Les Hommes de bonne volonté - L'Intégrale 2 (Tomes 5 à 7): Les Superbes - Les Humbles - Recherche d'une Église

Les Hommes de bonne volonté #5-7

by Jules Romains

Jallez et Jerphanion, les camarades de promotion de l’École normale ; Gurau, le député idéaliste ; le criminel Quinette ; Louis Bastide, l’enfant de Montmartre ; le marquis de Saint-Papoul ou encore le chien Macaire… Ces individus d’une diversité passionnante peuplent la multitude dont Jules Romains nous raconte la vie dans Les Hommes de bonne volonté.
Ce roman-fleuve est aux dires de l’auteur même son œuvre majeure. Par ses dimensions, bien sûr : vingt-sept volumes déroulant une fresque d’un quart de siècle, du 6 octobre 1908 au 7 octobre 1933. Mais aussi par son dessein grandiose, puisque Jules Romains a l’ambition d’y exprimer « dans le mouvement et la multiplicité, dans le détail et le devenir, [sa] vision du monde moderne ».
Une vision « unanimiste » qui prend la société comme sujet, avec sa diversité de destinées individuelles, s’entrecroisant parfois, mais s’ignorant le plus souvent. Chaque personnage mène ainsi sa propre aventure, qui se fond sans cesse dans la grande Histoire, avec Verdun comme point culminant du roman. Mais, face aux désastres qui ébranleront cette génération, Jules Romains veut croire qu’il subsiste encore des Hommes de bonne volonté.
Ce volume contient :
- Les Superbes ;
- Les Humbles ;
- Recherche d’une Église.

922 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 7, 2016

About the author

Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule (August 26, 1885 - August 14, 1972), was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine, and a cycle of works called Les Hommes de bonne volonté (Men of Good Will).

Jules Romain was born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the Haute-Loire but went to Paris to attend first the lycée Condorcet and then the prestigious École normale supérieure. He was close to the Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian group founded in 1906 by Charles Vildrac and René Arcos, which brought together, among others, the writer Georges Duhamel, the painter Albert Gleizes and the musician Albert Doyen. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1909.

In 1927, he signed a petition (that appeared in the magazine Europe on April 15) against the law on the general organization of the nation in time of war, abrogating all intellectual independence and all freedom of expression. His name on the petition appeared with those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poulaille, Séverine... and those of the young Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre from the École normale supérieure.

During World War II he went into exile first to the United States where he spoke on the radio through the Voice of America and then, beginning in 1941, to Mexico where he participated with other French refugees in founding the Institut Français d'Amérique Latine (IFAL).

A writer on many varied topics, Jules Romain was elected to the Académie Française in 1946, occupying chair 12 (among the 40 chairs in that august academy). In 1964, Jules Romains was named citizen of honor of Saint-Avertin. Following his death in Paris in 1972, his place, chair 12, in the Académie Française was taken by Jean d'Ormesson.

Jules Romains is remembered today, among other things, for his concept of Unanimism and his cycle of 27 novels in Les Hommes de bonne volonté (The Men of Good Will), a remarkable literary fresco depicting the odyssey over a quarter century of two friends, the writer Jallez and politician Jerphanion, who provide an example in literature of Unanimism.