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La Voie Royale
French language book
Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
32 people are currently reading
876 people want to read
About the author
André Malraux
274 books405 followersMalraux was born in Paris during 1901, the son of Fernand-Georges Malraux and Berthe Lamy (Malraux). His parents separated during 1905 and eventually divorced. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, Berthe and Adrienne Lamy in the small town of Bondy. His father, a stockbroker, committed suicide in 1930. Andre had Tourette's Syndrome during his childhood, resulting in motor and vocal tics.
At the age of 21, Malraux left for Cambodia with his new wife Clara Goldschmidt. In Cambodia, he undertook an exploratory expedition into the Cambodian jungle. On his return he was arrested by French colonial authorities for removing bas-reliefs from one of the temples he discovered. Banteay Srei (The French government itself had removed large numbers of sculptures and artifacts from already discovered sites such as Angkor Wat around this time). Malraux later incorporated the episode into his second novel La Voie Royale.
Malraux became very critical of the French colonial authorities in Indochina, and during 1925 helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper Indochina in Chains.
On his return to France, he published The Temptation of the West (1926) which had the format of an exchange of letters between a Westerner and an Asian comparing aspects of the two cultures. This was followed by his first novel The Conquerors (1928), then by The Royal Way (1930) which was influenced by his Cambodian experience, and then by Man's Fate (La Condition Humaine). For La Condition Humaine, a novel about the 1927 failed Communist rebellion in Shanghai, written with obvious sympathy for the Communists, he won the 1933 Prix Goncourt.
During the 1930s, Malraux was active in the anti-Fascist Popular Front in France. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in, and helping to organize, their small air force. His squadron, called "España", became something of a legend after his claims of nearly annihilating part of the Nationalist army at Medellín.
According to Curtis Cate, his biographer, he was slightly wounded twice during efforts to stop the Falangists' takeover of Madrid, but the British historian Hugh Thomas denies this. He also toured the United States to raise funds for the Spanish Republicans. A novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences, Man's Hope, (L'Espoir) was published during 1938.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Malraux joined the French Army. He was captured in 1940 during the Battle of France but escaped and later joined the French Resistance. He was captured by the Gestapo during 1944 and underwent a mock execution. He later commanded the tank unit Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in the attack on Stuttgart (Germany). He was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance, the Croix de Guerre. He was also awarded the British Distinguished Service Order for his work with British liaison officers in Corrèze, Dordogne and Lot, and after Dordogne had been liberated, leading a battalion of former resistance fighters to Alsace-Lorraine where they fought alongside the First Army.
During the war he worked on a long novel, The Struggle with the Angel based on the story of the Biblical Jacob. The manuscript was destroyed by the Gestapo after his capture in 1944. A surviving first part titled The Walnut Trees of Altenburg, was published after the war. He would never write another novel.
Malraux and his first wife divorced during the 1940s. His daughter from this marriage, Florence (b.1933), married the filmmaker Alain Resnais.
Malraux had two sons by his second wife Josette Clotis: Pierre-Gauthier (1940-1961) and Vincent (1943-1961). During 1944, while Malraux was fighting in Alsace, Josette died when she slipped while boarding a train. His two sons were killed during 1961 in an automobile accident.
After the war, Malraux served in a variety of government p
At the age of 21, Malraux left for Cambodia with his new wife Clara Goldschmidt. In Cambodia, he undertook an exploratory expedition into the Cambodian jungle. On his return he was arrested by French colonial authorities for removing bas-reliefs from one of the temples he discovered. Banteay Srei (The French government itself had removed large numbers of sculptures and artifacts from already discovered sites such as Angkor Wat around this time). Malraux later incorporated the episode into his second novel La Voie Royale.
Malraux became very critical of the French colonial authorities in Indochina, and during 1925 helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper Indochina in Chains.
On his return to France, he published The Temptation of the West (1926) which had the format of an exchange of letters between a Westerner and an Asian comparing aspects of the two cultures. This was followed by his first novel The Conquerors (1928), then by The Royal Way (1930) which was influenced by his Cambodian experience, and then by Man's Fate (La Condition Humaine). For La Condition Humaine, a novel about the 1927 failed Communist rebellion in Shanghai, written with obvious sympathy for the Communists, he won the 1933 Prix Goncourt.
During the 1930s, Malraux was active in the anti-Fascist Popular Front in France. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in, and helping to organize, their small air force. His squadron, called "España", became something of a legend after his claims of nearly annihilating part of the Nationalist army at Medellín.
According to Curtis Cate, his biographer, he was slightly wounded twice during efforts to stop the Falangists' takeover of Madrid, but the British historian Hugh Thomas denies this. He also toured the United States to raise funds for the Spanish Republicans. A novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences, Man's Hope, (L'Espoir) was published during 1938.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Malraux joined the French Army. He was captured in 1940 during the Battle of France but escaped and later joined the French Resistance. He was captured by the Gestapo during 1944 and underwent a mock execution. He later commanded the tank unit Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in the attack on Stuttgart (Germany). He was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance, the Croix de Guerre. He was also awarded the British Distinguished Service Order for his work with British liaison officers in Corrèze, Dordogne and Lot, and after Dordogne had been liberated, leading a battalion of former resistance fighters to Alsace-Lorraine where they fought alongside the First Army.
During the war he worked on a long novel, The Struggle with the Angel based on the story of the Biblical Jacob. The manuscript was destroyed by the Gestapo after his capture in 1944. A surviving first part titled The Walnut Trees of Altenburg, was published after the war. He would never write another novel.
Malraux and his first wife divorced during the 1940s. His daughter from this marriage, Florence (b.1933), married the filmmaker Alain Resnais.
Malraux had two sons by his second wife Josette Clotis: Pierre-Gauthier (1940-1961) and Vincent (1943-1961). During 1944, while Malraux was fighting in Alsace, Josette died when she slipped while boarding a train. His two sons were killed during 1961 in an automobile accident.
After the war, Malraux served in a variety of government p
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
December 29, 2014
A thoughtful and entertaining novel which is, if anything, more interesting for being so obviously written under the influence of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Whereas Conrad's novel came as part of a whole tradition of English writers confronting the ‘savagery’ of the remote parts of their empire (Kipling etc.), French literature, before Malraux, had no such tradition – so just the fact of seeing France's Indochina colonies examined in the same way somehow seems rather radical.
The story concerns a young French archeologist who meets a legendary Danish adventurer on the way to Cambodia; the two cook up a scheme to plunder ruined Khmer temples for artifacts, but things go awry when they find themselves lost in the jungle at the mercy of unfriendly natives. And somewhere amidst the trees, there's also a vanished French explorer called Grabot, who went AWOL years ago in the forests, and is rumoured to have ‘gone native’….
