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Le cycle Jacques Rigaut
The Fire Within
Adapted to film by both Louis Malle and Joachim Trier, this heart-rending and tenderly wrought novel narrates the decline of an artist and heroin addict in 1920s Paris.
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle might be said to be both the Hemingway and the Fitzgerald of twentieth-century French literature, a battle-scarred veteran of the First World War whose work chronicles the trials and tribulations of a lost generation, a man about town, a heartbreaker with a broken heart, a literary stylist whose work is as tough as it is lyrical and polished. Politically compomised as Drieu came to be by his affiliation with the fascist right and collaboration under Nazi occupation—Drieu committed suicide at the end of the war—his novels remain vivid reflections of a broken spiritual and political world of the interwar years and as works of art, and to this day they are widely read and greatly admired in France.
The Fire Within , which has been successfully adapted to the screen by Louis Malle and more recently Joachim Trier, is the lacerating tale of Alain Leroy, a war veteran and beautiful young man of whom the world is expected but who has taken refuge from the world in drugs. After being institutionalized, Alain emerges to try to put his life together again, but in spite of the attentions of friends and lovers, he struggles to find his way.
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle might be said to be both the Hemingway and the Fitzgerald of twentieth-century French literature, a battle-scarred veteran of the First World War whose work chronicles the trials and tribulations of a lost generation, a man about town, a heartbreaker with a broken heart, a literary stylist whose work is as tough as it is lyrical and polished. Politically compomised as Drieu came to be by his affiliation with the fascist right and collaboration under Nazi occupation—Drieu committed suicide at the end of the war—his novels remain vivid reflections of a broken spiritual and political world of the interwar years and as works of art, and to this day they are widely read and greatly admired in France.
The Fire Within , which has been successfully adapted to the screen by Louis Malle and more recently Joachim Trier, is the lacerating tale of Alain Leroy, a war veteran and beautiful young man of whom the world is expected but who has taken refuge from the world in drugs. After being institutionalized, Alain emerges to try to put his life together again, but in spite of the attentions of friends and lovers, he struggles to find his way.
144 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1931
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2143 people want to read
About the author
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle
84 books81 followersPierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle (3 January 1893 in Paris – 15 March 1945 in Paris) was a French writer of novels, short stories and political essays, who lived and died in Paris. He became a proponent of French fascism in the 1930s, and was a well-known collaborationist during the German occupation.
Drieu was born into a middle class, petit bourgeois family from Normandy, based in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. His father was a failed businessman and womanizer who married his mother for her dowry. Although a brilliant student, Pierre failed his final exam at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. Wounded three times, his experience as a soldier during World War I had a deep influence on him and marked him for the rest of his life.
In 1917, Drieu married Colette Jéramec, the sister of a Jewish friend. The marriage failed and they divorced in 1921. Sympathetic to Dada and to the Surrealists and the Communists, and a close friend of Louis Aragon in the 1920s, he was also interested in the royalist Action Française, but refused to adhere to any one of these political currents. He wrote Mesure de la France ("Measure of France") in 1922, which gave him some small notoriety, and edited several novels. In 1931 he published Le Feu Follet, probably his most famous novel, inspired by the suicide of his friend Jacques Rigaut. He later embraced fascism as a contraddictory and provocative way in response of what he perceived as a materialistic decadence of his era.
In Drieu's political writings, he argued that the parliamentary system (the gouvernement d'assemblée of the French Third Republic) was responsible for what he saw as the "decadence" of France (economic crisis, declining birth rates, etc.). In "Le Jeune Européen" ("European Youth", 1927) and "Genève ou Moscou" ("Geneva or Moscow", 1928), Drieu La Rochelle advocated a strong Europe and denounced the "decadent materialism" of democracy. He believed that a federal Europe could bolster a strong economic and political union isolated from the imperialist Russians and Americans; in 1939 he came to believe that only Nazi Germany could deliver such an autarkian promise. His pro-European views expressed in 1928 were soon followed by closer contacts with employers' organizations, among them Ernest Mercier's Redressement Français, and then, at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, with some currents of the Radical Party .
He supported collaborationism and the Nazis' occupation of northern France. During the occupation of Paris, Drieu succeeded Jean Paulhan (whom he saved twice from the hands of the Gestapo) as director of the Nouvelle Revue Française and thus became a leading figure of French cultural collaboration with the Nazi occupiers, who he hoped would become the leader of a "Fascist International". His friendship with the German ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz, pre-dated the war. He was also a member of the committee of the Groupe Collaboration. Beginning in 1943, however, he became disillusioned by the New Order and fascism, and turned instead to the study of Eastern spirituality. In a final, provocative act, he again embraced Jacques Doriot's PPF, simultaneously declaring in his secret diary his admiration for Stalinism.
Upon the liberation of Paris in 1944, Drieu had to go into hiding. Despite the protection of his friend André Malraux, and after a failed first attempt in July 1944, Drieu committed suicide.
Drieu was born into a middle class, petit bourgeois family from Normandy, based in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. His father was a failed businessman and womanizer who married his mother for her dowry. Although a brilliant student, Pierre failed his final exam at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. Wounded three times, his experience as a soldier during World War I had a deep influence on him and marked him for the rest of his life.
In 1917, Drieu married Colette Jéramec, the sister of a Jewish friend. The marriage failed and they divorced in 1921. Sympathetic to Dada and to the Surrealists and the Communists, and a close friend of Louis Aragon in the 1920s, he was also interested in the royalist Action Française, but refused to adhere to any one of these political currents. He wrote Mesure de la France ("Measure of France") in 1922, which gave him some small notoriety, and edited several novels. In 1931 he published Le Feu Follet, probably his most famous novel, inspired by the suicide of his friend Jacques Rigaut. He later embraced fascism as a contraddictory and provocative way in response of what he perceived as a materialistic decadence of his era.
In Drieu's political writings, he argued that the parliamentary system (the gouvernement d'assemblée of the French Third Republic) was responsible for what he saw as the "decadence" of France (economic crisis, declining birth rates, etc.). In "Le Jeune Européen" ("European Youth", 1927) and "Genève ou Moscou" ("Geneva or Moscow", 1928), Drieu La Rochelle advocated a strong Europe and denounced the "decadent materialism" of democracy. He believed that a federal Europe could bolster a strong economic and political union isolated from the imperialist Russians and Americans; in 1939 he came to believe that only Nazi Germany could deliver such an autarkian promise. His pro-European views expressed in 1928 were soon followed by closer contacts with employers' organizations, among them Ernest Mercier's Redressement Français, and then, at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, with some currents of the Radical Party .
He supported collaborationism and the Nazis' occupation of northern France. During the occupation of Paris, Drieu succeeded Jean Paulhan (whom he saved twice from the hands of the Gestapo) as director of the Nouvelle Revue Française and thus became a leading figure of French cultural collaboration with the Nazi occupiers, who he hoped would become the leader of a "Fascist International". His friendship with the German ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz, pre-dated the war. He was also a member of the committee of the Groupe Collaboration. Beginning in 1943, however, he became disillusioned by the New Order and fascism, and turned instead to the study of Eastern spirituality. In a final, provocative act, he again embraced Jacques Doriot's PPF, simultaneously declaring in his secret diary his admiration for Stalinism.
Upon the liberation of Paris in 1944, Drieu had to go into hiding. Despite the protection of his friend André Malraux, and after a failed first attempt in July 1944, Drieu committed suicide.
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January 4, 2024
Books like this are always hard to review. From a modem perspective, it all seems rather indulgent and emo. 'Boo hoo, life is so hard because I'm young and beautiful and like injecting heroin. Why doesn't anyone love me.' Suffice it to say a book like this would probably get laughed out of the room in the contemporary context especially since it doesn't gorge on the requisite poverty porn or psychological navel-gazing which current literature demands. As such, it can come across as somewhat trivial and bourgeois in its exploration of the subject matter.
And the subject matter is drugs and suicide! But taken in context (a book written by a fascist sympathiser in 1931), it developes a greater weight and intensity. The writing helps because it's fluid prose with some dense and lyrical flourishes (though it occasionally gets a little too dense); and it has that wonderful atmospheric aura of the inter war period which (if you're me) really adds to the experience.
The story is the best kind: basic. It opens with the protagonist Alain waking up with one of his lovers Lydia. She leave Paris to go back to New York that morning and Alain, a heroin addict, goes back to the sanitorium where he lives and is attempting to get clean. The next day he goes out for the night, meeting his friend Dubourg at his house, then his friend Falet, then goes to an opium den populated by spoiled caricatures, then another bar, then another etc etc. All the while thinking through his heroin addiction, his failed marriage, and his inevitable suicide. The book reminded me a little of 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' in so much as it deals with someone who wants no part of life (though the writing is better). Plus there's an obvious Celine quality. It's the standard story of a drug user coming to terms with his evaporating youth and the failed expectations of his promise. Ultimately, I found Alain very unlikeable and never really cared about his problems but I was mostly entertained by the bluntness of the piece.
And the subject matter is drugs and suicide! But taken in context (a book written by a fascist sympathiser in 1931), it developes a greater weight and intensity. The writing helps because it's fluid prose with some dense and lyrical flourishes (though it occasionally gets a little too dense); and it has that wonderful atmospheric aura of the inter war period which (if you're me) really adds to the experience.
The story is the best kind: basic. It opens with the protagonist Alain waking up with one of his lovers Lydia. She leave Paris to go back to New York that morning and Alain, a heroin addict, goes back to the sanitorium where he lives and is attempting to get clean. The next day he goes out for the night, meeting his friend Dubourg at his house, then his friend Falet, then goes to an opium den populated by spoiled caricatures, then another bar, then another etc etc. All the while thinking through his heroin addiction, his failed marriage, and his inevitable suicide. The book reminded me a little of 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' in so much as it deals with someone who wants no part of life (though the writing is better). Plus there's an obvious Celine quality. It's the standard story of a drug user coming to terms with his evaporating youth and the failed expectations of his promise. Ultimately, I found Alain very unlikeable and never really cared about his problems but I was mostly entertained by the bluntness of the piece.
"The world was filled with people he would never know. He would kill himself tomorrow, but he had to get through the night first. A night is a winding road that must be followed from one end to the other."
July 10, 2012
‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get’. Applies to me, every time I reach blindly into my stockpile of treasure: 143 unread books whose creep has displaced all other overt signs of Dassein in my bedroom. Whose origin and letter of recommendation has long faded from memory, books conspicuous only with their omnipresence and silent rapprochement of neglect.
And so I stumble on Alain, in medias res: dissipated, emaciated, precipiced from heroin abuse and currently undertaking a third attempt at ‘the cure’ in the Parisian 1920s. He promises to diligently take me on a walk along the splintered recesses of his mismanaged and misarranged mind: a pulse beat of short circuit-edness and synaptic moratorium.
Genteel and bourgeoisie (at a time when that still meant ‘the good stuff’), Alain really has no background event signifiers to prompt him into heroin abuse. Hard pressed to explain it, he wades through some peripheral preamble at first:
‘It’s a way of condemning and denying not life itself, but the aspects he hated. No longer having the strength to animate things and sublimate them into symbols, he undertook the inverted task of reducing them, wearing them down and eating them away until they reach a core of nothingness.’
