3.5 stars. A novel that explores the tension between “What man hides” and “What man does.” In the end, they are one-in-the-same, as both are defined by a perpetual cycle of self-destruction. One could argue that the book’s structure is analogous to that cycle: imprisonment, hope, struggle, self-destruction, death, redemption. Malraux ends on redemption, but don’t let that fool you (as it certainly doesn’t fool Malraux): a cyclical nature has no end. He could have ended the book on imprisonment. Or hope. Or self-destruction. Or death. The cycle will always continue, so the end of the story is merely a way station. I rather think it was an ironic display of false hope rather than a ray of optimism.
This isn't that kind of book.
Without a doubt, the most memorable section of the novel is the "death" chapter: the gas attack on Russian soldiers in the trenches of WWI. Here is man’s evil in stark terms and on full display: killing each other, killing their environment, killing themselves.
The discussion in the middle of the novel as to the true nature of man – is he defined by his creations (i.e., art) or his destructions (i.e., everything else) – is another instance of asking the same question. The artist creates to the point of self-destruction, while the soldier practices the “art” of war. What's the difference? In either case, the primary aesthetic of man* is one of suffering.
In the end, we are left only with Pascal’s conclusion of the human condition, quoted by Malraux at the end of the novel: “Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.”
*N.B.: I use "man" here and throughout my review not as an historical sexist linguistic trope, but quite literally: men are the ones who are inflicting all the suffering.