The set-up is all there for a classic ‘novel of adventures’, and indeed there's more than a hint of Indiana Jones to the early sections (when the two were hacking bas-reliefs off Khmer temples I could hear a voice in my head yelling ‘It belongs in a museum!’). Later escapades provide a full roster of poisoned darts, weird rituals, creepy-crawlies, and daring escapes. Yet what's striking is how ‘French’ the resulting tale ends up being – by which I suppose I mean that it's measured, philosophical; a story where death is not a cheap thrill, but rather a profoundly unsettling certainty that is seriously addressed. As a whole, La Voie royale reads not like an adventure story, but like a novel-of-ideas that just happens to be crammed with incidents, and in that sense it struck me as both unusual and very successful.
I imagine there are reams of ‘postcolonialist’ critique of this book out there. It's of its time, and you can expect much reference to be made to natives and savages. That said, the colonial project is not completely unquestioned here either, and sometimes political comment does float to the surface:
How's the writing? As you can see, it's chewy and dense and hugely enjoyable. I read it in French, and it's the kind of French book I like best: short and easy to follow, but still rich enough that you feel a constant benefit in discovering the original. The landscape of Southeast Asia is described in long, lush sentences, full of atmosphere. Here's the marshes as our protagonists approach the jungle from the river:
At other points the narrative becomes more precise, focusing in on welcome details:
Interspersed with the languorous descriptions and the boy's-own-adventure set-pieces are long, stychomythic passages of bare dialogue, where Claude the archaeologist and Perken the adventurer discuss, mainly, their own mortality. Ultimately, this propensity overtakes the more adventurous parts of the book, and the final section is essentially an extended Malrucian meditation on death and dying – except that I normally hate that sort of thing, whereas here, after what came before, it felt unusually powerful. And it's free from the usual clichés of such writing: after a reflection that so many people around the world who are facing death take refuge in some god, we get this astonishing outburst:
It doesn't feel depressing at all, it feels angry and articulate. Ce n'est pas pour mourir que je pense à mon mort, c'est pour vivre, as Perken puts it earlier: I don't think about my own death in order to die, but in order to live. The aphorism could serve as a TL;DR summary of the entire novel – but consuming it as a whole, tomb-raider adventures and all, is a far more entertaining way to soak up the message.
The story concerns a young French archeologist who meets a legendary Danish adventurer on the way to Cambodia; the two cook up a scheme to plunder ruined Khmer temples for artifacts, but things go awry when they find themselves lost in the jungle at the mercy of unfriendly natives. And somewhere amidst the trees, there's also a vanished French explorer called Grabot, who went AWOL years ago in the forests, and is rumoured to have ‘gone native’….
The set-up is all there for a classic ‘novel of adventures’, and indeed there's more than a hint of Indiana Jones to the early sections (when the two were hacking bas-reliefs off Khmer temples I could hear a voice in my head yelling ‘It belongs in a museum!’). Later escapades provide a full roster of poisoned darts, weird rituals, creepy-crawlies, and daring escapes. Yet what's striking is how ‘French’ the resulting tale ends up being – by which I suppose I mean that it's measured, philosophical; a story where death is not a cheap thrill, but rather a profoundly unsettling certainty that is seriously addressed. As a whole, La Voie royale reads not like an adventure story, but like a novel-of-ideas that just happens to be crammed with incidents, and in that sense it struck me as both unusual and very successful.
I imagine there are reams of ‘postcolonialist’ critique of this book out there. It's of its time, and you can expect much reference to be made to natives and savages. That said, the colonial project is not completely unquestioned here either, and sometimes political comment does float to the surface:
L'état était au fond de cette obscurité, chassant devant lui les tribus animales avant de chasser les autres, allongeant de kilomètre en kilomètre la ligne de son chemin de fer, enterrant d'année en année, toujours un peu plus loin, les cadavres de son aventuriers.
Behind this darkness was the State, chasing animals – and then others – before it, extending its railway line kilometre after kilometre, and burying year after year, a little further away each time, the corpses of its adventurers.
How's the writing? As you can see, it's chewy and dense and hugely enjoyable. I read it in French, and it's the kind of French book I like best: short and easy to follow, but still rich enough that you feel a constant benefit in discovering the original. The landscape of Southeast Asia is described in long, lush sentences, full of atmosphere. Here's the marshes as our protagonists approach the jungle from the river:
Claude regardait avec passion ce prologue de la forêt qui l'attendait, possédé par l'odeur de la vase qui se tend lentement au soleil, de l'écume fade qui sèche, des bêtes qui se désagrègent, par le mol aspect des animaux amphibies, couleur de boue, collés aux branches.
Intently, Claude watched this prologue to the forest that awaited him, overwhelmed by the scent of the silt oozing slowly in the sun, of the insipid, drying froth, of the crumbling animals – by the sluggish appearance of the amphibious wildlife, mud-coloured and clinging to the branches.
At other points the narrative becomes more precise, focusing in on welcome details:
Le feu crépitatit toujours; la flamme, au contraire, montait droite et claire, presque rose, n'éclairant que les volutes saccadées de sa fumée, dessinant des reflets dans la masse du feuillage qui ne se distinguait plus qu'à peine du ciel.
The fire was still crackling away; the flame, by contrast, rose straight and clear, almost pink, illuminating only the jerky spirals of its own smoke, drawing reflections in the mass of foliage which was now barely visible against the sky.
Interspersed with the languorous descriptions and the boy's-own-adventure set-pieces are long, stychomythic passages of bare dialogue, where Claude the archaeologist and Perken the adventurer discuss, mainly, their own mortality. Ultimately, this propensity overtakes the more adventurous parts of the book, and the final section is essentially an extended Malrucian meditation on death and dying – except that I normally hate that sort of thing, whereas here, after what came before, it felt unusually powerful. And it's free from the usual clichés of such writing: after a reflection that so many people around the world who are facing death take refuge in some god, we get this astonishing outburst:
Ah ! qu'il en existât, pour pouvoir, au prix des peines éternelles, hurler, commes des chiens, qu'aucune pensée divine, qu'aucune récompense future, que rien ne pouvait justifier la fin d'une existence humaine […] !
Oh! if only one of them did exist – just to be able, at the cost of eternal torment, to howl like a dog that no divine order, no future reward, nothing, could justify the end of one human existence!
It doesn't feel depressing at all, it feels angry and articulate. Ce n'est pas pour mourir que je pense à mon mort, c'est pour vivre, as Perken puts it earlier: I don't think about my own death in order to die, but in order to live. The aphorism could serve as a TL;DR summary of the entire novel – but consuming it as a whole, tomb-raider adventures and all, is a far more entertaining way to soak up the message.