But for the money shot, we get this: ‘Drugs were in my blood before I could think’ and this ‘If I were cured, I should find myself as before the cure: desperate’.
With a DNA stamp like that, how can you go right? Overcoming (barely) a suicide attempt, he undertakes a semblance at normalcy, marrying the ever so sweet Dorothy. But ‘he had met Dorothy too late. She was the attractive, sweet natured ,rich woman all his weaknesses needed; but these weaknesses were already consumed. He had waited too long.’
And what ensues is a paranoiac and shame coloured projectile investiture: Alain seems to wilfully see only what he wants to see in the hapless Dorothy’s reactions: Criticism and expectations he can never meet, whereas she only flounders to reposition.
And so. He goes back to heroin, to forget the shame which was taking possession of him (p48).
And so. He retreats into ‘incurable solitude’, but here is what happens: ‘Solitude: he had threatened life with it as though with a knife, and now this knife had turned round and pierced his guts’.
And so. Again, and for a final time, he asks: ‘Whats to be done with life?’. And he starts pacing the boulevards restlessly, here frenetically, there listlessly, syringe in hand, reciting ‘to be or not to be’, knowing that its too late, that its not too late, he’s still on the cure, dammit, and then ‘a movement escapes him’ and he winds up at the Final Judgement Grounds: the dingy apartment of his dealer, Falet.
In this empty, broken-up den of squalid sombreness, (and I have to love this next part) ‘At that moment, a woman came in. A statue adrift. Escaped from the hands of a Pygmalion who was only an imitator, she had the set beauty of a replica.(…).
Eva, born in the East, had been brought up in London. Nothing could demoralise Alain as much as this: he could see too much of a likeness between this illusory power, this woman of a thousand qualities-beauty, health-wealth, and this displacement of air and his hallow feeling for things’(pg.82)
A great juxtaposition, the vitality and virility of her alabaster affirmation of life and his corresponding insipidness, the juncture at which he has to choose: life, or death.
He is holding the syringe in hand.
What does he do?
What would you do?
And so I stumble on Alain, in medias res: dissipated, emaciated, precipiced from heroin abuse and currently undertaking a third attempt at ‘the cure’ in the Parisian 1920s. He promises to diligently take me on a walk along the splintered recesses of his mismanaged and misarranged mind: a pulse beat of short circuit-edness and synaptic moratorium.
Genteel and bourgeoisie (at a time when that still meant ‘the good stuff’), Alain really has no background event signifiers to prompt him into heroin abuse. Hard pressed to explain it, he wades through some peripheral preamble at first:
‘It’s a way of condemning and denying not life itself, but the aspects he hated. No longer having the strength to animate things and sublimate them into symbols, he undertook the inverted task of reducing them, wearing them down and eating them away until they reach a core of nothingness.’
But for the money shot, we get this: ‘Drugs were in my blood before I could think’ and this ‘If I were cured, I should find myself as before the cure: desperate’.
With a DNA stamp like that, how can you go right? Overcoming (barely) a suicide attempt, he undertakes a semblance at normalcy, marrying the ever so sweet Dorothy. But ‘he had met Dorothy too late. She was the attractive, sweet natured ,rich woman all his weaknesses needed; but these weaknesses were already consumed. He had waited too long.’
And what ensues is a paranoiac and shame coloured projectile investiture: Alain seems to wilfully see only what he wants to see in the hapless Dorothy’s reactions: Criticism and expectations he can never meet, whereas she only flounders to reposition.
And so. He goes back to heroin, to forget the shame which was taking possession of him (p48).
And so. He retreats into ‘incurable solitude’, but here is what happens: ‘Solitude: he had threatened life with it as though with a knife, and now this knife had turned round and pierced his guts’.
And so. Again, and for a final time, he asks: ‘Whats to be done with life?’. And he starts pacing the boulevards restlessly, here frenetically, there listlessly, syringe in hand, reciting ‘to be or not to be’, knowing that its too late, that its not too late, he’s still on the cure, dammit, and then ‘a movement escapes him’ and he winds up at the Final Judgement Grounds: the dingy apartment of his dealer, Falet.
In this empty, broken-up den of squalid sombreness, (and I have to love this next part) ‘At that moment, a woman came in. A statue adrift. Escaped from the hands of a Pygmalion who was only an imitator, she had the set beauty of a replica.(…).
Eva, born in the East, had been brought up in London. Nothing could demoralise Alain as much as this: he could see too much of a likeness between this illusory power, this woman of a thousand qualities-beauty, health-wealth, and this displacement of air and his hallow feeling for things’(pg.82)
A great juxtaposition, the vitality and virility of her alabaster affirmation of life and his corresponding insipidness, the juncture at which he has to choose: life, or death.
He is holding the syringe in hand.
What does he do?
What would you do?
May 2, 2024
‘But he had no ideas, he had an atrocious lack of them: his mind was a pathetic carcass picked clean by the vultures that hover over the great empty cities.’
DNF-ed (without really finishing the first chapter) mostly skimming, dipping into random chapters, desperately led by a savage disbelief that the writing could possibly be this impossible-to-like. Or perhaps a dubious desire/attempt to appreciate it in fragments? Some decent metaphors, but overall a mess with barely enough substance (to/for me) — this felt and fell flat from (so unfortunately quickly) the first pages on(wards). But surely a different reader will feel differently, etc.?
“We have anything we want, but we have nothing unless we want it. And I can’t want, I can’t even desire. For example all the women here—I can’t desire them, they frighten me. I’m afraid of women the way I was afraid of the front, during the war. Take Solange—if I was alone with her for five minutes, I’d turn into a rat, I’d disappear into the wall.”
“You know, I’m a man; and I’ve never been able to get hold of money, or women. And yet I’m energetic and quite virile. But there you are, I can’t reach out my hand, I can’t touch things. Besides, when I do touch them, I don’t feel a thing.”
‘—nodding acquiescence: a man cannot continually sustain the lucidity that shows him the final consequences of his habits. He falls back into the chiaroscuro of the everyday, where he counterbalances the progress of his acts with hopes and illusions—the idea that everything would be taken care of by women. At that moment, the dim sense of defeat produced by Lydia’s departure led him back to Dorothy.’
Very strongly and definitely a biblio-compost bin material (to/for me). I can't even say wrong book, wrong time because the fact that this new edition/translation was only out the previous year is just beyond my understanding. Excuse me for being blunt, but the world is better off without this. Many blamed the English translation, but I don't think that's fair — the text/narrative is unsalvageable. If anything one can only blame it on the translator’s questionable taste. I knew I was treading stupidly when I picked this up (unable to resist the pretty cover; never immune to the visual pull, a personal tragic biblio-flaw), knowing I rarely fare well with (sorry, not sorry but this one fits too well the stereotype of) mediocre-white-men writers (yes, taste is subjective and etc. but allow the rant) and/or cringingly subpar executions of ‘romance’ in any form/media of art. Speaking of art, Caravaggio would end this lad without a breath of hesitation for the way he butchered the concept of ‘chiaroscuro’ in the book.
‘Just then a woman came in. A wandering statue. Released from the hands of a Pygmalion (who was only a copyist), she had the ostentatious beauty of replicas. Her shoulders, her breasts, her hips betrayed the faint excess, the redundancy of sculpture of a decadent period—born in the Orient, had been raised in London. Nothing was more likely to demoralise Alain than this huge statue: he saw too much resemblance between its illusory power, the air it displaced, and his own sense of the emptiness of things. This apparition quickened his day. This woman who was laden with a thousand privileges—beauty, health, riches—looked at little Falet with a humble, pleading expression.’
Why would one even bother with this when/if you’ve experienced something glorious like for the simplest instance, Camus? Perhaps a silly, careless act of biblio-masochism might be the only likely reason one would commit to reading this from cover to cover. I’ve definitely treated this ‘write-up’ as an exercise to (better) articulate my thoughts so I can better express myself for others (so at least this bit (to/for me) wasn’t a waste of time). Even with regards to work/art by ‘outsiders’ and/or with ‘outsiders’ in mind, I suppose we are all drawn to different ‘outsiders’ (unintended Camus-esque reference/pun). The fact that I even have the audacity to compare the two seems almost unforgivable — it's as if I'm insulting Camus.
‘The waves multiplied and broke one over the other: Alain was not returning to drugs; he had never left them. That’s all it was, but it was that. It was of absolutely no interest, but neither was life. Drugs were only life, but they were life. Intensity destroying itself proves that everything is the same as everything else. There is no intelligence because there is nothing to understand, there is only certainty.’
It baffles me (but not in an exciting way) — but perhaps someone who is more inclined/attracted to the idea/act of unfussy, inelegant form of sedation would (ironically) be moved by the text. And in terms of a Parisienne narrative that revolves around a character with a dysfunctional ‘heart’, I feel the far better alternative would/should be Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight. He could be trash-writing about any other cities and it wouldn't even make much of a difference considering how weakly constructed the setting is, descriptively and otherwise. Oddly, it makes me want to re-read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dallowayto overwrite this reading experience/memory (yet I’m not so inclined to use/abuse Woolf in such a disrespectful, ‘convenient’ way). (Over)thinking about it, this feels like a lot like punishment for not reading Louis-Ferdinand Céline instead.
‘Alain jumped out of the taxi and entered a bar on the Champs-Elysées. He would telephone from here: it was much pleasanter than a bar in Montmartre. He enjoyed public comfort, and returned to his rut with a grim voluptuousness.’
Aldous Huxley would throw a fucking fit from the way he writes about ‘drugs’. Huxley flirts with psychedelic intoxication for the interest/pursuit of ‘transcendence’ and ‘consciousness’; on the other hand, whatever this Pierre guy does/did (to put very simply) a miserable regression – artistically, culturally, and otherwise. Sorry but truly not sorry. Cathartic, perhaps, this (write-up), at least that, if anything. I've heard some describe ‘unpleasant reviews’ as regurgitated shit (to put most simply), but if this be an act of that, then I should clarify that this was just a reflexive, necessary regurgitation of indigestible — yeah, that. In any case, I did voluntarily spend time (albeit scant) reading bits of it anyway so make of that what you will. Not fully indifferent, but fully disappointed. Ultimately, I think it is unbelievably ‘bad’ because it was promisingly ‘good’(?).
‘—he finally realised what the habit meant. Although he seemed to be physically separated from drugs, all their effects remained within his being. Narcotics had changed the colour of his life, and though they seemed to have gone, that colour persisted. Whatever life drugs had left now seemed impregnated with them and drew him back to them—He had been touched by death, drugs were death, he could not, from death, return to life. He could only plunge deeper into death, and so go back to drugs. This is the sophistry drugs inspire to justify relapse: I am lost, therefore I can take drugs again.’
January 7, 2025
Klein, onvolmaakt meesterwerk van de verslavings- en zelfmoordliteratuur. 'Le feu follet' (1963) van Louis Malle is al jaren een van mijn favoriete films aller tijden. Drieu la Rochelle's eendagsrelaas van een hopeloos verslaafde zelfmoordenaar is van een uitzonderlijke maar verstikkende schoonheid. De zelfgekozen dood op krediet, langzaam gewurgd door het eigen bestaan.
