Qui dira la souffrance d’Aragon? by Gérard Guégan (review)

Reviews 265 Guégan, Gérard. Qui dira la souffrance d’Aragon? Paris: Stock, 2015. ISBN 978-2234 -07117-9. Pp. 274. 19,50 a. This book offers the remarkable and touching love story of two people whose sixday secretive tryst takes place in Paris from Monday, Sept. 1, through the following Saturday in 1952. It is the peak of the Cold War and the Stalinist witch hunts within the French Communist Party (PCF). But due to the individual allegiance and faithful adherence of both lovers to the Communist Party, the liaison must remain totally hidden. This reality, moreover, creates not only fear but much anguish as well, for it was a time when “le reniement de soi était souvent le prix à payer pour échapper à l’exclusion”(9). Aragon is a member of the Central Committee and his lover an agent from the Kominform based in Moscow. The latter is in Paris as an overseer to the hearings of André Marty and Charles Fillon accused of activities which the PCF believed would divide it into fractions. This event, which shook the cohesion of the PCF, is historically a well-known trial especially in that both Marty and Fillon had been heroes of past glories, the former as a franc-tireur of the Resistance during the years of the German Occupation, and the latter fighting against Franco during the Spanish Civil War. The novel respects the trial’s historical facts, and most of its characters are historically valid except for Aragon’s fictional lover. This story is also rich with other historically pertinent personalities such as Jeanette Vermeersch (spouse of PCF leader Maurice Thorez in convalescence in Moscow), Elsa Triolet, Jacques Duclos, and other prominent French Communists, which gives this unique story an important historical impact. The novel offers interesting, albeit fictional, behind-the-scenes conversations and personal ambitions of political members who often act out of selfinterest . The political and historical aspect is well worth the reading. The love story is even stronger in its very tender and touching description. Although full fidelity is expected throughout the hearings, the lovers very often place their relationship as a top priority, and the real question remains: “[L]a vraie question, c’est de se demander s’il y aura un lendemain. J’ai envie de te répondre que oui, mais, tu le sais, nous sommes des clandestins et nous sommes condamnés à le rester” (141). Under direct orders by Director Korotkhov, Aragon’s lover has to return to Moscow. The parting is difficult but the surrealist poet has great imagination and goes to Aeroflot’s sales counter at Le Bourget for a possibly last encounter. The cover of the book comes with a decorative flap depicting Eugène Delacroix’s Un lit défait with its two heads of Medusa imbedded in the very humble sheets, two souls who have so deeply suffered in love, not unlike the two lovers of this most entertaining novel. Metropolitan State University of Denver, emeritus Alain Ranwez ...