November 19, 2018
The writing was amazingly profound and personal, I felt like the author was revealing things I needed to know but wouldn't have been able to otherwise to me.
And no, it's not pro-colonialism.
And no, it's not pro-colonialism.
January 20, 2020
เป็นหนังสือที่ไม่มีแรงดึงดูดให้เราอ่านมันอย่างต่อเนื่อง
ให้เล่มนี้สามดาวเพราะ หนึ่งดาวให้ผู้เขียน
สองดาวให้กับสำนวนดีงามของผู้แปล
ให้กับการค้นคว้าหาข้อมูลมาอธิบายเพิ่มเติมที่ครบถ้วน ยอดเยี่ยม
และการตีความอันสุดจะเปิดโลกให้กับผู้อ่าน
ทั้งนี้ สติปัญญาผู้อ่านก็มีส่วนในการตัดสินหนังสือเช่นกัน
บางที เราอาจจะเป็นไก่ที่ไม่รู้คุณค่าของพลอยก็เป็นได้!
ข้างล่างนี้สปอยล์นิดหน่อยค่ะ
ผู้เขียนเล่าถึงนักเผชิญโชคชาวฝรั่งเศส 2 คน ที่เดินทางเข้าไปในป่าเขมร
ตามเส้นทางราชมรรคา เพื่อค้นหาหินสลักที่สมบูรณ์ แล้วนำขโมยออกมาขาย
(ส่วนหนึ่งมาจากประสบการณ์จริงของตัวผู้เขียนเอง)
แต่สุดท้าย ธีมเรื่องก็เปลี่ยนไปเล่าเรื่องการต่อสู้ระหว่างทหารของรัฐบาลกับชนเผ่าในเขมรเฉยเลย
ไม่มีบทสรุปเกี่ยวกับไอ้เจ้าหินสลักหนักๆ ที่ขนมาอย่างยากลำบากซะงั้น
ให้เล่มนี้สามดาวเพราะ หนึ่งดาวให้ผู้เขียน
สองดาวให้กับสำนวนดีงามของผู้แปล
ให้กับการค้นคว้าหาข้อมูลมาอธิบายเพิ่มเติมที่ครบถ้วน ยอดเยี่ยม
และการตีความอันสุดจะเปิดโลกให้กับผู้อ่าน
ทั้งนี้ สติปัญญาผู้อ่านก็มีส่วนในการตัดสินหนังสือเช่นกัน
บางที เราอาจจะเป็นไก่ที่ไม่รู้คุณค่าของพลอยก็เป็นได้!
ข้างล่างนี้สปอยล์นิดหน่อยค่ะ
ผู้เขียนเล่าถึงนักเผชิญโชคชาวฝรั่งเศส 2 คน ที่เดินทางเข้าไปในป่าเขมร
ตามเส้นทางราชมรรคา เพื่อค้นหาหินสลักที่สมบูรณ์ แล้วนำขโมยออกมาขาย
(ส่วนหนึ่งมาจากประสบการณ์จริงของตัวผู้เขียนเอง)
แต่สุดท้าย ธีมเรื่องก็เปลี่ยนไปเล่าเรื่องการต่อสู้ระหว่างทหารของรัฐบาลกับชนเผ่าในเขมรเฉยเลย
ไม่มีบทสรุปเกี่ยวกับไอ้เจ้าหินสลักหนักๆ ที่ขนมาอย่างยากลำบากซะงั้น
June 20, 2021
Not quite without merit as a story of adventure, very Stevenson-like, but literary very unequal. There are some distinct similarities with Heart of Darkness, by Conrad, even in some details, but not very well elaborated. The metaphysical underlayer is almost ridicule: tough guys always talking about death and courage; in this way it reminded me of Hemingway, but at least the latter succeeded in making his characters more plausible! I've never understood the great admiration Malraux always has enjoyed (on second thought, I do, but it's not to his advantage).
November 30, 2015
The Way Of The Kings was recommended to me by a friend who cites his favourite book as being Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and this one is unashamedly similar in many ways, and is often referred to as a 'companion' book to Heart Of Darkness.
The story revolves around two men who meet on a journey to Cambodia and decide to hatch a plan to steal some of the ancient artifacts located in the ruins of old Khmer temples. Things however don't go according to plan when they happen to come across a group of natives who really don't like them attempting to pinch their stuff. Although the prose is quite moody and descriptive, I started to get a strong Indiana Jones style vibe from the book as the two men experience what life is really like in the exotic jungle. Obviously with a book of this age and nature, there are strong colonialism themes and criticisms that you can draw out, but essentially this is a novel that attempts to delve into the human psyche and explores the thoughts that arise when one is facing almost certain death. Intriguing if a little archaic now.
The story revolves around two men who meet on a journey to Cambodia and decide to hatch a plan to steal some of the ancient artifacts located in the ruins of old Khmer temples. Things however don't go according to plan when they happen to come across a group of natives who really don't like them attempting to pinch their stuff. Although the prose is quite moody and descriptive, I started to get a strong Indiana Jones style vibe from the book as the two men experience what life is really like in the exotic jungle. Obviously with a book of this age and nature, there are strong colonialism themes and criticisms that you can draw out, but essentially this is a novel that attempts to delve into the human psyche and explores the thoughts that arise when one is facing almost certain death. Intriguing if a little archaic now.
Read
April 21, 2019More a 2,5 *
Not sure if it's me, Malraux or the Greek translator...
Not sure if it's me, Malraux or the Greek translator...
March 2, 2020
Malraux is well known for being a talented writer, in the resistance against the Germans during the Second World War and the Minister of Culture for De Gaulle’s government. Aside from that, he was also an adventurer who travelled to former Indochina in the 1920s to steal some Khmer artefacts in order to make money once back in France!
« La Voie royale » is partly based on his experience in Cambodia to find worthy ruins in the jungle around what was called the Royal Way in the former Khmer empire. In real life, he does end up finding beautiful bas-relief sculptures from the Banteay Srei temple in the Angkor Wat complex. However, he gets denounced and ends up in jail! He then goes on fighting against the colonial injustices in Indochina.
In « La Voie royale », Malraux makes the story even more dramatic and adventurous. The main character is indeed looking for ruins but with a mysterious adventurer who seems to have created a small kingdom in the jungle with Indigenous people. Both men are obsessed with existential questions about the meaning of life, love and sex, growing old and facing death. The book can be dense at times as simple dialogues can quickly turn into existentialist reflexions.
In their adventure, they also face nature’s inhospitality, the difficulties of communicating with the Indigenous people and the cruelty of some tribes. Women and Indigenous people do not have a voice of their own and are objectified, which is what I disliked most about the book.