Eindelijk en uitstekend vertaald door Marijke Arijs. Dat Drieu la Rochelle een fascist was moet je erbij nemen. Zijn extreemrechts gedachtengoed komt hier nergens tot uiting. Check ook de mooie verfilming van Joachim Trier uit 2011, 'Oslo, August 31st'.
Eindelijk en uitstekend vertaald door Marijke Arijs. Dat Drieu la Rochelle een fascist was moet je erbij nemen. Zijn extreemrechts gedachtengoed komt hier nergens tot uiting. Check ook de mooie verfilming van Joachim Trier uit 2011, 'Oslo, August 31st'.
October 8, 2017
نابودی،ان روی سکه ایمان به زندگی است؛اگر انسانی پس از سن هجده سالگی موفق شود خودش را نابود کند؛یعنی از قدرت عمل ویژه ای برخوردار" است.خودکشی،دستاویز افرادی است که قلمرو زندگی شان دچار زنگ زدگی شده،زنگ روزمرگی.ان ها به دنیا امده اند که وارد عمل شوند،اما اعمالشان را به تعویق انداخته اند؛و اکنون اعمالشان برای انتقام از انها وارد عمل میشوند.خودکشی،یک عمل است،که از سوی کسانی صورت میگرد که موفق نشده اند اعمال دیگری انچام دهند.
دلیل ارتکاب این عمل نیز همانند سایر اعمال ایمان است.ایمان نداشتن به بشریت،به انسانیت،به واقعیت روابط میان انسان ها."
خب ... کتاب در مورد بحران های روحی مردی میان سال است که در زندگی غرق مواد است .او نه شغل مناسبی دارد و نه دوست و فردی در زندگی. برای او زنان فقط وسیله ای برای بدست اوردن پول هستند و پول راهی به سوی مواد.... من کتاب رو پیشنهاد میکنم برای اون دسته از ادب دوستانیکه عاشق سلین هستند مترجم در مقدمه گفته لاروشل در کنار سلین و برازیاک مثلث نفرین شده ی ادبیات فرانسه هستند!!!!!زیرا هر سه بخاطر افکارسیاسی شان تاوان سختی داده اند.نمی دانم صادقانه کتاب به مذاقم خوش نیامد اما این روزها بازار ستاره دادن گرمه دلم خواست به این نویسنده بیچاره که با خودکشی به زندگیش پایان داده و به قول مترجم نفرین شده است ستاره بدم همین طوری ... نه بخاطر اینکه با قهرمان اثر همراه شدم یا عاشق کتابم نه!! ... اما لحن لاروشل قوی یه و عصیان و درماندگی روحی این شخصیت رو خوب تشریح کرده... بلاخره سلین دوستان سری به این اثر هم بزنن شرط میبندم خوششان بیاد:))))))
دلیل ارتکاب این عمل نیز همانند سایر اعمال ایمان است.ایمان نداشتن به بشریت،به انسانیت،به واقعیت روابط میان انسان ها."
خب ... کتاب در مورد بحران های روحی مردی میان سال است که در زندگی غرق مواد است .او نه شغل مناسبی دارد و نه دوست و فردی در زندگی. برای او زنان فقط وسیله ای برای بدست اوردن پول هستند و پول راهی به سوی مواد.... من کتاب رو پیشنهاد میکنم برای اون دسته از ادب دوستانیکه عاشق سلین هستند مترجم در مقدمه گفته لاروشل در کنار سلین و برازیاک مثلث نفرین شده ی ادبیات فرانسه هستند!!!!!زیرا هر سه بخاطر افکارسیاسی شان تاوان سختی داده اند.نمی دانم صادقانه کتاب به مذاقم خوش نیامد اما این روزها بازار ستاره دادن گرمه دلم خواست به این نویسنده بیچاره که با خودکشی به زندگیش پایان داده و به قول مترجم نفرین شده است ستاره بدم همین طوری ... نه بخاطر اینکه با قهرمان اثر همراه شدم یا عاشق کتابم نه!! ... اما لحن لاروشل قوی یه و عصیان و درماندگی روحی این شخصیت رو خوب تشریح کرده... بلاخره سلین دوستان سری به این اثر هم بزنن شرط میبندم خوششان بیاد:))))))
March 7, 2025
Apologies for the long review, this is a section from a longer piece I wrote on substack. I initially wasn’t going to post it here, but I wanted to provide another perspective in contrast to the negative reviews.
The Fire Within tells the story of a young drug addict’s last dérive through Paris before ending his own life. Written by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, the book foreshadows the author’s own suicide fourteen years later.
Drieu, having served in World War I, became disillusioned with parliamentary politics and the “decadence” of France during the interwar period. Like many French intellectuals at the time, he saw the failure of liberal democracy to incite meaningful change, and instead, advocated for a strong Europe against the throes of an increasingly secular modernity. Unfortunately for Drieu, this meant collaboration with Nazi Germany.
I will not speak about Drieu’s Nazi ties here, but Tikhanov Library has a great English article about his complicated politics (on one hand he served as the director of the Nouvelle Revue Française but on the other saved countless imprisoned writers and friends from German authorities). It is said that if he was not a fascist, he would have been a communist.
Drieu’s hero, modeled after his friend Jacques Rigaut, follows the story of Alain Leroy, a young man coming off his drug addiction and subsequent rehabilitation. Alain, who has spent most of his youth in the various confines of drugs and women, grows increasingly despondent over the present confines of his life. His youthful beauty had allowed him to get by off the goodwill of others, but the sudden realization that he is no better off for it fills him with a desperate hopelessness.
For him, “the universe, centerless, revealed no consistency.” Working has never occurred to him because, in his worldview, you are either in possession of money or not. Having waited to no avail for life to one day burst forth, he is convinced that the only noble action left to him is suicide.
When Alain leaves the sanatorium, he attempts to seek solace in his past accomplices. However, there always remains a distance. The vitality of others disgusts him—it is a reminder of his own lack. He insults, challenges, mocks, not due to any reason or malice, but incredulity: living, which seems to come so easily to others, requires an effort that is constantly beyond him.
Unable to accept their comfort, he can only look with disdain at their capacity to go on living. Truthfully, he is fearful: he does not know what it means to love because he is so deathly afraid of loss. His snide remarks mask a deep-rooted insecurity, a yearning for a love he will never admit to. Alain has closed himself off from any meaningful connection—he has given up on life “without having ever really looked.”
What Alain fails to understand is that one can not join the garden without first facing the ceremony of failure.
Rather than waste away at what Maurice Blanchot refers to as “the passivity of dying,” Alain chooses death in favor of a slow-fading mediocrity. For him, there can be no reconciliation between his dream and his lack of ability.
The tragedy lies in Alaine's own self-deception.
He asserts that he has never desired anything yet has secret literary ambitions. He complains of his luck with women yet is surrounded by them. The only thing Alaine has truly exhausted is his youth, the one asset he has never had to work for.
Alain believes that his lack of success is reason enough for him to lose all hope. Unable to conjure up the sustained effort that would allow him to acknowledge his own indolence, he is incapable of change.
The Fire Within does not attempt to invoke our sympathy at a misunderstood character. In fact, Drieu is critical. He believes this psychology of “mediocrity” is a direct result of a weak government that refuses to inspire action. In his mind, only a reactionary movement such as Nazism can reclaim the glory of France.
Although written about a specific interwar cultural attitude, we find this recurring character commonplace today, a young man who is hopelessly condemned by his own mind to a life of insipid passivity. This book is a deeply depressing but candid insight into a neuroticism we are all too familiar with —one that deserves understanding.
The Fire Within tells the story of a young drug addict’s last dérive through Paris before ending his own life. Written by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, the book foreshadows the author’s own suicide fourteen years later.
Drieu, having served in World War I, became disillusioned with parliamentary politics and the “decadence” of France during the interwar period. Like many French intellectuals at the time, he saw the failure of liberal democracy to incite meaningful change, and instead, advocated for a strong Europe against the throes of an increasingly secular modernity. Unfortunately for Drieu, this meant collaboration with Nazi Germany.
I will not speak about Drieu’s Nazi ties here, but Tikhanov Library has a great English article about his complicated politics (on one hand he served as the director of the Nouvelle Revue Française but on the other saved countless imprisoned writers and friends from German authorities). It is said that if he was not a fascist, he would have been a communist.
Drieu’s hero, modeled after his friend Jacques Rigaut, follows the story of Alain Leroy, a young man coming off his drug addiction and subsequent rehabilitation. Alain, who has spent most of his youth in the various confines of drugs and women, grows increasingly despondent over the present confines of his life. His youthful beauty had allowed him to get by off the goodwill of others, but the sudden realization that he is no better off for it fills him with a desperate hopelessness.
For him, “the universe, centerless, revealed no consistency.” Working has never occurred to him because, in his worldview, you are either in possession of money or not. Having waited to no avail for life to one day burst forth, he is convinced that the only noble action left to him is suicide.
When Alain leaves the sanatorium, he attempts to seek solace in his past accomplices. However, there always remains a distance. The vitality of others disgusts him—it is a reminder of his own lack. He insults, challenges, mocks, not due to any reason or malice, but incredulity: living, which seems to come so easily to others, requires an effort that is constantly beyond him.
Unable to accept their comfort, he can only look with disdain at their capacity to go on living. Truthfully, he is fearful: he does not know what it means to love because he is so deathly afraid of loss. His snide remarks mask a deep-rooted insecurity, a yearning for a love he will never admit to. Alain has closed himself off from any meaningful connection—he has given up on life “without having ever really looked.”
What Alain fails to understand is that one can not join the garden without first facing the ceremony of failure.
Rather than waste away at what Maurice Blanchot refers to as “the passivity of dying,” Alain chooses death in favor of a slow-fading mediocrity. For him, there can be no reconciliation between his dream and his lack of ability.
The tragedy lies in Alaine's own self-deception.
He asserts that he has never desired anything yet has secret literary ambitions. He complains of his luck with women yet is surrounded by them. The only thing Alaine has truly exhausted is his youth, the one asset he has never had to work for.
Alain believes that his lack of success is reason enough for him to lose all hope. Unable to conjure up the sustained effort that would allow him to acknowledge his own indolence, he is incapable of change.
The Fire Within does not attempt to invoke our sympathy at a misunderstood character. In fact, Drieu is critical. He believes this psychology of “mediocrity” is a direct result of a weak government that refuses to inspire action. In his mind, only a reactionary movement such as Nazism can reclaim the glory of France.
Although written about a specific interwar cultural attitude, we find this recurring character commonplace today, a young man who is hopelessly condemned by his own mind to a life of insipid passivity. This book is a deeply depressing but candid insight into a neuroticism we are all too familiar with —one that deserves understanding.
June 8, 2017
An intimate look on life
In our adolescence we all have big dreams aspirations, and opportunities for our future. We are full of promises. Later in life, we find out that those promises were a lie.
Only a few will pursue an individual path. It's easier to lay yourself down to the roles that are given to you by society. Be a father, be a worker, be a writer, be a mother. Become one more disposable world utility.
Ask what means to 'grow up' for most people. They will tell you something that always translate to: 'When you become a stable money making machine'
There is not another type of growing or development on the eyes of society. And often the same ones that want to fit in, they need to give death to their ambitions, sensitivity and even common sense or self-respect.
