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Search - Death of a Nobody

Death of a Nobody
Author: Jules Romains

an excerpt from the Dedication: ...It is a book with "ideas" in it, and ideas derived from philosophers who, it is said, are influencing the young generation in France. In the writing of Mort de Quelqu'un the philosophies of M. Bergson and of M. Durkheim have clearly played a part. When people have heard much tal... more »k about contemporary influences in another country it is always interesting to them to see an example of these influences on its literature. This book is full of instances of "group consciousness," such as M. Durkheim has elaborated and classified. When two or three are gathered together in M. Romains' novel, what he is most interested in is the kind of composite consciousness that results. The feelings of each individual, under his analysis, appear as haphazard, trivial and inconsequent compared with those which each experiences as a member of a particular group. In the same way the actions, lives, deaths of individuals are shown to be less interesting in themselves than when considered as moments in a great process. At the end of the book there is an attempt to portray in the emotions of a young man walking down a rain-swept boulevard one late afternoon, a conception of the world not unlike that which M. Bergson's philosophy suggests. How far such experiences are engendered by reading M. Bergson, and how far they are independent, M. Romains can tell better than we. You may be in our position of not being able to believe a word of M. Bergson's philosophy, yet this lack of credulity has not, I assure you, prevented our enjoyment of a conception of the world which, though it may be as untrue as Hegel's, shows things in a new exciting light, and in the hands of an artist has become imaginative. Mort de Quelqu'un is a queer book. Individuality- character, the very pivot on which the art of the novelist has turned hitherto, is here made of no account. Individuals are as of little importance as wisps of straw riding down a river in flood-time, melting and dissolving as they pass, one straw going this way, one that; congregated together with bubbles and sticks they may make a noticeable patch on the sliding surface for a moment; detaching themselves again and still borne onwards, they are gradually dismembered and scattered and finally- lost? Well, in a sense. Such at least is the story of the death of Jacques Godard, a nobody; and in his lifetime, according to M. Romains, his existence was hardly more compact. I have said enough perhaps to persuade you to look into our translation. It is, we fear, a mirror at the back of which the mercury has rusted in patches. Still, if it cannot reflect the beautiful complexion of the original, the features of it will be clearly discernible there.

ISBN-13: 9780451500540
ISBN-10: 0451500547
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> General >> Literary

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