« La Voie royale » is partly based on his experience in Cambodia to find worthy ruins in the jungle around what was called the Royal Way in the former Khmer empire. In real life, he does end up finding beautiful bas-relief sculptures from the Banteay Srei temple in the Angkor Wat complex. However, he gets denounced and ends up in jail! He then goes on fighting against the colonial injustices in Indochina.
In « La Voie royale », Malraux makes the story even more dramatic and adventurous. The main character is indeed looking for ruins but with a mysterious adventurer who seems to have created a small kingdom in the jungle with Indigenous people. Both men are obsessed with existential questions about the meaning of life, love and sex, growing old and facing death. The book can be dense at times as simple dialogues can quickly turn into existentialist reflexions.
In their adventure, they also face nature’s inhospitality, the difficulties of communicating with the Indigenous people and the cruelty of some tribes. Women and Indigenous people do not have a voice of their own and are objectified, which is what I disliked most about the book.
June 5, 2007
Another French book I'm probably not going to finish (Nana is sputtering like a candle at the end of a long dinner party) but it is a very slim Livre De Poche edition that I like precisely because it fits in my back pocket when I am out and about and don't wish to carry any shoulder bag (it accompanied me to the Sunday block of the Bang on a Can Marathon). It concerns two French adventurers off to Southeast Asia (between the two world wars) to strip Buddhist temples of their valuable objects for resale to European collectors - that's all I can tell you so far. I believe Malraux was not so much examining the colonialist aspect of this, and gather he was more interested in depicting the central character Perken as a man attempting to carve out a substantive place for himself in the universe, in the face of the inevitability of death (with which he is slightly obsessed - a philosophical novel, in short!
September 16, 2010
it's cool how much fo a shithead this guy comes off as, like he doesn't feel comfortable with how brutal and shitty he's being as he's going around looting siamese temples and killing Savages and calling them bugs, and he's always trying to validate it. the prose doesn't really kick in until the dude's about to die:
That insane feeling that he could grab death by the throat and fight like an animal, which had gripped him when he thought of shooting Savan, spread within him with the force of a seizure. He would fight his worst enemy, decay, in the soul of each of his men.
"Dear Monsieur
The skin of the bear is also considered a historical monument, but it might be unwise to go looking for it.
Even more sincerely,
-Claude Vannec"
like lmao just sack up and admit you're a looting monster already
That insane feeling that he could grab death by the throat and fight like an animal, which had gripped him when he thought of shooting Savan, spread within him with the force of a seizure. He would fight his worst enemy, decay, in the soul of each of his men.
"Dear Monsieur
The skin of the bear is also considered a historical monument, but it might be unwise to go looking for it.
Even more sincerely,
-Claude Vannec"
like lmao just sack up and admit you're a looting monster already
August 17, 2017
http://www.liberation.fr/cahier-ete-2...
Bien évidemment très bien écrit, cette fresque décrit une aventure digne d'Indiana Jones mais avec une tragique à la française.
Le livre est passionnant mais, trop court, à mon goût et reste frustré sur les 2 personnages principaux. L'article de Libération cité plus haut permet de mieux cerner l'histoire et ses aspects autobiographiques
Bien évidemment très bien écrit, cette fresque décrit une aventure digne d'Indiana Jones mais avec une tragique à la française.
Le livre est passionnant mais, trop court, à mon goût et reste frustré sur les 2 personnages principaux. L'article de Libération cité plus haut permet de mieux cerner l'histoire et ses aspects autobiographiques
March 12, 2012
This effort falls far short of Man's Hope and Man's Fate but certainly had splashes of quality. Malraux can really paint with intensity when he gets going. Unfortunately, this novel had too many clumsy moments and a splatter shot ending which kept it from being top notch.
April 27, 2014
Superb, best read alongside some Jules Verne.
Read
July 29, 2022"Perken regardait ce temoin, étranger comme un etre d'un autre monde." (p. 269)
September 17, 2022
3,5 pelas descrições dos ambientes e enredo um pouco confuso.
February 7, 2021
Тежок и мрачен стил.
Малро ни ја раскажува приказната за еден млад авантурист по име Клод, кој се здружува со Перкен, чудниот французин и одличен познавач на приликите во Индокина. Двајцата тргнуваат по „кралскиот пат“ во Камбоџа со цел да пронајдат скапоцени релјефи кои подоцна би ги продале...
Тешко, но сепак вредно за читање.
Малро ни ја раскажува приказната за еден млад авантурист по име Клод, кој се здружува со Перкен, чудниот французин и одличен познавач на приликите во Индокина. Двајцата тргнуваат по „кралскиот пат“ во Камбоџа со цел да пронајдат скапоцени релјефи кои подоцна би ги продале...
Тешко, но сепак вредно за читање.
June 3, 2012
The red glint on his shoulder flickered; he had made an unseen gesture in the darkness. A puny gesture, as puny as the little human speck whose feet were hidden in shadow, whose fitful voice floated up into the starry depths. A mans' voice, lonely and remote, poised between the shining sky, and death, and darkness; yet in it there was something so inhuman that Claude felt as isolated from it as he would have been by incipient madness.
Yeah, so this is definitely a french novel. If you are turned off at the thought of two grown men obsessing over Death as relentlessly as a hypochondriac, then this is not for you. I suspect Camus (Malraux's #1 fan) coined the idea of the Absurd just to get the French to shut up already about death and get on with their lives. Of course Camus also loved the romance of Malraux's life, the way he got caught up in all those revolutions and world-historical events. Now, of course, we know that Malraux was just making it all up (though Man's Fate is still as fine a fabrication as you could want), and was more a master of self-aggrandizing B.S. than a bona-fide adventurer.
There is some truth to this novel, at least; like the protagonist, Malraux got his start travelling in Indochina and, ahem, plundering tombs to get rich (perhaps he acquired his taste for the morbid here). But the authenticity does add some heft to the narrative; he depicts the actual mechanics of dismantling a Buddhist temple with a remarkable verisimilitude. More importantly, he draws upon these memories to lavishly and luridly conjures up the seething immensity of the junge. This is where the prose really shines; he is able to find the poetry even in the experience of sticking your hand into a big wad of bugs.
But it's a pretty entertaining story if you enjoy a little philosophy now and again; unlike Sartre or Camus at least his characters get out of the house once in a while.
November 28, 2022
I didn't care for this author.
From the foreword:
" … until almost halfway through, the narrative perspective is entirely claude's. Suddenly, abruptly, we are allowed into Perkens' thoughts, from there on the narrative jumps continually between the 2. The story drives on, relentlessly compelling but never offering simple narrative satisfaction: one quest is simply supplanted by another and another, and the reader must keep pace with the protagonist or be abandoned amongst the rotten insects of the forest floor ."
