino is tortured by his role in the civil war, the decisions he made--an understandable dilemma--and then he's like a spoiled brat old man; he can't stand the French he's been living among, but doesn't like his fellow Spaniards, and he even has the ingratitude to fall out with his devoted young daughter, Pascualita, as well as tell his best friends, Ruiz and Pineda to f---off. But wait, there's more. . . . .

On the train to Madrid, to settle his sister's estate, Montherlant brings Celestino to a feverish pitch--fear of arrest and imprisonment are real since Franco is still in power--but Celestino is consumed by another fear, that his beloved bullfighting ritual will have been diluted my commercialism. Yes, this old war veteran is an aficionado, and his high-minded perfectionism is easily recognized as a spiritual necessity. As crotchety and irritating as the aging Spaniard is, every step of the way in this novel, Montherlant weaves in hints of Celestino's humanity. Yes, this is a novel about weakness and strength--about all of us--as Celestino realizes he is dying and must say goodbye to everything that he has ever loved: life itself.

There are some great lines: Celestino: "Newspapers are more important than machine-guns provided there is no freedom of the Press," and "I can't write my book because I have too many ideas." Ruiz, his fellow exile: "If you had a job, you wouldn't have time to have ideas. I work, which is why I have no more ideas than are strictly necessary."

For those of us unfortunate enough not to read the original French, we've got Terence Kilmartin's translation, which seems impossible to improve upon. I've never regretted not reading Don Quixote--until now, since old Celestino is a bit quixotic himself.

Some years ago I read Montherlants' THE GIRLS.I remember thinking, it's good but not especially compelling . It proved to be a book that didn't stick with me. I decided to read CHAOS and NIGHT largely because the Spanish Civil War interests me and I was curious to see what kind of spin an old reactionary like Montherlant would give it.

The book centers around Celestino, a Loyalist veteran and refugee who lives in France.Now there was a time when such people were deemed heroes by the Left and I assume this was so in France. When the book came out in 1960 French literary culture was a left wing province and you'd expect a portrait of a Spanish Republican veteran to be downright reverential. But then you wouldn't be reading a book by Montherlant.I wondered what he'd do to such character. It's not a pretty sight! While Montherlant was fascinated by Spain, he clearly wasn't bowled over by the mythos of the Loyalists.Celestino is a bourgeois pseudo - anarchist and if you are one of those who has trouble reading a book with unlikeable characters, avoid this like the plague .I'm not bothered by unlikeable characters. However I did find Celestino grating.He is not merely unlikeable , he is a complete jerk.Shallow, not particularly well informed or well educated, utterly tone deaf to cultural matters and grossly insensitive ,Celestino imagines he is a deep thinker .He spends his days writing articles that can't get published and that no one wants to read.A talentless bore like Celestino does well to be very nice , instead he goes out of his way to alienate everyone he knows. Worse yet, in doing so he imagines that he is exuding nobility.Periodically he reflects on his civil war past, and Montherlant drops a number of hints to the effect that Celestino was a vicious political killer during the war.Unsurprisingly these reflections don't perturb Celestino.

There is a profoundity to the portrait Montherlant gives us.Celestino is exactly the kind of person who becomes a political executioner.Crackpot ideas and abstractions have always been more real for him than the concrete.He tries to ignore the material world in favor of dwelling in an abstract world where he knows the truth and if he has to kill to attain it , so be it.There is a grim humor to this.That is, Celestino is so intellectually muddled he has no idea what his great truth is.He admits he doesn't understand Marxism .He realizes he's not really an anarchist.He actually hates the people he is so dedicated to delivering to the promised land.What he likes , and he is conscious of this , is destroying things.