A Man Who’s Been Waking Up

Here's a fun one from 1964:

Stockholm, 22 October

The Swedish Academy today awarded the 1964 Nobel prize for literature to Jean-Paul Sartre, disregarding a decision by the French writer not to accept the prize. This is the second time in 63 years that the winner for literature has refused to collect his award –and never before has a “possible” winner told the academy in advance that he does not want the prize.

I mean, it ain't like he waved farewell to literature in The Words:

I've given up the office but not the frock: I still write. What else can I do? 

Nulla dies sine Linea¹. 

It's a habit, and besides, it's my profession. For a long time, I took my pen for a sword; I now know we're powerless. No matter. I write and will keep writing books; they're needed; all the same, they do serve some purpose. 

Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image. 

Moreover, that old, crumbling structure, my imposture, is also my character: one gets rid of a neurosis, one doesn't get cured of one's self. Though they are worn out, blurred, humiliated, thrust aside, ignored, all of the child's traits are still to be found in the quinquagenarian. 

Most of the time they lie low, they bide their time; at the first moment of in-attention, they rise up and emerge, disguised; I claim sincerely to be writing only for my time, but my present notoriety annoys me; it's not glory, since I'm alive, and yet that's enough to belie my old dreams; could it be that I still harbor them secretly? 

I have, I think, adapted them: since I've lost the chance of dying unknown, I sometimes flatter myself that I'm being misunderstood in my lifetime. Griselda's not dead. Pardaillan still inhabits me. So does Strogoff. I'm answerable only to them², who are answerable only to God, and I don't believe in God. So try to figure it out. 

As for me, I can't, and I sometimes wonder whether I'm not playing winner loses and not hying hard to stamp out my one-time hopes so that every-thing will be restored to me a hundredfold. In that case, I would be Philoctetes; that magnificent and stinking cripple gave everything away unconditionally, including his bow; but we can be sure that he's secretly waiting for his reward. 

Let's drop that. Mamie³ would say: 

"Gently, mortals, be discreet." 

What I like about my madness is that it has protected me from the very beginning against the charms of the "elite": never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent"; my sole concern has been to save myself—nothing in my bands, nothing up my sleeve—by work and faith. 

As a result, my pure choice did not raise me above anyone. Without equipment, without tools, I set all of me to work in order to save all of me. If I relegate impossible Salvation to the proproom, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any⁴.

Anyway, imma just use this as an excuse to post my favorite Sartre reference:

MATHIEU   Will you kindly explain to me why all the Sartres are always born on the other side? 

JOURNALIST   Then you like Sartre, colonel... 

MATHIEU   Not really, but he's even less appealing as an enemy.

For the record, I don't think Sartre's why the French lost.  Probably has more to do with the fact that imperialism sucks, and ultimately is difficult to defend.

In conclusion: Tahia el Djazair!

1 - "No day without a line."  While JQA doesn't appear to have written this specific phrase anywhere (lots of other Latin throughout his works), I wonder if he had it in mind when composing his line-a-day entries.

2 - Referring to literary influences (mentioned earlier in the book): Griselda, Les Pardaillan, and Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar.

3 - His grandma.

4 - And I feel fine (another fun one from 1964).

5 - There isn't really a 5th footnote, but I was feeling punchy whilst putting this together, which perhaps you perceive.  Since I have you here, I might as well grab one more quote for good measure: "Even now, I read [thrillers] more readily than I do Wittgenstein."  So say we all.