Customer Reviews

Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, brilliantly translated, is a treasure of treasures. Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities," from an ironic, intellectual and dispassionate viewpoint, called into question a broad range of our unconscious conventional assumptions about society and reality. "Remembrance of Things Past" brought personal experience under the lens of Marcel Proust's delicate and evocative aesthetic microscope--again, from the point of view of a detached observer. Roger Martin du Gard, using Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort as his vehicle, is the ultimate participant in life and his examinations and judgments of his actions are honest and unsparing. Reading "Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort", narrated with elegance and sobriety, was for me a cataclysmic, relentless and successful assault on many of the complacent assumptions about my "sense of self". The fortitude required of the reader to remain open to Maumort's(du Gard's) courageous exploration of the totality of his own life is repaid many times over. This is not a novel in any conventional sense. It is an experience.

A great book. This engrossing fictional memoir spans the time from the idyll of rural France in the late nineteenth century to the brilliant salons of fin-de-siecle Paris to the horrors of two world wars, probably the greatest period of change in the history of mankind. The witness to this epoch and to his own internal and external development is the narrator, Lt.-Col. de Maumort. He has the best opportunities and teachers his era can offer, and he strives to evolve and to follow his conscience in a world in which conscience matters little. (The exploration of the step-by-step justification of fascism provided to Maumort by occupying Nazi officers, also men of education and cultivation, is a novel in itself, and unlike any other representation of the subject of how seemingly decent people rationalize evil). The story has a wonderful momentum. Unlike most memoirs, fictional and otherwise, which tend always to be self-serving, this one returns again and again to the truth, baring all of the failures, self-betrayals, and contradictions of a life. No wonder Martin du Gard didn't want this to appear in his lifetime. Though the book on the surface appears to be the recollections of a military man walled up in his library while German soldiers occupy his estate in northern France, in fact it's a universal testament about what it is to be human--the best of contemporary fiction, in which every moment comes alive. The translation is superb--far more accurate, literary, and sensitive than the sometimes muddled one of the new Modern Library edition of "The Charterhouse of Parma." This is a book to treasure and reread. The "Black Box" section at the end is an extraodinary bonus: the author, a man apparently very like Maumort, in dialogue with himself through a series of memorable apercus.

Timothy Crouse has always had an eye for the telling story that's right under everyone's nose, but which most everyone else misses. His book "The Boys on the Bus" was the first not only to notice the enormous power of the press in a presidential campaign but also candidly to describe its operations.

His journalism over the years has been marked by a stubborn willingness to describe contradictions and unfairness, bringing a clear Orwellian eye to an examination of the social and political conventions by which we live and would just as soon forget. Yet he has always been among the most entertaining and fluent of writers, successfully tackling many genres.

His update of the libretto to Cole Porter's musical "Anything Goes" matched that 1920s show with the madcap spirit of the `80s, and ran for years in New York.

When, lately, the word trickled out that for his latest project Crouse was engaged in translating a massive, 60 year old French novel, by an obscure (to Americans) Nobel Prize winner that dealt in detail with French life in the 19th century, readers wondered what was with this chronicler of our own times and spirit.

Trust Crouse, however, to find the contemporary in what everyone else thought of as antique. The book, "Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort" (Knopf), written by Roger Martin Du Gard, is now out in a fluent, companionable translation done jointly by Crouse, and his collaborator, Luc Brebion Ph.D.

Brebion himself is a distinguished, Berkeley-based, writer, translator and lecturer on aesthetics

As an example of the translators' art, Brebion and Crouse have produced a model. The text flows easily and persuasively; the notes are few and unobtrusive; the narrative voice is candid and companionable. In age when most writers are writing books designed to be read in 10 minute spurts, Brebion and Crouse offer a text that inveigles the reader into a richer, more rewarding reading experience. The ten minutes you have before bed for reading, quickly becomes with "Maumort" thirty, thirty minutes become forty-five.

Ostensibly the memoir, written as the Nazis invade France in 1940, by a retired French officer of his life in the previous 80 years, "Maumort" is a surprisingly frank and insightful account of social, family, political, intellectual, and sexual manners.

It may indeed have been too frank - the author, Martin du Gard, who died in 1958 before he could finish the work, had, at any rate, ordered its publication to be posthumous.

One of the most modern portraits is of a single woman, who adopts a child, only to be disappointed when the adopted child fails to prove to be brilliant. The consequences are horrible as the mother withdraws from the adopted daughter. As Martin duGard writes, "In fact, she was not satisfied with loving the girl, she wanted to be proud of her as well, wanted her affection to be, as it were, justified by the child's exceptional qualities." This novella, "The Story of Henriette," sounds an eerie current note as one listens to contemporary parents measure their children's worth primarily in terms of schools, and tests.

Written with enormous sympathy for the plight of each of its characters, "Maumort" nonetheless posits that much human behavior is situational, not innate. As Americans, these days, feel more and more that they are born into tribes, some may find this view controversial, others, objecting to the reduction of personality to traits, may find it welcome. It is an insanely contemporary discussion.

