The New Dawn by Romain Rolland (1912)

This final volume in the massive Jean Christophe sequence shares the feeling one gets from all the others, namely that this gigantic work is of the nature of an ecstatic tirade. It is heightened, rolling and flowing in a poetic swirl which, given its musical subject, may be likenable to a particular musical form of which I'm not cognizant. There is an immensity to it which I think may deafen the reader to some of its weaknesses, while at the same time engendering a kind of wonder. A problem is psychology: there is a manner in which Rolland gets up too much steam, his engine is too supremely primed, in describing the moods and tensions of the characters, that he becomes capable of intra-character contradictions. I'm sure he could poetically claim that red was blue, and up, down; he does seem to claim that his people have a guiding mainspring of a particular kind, only for us to find a few pages later that some quite opposite influence or tendency is inspiring them. Because the matter of which he is dealing is humanity in all its colours and shades there are 'escape routes' in simply saying that he's showing both faces of the human dualism, but I think the truth is probably a lot more prosaic: he gets lost in the ecstatic poetry. But there is no doubting the enquiring intellect and great beauty here. His management of Christopher's last illness is fascinating and reaches high. The portrait of late nineteenth century Europe in flux, the winds of history blowing over it, is rich and fascinating. The whole work is terribly underrated in its standing in world literature.

Commonplace Book

'...How can one renounce the faith for which one has lived? That is to renounce life. What is the good of labouring to think thoughts other than one's own, to be like one's neighbour or to meddle with his affairs? That leads to self-destruction, and no one is benefited by it. The first duty is to be what one is, to dare to say: "This is good, that bad." One profits the weak more by being strong than by sharing their weakness. Be indulgent, if you like, towards weakness and past sins. But never compromise with any weakness....'

from The New Dawn by Romain Rolland, part ten of his Jean Christophe sequence, translated by Gilbert Cannan (Part III)

Commonplace Book

'"...Of all men the Italians seem most utterly to have lost the sense of harmony [...] Must a stranger once more reveal to them its work?...And what man shall teach it to our musicians? Music has not yet had its Raphael. Mozart is only a child, a little German bourgeois, with feverish hands and sentimental soul, who uses too many words, too many gestures, and chatters and weeps and laughs over nothing..."'

from The New Dawn by Romain Rolland, part ten of his Jean Christophe sequence, translated by Gilbert Cannan (Part I)

The Burning Bush by Romain Rolland (1911)

This is one of the more intense novels in the Jean Christophe sequence, published as John Christopher in Gilbert Cannan's translation. It covers the period I think, though dates are never mentioned, of the 1848 French revolt, whose upset forms its backdrop (though there seems something later about the milieu). Christopher is almost blithely unaware of the growing tension, putting it down to unserious rumbling by incompetents, while Olivier tunes in and realises the danger much earlier. There are the usual fabulous set-pieces of poetic evocation scattered throughout it, and a very few of Rolland's slightly superficial philosophic musings. The sustained rolling flow of this long series of novels is a gigantic achievement even with these flaws considered. The contrast of reputation between this and, say, Proust, is phenomenally undeserved. Olivier's death knocks Christopher sideways, and then comes a strange coda. He escapes to the mountains and hides away in the house of an old colleague, Braun. Braun's seared and icy wife, Anna, and Christopher do not seem to inhabit the same spiritual space - they are blank to one another. But bit by bit it comes to pass that they fascinate one another. We see Anna from Christopher's point of view as she slowly and torturedly thaws, and then the pain starts.......

Commonplace Book

'...There was nothing in him save an aching void, and a need of emptiness. Gone was his joy in life, gone the splendid bird of joy that once used to soar blithely, ecstatically upwards, pouring out song. There were days when, sitting in his room, he had no more feeling of life than the halting tic-tac of the clock in the next room, that seemed to be beating in his own brain. And yet, the wild bird of joy was still in him, it would suddenly take flight, and flutter against the bars of its cage: and in the depths of his soul there was a frightful tumult of sorrow - "the bitter cry of one living in the wilderness..."

The world's misery lies in this, that a man hardly ever has a companion. Women, perhaps, and chance friendships. We are reckless in our use of the lovely word, friend. In reality we hardly have a single friend all through our lives. Rare, very rare, are those men who have real friends. But the happiness of it is so great that it is impossible to live when they are gone. The friend filled the life of his friend, unbeknown to him, unmarked. The friend goes: and life is empty. Not only the beloved is lost, but every reason for loving, every reason for having loved. Why had he lived? Why had either lived?'

from The Burning Bush by Romain Rolland, part nine of his Jean Christophe sequence, translated by Gilbert Cannan

Commonplace Book

'There are decisive moments in life when, just as the electric lights suddenly flash out in the darkness of a great city, so the eternal fires flare up in the darkness of the soul. A spark darting from another soul is enough to transmit the Promethean fire to the waiting soul. On that spring evening Olivier's calm words kindled the light that never dies in the mind hidden in the boy's deformed body, as in a battered lantern. He understood none of Olivier's arguments: he hardly heard them. But the legends and images which were only beautiful stories and parables to Olivier, took living shape and form in his mind, and were most real. The fairy-tale lived, moved, and breathed all around him. And the view framed in the window of the room, the people passing in the street, rich and poor, the swallows skimming the walls, the jaded horses dragging their loads along, the stones of the houses drinking in the cool shadow of the twilight, and the pale heavens where the light was dying - all the outside world was softly imprinted on his mind, softly as a kiss.'

from The Burning Bush by Romain Rolland, part nine of his Jean Christophe sequence, translated by Gilbert Cannan