You were promised heaven, you were given a small and rusty cell where all your relatives and friends died before.
Now, if you, like Alain, only see around, corpses moving around on autopilot, giving death every minute to a possibility of change, honesty, or human expression of any kind. Only because they have to pay the bills, feed the kids, and keep the house.
Wouldn't you take the way out too?
In our adolescence we all have big dreams aspirations, and opportunities for our future. We are full of promises. Later in life, we find out that those promises were a lie.
Only a few will pursue an individual path. It's easier to lay yourself down to the roles that are given to you by society. Be a father, be a worker, be a writer, be a mother. Become one more disposable world utility.
Ask what means to 'grow up' for most people. They will tell you something that always translate to: 'When you become a stable money making machine'
There is not another type of growing or development on the eyes of society. And often the same ones that want to fit in, they need to give death to their ambitions, sensitivity and even common sense or self-respect.
You were promised heaven, you were given a small and rusty cell where all your relatives and friends died before.
Now, if you, like Alain, only see around, corpses moving around on autopilot, giving death every minute to a possibility of change, honesty, or human expression of any kind. Only because they have to pay the bills, feed the kids, and keep the house.
Wouldn't you take the way out too?
August 30, 2024
Posle ponovnog gledanja Malove filmske adaptacije nadvladao sam otpor koji sam imao prema čitanju ove knjižice jer sam, s obzirom na zahtevnost teme koju obrađuje, očekivao da je u najboljem slučaju prosečna. Ne može se reći da nisam bio u pravu – jeste prosečna, ali je opšti utisak nakon što sam je pročitao ipak pozitivan, verovatno jer pisac nije bio opterećen bilo kakvim nerealnim pretenzijama.
Priča o sistematičnom samoispitivanju i samouništavanju jednog Francuščića ima svojih mana ali i (pogotovo stilski) uspelih delova. Bilo bi mi draže da je Rošel malo više utegao dijaloge u drugoj polovini Isplamsavanja, ili još bolje, da ih je potpuno izbacio. Ipak, dodatak Zbogom Gonzagu, koji je neka vrsta rezimea, popravlja stvar.
Inače, zanimljivo je otkriti da je Mal eliminisao jedan važan element priče za potrebe filma, tj. Alanovu zavisnost od droge, i to verovatno da bi se mogao prosečan čovek, koji mozga o smislu i besmislu svog propalog života, s glavnim junakom poistovetiti. Najčešće se pokazuje kao loša ideja odstupati od sižea mada mislim da je u ovom slučaju doneta dobra odluka. Nažalost, filmu i pored toga što-šta fali, ali to je već druga priča.
Priča o sistematičnom samoispitivanju i samouništavanju jednog Francuščića ima svojih mana ali i (pogotovo stilski) uspelih delova. Bilo bi mi draže da je Rošel malo više utegao dijaloge u drugoj polovini Isplamsavanja, ili još bolje, da ih je potpuno izbacio. Ipak, dodatak Zbogom Gonzagu, koji je neka vrsta rezimea, popravlja stvar.
Inače, zanimljivo je otkriti da je Mal eliminisao jedan važan element priče za potrebe filma, tj. Alanovu zavisnost od droge, i to verovatno da bi se mogao prosečan čovek, koji mozga o smislu i besmislu svog propalog života, s glavnim junakom poistovetiti. Najčešće se pokazuje kao loša ideja odstupati od sižea mada mislim da je u ovom slučaju doneta dobra odluka. Nažalost, filmu i pored toga što-šta fali, ali to je već druga priča.
March 21, 2013
De temps en temps, lassé de l'actualité littéraire dont je redoute que ses œuvres quelque agréable qu'en soit la lecture, ne laisse pas une marque indélébile, je me fais violence pour lire un classique. Le mois dernier, c'était Colette. ce mois-ci c'est Drieu la Rochelle. Quelle idée me direz-vous de choisir les auteurs les plus démodés qui soient !
J'avais lu "Gilles" il y a quelques années. Et j'en avais gardé le souvenir d'un interminable pensum. dans ces cas-là, pourquoi diable m'attaquer au "Feu follet" qui a certes l'avantage d'être plus court mais qui est de la même farine. La raison en est peut-être sa récente adaptation au cinéma par un réalisateur norvégien ("Oslo 31 août") cinquante ans après Louis Malle dont l'adaptation avec Maurice Ronet a fait date.
On y sent la fougue d'une vie brûlée par les deux bouts, aimantée par des pulsions suicidaires. Le livre est plein d'une énergie débordante. Il rappelle "L'homme pressé" de Paul Morand.
Mais il est écrit dans un style totalement illisible de nos jours. Chaque phrase est définitive, assénée avec une lourdeur pachydermique et un manque affligeant d'humour. Ce court roman (170 pages en format poche seulement) raconte la dernière journée d'un suicidé à travers une série de rencontres. Autant de saynètes lourdement démonstratives où toutes les raisons de s'attacher à la vie sont tour à tour écartés : la fondation d'une famille, l'amour d'une femme, la réalisation d'une œuvre ...
A masochiste, masochiste et demi, pour le mois prochain j'hésite entre André Maurois et Léon Bloy !
J'avais lu "Gilles" il y a quelques années. Et j'en avais gardé le souvenir d'un interminable pensum. dans ces cas-là, pourquoi diable m'attaquer au "Feu follet" qui a certes l'avantage d'être plus court mais qui est de la même farine. La raison en est peut-être sa récente adaptation au cinéma par un réalisateur norvégien ("Oslo 31 août") cinquante ans après Louis Malle dont l'adaptation avec Maurice Ronet a fait date.
On y sent la fougue d'une vie brûlée par les deux bouts, aimantée par des pulsions suicidaires. Le livre est plein d'une énergie débordante. Il rappelle "L'homme pressé" de Paul Morand.
Mais il est écrit dans un style totalement illisible de nos jours. Chaque phrase est définitive, assénée avec une lourdeur pachydermique et un manque affligeant d'humour. Ce court roman (170 pages en format poche seulement) raconte la dernière journée d'un suicidé à travers une série de rencontres. Autant de saynètes lourdement démonstratives où toutes les raisons de s'attacher à la vie sont tour à tour écartés : la fondation d'une famille, l'amour d'une femme, la réalisation d'une œuvre ...
A masochiste, masochiste et demi, pour le mois prochain j'hésite entre André Maurois et Léon Bloy !
October 21, 2018
"I drogati sono i mistici di un'epoca materialistica che, non avendo più la forza di animare le cose e di sublimarle in simbolo, operano su di esse un procedimento inverso di riduzione e le consumano e le logorano fino a raggiungere in esse il nucleo del nulla." (p. 62)
"Il suicidio è la risorsa degli uomini la cui capacità di reagire è stata corrosa dalla ruggine, la ruggine del quotidiano. Sono nati per l'azione, ma hanno ritardato l'azione; allora, l'azione si ritorce su di loro come un boomerang. Il suicidio è un atto, l'atto di coloro che non hanno saputo compierne altri." (p. 106)
"Il suicidio è la risorsa degli uomini la cui capacità di reagire è stata corrosa dalla ruggine, la ruggine del quotidiano. Sono nati per l'azione, ma hanno ritardato l'azione; allora, l'azione si ritorce su di loro come un boomerang. Il suicidio è un atto, l'atto di coloro che non hanno saputo compierne altri." (p. 106)
Read
June 8, 2025Junkie fiction is always a tough sell for me. How many millions of little pieces make for the ultimate expression of pathos and bathos? And even at its best – Burroughs, for instance – I have to wonder why I’m listening to this story. I know plenty of people who did their time with the needle, and their decidedly unliterary stories are a much better instructor.
But Drieu La Rochelle’s account wasn’t bad. The tone is grim, the world is ugly, but you find yourself somehow caring about these absolute lost causes. Sure, some of it grates – “look how fucking HOT these addicts are” – as if they should be played by Timothee Chalamet and Dakota Johnson, but at the end of the day… I actually wanted to give them a hug.
But Drieu La Rochelle’s account wasn’t bad. The tone is grim, the world is ugly, but you find yourself somehow caring about these absolute lost causes. Sure, some of it grates – “look how fucking HOT these addicts are” – as if they should be played by Timothee Chalamet and Dakota Johnson, but at the end of the day… I actually wanted to give them a hug.
March 15, 2021
malesef ki çevirinin azizliğine uğramış. cümle cümle çevrilmiş ama sonuç olarak bir metne dönüşememiş hissi verdi her sayfa. filmi izlemeseydim bu kadar sever miydim bilmiyorum. ancak başka biri çevirseydi daha çok seveceğimden eminim. alain'i okumak, izlemek aynaya bakmak gibi hissettiriyor hâlâ.
"kendimi öldürüyorum çünkü beni sevmediniz; çünkü sizi sevmedim. kendimi öldürüyorum çünkü gevşek olan bağımızı sıkılaştırmam gerek. sizde kalıcı bir iz bırakacağım. çok iyi biliyorum ki insan, arkadaşlarının hatıralarında yaşamaktansa ölsün daha iyi. beni hiç düşünmediniz, güzel, beni hiç unutmayacaksınız!"
"kendimi öldürüyorum çünkü beni sevmediniz; çünkü sizi sevmedim. kendimi öldürüyorum çünkü gevşek olan bağımızı sıkılaştırmam gerek. sizde kalıcı bir iz bırakacağım. çok iyi biliyorum ki insan, arkadaşlarının hatıralarında yaşamaktansa ölsün daha iyi. beni hiç düşünmediniz, güzel, beni hiç unutmayacaksınız!"
December 5, 2023
"He stood there, the cigarette scorching his lips, without a single resource, either inside or outside himself."
What is it like to feel completely and utterly lost and defeated caught in the cunning grip of drug addiction? Like the walking dead with nothing internally or externally to rely on. Looking for anwers and not sure which one is feasible or practical.
"Yes, gratitude's something. But you know, from there to love is still a long way... And besides, even when we really have love in our hearts, will that hold people?"
The Fire Within tells the stark tale of WWI veteran Alain who is a man lost in his drug addled existence in 1930s Paris. The book is not so much about the cause of his trauma or use of drugs, as it is about the psyche of an addict nearing death as he wanders in desperation for ways and means to find and use more. This is not a book about war. This is not a book that glamourizes drug use.
Reading this book, I got some heavy gothic vibes. Maybe it was the mentions of opium or that the anguished egotistical nature of Alain reminded me of a junkie version of Dorian Gray. During his days, Alain visits people who are willing to help, not able to help or who have completely given up on him. What makes this book a special breed amongst novels about addiction is the fact that Drieu la Rochelle writes about Alain not only with compassion or humanity, but also with the idea that the addict is also a human having an existential crisis. It is this quality that makes The Fire Within a special book. Alain contemplates more than just his use of drugs. He wonders about his relationships with people and other symbols. He ponders the philosophy of money about love and happiness.
"It was all simple and solid, and made Alain realize each time he came that there was something of his character or his environment that deprived him of forever: the ability to accept life firmly and frankly."
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle is new to me French writer and thanks to NYRB for introducing me to one of his novels. The Fire Within is a piece of French existentialist literature that is balanced between the beautiful and the bleakness that comes from the mind of an addict. Not all those who seek to stop find recovery. Addiction is a cunning enemy of life and Drieu la Rochelle's writing, was tense and tender and I will be sure to seek out his other works.