Martin du Gard's detailed portraits of marriages will leave readers' jaws agape as they see themselves in the lives of these early 20th century Parisian couples.

And as baby-boomers find themselves in small families, wondering about old age, Martin du Gard's assessment of the failures and strong points of large families, and on the emotional life of the aging, is vivid and apposite.

"Maumort" is one of the first novels in which there is a serious, modern treatment of gay themes. A subsection of the novel, entitled "The Drowning", an account of a tragic obsession between a schoolteacher-soldier and a baker's apprentice, rivals Melville's "Billy Budd" as a depiction of the high cost that is paid when societal strictures cross passion, drowning not only happiness, but also courage.

Not the least of the book's valuables, is the vocabulary Martin du Gard - and here the translation work of Brebion and Crouse is at its most pellucid - gives to the evanescent moments when a relationship shifts and suddenly redefines itself.

Although Martin du Gard was unable to finish his portraits of French military leaders, his panorama of Parisian intellectual life is rich. Again, while these portraits are rooted in a long gone age, they are of more than antiquarian interest: Here is the academic who, beguiled by the media scene, never writes anything important. Here is the blustering ideologue who has nothing to say, but says it about everything. There, the trust-fund baby, rendered impotent by an addiction to comfort, who nonetheless considers himself part of the great world of affairs.

His sketches of French military and political leaders also resonate deeply. As I read them, I found myself thinking, "that's as apt a description of Bill Clinton [or George W. Bush, or Al Gore, or Bill Bennett, say] as I've ever read.

So Brebion and Crouse have pulled from history, a novel valuable not only for its description of olden days, but primarily for its uncanny, and needed, articulation of the people, mores, and manners of our own day.

Part and parcel of the book is a section containing Martin du Gard's notes and files. These "Black Box files" offer a fascinating insight into an author struggling with, and conquering, problems of narrative. A boon for writers.

This has just become one of my top ten books of all time. I've always loved the Thibaults saga by the same author, Roger Martin du Gard, but with this one, his last effort, he actually outdid himself. Terrific stories, one after the other. Characters so lifelike and complex that you can't believe they are fictional creations. And an absolute jewel right in the middle - a novel-within-the-novel called "The Drowning": one of the most gripping tales I've ever read anywhere, crafted by a past master of human psychology. This section alone is more than worth the price of admission!

I was hooked early in this amazingly ambitious novel by a lovely metaphor where the narrator Maumort compares the way our early memories follow one another to the fish that came each morning out of the lake on lines that he and his sister had set the evening before. Yet memory is only part of the story, as Maumort, a career army officer, is also in thrall to matters abstract, in love with ideas, theories, analysis--all that intellectualising that we Americans love to have the French do for us. However all that cerebration also serves du Gard in developing his characterisation of the Lt Colonel himself, a man determined to understand himself and his society. That such an ambitious story reads so fluidly and fluently is a testimony to both du Gard's and his two translators' splendid prose. Midway in the novel is is a cinematically rendered and unsparing account of a tragic seduction that utterly establishes du Gard's gifts as a novelist, and which by itself might justify the entire novel, were there not so much more here: the marvellously canny portraits of character after character who Maumort encountered in his life, the unflinching account of human sexuality (especially early male sexual experience), the lavishly detailed picture of French society, and as already mentioned, no shortage of food for thought. All this capped by a poignant and powerful moment of dark paralysis towards the close, as the aged Colonel, having just reclaimed his beloved rural estate from its Nazi occupiers, takes one last look back at a relentlessly examined life.

An incredible book. The final section, called "The Black Box", could have been published in its own right. It is chock full of short essays about the most fascinting topics, amazingly relevant to our times.

Timothy Crouse has always had an eye for the telling story that's right under everyone's nose, but which most everyone else misses. His book "The Boys on the Bus" was the first not only to notice the enormous power of the press in a presidential campaign but also candidly to describe its operations. His journalism over the years has been marked by a stubborn willingness to describe contradictions and unfairness, bringing a clear Orwellian eye to an examination of the social and political conventions by which we live and would just as soon forget. Yet he has always been among the most entertaining and fluent of writers, successfully tackling many genres.

His update of the libretto to Cole Porter's musical "Anything Goes" matched that 1920s show with the madcap spirit of the `80s, and ran for years in New York.

But when, lately, the word trickled out that for his latest project Crouse was engaged in translating a massive, 60 year old French novel, by an obscure (to Americans) Nobel Prize winner that dealt in detail with French life in the 19th century, readers wondered what was with this chronicler of our own times and spirit.

Trust Crouse, though, to find the contemporary in what everyone else thought of as antique. The book, "Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort" (Knopf), written by Roger Martin Du Gard, is now out in a fluent, companionable translation done jointly by Crouse, and his collaborator, Luc Brebion Ph.D.

Brebion himself is a distinguished, Berkeley-based, writer, translator and lecturer on aesthetics.

