Diario di un delicato

by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Milo De Angelis (Editor)

Rare book

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Pierre 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.

Reviews

[Kovalsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Non posso impedirmi di guardare in continuazione le persone intorno a me, e questo è un grande peccato, perché più le guardo e più le odio. Un odio tranquillo, dolce, gioviale, che forse non le ferisce mai, ma sicuramente ferisce me. Non sarebbe più sano odiarle attivamente, invadendole, sfruttandole?»

Da tanto volevo leggere Pierre Drieu La Rochelle e in lui scopro una penna gentile, capace però di scrivere pensieri molto acuminati, in grado di scavare nell'insoddisfazione di sé e nelle conflittualità quotidiane. Mi fermo qui perché non so più scrivere recensioni, soprattutto quando l'opera merita molto di più che un semplice "mi piace, libro consigliato". Non so più dare parola alle sensazioni; non ci provo nemmeno.
In fondo la lettura è una questione molto basica: vuoi leggere un libro? Leggilo. Non lo vuoi leggere? Non leggerlo.

[Momo García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maldita la hora en la que Pierre Drieu La Rochelle se volvió colaboracionista. Su apoyo a la invasión nazi de Francia le ha costado estar proscrito. Busco las traducciones de sus libros de vez en cuando y casi nunca tengo suerte. Sólo así se entiende que haya vibrado cuando encontré un libro pequeño titulado "Diario de un exquisito".

Conforme avanzaba, algo me decía que ya lo había leído. Al poco tiempo confirmé que ya lo había hecho: Bruguera ya lo había publicado en la antología "Historias acerbas".

No me arrepiento de haberlo leído otra vez, como si fuera la primera. Técnicamente se trataba de un libro nuevo en el que aún hay viejas obsesiones mías (el rechazo al matrimonio y a tener hijos) con algunas que solo aparecieron cinco años después (Dios y lo divino). Tenemos que rehabilitar a este escritor maldito.

[Mariña · Rating 4 out of 5]

"He deseado aún, pese a mi alejamiento de los seres y la vida (muy marcada ya cuando ella llegó), entregarme a ella; pero cuando me entrego, me pierdo. Ella desata uno a uno mis nudos. La miro deshacerme."

[Xosé M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cruel y desolador librito cuya belleza parece consistir, a pesar de todo, en esa insistencia o compromiso -el único compromiso que parece poder mantener el autor- con la honestidad.

“Pero precisamente porque no soy un escritor escribo todo esto. La literatura no es más que una forma edulcorada de la confesión, del testimonio, que son funciones eternas del hombre, funciones previas a la oración.”

[Gil Blas · Rating 2 out of 5]

París. Siglo XX. Podredumbre. Esta novela, magníficamente escrita, resulta de un naturalismo glacial aunque con un planteamiento más psicológico que animal. La exquisitez consiste en rechazar la vida, como dice el protagonista. O más bien quedarse con lo que conviene en cada momento.
Por más que se entrevere con las inquietudes místicas del autor, se detiene a menudo en detalles irrelevantes (lo ario del cristianismo, por ejemplo) y en esteticismos algo cursis y delicuescentes.

[Alejandro Paulovitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi primer diario de La Rochelle que leo y maravilloso. La historia de amor que describe es una montaña rusa emocional hasta que llega hasta la máxima decepción humana. Me entristece ver como una pareja se disuelve y ver cómo la mujer le dio todo pero él...el decidió tirarlo todo a la basura....ignorarla y despreciarla. Más bien una historia de terror con relatos cortos de filosofía. Un 10 de libro

[Mattia Agnelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Il centro della mia vita è la vertigine della solitudine. Ne ho sentito la morsa, feroce e ineluttabile, quando ho lasciato che Jeanne se ne andasse dall’isola.”

[Patty 🐈‍⬛ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finite e una poetica e delicata ammissione di essere abominevole.

[Chiara Moioli · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A quelli che possiedono la fede e la grazia, che sono impegnati nel cammino dell'ascesi e della mistica, occorre molto amore per giustificare il loro apparente rifiuto dell'amore umano.”

[Adrn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, crítico de arte, una persona culta que no por ello escapa de los problemas del resto de la sociedad. Es en este diario que podemos darnos cuenta de los pesares que persiguen a su autor, y probablemente las razones que lo llevan a padecer el mismo destino que, su amigo,
Jaques Rigaut; Suicidio.