"This room, too, had no way out; it was his private eternity. For years he had had no home, and yet he had his place in this ideal prison which remade itself for him every evening, wherever he was. His chambered anxiety was here, like a little box inside a larger one. A mirror, a window, a door. The door and the window opened onto nothing. The mirror opened only onto himself."
"She believed that action was the way to settle everything."
"He was genuinely sorry. She believed it, for no man was so attentive as Alain to all the little ceremonies of feeling."
"Money epitomizing the universe for him was in its turn epitomized by drugs. Money, outside the meticulous garment of his hotel room, was the night."
"A terrible shudder seized the pit of his loins, the marrow of his bones, and ran like icy lightning from his feet to his head: death was an absolute presence. This was solitude; he had threatened life with it as a knife, and now that knife had turned and was piercing his entrails. There was no one left, no hope left. An irreparable isolation."
"Would he not realize that it had been wrong to give up, to declare, without having ever really looked, at the world as nothing, that it has no substance?"
"You think that you and drugs are the same thing, but after all, you don't really know. It's like a foreign body. There's Alain, and then ... Alain. Alain can change. Why do you want to keep the first skin you were born with? [...] Once you choose to be what you are today; you can stop being that and still be yourself, but in another way. I know you want to be a lot of things."
"For a long time now psychology hasn't been enough for me; what I like about people isn't so much their passions but what comes out of their passions, something just as strong - ideas, gods. Gods are born with men and die with men, but those tangled tribes are part of eternity."
"Had there not always been men who denied life? Was this a weakness or a strength? Perhaps there was a great deal of life in Alain's rejection of life? For him it was a means of denying and condemning not life itself, but the aspects that he hated."
"Despair is one thing, drugs are another. Despair is an idea, drugs are a practice. A practice that scares us so much that we hope against hope to cure ourselves."
"I've always felt I was in this world and in another."
"A night is a winding road that must be followed from one end to the other."
"Suicide is the resource of men whose springs have been devoured by rust, the springs of the quotidian. They were born for action, but they put it off; and then the action comes to them on the pendulum's return. Suicide is an act, an act of those who are unable to perform any other.
It is an act of faith, like all acts. Faith in a fellow creature, in the existence of others, in the reality of relations between the self and other selves."
"But to take that path was to fall back into the mystical protest, into the adoration of death. Addicts are the mystics of a materialist age who, no longer having the strength to animate objects, to sublimate them into symbols, undertake a converse labor of reduction-eroding them, wearing them down until the kernel of nothingness within each appears. Addicts offer sacrifices to a symbolism of shadows to combat a fetishism of the sun-they loathe the sun because it hurts their tired eyes."
"All of us, in one way or another, have the feeling that we can't put the best of ourselves, our brightest spark, into our everyday life, but that at the same time it's not wholly lost. Don't you feel that way? The impulse that wells up in us and that seems stifled by life isn't lost; it accumulates somewhere. It forms an indestructible reserve which won't vanish the day our flesh fails, and which guarantees us a mysterious life."
"Alain walked without looking at anything, as he had always done... And yet the avenue was beautiful, like a broad shining river that rolls in majestic peace between the feet of the elephant god. But his eyes were fixed on the little world he had left forever."
What is it like to feel completely and utterly lost and defeated caught in the cunning grip of drug addiction? Like the walking dead with nothing internally or externally to rely on. Looking for anwers and not sure which one is feasible or practical.
"Yes, gratitude's something. But you know, from there to love is still a long way... And besides, even when we really have love in our hearts, will that hold people?"
The Fire Within tells the stark tale of WWI veteran Alain who is a man lost in his drug addled existence in 1930s Paris. The book is not so much about the cause of his trauma or use of drugs, as it is about the psyche of an addict nearing death as he wanders in desperation for ways and means to find and use more. This is not a book about war. This is not a book that glamourizes drug use.
Reading this book, I got some heavy gothic vibes. Maybe it was the mentions of opium or that the anguished egotistical nature of Alain reminded me of a junkie version of Dorian Gray. During his days, Alain visits people who are willing to help, not able to help or who have completely given up on him. What makes this book a special breed amongst novels about addiction is the fact that Drieu la Rochelle writes about Alain not only with compassion or humanity, but also with the idea that the addict is also a human having an existential crisis. It is this quality that makes The Fire Within a special book. Alain contemplates more than just his use of drugs. He wonders about his relationships with people and other symbols. He ponders the philosophy of money about love and happiness.
"It was all simple and solid, and made Alain realize each time he came that there was something of his character or his environment that deprived him of forever: the ability to accept life firmly and frankly."
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle is new to me French writer and thanks to NYRB for introducing me to one of his novels. The Fire Within is a piece of French existentialist literature that is balanced between the beautiful and the bleakness that comes from the mind of an addict. Not all those who seek to stop find recovery. Addiction is a cunning enemy of life and Drieu la Rochelle's writing, was tense and tender and I will be sure to seek out his other works.
"This room, too, had no way out; it was his private eternity. For years he had had no home, and yet he had his place in this ideal prison which remade itself for him every evening, wherever he was. His chambered anxiety was here, like a little box inside a larger one. A mirror, a window, a door. The door and the window opened onto nothing. The mirror opened only onto himself."
"She believed that action was the way to settle everything."
"He was genuinely sorry. She believed it, for no man was so attentive as Alain to all the little ceremonies of feeling."
"Money epitomizing the universe for him was in its turn epitomized by drugs. Money, outside the meticulous garment of his hotel room, was the night."
"A terrible shudder seized the pit of his loins, the marrow of his bones, and ran like icy lightning from his feet to his head: death was an absolute presence. This was solitude; he had threatened life with it as a knife, and now that knife had turned and was piercing his entrails. There was no one left, no hope left. An irreparable isolation."
"Would he not realize that it had been wrong to give up, to declare, without having ever really looked, at the world as nothing, that it has no substance?"
"You think that you and drugs are the same thing, but after all, you don't really know. It's like a foreign body. There's Alain, and then ... Alain. Alain can change. Why do you want to keep the first skin you were born with? [...] Once you choose to be what you are today; you can stop being that and still be yourself, but in another way. I know you want to be a lot of things."
"For a long time now psychology hasn't been enough for me; what I like about people isn't so much their passions but what comes out of their passions, something just as strong - ideas, gods. Gods are born with men and die with men, but those tangled tribes are part of eternity."
"Had there not always been men who denied life? Was this a weakness or a strength? Perhaps there was a great deal of life in Alain's rejection of life? For him it was a means of denying and condemning not life itself, but the aspects that he hated."
"Despair is one thing, drugs are another. Despair is an idea, drugs are a practice. A practice that scares us so much that we hope against hope to cure ourselves."
"I've always felt I was in this world and in another."
"A night is a winding road that must be followed from one end to the other."
"Suicide is the resource of men whose springs have been devoured by rust, the springs of the quotidian. They were born for action, but they put it off; and then the action comes to them on the pendulum's return. Suicide is an act, an act of those who are unable to perform any other.
It is an act of faith, like all acts. Faith in a fellow creature, in the existence of others, in the reality of relations between the self and other selves."
"But to take that path was to fall back into the mystical protest, into the adoration of death. Addicts are the mystics of a materialist age who, no longer having the strength to animate objects, to sublimate them into symbols, undertake a converse labor of reduction-eroding them, wearing them down until the kernel of nothingness within each appears. Addicts offer sacrifices to a symbolism of shadows to combat a fetishism of the sun-they loathe the sun because it hurts their tired eyes."
"All of us, in one way or another, have the feeling that we can't put the best of ourselves, our brightest spark, into our everyday life, but that at the same time it's not wholly lost. Don't you feel that way? The impulse that wells up in us and that seems stifled by life isn't lost; it accumulates somewhere. It forms an indestructible reserve which won't vanish the day our flesh fails, and which guarantees us a mysterious life."
"Alain walked without looking at anything, as he had always done... And yet the avenue was beautiful, like a broad shining river that rolls in majestic peace between the feet of the elephant god. But his eyes were fixed on the little world he had left forever."
July 25, 2021
Céline gibi çöküşü, merdümgirizliği, orta sınıf pesimizmini yetkin bir biçimde anlatan bir yazar varken Pierre Drieu la Rochelle'e sıra gelmez, diye düşünüyorum. Gene de "Hayalet Işık" dekadansı öyle ya da böyle fena yansıtmıyor ama okura herhangi bir çıkış bırakmıyor, onu paralize ediyor.
March 28, 2021
yorucu bir minik kitap, derin çıkarımlar
May 14, 2012
Will O' The Wisp is a strange, enigmatic novelette, the first I have ever read by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a French writer and well-known adherent of the Fascist right in that country, who committed suicide in 1945. Indeed, I think it may very well be the only novel of his translated into English to date. I was led to believe that it was a story about addiction and self-destruction, something akin to say, Malcolm Lowry's wonderful Under the Volcano. It is, in a sense, but it's at one and the same time much more and much less than that. The book is best read, I think, as kind of a quest or a journey by a man who has led an almost completely empty and unfulfilling life, a quest for some kind affirmation; affirmation in life and love. It's when he fails in his quest that he kills himself.
Originally published in 1931 under the title of Le Feu Follet, it tells the story of the last two days in the life of a character identified solely as Alain, a heroin addict. Now in his thirtieth year, Alain has essentially lived by firstly sponging off his parents and latterly by the money he has managed to obtain from his relationships with wealthy women. His is a life almost totally devoid of real meaning and purpose. He describes one of his friends, whom he visits after a final encounter with a wealthy mistress, as an 'insipid enigma', but it is really Alain himself who fit this description best.
Some of the passages on drug addiction are fairly insightful;
They begin by taking drugs because they have nothing to do and continue because they cannot do anything.
Drug addicts are the mystics of the materialist age, no longer having the strength to animate things and sublimate them into symbols, undertake the inverted task of reducing them, wearing them down and eating them away until they reach the core of nothingness.
...now, an overworked demon was rushing yet another client through and negligently repeating the same old trick: 'If you take a little today, you will take less tomorrow.
So, from the clinic where he is living in an attempt at an illusory cure, Alain emerges himself in the night of Paris, determined on a fresh fix of heroin. I expected some detailed descriptions drug-induced descent but Drieu La Rochelle does not give that. Yes, Alain takes a couple of fixes but they are quite incidental to the main action, which sees him passing through several encounters with friends in various parts of the city. The alcohol he drinks in the process seems to affect him far more than the opiate.
But, no matter; for the heroin and the alcohol are just methods and means for Alain to avoid a confrontation with a sterile and empty existence. He ends a bit like Jack Worthing's friend, Bunberry: he found he could not live, so he died. He shoots himself. Suicide was a clear temptation, as it was for the author himself for the best part of his adult life.
This is a good story, if not a great one, a kind of modern morality tale with no moral. Some might even read it as a frustrated spiritual quest, the sort of thing one finds in the plays of Samuel Becket. It was certainly a revelation for me, and a slight thrill to read such a tainted author! I would like to think that Pierre Drieu La Rochelle is at last beginning to emerge from the darkness to which his name was consigned for so long. I do not think he was bad man, the politics notwithstanding, just an unhappy one. Like Alain he was also something of an enigma, though far from being an insipid one.
