Characterizing the cultural scene as a "show" makes perfect sense in this latest addition to the body of histories addressing occupied France during WWII. It was a show because of the sense of unreality which most of the participants sought to embrace. This book recalls some of the grander histories of the late Barbara Tuchman in that really is about more than the sum of its parts and provides insight not into just he events in Paris in 1940-44, but the human condition in general. Alan Riding has provided us not only with a map of the past, but an understanding of the present.
French intellectuals have been notorious for seeking a single all encompassing ideology to explain the world and provide solutions since the 19th century. The suppleness that characterized the salon culture of the enlightenment in which general principles were debated has increasingly been abandoned for the safety of ideologies. This approach, as the author wisely notes led to some errors in judgement which are not limited merely to four years in French history. One can recall many of the more mendacious post war statements of Sartre whose mental clarity was frequently clouded by ideological bias towards Communism if not Maoism. One wonders how some of the people in the book would have fared under the cultural revolution in China where elites were not even allowed the possibility of collaborating with the regime, but were sent out to "learn from the people" as Mao embraced anti-elitism.
What the intellectuals in this book are reacting to are what could most succinctly described as the "uncertainties of the modern age" and the breakdown of the established order which run counter to the sensibilities of most people. Like religious fundamentalists (be they Moslem or Christian) the quest for certainty in age that is anything but can lead all manner of murderous excesses and moral compromises.
During the period in question the two main ideological poles were communism and fascism, both created out of sense of frustration with modernity and like most ideologies dangerous if taken to extremes or embraced whole-heartedly as the source of absolute truths.
France and French intellectuals had sought to explain away the problems of the world by taking an almost racial perspective, that somehow defeat in WWII was the result of having a lack of moral fiber. A lack of planes and tanks along with the strategy to employ them effectively might be a better answer (and one that might have come out of the 18th century rational salon culture), but since this answer was impossible with the constraints imposed by an ideological bent, intellectuals like the author Celine focused on a ritual purification approach and embraced the persecution and deportment of Jews from France, not unlike a previous generation of Frenchmen had focused on Alfred Dreyfus as the scapegoat for defeat in 1870. Prior to the war, the Blum government created a crescendo of loony rightists who were as appalled by having a Jew head a government in France as the "birthers" would later be at having an African American in a similar position in the US in the 21st century. These sentiments were later exploited by both Vichy and the Nazis as a kind of justification for the morally bankrupt behavior that characterized both during the occupation. Celine, obsessed as he was with plots concerning Jews, Free Masons and a need to acquire gold currency comes off as a somewhat insane author whose works seem unlikely to endure much beyond the realm of literary curiosities. His visions of reborn pure France was, however highly seductive to people who shared his vision, which was of course purely an aesthetic one.
On the other side, those who opposed the occupation later acquired the status of having a certain morally prescient nature. This ideological perspective avoids a number of facts. Communists did tend to be quicker than assorted anti-immigrant right wing racists to recognize the Nazis for what they were, but this only took place after the well-beloved Soviet Union was invaded in 1941. The point is made in this book as elsewhere that resistance was not something that was embraced by the mainstream or even those outside it. The lack of moral clarity, which appears in hindsight so obvious to us now, did not govern the initial response of French intellectuals or the man in the street.
Sarte stated after the occupation (and most of Sartre's strong moral positions against the Nazis were taken after they had left France) there were only two choices during 1940-44, collaboration or resistance. Really what most people did as this book points out is to accommodate themselves and their deeply held positions to what they viewed as new reality. It was a rare group of people who could truly be said to have resisted or actively collaborated. To do so effectively in the case of the first generally involved being an early part of the Gaullist government in exile and as is pointed out by Alan Riding, few Frenchmen had any idea what De Gaulle even looked like, much less what he represented.
After the occupation, De Gaulle created the necessary myth that aside from a few bad apples who welcomed the arrival of the Nazis and the defeat of France, all had been part of the resistance and Paris had been liberated by Frenchmen. For those seeking to have their wits dulled, the communists had a similar myth that it had been the vanguard of the resistance movement (something even a devoted communist like the poet Louis Aragon might dismiss). This would be a belief that the nation would embrace for as long as "le general" was in power. In the late 60s, these ideas began to slowly change and it was understood that resistance was something that social heretics performed for most of the war. Moral clarity was not something that well-paid writers, actors, poets, artists, singers or designers really achieved to the degree that would be desirable, despite all the talk about the tradition of public intellectuals. It took a film as powerful as "The Sorrow and the Pity" to drive that lesson home nearly 25 years after the war.
This book is an important addition to the literature dealing with "France's Dark Years," though not as comprehensive as the book by the same title on the subject by Julian Jackson, this book's focus on the artistic and creative world during that period is certainly ground breaking. That Alan Riding includes people like Guitry, Piaf and Baker along with Celine, Gide, Picasso, Matisse, and loads of journalists pursuing their petty vendettas (much like pundits on US television do today) make this book interesting. It is probably one of the most interesting treatments of the period that is likely to emerge and like Barbara Tuchman's books a source for insight into our own ideologically maddened period.
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Top reviews from other countries
Dante Matelli
Tradimento degli intellettuali?
Reviewed in Italy on October 17, 2014Mme Diana Millet
Brilliant research
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2013B. D. Loosen
arts, letters, collaboration,and... war?
Reviewed in Canada on April 14, 2012