From the introduction:
" To depict these extreme situations, malraux adopts an extreme style, as tangled and dense as the jungle through which his protagonists struggle. Ornate descriptions, torrents of adjectives, extravagant similes, sentences of proustian complexity, bulging with subordinate clauses, interspersed with dialogue so laconic as to verge at times on the cryptic: these are not the calm, measured, analytical tones of classical French prose...."
Claude wants to steal some stone images found among abandoned temples, along the "King's Way," in Thailand. He meets an old fart named Perken on the ship traveling there, and because Perken is interested in stealing some stone images as well, besides looking for a lost old fart in the jungle, he agrees to hook up with Claude.
" Once again he took out the archeological map of Siam and Cambodia; he knew it better than his own face… he was fascinated by the big blue circles he had drawn around the Dead Cities, the dotted line representing the old Way of the Kings, the threat it contained: being abandoned in the middle of the Siamese jungle. 'at least A 50/50 chance of snuffing it there… ' a tangle of oaths, the carcasses of small animals abandoned near dying fires, The end of the last mission to jarai country: the white chief, Odend'hal, pummelled to death with spears, at night, by the men of the Sadete, the King of Fire, amid the Rustle of crushed palms, announcing the arrival of the mission's elephants… how many nights would he have to stay awake, exhausted, plagued by mosquitoes, or go to sleep trusting to the vigilance of some guide?"
Claude discovers that Perken has a fear of growing old, and dying.
"...' Death is always there, you understand, as…. as irrefutable evidence of the absurdity of life…'
'for everyone.'
'for no one! No one really believes in it. Not many people could live… all they think about is the fact that - oh how can I make you understand? - That they could be killed, that's it. And that's of no importance. Death is something else: it's the opposite. You're too young. I didn't understand it till I saw a woman grow old …. yes, a woman… I told you about Sarah, didn't I?… then as if that warning wasn't enough, when I found myself Impotent for the 1st time. ..'
the words were torn from him, only reaching the surface after breaking through a 1000 clinging roots.
'never in front of a dead man…' he went on. 'growing old, that's it, growing old. Especially when you're separate from other people. Decay. The thing that weighs heavy on me is - how can I put it? - my condition as a man: the fact that I'm growing old, that this horrible thing called time is growing inside me, inexorably, like a cancer… Time, there you are… all these damn insects buzzing around our lamp are slaves to the light. These termites in their hives are slaves to their hives . I don't want to be a slave to anything.' "
Claude does get his stone images, and loads them on a cart, with the help of the Hired men. But the hired men won't go any further along the King's Way. So Claude and Perken drive the oxen with the cart, continuing their quest for the lost man.
They come upon a tribe in a village in a clearing. They go to the headman's hut, and Perken sees his friend's jacket hanging on the wall. Though the headman denies any knowledge of a white man, Perken tells Claude that he knows he is here. they leave the headman's hut, they go into a seemingly abandoned hut. But inside, a slave is tied to a cross piece, where he is driving it around and around. It's hard to tell at first because he's so filthy, and he has no eyes, but Perken believes that it's his friend.
" Immediately, the two white men realized that what they dreaded most was the thought of this creature coming anywhere near them. Neither revulsion, nor fear: a holy terror, a horror of the inhuman, such as Claude had known earlier when confronted with the pyre. The man again took two steps forward. The bell rang again, and he stopped.
'but he's understood,' Claude murmured.
He had understood that sentence, too, even though Claude [had] Spoken in a very low voice. 'what are you?' he said at last in French, in his toneless voice.
a kind of despair took hold of Claude, as if he were mute . The question could mean so many things. What to reply: Frenchmen, white men, or what?
'the bastards!' Perken stammered. The questioning tone in which he had spoken until then, even in the command to turn round, had vanished. His voice now was filled with hate. He approached and said his name. Now Claude could quite clearly see the man's two eyelids, stretched over his absent eyes. How to touch him, how to finally establish some kind of connection with him? How to get anything coherent from that obliterated face, beneath those eyelids with their vertical furrows, beneath that terrible filth? Perken's Hands gripped the man's shoulders. 'what? What?' "
So they untie the dude and take him into the hut that's been designated for them to rest in. it's raised up off the ground. Perken tells Claude that the tribesmen will wait till nighttime, and then set a fire under their hut.
The tribesmen have traps, stakes, set in the clearing. When it's dark, Perken leaves their hut, and since he can't see, he trips and stabs himself in the knee with one of the stakes.
He plays a trick on the tribesmen: he fills one of his hollow point bullets with blood from his knee, shoots his gun at a mask hanging from the roof of the headman's hut, making it look like he caused the mask to bleed. Thus, they make their escape while the tribesmen are still blown away by this trick.
But now Perken has his knee getting infected, from being stabbed by poisoned stakes. They make their way across the border, to Cambodia, to a more civilized village. There is an opium-addicted English doctor living there. He examines Perken's knee and says he has two chances: he can overdose himself on opium, or he can die a slow painful death.
Perken gets a second opinion with the Siamese doctor who was away when they first arrived.
"perken enumerated the symptoms he had already told the English doctor about. The Siamese said nothing in reply, but continued Palpating him with great dexterity. Perken was not so much fearful as impatient: he was confronting an enemy again, even if this enemy was his own blood.
'on the way here, Monsieur Perken, I met Doctor Blackhouse. he's not a very… moral man, but he's an experienced doctor. He told me, with that English contempt of his - as if I knew nothing about this illness - that it was suppurated arthritis. I'd read about it in the manuals, it was widespread during the European war, but I've never encountered it before. You have all the symptoms. To combat an infectious disease of this nature, amputation would be necessary. But in the present state of science…'
perken raised his hands, cutting short the speech."
At first I was asking myself "why don't they use antibiotics?" And then I looked at the published date and it was 1930, so antibiotics hadn't even been invented yet. Perken died. Claude lost his stone etchings and barely made his way out.
From the foreword:
" … until almost halfway through, the narrative perspective is entirely claude's. Suddenly, abruptly, we are allowed into Perkens' thoughts, from there on the narrative jumps continually between the 2. The story drives on, relentlessly compelling but never offering simple narrative satisfaction: one quest is simply supplanted by another and another, and the reader must keep pace with the protagonist or be abandoned amongst the rotten insects of the forest floor ."
From the introduction:
" To depict these extreme situations, malraux adopts an extreme style, as tangled and dense as the jungle through which his protagonists struggle. Ornate descriptions, torrents of adjectives, extravagant similes, sentences of proustian complexity, bulging with subordinate clauses, interspersed with dialogue so laconic as to verge at times on the cryptic: these are not the calm, measured, analytical tones of classical French prose...."
Claude wants to steal some stone images found among abandoned temples, along the "King's Way," in Thailand. He meets an old fart named Perken on the ship traveling there, and because Perken is interested in stealing some stone images as well, besides looking for a lost old fart in the jungle, he agrees to hook up with Claude.