Originally published in 1931 under the title of Le Feu Follet, it tells the story of the last two days in the life of a character identified solely as Alain, a heroin addict. Now in his thirtieth year, Alain has essentially lived by firstly sponging off his parents and latterly by the money he has managed to obtain from his relationships with wealthy women. His is a life almost totally devoid of real meaning and purpose. He describes one of his friends, whom he visits after a final encounter with a wealthy mistress, as an 'insipid enigma', but it is really Alain himself who fit this description best.
Some of the passages on drug addiction are fairly insightful;
They begin by taking drugs because they have nothing to do and continue because they cannot do anything.
Drug addicts are the mystics of the materialist age, no longer having the strength to animate things and sublimate them into symbols, undertake the inverted task of reducing them, wearing them down and eating them away until they reach the core of nothingness.
...now, an overworked demon was rushing yet another client through and negligently repeating the same old trick: 'If you take a little today, you will take less tomorrow.
So, from the clinic where he is living in an attempt at an illusory cure, Alain emerges himself in the night of Paris, determined on a fresh fix of heroin. I expected some detailed descriptions drug-induced descent but Drieu La Rochelle does not give that. Yes, Alain takes a couple of fixes but they are quite incidental to the main action, which sees him passing through several encounters with friends in various parts of the city. The alcohol he drinks in the process seems to affect him far more than the opiate.
But, no matter; for the heroin and the alcohol are just methods and means for Alain to avoid a confrontation with a sterile and empty existence. He ends a bit like Jack Worthing's friend, Bunberry: he found he could not live, so he died. He shoots himself. Suicide was a clear temptation, as it was for the author himself for the best part of his adult life.
This is a good story, if not a great one, a kind of modern morality tale with no moral. Some might even read it as a frustrated spiritual quest, the sort of thing one finds in the plays of Samuel Becket. It was certainly a revelation for me, and a slight thrill to read such a tainted author! I would like to think that Pierre Drieu La Rochelle is at last beginning to emerge from the darkness to which his name was consigned for so long. I do not think he was bad man, the politics notwithstanding, just an unhappy one. Like Alain he was also something of an enigma, though far from being an insipid one.
June 23, 2017
Ce roman ne me donnait pas beaucoup de plaisir. Je crois que la vie de Drieu la Rochelle était une préoccupation et un débat avec la mort. Est ce qu'on peut le décrire comme roman éxistentionaliste? Je l'ignore. Certain est le fait que notre protagonist, Alain, qui se drogue, pose pendant son dernier jour la question primordiale philosophique, "quel est le sens de notre ex-istence?" Drieu le trouve, si bien il le trouvait de tout, pendant sa vie dans l'action, dans l'engagement, engagement politique aussi bien ou peut-être avec plus de force que dans l'engagement amoureux. Comme il le dit très franchement, dans sa vie personelle il a fait la choix fausse, non pas dans un sense moral ou idéologique, mais pluutôt dans le sense qu'un joueur fait une choix, et il accepte les conséquences de sa perte avec de la fierté et du courage. Surtout comme le dit Alain dans cette historie sombre et implacable: "Je ne veux pas vielillir". Le feut follet depeint la descente vers la mort qui et la decente propre à tous les hommes. Qui échappe à la mort? On dit la poésie est donc un art qui offre la possibilité d'échapper à la mort, mais Alain est convaincu qu'il a echoué non seulement comme amant mais aussi comme écrivain. La vie de Drieu la Rochelle nous montre autre. Drieu jugait soi-même très séverement, contriarement à la majorité des écrivains qui gardent un avis très élevé de leurs propres talents, qu'il s'appellent Louis Ferdinand Céline, John Mortimer, Angus Wilson, Tom Stoppard. C'est drole enfin que Drieu avec beaucoup plus de talent se judgait comme son héros une failite, sa vie une vie manquée, fut adherant des mouvements fascistes, les mouvements, come on dit, marqués par l'arrogance la plus éxtrème, tandis que monsieur John Mortimer, qui se positione de gauche est veut se montrer comme homme plein de bon sentiments plein de compassion et un sense de la justice et des droites de l'homme, est évidement convaincu de l'éxtreme interêt et intelligence de ses propres écrites. Alain dans Le Feu Follet est un portrait d'un ami de Drieu La Rochelle, Jacques Rigaut, qui se suicida en 1929. Jacques Rigaut était un amis des jours de la jeunesse et de Dada, quand Driue la Rochelle était aussi l'ami de Louis Aragon et d'André Malraux. Donc la choix du chemin du fascisme était une tentative d'échapper du charactère insensé de la vie même, au moins la vie bourgeoise, la vie décadente pursu aussi par Drieu que par son protagoniste Alain. "Le feu Follet" est un roman noire, un roman courageux,un roman désésperé, tout propre pour son auteur. Une longue journée heureuse avec un ami charmant, dans une maison parfaite.... ou il y a la rue, la nuit. On peut débattre si pour Drieu comme pour Rigaut (dans Adieu à Gonzague" "Mourir, c'est ce que tu pouvais faire de plus beau, de plus fort, de plus.") la morte est la chose la plus belle dans le monde, mais la suicide de Dreiu même quelque temps après celle d'Alain et Rigaut/Gonzague, était une acte un réfus à la viellesse et un réfus a l'humiliation.
May 23, 2013
A great, brief, witty and heartbreaking novella which describes the last few days in the life of a youngish Parisian heroin addict, after he completes a "cure"; with a wonderful feeling (without the least tediousness) of the pretentiousness, the self-deception, the honesty and the illusions of such people - we've all known them. Alain, the hero, decides to kill himself before he becomes old in the boring hypocrisy and superior airs of the hardened drug-taker, who constitute one group of his friends; he underestimates the affection that a few women still have for him; he loses patience waiting for a response from his current wife to whom he insincerely sends a letter pleading for another chance. The book consists primarily of encounters of farewell with various of his friends and groups of friends.
This economical small masterpiece from the 1930s by an anti-fascist fascist collaborator who killed himself in 1945, translated without too much preening by Richard Howard, renders all the work of 50s writers like Burroughs, 80s writers like Jay McInerny, 90s writers like Bret Easton Ellis, unncessary. Read it and avoid reading the others; or, if you have already, read it and regret having read the others.
A couple of memorable passages.
"He had not learned to fling hinmself on women from the first, to make sure of them while they still wanted him."
"When he went to New York, ... suddenly he had greater success. A Frenchwoman, whether she is a whore or not, wants to be taken, wants to be kept. In exchange, she is ready to give herself utterly: a prudent and profitable exchange. Alain had been frightened by these demands for tenderness and sensuality. On the contrary, an American woman, when she is not looking for a husband, is more easily satisfied by a thoughtless liaison. Badly educated, forward, generous, she seems almost indifferent to the quality of what is offered in an affair."
"Dubourg's wife entered. . . . She was atall, thin girl with languid inflections, quite naked beneath her dress. Beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, bad teeth. She was accompanied by her two daughters - the second just like the first- and a cat. The little troupe made no noise. Dubourg said he had married Fanny because of her extraordinary aptitude for silence and horizontality. "When we're alone, you can't hear a sound in the house. She's lying down in her room, I'm on the couch here - only the children stand up."
"Alain thought about all his winters. They were the uncontested triumph of artifice: close rooms, bright lights, exasperation."
This economical small masterpiece from the 1930s by an anti-fascist fascist collaborator who killed himself in 1945, translated without too much preening by Richard Howard, renders all the work of 50s writers like Burroughs, 80s writers like Jay McInerny, 90s writers like Bret Easton Ellis, unncessary. Read it and avoid reading the others; or, if you have already, read it and regret having read the others.
A couple of memorable passages.
"He had not learned to fling hinmself on women from the first, to make sure of them while they still wanted him."
"When he went to New York, ... suddenly he had greater success. A Frenchwoman, whether she is a whore or not, wants to be taken, wants to be kept. In exchange, she is ready to give herself utterly: a prudent and profitable exchange. Alain had been frightened by these demands for tenderness and sensuality. On the contrary, an American woman, when she is not looking for a husband, is more easily satisfied by a thoughtless liaison. Badly educated, forward, generous, she seems almost indifferent to the quality of what is offered in an affair."
"Dubourg's wife entered. . . . She was atall, thin girl with languid inflections, quite naked beneath her dress. Beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, bad teeth. She was accompanied by her two daughters - the second just like the first- and a cat. The little troupe made no noise. Dubourg said he had married Fanny because of her extraordinary aptitude for silence and horizontality. "When we're alone, you can't hear a sound in the house. She's lying down in her room, I'm on the couch here - only the children stand up."
"Alain thought about all his winters. They were the uncontested triumph of artifice: close rooms, bright lights, exasperation."
August 27, 2023
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle è riuscito a raccontare con tanto candore e partecipazione le ultime ore del suo amico Jacques Rigaut (Alain nel romanzo) perché in fondo soffriva dello stesso male, tipicamente piccolo-borghese: quella condizione di insoddisfazione, risentimento e incertezza di chi è roso dalla povertà di mezzi e dall'abbondanza di fini (velleitari quanto necessari), di chi non verrà mai ammesso in paradiso (la buona borghesia) ma rischia costantemente di sprofondare all’inferno (il proletariato). La differenza è che mentre Rigaut/Alain ha scelto la droga, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle ha scelto il fascismo - un caso comunque analogo di vitalismo esasperato e culto della morte (da notare come tra il nulla e la reazione non si opti mai per la rivoluzione). Il romanzo è comunque notevole e colpisce molto; probabilmente perché, come sosteneva Adorno riferendosi a Spengler, gli autori “di destra” hanno una sensibilità particolare verso certi aspetti della vita moderna - come delle frequenze udibili solamente da orecchie fini - tale da permettere loro di superare in veemenza e incisività molti autori “di sinistra”.
March 27, 2023
“Era spaventato dall’idea di far capire ad Alain che, da quando sembrava che lui vivesse di meno, in realtà viveva di più. Alain non aveva la minima idea delle energie della vita interiore, capaci di ardere al sole non meno delle gesta eroiche.”
December 24, 2023
This is a story that deals with drug addiction; and is at once a story of a drug addict driven to the last brink of his existence as well as a portrait of 'a man who is unable to feel things in their broadest sense—from physical objects, to human affections, to transcendental value'. Reminiscent at once of Gide and Hemingway it veers in its latter half from a sad parable of an addict torn in the last vestiges of his life to that of an existentialist parable with a darkly metaphysical quest.
The ravages wrought on this beautiful young man by his addiction are brought to life in the first half of this book by the author's clear and razor-sharp dissection of his figure and psyche:
That dissolution was already far advanced. At eighteen, Alain’s regular features had had a certain beauty. That beauty had seemed a promise which intoxicated him. He could remember the reactions of women when he entered a room. In the broad structure of his face, there was something infrangible that he gloated over the morning after a night’s debauchery. For a long time it had given him a sense of immunity. But today . . . True, the bones were still in place, but even they seemed corroded, like a steel carcass warped and twisted by fire. The straight ridge of his nose had arched; pinched between two hollows, it seemed about to break. The once decisive line of his chin, which had offered such a sure challenge, no longer managed to assert itself against the flesh into which it vanished. Nor were his eye sockets clearly defined between temples and cheekbones. Something unhealthy had spread through all his tissues and had tainted them, even his eyeballs. But that yellow fat, the laborious product of the cure, was still too much life, too much being; the slightest grin, the slightest grimace brought back those terrible hollows, those terrible emaciations that a year or two before had begun to carve a death mask out of the living substance. He surmised, ready to reappear, those gray shadows that had wasted him so terribly up until the preceding July.