As an example of the translators' art, Brebion and Crouse have produced a model. The text flows easily and persuasively; the notes are few and unobtrusive; the narrative voice is candid and companionable. In age when most writers are writing books designed to be read in 10 minute spurts, Brebion and Crouse offer a text that inveigles the reader into a richer, more rewarding reading experience. The ten minutes you have before bed for reading, quickly becomes with "Maumort" thirty, thirty minutes become forty-five.

Ostensibly the memoir, written as the Nazis invade France in 1940, by a retired French officer of his life in the previous 80 years, "Maumort" is a surprisingly frank and insightful account of social, family, political, intellectual, and sexual manners.

It may indeed have been too frank - the author, Martin du Gard, who died in 1958 before he could finish the work, had, at any rate, ordered its publication to be posthumous.

One of the most modern portraits is of a single woman, who adopts a child, only to be disappointed when the adopted child fails to prove to be brilliant. The consequences are horrible as the mother withdraws from the adopted daughter. As Martin duGard writes, "In fact, she was not satisfied with loving the girl, she wanted to be proud of her as well, wanted her affection to be, as it were, justified by the child's exceptional qualities."

This segment, "The Story of Henriette," sounds an eerie current note as one listens to contemporary parents measure their children's worth only in terms of schools, and tests.

Written with enormous sympathy for the plights of all its characters, "Maumort" nonetheless posits that much human behavior is situational, not innate. As Americans, these days, feel more and more that they are born into tribes, some may find this view controversial, others, objecting to the reduction of personality to traits, may find it welcome. It is an insanely contemporary discussion.

Martin du Gard's detailed portraits of marriages will leave readers' jaws agape as they see themselves in the lives of these early 20th century Parisian couples.

And as baby-boomers find themselves in small families, wondering about old age, Martin du Gard's assessment of the failures and strong points of large families, and on the emotional life of the aging, is vivid and timely.

"Maumort" is one of the first novels in which there is a serious, modern treatment of gay themes. A subsection of the novel, entitled "The Drowning", an account of a tragic obsession between a schoolteacher-soldier and a baker's apprentice, rivals Melville's "Billy Budd" as a depiction of the high cost that is paid when societal strictures cross passion, drowning not only happiness, but also courage.

Not the least of the book's valuables, is the vocabulary Martin du Gard - and here the translation work of Brebion and Crouse is at its most pellucid - gives to the evanescent moments when a relationship shifts and suddenly redefines itself.

Although Martin du Gard was unable to finish his portraits of French military leaders, his panorama of Parisian intellectual life is rich. Again, while these portraits are rooted in a long gone age, they are of more than antiquarian interest: Here is the academic who, beguiled by the media scene, never writes anything important. Here is the blustering ideologue who has nothing to say, but says it about everything. There, the trust-fund baby, rendered impotent by an addiction to comfort, who nonetheless considers himself part of the great world of affairs.

His sketches of French military and political leaders also resonate deeply. As I read them, I found myself thinking, "that's the best description of Bill Clinton [or George W. Bush, or Al Gore, or Bill Bennett, say] I've ever read.

So Brebion and Crouse have pulled from history, a novel valuable not only for its description of olden days, but primarily for its uncanny, and needed, articulation of the people, mores, and manners of our own day.

Part and parcel of the book is a section containing Martin du Gard's notes and files. These "Black Box files" offer a fascinating insight into an author struggling with, and conquering, problems of narrative. A boon for writers.

Some people like short books, others like them long - I like them great. I read this book in every spare moment I had for two weeks. I've finished it, and now I am bereft. Reading it, I felt so known, so human, so accompanied. I want the honesty and clarity of this book in my life.

I took "Lt Colonel de Maumort" on a cruise in 2006. I started reading the book on the flight out and was virtually in awe of what I was reading. The discription of his youth and his relationship with his father was very impressive. When it came time to start the cruise, I put on my seasick patch that kept me from getting seasick but also dulled my mind enough that this book suddenly became "over my head". After I had switched to a less intensive series of books, I returned to Lt.Col de Maumort and read it one chapter at a time. I liked it better that way for some reason. Maybe it was because it is so intense a style and depth of writing that I preferred savoring it. When I came to the end of the book, I planned on reading the 130 or so pages of letters and files that comprised, I believe, the further notes on the outline of this posthumously editted and published work. I still haven't gotten to that part but I'm sure I shall some day. This is the fourth book by Roger Martin du Gard that I have read and all, with the exception of the short novel "The Postman", seemed to be very deep. I am always on the look out for more of his work translated into English. I have read a book entitled "The Thibaults" but I get the impression that it was just one vollume of a larger worker under the same name. I would appreciate any information that might clarify that for me. In the meantime I would rate "Maumort" as the best of his works that I have read. The book bogs down a bit about halfway through with a prolonged incident that didn't, in my opinion, add much to the book.

As I understand it, du Gard left a partially completed novel that was completed largely on the notes he left behind. I an many others are grateful for the effort. Often it is an author's lessor works that appear after their death (probably because the author might not have thought that particular book was worthy of publication). However, in the case of Roger Martin du Gard, it is just the opposite.

I stopped reading Colonel Maumort at the halfway point. So good, I'm saving it for vacation. Same feeling I had when I read Tolstoy.