" Once again he took out the archeological map of Siam and Cambodia; he knew it better than his own face… he was fascinated by the big blue circles he had drawn around the Dead Cities, the dotted line representing the old Way of the Kings, the threat it contained: being abandoned in the middle of the Siamese jungle. 'at least A 50/50 chance of snuffing it there… ' a tangle of oaths, the carcasses of small animals abandoned near dying fires, The end of the last mission to jarai country: the white chief, Odend'hal, pummelled to death with spears, at night, by the men of the Sadete, the King of Fire, amid the Rustle of crushed palms, announcing the arrival of the mission's elephants… how many nights would he have to stay awake, exhausted, plagued by mosquitoes, or go to sleep trusting to the vigilance of some guide?"
Claude discovers that Perken has a fear of growing old, and dying.
"...' Death is always there, you understand, as…. as irrefutable evidence of the absurdity of life…'
'for everyone.'
'for no one! No one really believes in it. Not many people could live… all they think about is the fact that - oh how can I make you understand? - That they could be killed, that's it. And that's of no importance. Death is something else: it's the opposite. You're too young. I didn't understand it till I saw a woman grow old …. yes, a woman… I told you about Sarah, didn't I?… then as if that warning wasn't enough, when I found myself Impotent for the 1st time. ..'
the words were torn from him, only reaching the surface after breaking through a 1000 clinging roots.
'never in front of a dead man…' he went on. 'growing old, that's it, growing old. Especially when you're separate from other people. Decay. The thing that weighs heavy on me is - how can I put it? - my condition as a man: the fact that I'm growing old, that this horrible thing called time is growing inside me, inexorably, like a cancer… Time, there you are… all these damn insects buzzing around our lamp are slaves to the light. These termites in their hives are slaves to their hives . I don't want to be a slave to anything.' "
Claude does get his stone images, and loads them on a cart, with the help of the Hired men. But the hired men won't go any further along the King's Way. So Claude and Perken drive the oxen with the cart, continuing their quest for the lost man.
They come upon a tribe in a village in a clearing. They go to the headman's hut, and Perken sees his friend's jacket hanging on the wall. Though the headman denies any knowledge of a white man, Perken tells Claude that he knows he is here. they leave the headman's hut, they go into a seemingly abandoned hut. But inside, a slave is tied to a cross piece, where he is driving it around and around. It's hard to tell at first because he's so filthy, and he has no eyes, but Perken believes that it's his friend.
" Immediately, the two white men realized that what they dreaded most was the thought of this creature coming anywhere near them. Neither revulsion, nor fear: a holy terror, a horror of the inhuman, such as Claude had known earlier when confronted with the pyre. The man again took two steps forward. The bell rang again, and he stopped.
'but he's understood,' Claude murmured.
He had understood that sentence, too, even though Claude [had] Spoken in a very low voice. 'what are you?' he said at last in French, in his toneless voice.
a kind of despair took hold of Claude, as if he were mute . The question could mean so many things. What to reply: Frenchmen, white men, or what?
'the bastards!' Perken stammered. The questioning tone in which he had spoken until then, even in the command to turn round, had vanished. His voice now was filled with hate. He approached and said his name. Now Claude could quite clearly see the man's two eyelids, stretched over his absent eyes. How to touch him, how to finally establish some kind of connection with him? How to get anything coherent from that obliterated face, beneath those eyelids with their vertical furrows, beneath that terrible filth? Perken's Hands gripped the man's shoulders. 'what? What?' "
So they untie the dude and take him into the hut that's been designated for them to rest in. it's raised up off the ground. Perken tells Claude that the tribesmen will wait till nighttime, and then set a fire under their hut.
The tribesmen have traps, stakes, set in the clearing. When it's dark, Perken leaves their hut, and since he can't see, he trips and stabs himself in the knee with one of the stakes.
He plays a trick on the tribesmen: he fills one of his hollow point bullets with blood from his knee, shoots his gun at a mask hanging from the roof of the headman's hut, making it look like he caused the mask to bleed. Thus, they make their escape while the tribesmen are still blown away by this trick.
But now Perken has his knee getting infected, from being stabbed by poisoned stakes. They make their way across the border, to Cambodia, to a more civilized village. There is an opium-addicted English doctor living there. He examines Perken's knee and says he has two chances: he can overdose himself on opium, or he can die a slow painful death.
Perken gets a second opinion with the Siamese doctor who was away when they first arrived.
"perken enumerated the symptoms he had already told the English doctor about. The Siamese said nothing in reply, but continued Palpating him with great dexterity. Perken was not so much fearful as impatient: he was confronting an enemy again, even if this enemy was his own blood.
'on the way here, Monsieur Perken, I met Doctor Blackhouse. he's not a very… moral man, but he's an experienced doctor. He told me, with that English contempt of his - as if I knew nothing about this illness - that it was suppurated arthritis. I'd read about it in the manuals, it was widespread during the European war, but I've never encountered it before. You have all the symptoms. To combat an infectious disease of this nature, amputation would be necessary. But in the present state of science…'
perken raised his hands, cutting short the speech."
At first I was asking myself "why don't they use antibiotics?" And then I looked at the published date and it was 1930, so antibiotics hadn't even been invented yet. Perken died. Claude lost his stone etchings and barely made his way out.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
August 25, 2020راه شاهی دومین رمانی است که آندره مالرو، نویسندهی فرانسوی، در آن از ماجراها و حوادثی که در آسیا و خاور دور بر او گذشت مینویسد. سفرهای او به آسیا غالبا به منظور تحقیقاتی دربارهی هنرهای بومیِ آن مناطق و به دست آوردن حجاریهایی از معابد قدیم بوده است. کتاب دربارهی یکی از همین سفرهاست: در سال 1923 او به همراه همسر خود و دوستی صمیمی راهیِ کامبوج میشود تا آثار تاریخی آن سرزمین را کشف کند؛ آثاری که بیشترشان ناشناخته مانده بودند. آنها گرچه خیلی زود بعضی از ویرانههای معابد را پیدا کردند اما جدا کردن لوحها و بردنشان کار آسانی نبود: ارّههای دستی در سنگ خارا فرو نمیرفت و میشکست؛ پس مجبور شدند با قلم حجّاری به آن بپردازند و کارشان چندین شب طول کشید. بعد از آن گرفتار ژاندارمها شدند و حجاریهاشان توقیف شد و مالرو و دوستانش به دادگاه احضار شدند؛ به سرقت محکوم گشتند و این حکم مالرو را بسیار خشمگین کرد. او میدید که در اطرافش، و نیز در نزد عتیقهفروشان و بعضی از خانههای کارمندان فرانسوی، تعداد زیادی اشیا هنریِ تاریخی –نظیر آنچه او را به سرقت آن متهم کرده بودند- وجود دارد و هیچکس دربارهی منبع آنها سوالی مطرح نمیکند؛ توطئهای سیاسی در کار بود.