Towards the last few hours of his troubled existence, he had been torn between some sort of intimation from his wife Dorothy and his lover Lydia as 'the prickly circle of loneliness contracts around him' and he hopes for some cash advance every time he thinks of both women. There had been hopes of a revival for his countenance and physique after he had been admitted to the sanatarium in Paris. Still, it was his all-consuming impulse that came to sway even amid the sharp rebuttals he received from his line of acquaintance- his lovers, his wife, and his several friends, some of whom shared with him that same impulse.
The waves multiplied and broke one over the other: Alain was not returning to drugs; he had never left them. That’s all it was, but it was that. It was of absolutely no interest, but neither was life. Drugs were only life, but they were life. Intensity destroying itself proves that everything is the same as everything else. There is no intelligence because there is nothing to understand, there is only certainty.
In his illuminating foreword to the novel, noted British writer Will Self mentions that '....like Burroughs’s Junky, The Fire Within is an existential novel that stands with Sartre’s Nausea and Camus’s The Fall as one the great summations of the human soul under the alienating conditions of twentieth-century capitalist society' and that '...in terms of aperçus per page, The Fire Within ranks alongside such great literary classics of addiction as Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Jean Cocteau’s Opium, and William S. Burroughs’s Junky. Besides he states that:
'Drieu’s characterization of Leroy as a man......elides the individual addict with the decadent postwar world his creator sought to oppose. Preoccupied with the venality he saw all around him, Drieu made his protagonist a man obsessed by virility, even as he succumbs to the sexual impotence that invariably accompanies opiate addiction. Drieu was promiscuous, yet haunted by a sense of sexual inadequacy—and what could be more decadent than this: lusting for something you’re quite unable to consume, like an addict for whom the drugs no longer work.'
In the last moments of his wretched soul, Alain Leroy embraces the darkness all too well as the nothingness without conjures up a phantasmagoria of dire imaginings with the decrepitude within sinking him into a morass of tenebrosity.
Propped up comfortably, neck on a pile of pillows, feet braced at the end of the bed, legs apart. Chest out, naked, well exposed. You know where the heart is.
A revolver is solid, it’s made of steel. It’s an object. To touch an object at last.
The end is all too apparent, it seems....
The ravages wrought on this beautiful young man by his addiction are brought to life in the first half of this book by the author's clear and razor-sharp dissection of his figure and psyche:
That dissolution was already far advanced. At eighteen, Alain’s regular features had had a certain beauty. That beauty had seemed a promise which intoxicated him. He could remember the reactions of women when he entered a room. In the broad structure of his face, there was something infrangible that he gloated over the morning after a night’s debauchery. For a long time it had given him a sense of immunity. But today . . . True, the bones were still in place, but even they seemed corroded, like a steel carcass warped and twisted by fire. The straight ridge of his nose had arched; pinched between two hollows, it seemed about to break. The once decisive line of his chin, which had offered such a sure challenge, no longer managed to assert itself against the flesh into which it vanished. Nor were his eye sockets clearly defined between temples and cheekbones. Something unhealthy had spread through all his tissues and had tainted them, even his eyeballs. But that yellow fat, the laborious product of the cure, was still too much life, too much being; the slightest grin, the slightest grimace brought back those terrible hollows, those terrible emaciations that a year or two before had begun to carve a death mask out of the living substance. He surmised, ready to reappear, those gray shadows that had wasted him so terribly up until the preceding July.
Towards the last few hours of his troubled existence, he had been torn between some sort of intimation from his wife Dorothy and his lover Lydia as 'the prickly circle of loneliness contracts around him' and he hopes for some cash advance every time he thinks of both women. There had been hopes of a revival for his countenance and physique after he had been admitted to the sanatarium in Paris. Still, it was his all-consuming impulse that came to sway even amid the sharp rebuttals he received from his line of acquaintance- his lovers, his wife, and his several friends, some of whom shared with him that same impulse.
The waves multiplied and broke one over the other: Alain was not returning to drugs; he had never left them. That’s all it was, but it was that. It was of absolutely no interest, but neither was life. Drugs were only life, but they were life. Intensity destroying itself proves that everything is the same as everything else. There is no intelligence because there is nothing to understand, there is only certainty.
In his illuminating foreword to the novel, noted British writer Will Self mentions that '....like Burroughs’s Junky, The Fire Within is an existential novel that stands with Sartre’s Nausea and Camus’s The Fall as one the great summations of the human soul under the alienating conditions of twentieth-century capitalist society' and that '...in terms of aperçus per page, The Fire Within ranks alongside such great literary classics of addiction as Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Jean Cocteau’s Opium, and William S. Burroughs’s Junky. Besides he states that:
'Drieu’s characterization of Leroy as a man......elides the individual addict with the decadent postwar world his creator sought to oppose. Preoccupied with the venality he saw all around him, Drieu made his protagonist a man obsessed by virility, even as he succumbs to the sexual impotence that invariably accompanies opiate addiction. Drieu was promiscuous, yet haunted by a sense of sexual inadequacy—and what could be more decadent than this: lusting for something you’re quite unable to consume, like an addict for whom the drugs no longer work.'
In the last moments of his wretched soul, Alain Leroy embraces the darkness all too well as the nothingness without conjures up a phantasmagoria of dire imaginings with the decrepitude within sinking him into a morass of tenebrosity.
Propped up comfortably, neck on a pile of pillows, feet braced at the end of the bed, legs apart. Chest out, naked, well exposed. You know where the heart is.
A revolver is solid, it’s made of steel. It’s an object. To touch an object at last.
The end is all too apparent, it seems....
April 20, 2024
"Nei momenti in cui faceva finta di vivere, c'era in lei, è vero, un'agitazione febbrile. Scortata da un enorme autista, che la trasportava da un salotto all'altro, e da una vecchia segretaria umiliata che le faceva il clistere e le chiudeva la corrispondenza, percorreva l'Europa per rosicchiare e divorare tutte le celebrità. Era affamata di vitalità: quel poco che ne aveva lei si concentrava nel- l'unico sforzo di scoprirne di più negli altri. Benché per temperamento fosse portata alla leziosaggine, disprezzava tutto ciò che vi assomigliasse, e propendeva per i tipi più appariscenti."
"la bellezza, la vita, sono di gesso. Tutto era semplice, chiaro, tutto era finito. O piuttosto non c'era stato inizio, non ci sarebbe stata fine. Non c'era che questo momento, eterno. Non c'era nient'altro, assolutamente nient'altro. Ed era il nulla, folgorante."
"Sei morto per niente, ma dopotutto la tua morte dimostra che gli uomini non possono fare nient'altro al mondo che morire, che se c'è qualcosa che giustifica il loro orgoglio e il sentimento che hanno della loro dignità e tu l'avevi questo sentimento, tu che sei stato continuamente umiliato, offeso è che sono sempre pronti a gettare la loro vita, a giocarla in un colpo per un'idea, un sentimento. C'è solo una cosa nella vita, la passione, e la passione si può esprimere soltanto con l'omicidio - degli altri e di se stessi."
"Tutti ti dicevano che vivere non è bello. Qual è l'uomo che l'ha dentro, più che dirlo - o scriverlo - il convincimento che vivere non è bello?
Ci sono uomini che si sono uccisi. Tu ci avevi pensato, non ci pensavi più, non ne parlavi più perché la loro morte era in te.
Sono una prefica, sto assumendo il tono lacrimoso dei funerali. Dopotutto, merda, c'è la contropartita. Tu non avevi entusiasmo per nulla, non avevi talento per nulla. Te l'ho appena detto. A che scopo fare del pessimismo? Se avessi avuto talento per qualcosa, saresti ancora tra noi. Quelli che restano, quelli che non si uccidono, sono coloro che hanno talento, che credono nel loro talento.
Il talento. Non bisogna parlarne male. Non voglio che si parli male né del talento dei giardinieri, né di quello dei giornalisti. Il talento, prendetevela con la Natura che ogni giorno manifesta il proprio talento, il proprio immenso talento, nient'altro che questo.
Tu non amavi ciò che è vivo. Non ti ho mai visto amare un albero o una donna. Quello che sognavi con le donne, era di non farle respirare."
"la bellezza, la vita, sono di gesso. Tutto era semplice, chiaro, tutto era finito. O piuttosto non c'era stato inizio, non ci sarebbe stata fine. Non c'era che questo momento, eterno. Non c'era nient'altro, assolutamente nient'altro. Ed era il nulla, folgorante."
"Sei morto per niente, ma dopotutto la tua morte dimostra che gli uomini non possono fare nient'altro al mondo che morire, che se c'è qualcosa che giustifica il loro orgoglio e il sentimento che hanno della loro dignità e tu l'avevi questo sentimento, tu che sei stato continuamente umiliato, offeso è che sono sempre pronti a gettare la loro vita, a giocarla in un colpo per un'idea, un sentimento. C'è solo una cosa nella vita, la passione, e la passione si può esprimere soltanto con l'omicidio - degli altri e di se stessi."
"Tutti ti dicevano che vivere non è bello. Qual è l'uomo che l'ha dentro, più che dirlo - o scriverlo - il convincimento che vivere non è bello?
Ci sono uomini che si sono uccisi. Tu ci avevi pensato, non ci pensavi più, non ne parlavi più perché la loro morte era in te.
Sono una prefica, sto assumendo il tono lacrimoso dei funerali. Dopotutto, merda, c'è la contropartita. Tu non avevi entusiasmo per nulla, non avevi talento per nulla. Te l'ho appena detto. A che scopo fare del pessimismo? Se avessi avuto talento per qualcosa, saresti ancora tra noi. Quelli che restano, quelli che non si uccidono, sono coloro che hanno talento, che credono nel loro talento.
Il talento. Non bisogna parlarne male. Non voglio che si parli male né del talento dei giardinieri, né di quello dei giornalisti. Il talento, prendetevela con la Natura che ogni giorno manifesta il proprio talento, il proprio immenso talento, nient'altro che questo.
Tu non amavi ciò che è vivo. Non ti ho mai visto amare un albero o una donna. Quello che sognavi con le donne, era di non farle respirare."
July 19, 2025
"Hier had hij voor het eerst heroïne gebruikt, in de toiletten aan de rechterkant."
In "Le feu follet" (1931) probeert protagonist Alain te ontsnappen aan de leegte van zijn bestaan door druggebruik en zelfmoordgedachten. In tegenstelling tot andere heroïneliteratuur zoals bijvoorbeeld "Junkie" van William Burroughs, staan hier niet de routines, de rituelen, de effecten, de hallucinaties ... van het verdovende middel centraal, maar de existentiële leegte die erdoor gemaskeerd wordt: Alain slaagt er niet in bevredigende menselijke contacten aan te gaan. Zijn gebruik bereikt op bepaalde momenten zelfs een bijna filosofisch niveau: is hij - in tegenstelling tot opiumgebruikers - door het grote risico dat zijn injecties met zich meebrengen niet de enige échte verslaafde, verheven boven de rest? Een boeiende, maar deprimerende novelle die spijtig genoeg niet over de hele lijn overtuigt.
