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Signed, Malraux Jean-Francois Lyotard |
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$72.00 cloth/jacket |
An interpretation of this mythic figure by one of the twentieth century's major philosophers. Andre Malraux (1901-1976) was a swashbuckling character—a self-invented adventurer, a onetime smuggler of artifacts, a fighter in the Spanish Civil War and the French Resistance, an artist and thinker. He has come to epitomize the committed writer, one who not only wrote about revolution but who, when necessary, laid down his pen to pick up a gun. In this incisive and evocative account, Jean-Francois Lyotard goes beyond the facts and legends about Malraux. Lyotard's project is to get under Malraux's skin, tracing the interactions among art, literature, politics, sexuality, and ideology that led to his emergence as a cultural icon. Lyotard's Malraux is a man haunted by death—not the existentialist dread of living in freedom, but the certainty that we are destined to die. Because he believed that only art is somewhat enduring, he concluded that we should turn our lives into works of art. In his title, Lyotard alludes to this idea: to sign one's life as one would a painting. Through this conceit, Lyotard draws from and then challenges conventional ideas of biography, blurring the difference between writing and acting, between words and deeds. In Signed, Malraux, Lyotard provides both a compelling account of this fascinating figure and a new understanding of the man. In doing so, Lyotard not only explores all of Malraux's major themes—art, the Far East, women, politics, communism, anti-fascism—he creates Malraux anew as an emblem of freedom of thought for our era. "Lyotard's Malraux is replete with flesh, bones, wives, liquer, and children. He is at the same time exemplary not of such individual experience, but of a human condition confronted and subsumed by the intractable: 'Your life doesn't need you to construct itself.'" —Boston Book Review "In Signed, Malraux, Lyotard illuminates the contrast between the man, his work, and the primordial struggle between belief and action. This book gives us two incomparable figures--a genius of our chaotic century as seen by the philosopher of our time." —Le Monde "Lyotard has recovered—in the gestures, in the writings, in the signature of Malraux—the mark of an amazing life." —La Croix "Signed, Malraux is a true work of literature. In this book, Lyotard gives us a portrait of a man who carved his own place in a bewildering world despite being haunted by death." —Liberation "This unique biography provides a valuable look at Malraux and his milieu and is a penetrating homage to his greatest work-his life." —L'Humanite "In this incisive and evocative account, Jean-François Lyotard goes beyond the facts and legends about Malraux to trace the interactions among art, literature, politics, sexuality, and ideology that led to his emergence as a cultural icon." —Translation Review "A startling book." —South Atlantic Review Jean-François Lyotard (1925-1998) was one of the principal French philosophers and intellectuals of the twentieth century. His works include The Differend (1989), The Postmodern Condition (1984), Just Gaming (1985), Heidegger and "the jews" (1990), The Postmodern Explained (1992), Political Writings (1993), and Postmodern Fables (1997). Robert Harvey is associate professor of French and comparative literature at SUNY Stony Brook. A 1999 Choice Outstanding Academic Title 272 pages | 5 7/8 x 9 | cloth: 1999 cloth, paper: 2001 |
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$24.00 paper