***
بخشی از مرور کتاب «راه شاهی» که در وبسایت آوانگارد به قلم «سید احسان صدرائی» منتشر شده است.
برای خواندن کامل مطلب به لینک زیر مراجعه فرمایید:
https://avangard.ir/article/524
***
بخشی از مرور کتاب «راه شاهی» که در وبسایت آوانگارد به قلم «سید احسان صدرائی» منتشر شده است.
برای خواندن کامل مطلب به لینک زیر مراجعه فرمایید:
https://avangard.ir/article/524
October 27, 2020
รู้สึกเฉยๆกับเล่มนี้ มีบางช่วงบางตอนที่รู้สึกว่าสนุก แต่เป็นเพราะการบรรยายที่ยืดยาว ทำให้รู้สึกน่าเบื่อ เนื้อเรื่องบางเรื่องไม่จำเป็นต้องเล่าก็ได้ แต่ผู้เขียนก็ตัดสินใจเล่าให้มันยืดยาว ทำให้หนังสือเล่มนี้มีช่วงที่น่าเบื่อ แต่ช่วงท้ายมีความน่าตื่นเต้นน่าสนใจอยู่บ้าง แต่ก็ยังมีแทรกด้วยการบรรยายที่ยืดยาวเหมือนเดิม โดยรวมรู้สึกเฉย ๆ บางช่วงไม่ได้รู้สึกว่าอยากอ่านต่อ ความน่าสนใจน้อยในบางช่วง เนื้อเรื่องบางส่วนมาจากเรื่องจริงจากประสบการณ์ของผู้เขียนแทรกเข้ามา นี่คงเป็นส่วนหนึ่ง ที่ทำให้ผู้เขียนยัดเนื้อหาทุกส่วนเข้าไปโดยไม่มีการตัดทอนลง ทำให้รู้สึกว่ามันเยอะเกินไป
การแปลดีเยี่ยม คุณวัลยา วิวัฒน์ศร แปลได้ออกมาดีมาก ๆ การใช้ภาษาและสำนวนดี ทำให้อ่านง่าย เข้าใจง่าย
เนื้อเรื่อง เกี่ยวกับหนุ่มฝรั่งเศส เดินทางออกแสวงหาความมั่งคั่ง กับโบราณวัตถุในพื้นที่ไม่มีใครเข้าถึง คือเส้นทางสายราชมรรคา อาณาจักรขอมโบราณ ทำให้เขาต้องหาผู้ช่วยในการเดินทาง นำทาง เป็นที่ปรึกษา และเป็นเพื่อน ซึ่งเพื่อนร่วมทางของเขานั้นมีภารกิจที่ต้องกระทำ คือการตามหาบุคคลที่หายสาบสูญเข้าไปในป่า โดยทางการสยามให้ความช่วยเหลือ การได้พบเจอกับชนเผ่าต่าง ๆ ความอันตรายที่แฝงอยู่ในป่าเขา ทำให้พวกเขาต้องประสบชะตากรรมที่ยากลำบาก ในการให้ได้มาซึ่งวัตถุอันมีค่า เพื่อสถานะภาพในชีวิตของพวกเขาที่จะดีขึ้นตามมา.....
#Panอ่าน
การแปลดีเยี่ยม คุณวัลยา วิวัฒน์ศร แปลได้ออกมาดีมาก ๆ การใช้ภาษาและสำนวนดี ทำให้อ่านง่าย เข้าใจง่าย
เนื้อเรื่อง เกี่ยวกับหนุ่มฝรั่งเศส เดินทางออกแสวงหาความมั่งคั่ง กับโบราณวัตถุในพื้นที่ไม่มีใครเข้าถึง คือเส้นทางสายราชมรรคา อาณาจักรขอมโบราณ ทำให้เขาต้องหาผู้ช่วยในการเดินทาง นำทาง เป็นที่ปรึกษา และเป็นเพื่อน ซึ่งเพื่อนร่วมทางของเขานั้นมีภารกิจที่ต้องกระทำ คือการตามหาบุคคลที่หายสาบสูญเข้าไปในป่า โดยทางการสยามให้ความช่วยเหลือ การได้พบเจอกับชนเผ่าต่าง ๆ ความอันตรายที่แฝงอยู่ในป่าเขา ทำให้พวกเขาต้องประสบชะตากรรมที่ยากลำบาก ในการให้ได้มาซึ่งวัตถุอันมีค่า เพื่อสถานะภาพในชีวิตของพวกเขาที่จะดีขึ้นตามมา.....
#Panอ่าน
May 19, 2020
สำหรับ "LA VOIE ROYALE ราชมรรครา" :เส้นทาง ความหวัง และความตาย งานของ Andre' Malraux อองเดร มาลโรซ์ ซึ่งได้รับรางวัล Prix Interallie' แอ็งแตราลิเย่ แปลโดย วัลยา วิวัฒน์ศร ได้พาข้าพเจ้าบุกป่าฝ่าดง ตื่นเต้น เงียบเหงาไปตามเส้นทางราชมรรคาสู่ยังปราสาทบันทายศรี ดื่มดำกับบรรยากาศและอารมณ์ระหว่างการเดินทาง การตะหนักในคุณค่า ความหมายของชีวิตและความเป็นมนุษย์ การเดินทางไปสู่จุดมุ่งหมายยังที่ใดอย่างหนึ่งแต่การเดินทางภายในตนเองนั้นคือสิ่งที่เราต้องเดินทางและค้นหาด้วยตนเอง นี้คือเรื่องที่เราจะต้องตอบตนเอง
"ข้าพเจ้าคิดถึงความตายของตัวเองไม่ใช่เพื่อจะตาย แต่เพื่อมีชีวิต"
"คนเรามักไม่ทำอะไรที่เป็นแก่นสารในชีวิต"
"แต่ชีวิตกลับทำอะไรบางอย่างต่อเรา"
"ก็ไม่แน่เสมอไป...ท่านคาดหวังอะไรจากชีวิตของท่าน"
"ข้าฯ แต่พระผู้เป็นเจ้า...โปรดภาวนาเพื่อเราคนบาปบัดนี้และเมื่อจะตาย..."
