Modernité du 'Miroir des limbes': un autre Malraux (review)

The modernity in the title of this collection of papers from a conference entitled 'Le Miroir des limbes d'André Malraux et la modernité littéraire', held at the Université Paris-Sorbonne in June 2008, encompasses both the visionary quality of the writer and the extent to which his work can still be considered relevant today. A number of contributors agree that Malraux had premonitory powers, particularly in his fiction. Jorge Semprun, for example, suggests that Malraux divined the sinister development of the use of poison gas, first used in battle in the Great War and famously depicted in the incident at Bolgako in both Les Noyers de l'Altenburg and in Le Miroir des limbes, as a means of mass extermination. In a more positive vein, Régis Debray sees the author anticipating globalization and the global market (p. 268). The contributions contain some relatively traditional perspectives on Malrau's 'antimemoirs', together with fresher insights, particularly in terms of their structure and composition. The book's secondary title suggests that Le Miroir proposes an alternative Malraux, specifically the antimemorialist rather than the novelist or the writer on art. It begins with the initially poor reception of Le Miroir, there having been a misunderstanding of the author's aims on the part of most of the critics at the time of its publication in the years between 1967 and 1975. Since this original, marginalizing 'blocage' (Michel Murat, p. 16), the work has become the centre of a rich debate, notably, though by no means uniquely, concerning the genre under which it may be classified. Many of the contributions here suggest that it is, in fact, generically unclassifiable, or else that it constitutes a combination of 'antimemoirs' and 'autofiction' (Jacques Lecarme, pp. 98-99). Le Miroir reflects not only Malraux's life, career, and ideas; it also presents an existentialist perspective (compared here with that of Jean-Paul Sartre by Janine Mossuz-Lavau, Jean-Yves Guérin, and Marielle Macé, the last concluding that the duo Sartre- Malraux represents a 'dialogue manqué', p. 119). What is clear here is that Malraux anticipated much of his contemporary's philosophy by a good ten years. This collection contains articles that display a high level of specialist knowledge of Malraux's work, together with perceptive understandings of the principal ideas, themes, style, and structure in Le Miroir. It is a pity that a list of the contributors is lacking, as is a bibliography. On the other hand, the book contains a useful, if not entirely reliable, index of names, and an index of titles — though not exhaustive — of Malraux's works. All these different, richly rewarding readings of Le Miroir indicate the complexity and profundity of a work that presents its readers with a constant challenge in terms of expression, form, and conceptualization of ideas.