"Een revolver is solide, hij is van staal. Het is een object. Eindelijk in aanraking komen met een object."
"Urcel is een literator, die laten zich per definitie misleiden door woorden. Als er iets is waar mensen zich door laten misleiden, dan is het wel hun beroep."
"Ik verafschuw opium, een drug voor conciërges."
"De wereld krioelde van de mensen die hij nu vast en zeker nooit meer zou leren kennen."
"Die poeslieve toon van drugsverslaafden, die de boosaardigheid van een stel oude wijven maskeerde."
In "Le feu follet" (1931) probeert protagonist Alain te ontsnappen aan de leegte van zijn bestaan door druggebruik en zelfmoordgedachten. In tegenstelling tot andere heroïneliteratuur zoals bijvoorbeeld "Junkie" van William Burroughs, staan hier niet de routines, de rituelen, de effecten, de hallucinaties ... van het verdovende middel centraal, maar de existentiële leegte die erdoor gemaskeerd wordt: Alain slaagt er niet in bevredigende menselijke contacten aan te gaan. Zijn gebruik bereikt op bepaalde momenten zelfs een bijna filosofisch niveau: is hij - in tegenstelling tot opiumgebruikers - door het grote risico dat zijn injecties met zich meebrengen niet de enige échte verslaafde, verheven boven de rest? Een boeiende, maar deprimerende novelle die spijtig genoeg niet over de hele lijn overtuigt.
"Een revolver is solide, hij is van staal. Het is een object. Eindelijk in aanraking komen met een object."
"Urcel is een literator, die laten zich per definitie misleiden door woorden. Als er iets is waar mensen zich door laten misleiden, dan is het wel hun beroep."
"Ik verafschuw opium, een drug voor conciërges."
"De wereld krioelde van de mensen die hij nu vast en zeker nooit meer zou leren kennen."
"Die poeslieve toon van drugsverslaafden, die de boosaardigheid van een stel oude wijven maskeerde."
Read
November 7, 2025A revolver is solid, it’s made of steel. It’s an object. To touch an object at last.
January 29, 2025
Caro Drieu, sei stato un mezzo fascio, ma hai partorito un libro che ne vale la pena. Queste pagine sono il luogo dell'anima dove non penetra luce, ciò che in noi non può essere convertito alla grande messa in scena della vita. E sono disperatamente belle.
November 17, 2021
Bu kitabın 1963'de Louis Malle tarafından uyarlanmış filmi (Le feu follet/The Fire Within) benim için bir başyapıttır. Kitap çeviriden mi kaynaklı bilmiyorum ama film kadar büyük bir etki bırakmadı üzerimde. Yine de oldukça beğendim, belki çeviri bir kez daha gözden geçirilirse daha lezzetli bir okuma sunabilir roman.
Yazar Pierre Drieu la Rochelle 52 yaşında intihar etmiş ne yazık ki, kitaptaki baş karakter Alain de onunla aynı yolu izliyor. Bu gerçek ile birlikte okuyunca, Alain'ı ister istemez yazarla özdeşleştirdim ve çok yaraladı beni. Hayata dair tutkusunu yitirmiş, o tutkuyu içinde bir yerlerde barındıran, ya da önceden barındırmış ama bir şekilde, bir yerde kaybetmiş o tutkuyu; çevresinde onu seven insanlar var ama bu hiçbir zaman yeterli gelmiyor Alain'e. İnsanlarla arasındaki yeterince güçlü olmayan bağı yüklenmekten yorgun düşmüş. Sürekli, her görüştüğü insan ona biraz daha yolun sonuna geldiğini hissettiriyor. Filmi izlerken de vazgeçmeyeceğinden emindim, "Elimi kaldıramıyorum, şeylere dokunamıyorum. Öte yandan, dokunduğumda hiçbir şey hissetmiyorum." diyen bir insanı ne durdurabilirdi ki? Artık hissetmek de istemeyen bir insanı? İntihar eden biri için hep ilk olarak "Nasıl acı çekti kim bilir?" diye düşünürüz, acı dahil hiçbir şey hissedememiş, bu yüzden yaşamdan vazgeçmiş olabileceği aklımıza gelmez. Alain tam olarak bu noktadaydı; hissizlikten yorulmuştu. Hiçbir şey hissedemedikten sonra yaşamanın anlamsız olduğunu düşünüyordu Alain. Kadınlara, arkadaşlarıyla vakit geçirmeye, bağımlı olduğu uyuşturucu da dahil hiçbir şeye karşı arzu duymuyordu artık. Tutkusunu yitirmişti... Malûm sonu kaçınılmazdı bir noktada.
Sonuç olarak; oldukça etkilendiğim bir roman oldu. Filmi mutlaka izlenmeli, ama kitabı da okunmalı bence. Oldukça beğendim.
Bir alıntı:
* "Dinleyin, Solange, anlıyorsunuz, siz hayatın ta kendisisiniz. Pekâlâ, dinleyiniz sevgili hayat, size dokunamıyorum. Berbat bir şey bu. İşte burada, önümdesiniz; ama imkânsız, imkânsız. Öyleyse ölümü deneyeceğim, o daha az karşı koyacaktır sanırım. Hayat tuhaf şey, ha?" (sayfa 99)
Yazar Pierre Drieu la Rochelle 52 yaşında intihar etmiş ne yazık ki, kitaptaki baş karakter Alain de onunla aynı yolu izliyor. Bu gerçek ile birlikte okuyunca, Alain'ı ister istemez yazarla özdeşleştirdim ve çok yaraladı beni. Hayata dair tutkusunu yitirmiş, o tutkuyu içinde bir yerlerde barındıran, ya da önceden barındırmış ama bir şekilde, bir yerde kaybetmiş o tutkuyu; çevresinde onu seven insanlar var ama bu hiçbir zaman yeterli gelmiyor Alain'e. İnsanlarla arasındaki yeterince güçlü olmayan bağı yüklenmekten yorgun düşmüş. Sürekli, her görüştüğü insan ona biraz daha yolun sonuna geldiğini hissettiriyor. Filmi izlerken de vazgeçmeyeceğinden emindim, "Elimi kaldıramıyorum, şeylere dokunamıyorum. Öte yandan, dokunduğumda hiçbir şey hissetmiyorum." diyen bir insanı ne durdurabilirdi ki? Artık hissetmek de istemeyen bir insanı? İntihar eden biri için hep ilk olarak "Nasıl acı çekti kim bilir?" diye düşünürüz, acı dahil hiçbir şey hissedememiş, bu yüzden yaşamdan vazgeçmiş olabileceği aklımıza gelmez. Alain tam olarak bu noktadaydı; hissizlikten yorulmuştu. Hiçbir şey hissedemedikten sonra yaşamanın anlamsız olduğunu düşünüyordu Alain. Kadınlara, arkadaşlarıyla vakit geçirmeye, bağımlı olduğu uyuşturucu da dahil hiçbir şeye karşı arzu duymuyordu artık. Tutkusunu yitirmişti... Malûm sonu kaçınılmazdı bir noktada.
Sonuç olarak; oldukça etkilendiğim bir roman oldu. Filmi mutlaka izlenmeli, ama kitabı da okunmalı bence. Oldukça beğendim.
Bir alıntı:
* "Dinleyin, Solange, anlıyorsunuz, siz hayatın ta kendisisiniz. Pekâlâ, dinleyiniz sevgili hayat, size dokunamıyorum. Berbat bir şey bu. İşte burada, önümdesiniz; ama imkânsız, imkânsız. Öyleyse ölümü deneyeceğim, o daha az karşı koyacaktır sanırım. Hayat tuhaf şey, ha?" (sayfa 99)
March 28, 2018
داستان آدمی که خودش رو گم کرده و توی فضای سرد و گرفته شهر دنبال توجیهی برای زندگی میگرده. دائم به مرگ و خودکشی فکرمیکنه و آسودگیش رو فقط در مصرف مواد میبینه. کسی که ظاهر جذابش مسیر زندگیش رو به سوی زنها میکشونده و از طریق اونها امرار معاش میکرده و توی لذت زن و مواد غرق بوده حالا انقدر به پوچی رسیده که دیگه به هیچ چیز جز کشتن خودش فکر نمیکنه
نویسنده با بی رحمی بی معنی بودن زندگی شخصیت اولش رو توی صورت خواننده میزنه و هیچکدوم از دوستان شخصیت اول داستان هم نمیتونن اون رو دوباره به زندگی امیدوار کنن
نویسنده با بی رحمی بی معنی بودن زندگی شخصیت اولش رو توی صورت خواننده میزنه و هیچکدوم از دوستان شخصیت اول داستان هم نمیتونن اون رو دوباره به زندگی امیدوار کنن
February 12, 2025
A relic from post-WWI France that describes the moral dissolution of a young man who was once regarded as good-looking and full of promise. Different from anything I’ve read in a while, this was nonetheless hard to get into as it deals with themes that may have been of interest once upon a time but that look different from a modern perspective (the ennui of the upper classes, drug addiction as a means of coping).
December 24, 2023
i don't like comparing art (i do) but this is really mid compared to the louis malle adaptation. also french people are so weird about sex.
September 25, 2025
2.5 stars. A drug novel. A suicide novel. An existential novel. A novel of interwar ennui. Yet there are so many better examples of each. Drieu bases the protagonist on his late friend, but the result is a narrative that lacks the lived immediacy of similar works by Cocteau, Malraux, Zweig, Camus, Sartre, and Burroughs. This is true even though Drieu himself committed suicide sixteen years later, but that was too far in the future to generate the experiences that might contribute a sense of verisimilitude to this novel, and it was due to politics – Drieu was a fascist sympathizer who took his life in 1945 with the collapse of the Reich – so even this end for the author lacked the pathos of a tortured artist taking his own life.
That being said, there are some great lines in the novel that make it worth the read, even if it’s not a classic:
“But life is only habit, and habit holds you as long as life holds you.”
********
“I don’t want to grow old.”
“You regret your youth as if you had done something with it,” Dubourg blurted out.
“It was a promise. I lived on a lie. And I was the liar.”
********
His family thought he had subversive ideas. But he had no ideas, he had an atrocious lack of them: his mind was a pathetic carcass picked clean by the vultures that hover over the great empty cities.
********
“We have anything we want, but we have nothing unless we want it. And I can’t want, I can’t even desire.”
That being said, there are some great lines in the novel that make it worth the read, even if it’s not a classic:
“But life is only habit, and habit holds you as long as life holds you.”
********
“I don’t want to grow old.”
“You regret your youth as if you had done something with it,” Dubourg blurted out.
“It was a promise. I lived on a lie. And I was the liar.”
********
His family thought he had subversive ideas. But he had no ideas, he had an atrocious lack of them: his mind was a pathetic carcass picked clean by the vultures that hover over the great empty cities.
********
“We have anything we want, but we have nothing unless we want it. And I can’t want, I can’t even desire.”
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