ลองเดินทางไปกับโกล๊ด นักโบราณคดีหนุ่มดูครับ อาจจะได้แรงบันดาลใจให้ออกเดินทางไปตามเส้นทางราชมรรครา สู่บันทายศีจริงๆ เช่นเดียวกับข้าพเจ้าเช่นกัน #ราชมรรครา #ณอ่านTheReader #TheKlinLibrary
"ข้าพเจ้าคิดถึงความตายของตัวเองไม่ใช่เพื่อจะตาย แต่เพื่อมีชีวิต"
"คนเรามักไม่ทำอะไรที่เป็นแก่นสารในชีวิต"
"แต่ชีวิตกลับทำอะไรบางอย่างต่อเรา"
"ก็ไม่แน่เสมอไป...ท่านคาดหวังอะไรจากชีวิตของท่าน"
"ข้าฯ แต่พระผู้เป็นเจ้า...โปรดภาวนาเพื่อเราคนบาปบัดนี้และเมื่อจะตาย..."
ลองเดินทางไปกับโกล๊ด นักโบราณคดีหนุ่มดูครับ อาจจะได้แรงบันดาลใจให้ออกเดินทางไปตามเส้นทางราชมรรครา สู่บันทายศีจริงๆ เช่นเดียวกับข้าพเจ้าเช่นกัน #ราชมรรครา #ณอ่านTheReader #TheKlinLibrary
September 11, 2021
A heady cocktail of toxic masculinity and innocent racism. Back then a tale of 2 white guys colluding to steal Khmer art works constituted an "adventure story". The 2 protagonists, Claude Vannec and Perken, trade aphorisms about life, death, courage etc without pausing to giggle at their own pomposity. There's a third white guy, Grabot, who's been turned into a slave by the local yokels. Perken dies of an infected wound, nobody knows what happens to the stolen statues or to Grabot. In my view, all that remains valid and even at times entrancing in this badly dated piffle are the descriptions of the jungle and the primal fears it induces in us.
September 17, 2010
Just arrived from China through BM.
Page 51:
"Les musees sont pour moi des lieux ou les oeuvres du passe, devenues mythes, dorment, - vivent d'une vie historique - en attendant que les artistes les rapellent a une existence reelle. Et si elles me touchent directement, c'est parce que l'artiste a ce pouvoir de resurrection..En profondeur, toute civilisation est impenetrable pour une autre. Mais les objets restent, et nous sommes aveugles devant eux jusqu'a ce que nos mythes s'accordent a eux..."
Page 51:
"Les musees sont pour moi des lieux ou les oeuvres du passe, devenues mythes, dorment, - vivent d'une vie historique - en attendant que les artistes les rapellent a une existence reelle. Et si elles me touchent directement, c'est parce que l'artiste a ce pouvoir de resurrection..En profondeur, toute civilisation est impenetrable pour une autre. Mais les objets restent, et nous sommes aveugles devant eux jusqu'a ce que nos mythes s'accordent a eux..."
October 9, 2020
La Voie Royale comes over (to me) as a semi-autobiographic account meant to somehow justify the author's actions in Cambodia in the 1920s. (Malreaux did in fact go around looting Cambodian temples with a friend and he did get arrested for taking a bas-relief from Banteay Srei temple in the Angkor Wat temple complex.) His deep admiration for Conrad's Heart of Darkness - which I share with him - shines through in the second part of the novel, but isn't enough for me to appreciate this story of thievery and embarrassing cultural missteps and misrepresentations.
June 26, 2024
Malraux, très peu pour moi.
La plume est un peu trop... trop. J'ai tout de même persisté, parce que cela parlait de mon pays, jusqu'à ce qu'il parle "vraiment" de mon pays. L'ouvrage s'inscrit dans son temps, mais la violence contre le peuple khmer, et la description extrêmement dénigrante de ses individuels, le tout en glorifiant le perpétrateur, m'ont fait lâcher l'affaire.
Le fait qu'un nuage de poussière m'ait sauté au nez quand je l'ai ouvert n'a pas aidé, mais j'ai trouvé une relique dedans, donc ça m'a fait un bon souvenir (un vieux ticket de métro, et toc alexis).
La plume est un peu trop... trop. J'ai tout de même persisté, parce que cela parlait de mon pays, jusqu'à ce qu'il parle "vraiment" de mon pays. L'ouvrage s'inscrit dans son temps, mais la violence contre le peuple khmer, et la description extrêmement dénigrante de ses individuels, le tout en glorifiant le perpétrateur, m'ont fait lâcher l'affaire.
Le fait qu'un nuage de poussière m'ait sauté au nez quand je l'ai ouvert n'a pas aidé, mais j'ai trouvé une relique dedans, donc ça m'a fait un bon souvenir (un vieux ticket de métro, et toc alexis).
January 31, 2018
Just travelled to Cambodia and saw this in a bookshop in Siem Reap. A mini ‘Heart of Darkness’, at first I was put off by the dated sexism and pretentious conversation, but once the men are in the jungle these don’t matter. The dense visceral descriptions of the jungle seem at one with lives lived fully in the present, completely committed to the moment, and with all the risks this necessarily entails.
July 12, 2020
When I stop reading this book am I the only one who does so? Does Perken endlessly die each time someone reads his book? Is Perken just as real in the fiction of my human experience as any other human being? Ironically Perken never dies, only I do.
Whatever the answers to these questions, this is a deeply thought provoking book, particularly interesting to consider alongside Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
Whatever the answers to these questions, this is a deeply thought provoking book, particularly interesting to consider alongside Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 30, 2023
La voie royale est l'histoire d'un archéologue aventurier qui après des longues années ou il vol des trésors Khmers dans les jongles du Cambodge, il fait quelques erreurs et meurt comme il a toujours voulu en courant des grands risques.
C'est roman a ses mérites mais il atteint pas le niveau du chef d'œuvre de Malraux La Condition humaine.
C'est roman a ses mérites mais il atteint pas le niveau du chef d'œuvre de Malraux La Condition humaine.
January 14, 2018
One of those novels that at the time was probably received as forward-thinking in the metropole but now reads as laden with colonial racism, patriarchy and cultural plunder. If one can abide the presence of those themes, there is at least some graceful writing and occasionally poignant philosophical reflections to encounter, though nothing that can't be found elsewhere.
July 12, 2020
Embedded in the source material of this somewhat flawed, morbid, and philosophically tinted Orientalist novel is the author’s real life looting of Khmer art in 1923 from the Banteay Srei temple complex in Cambodia. He was arrested for the theft, and the art was returned to Cambodia, but Malraux still managed to go on to become the French Minister of Cultural Affairs.
March 11, 2020
Dans l’édition de poche française, les notes et commentaires de C Moatti sont très scolaires et n’ajoutent rien à l’oeuvre.
Livre dense (malgré ses 200 pages). On retrouve du Conrad dans l’atmosphère du livre.
Livre dense (malgré ses 200 pages). On retrouve du Conrad dans l’atmosphère du livre.
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