I’ve read several reviews of The Most Secret Memory of Men, the recent English translation (by Lara Vergnaud) of La plus secrète mémoire des hommes, by the Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, and they’ve all made me want to read the book. But Ursula Lindsey’s NYRB review (archived) does so even more effectively by quoting a longish extract that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. The protagonist, Diégane Latyr Faye, wants to be a great (French) writer, and he is inspired by discovering the long-buried work of T.C. Elimane: “The few known facts about Elimane are that he was from Senegal; that in 1938 in Paris, at age twenty-three, he published an acclaimed novel, The Labyrinth of Inhumanity; that the novel was embroiled in a scandal of some sort; and that he disappeared, never to be heard from again.” Lindsey says:
Sarr makes Diégane well aware of how ridiculous and even pathetic it is to care this much about writing—to want, more than anything in the world, to write a great book. But he also makes him a true believer, a man who, high on an unspecified drug one night on a Paris bench, receives a visitation from literature itself “in the guise of a woman of terrifying beauty,” only to be reminded by an inner voice
that desire isn’t enough, that talent isn’t enough, that ambition isn’t enough, that being a good writer isn’t enough, that being well-read isn’t enough, that being famous isn’t enough, that being highly cultured isn’t enough, that being wise isn’t enough, that commitment isn’t enough, that patience isn’t enough, that getting drunk off pure life isn’t enough, that retreating from life isn’t enough, that believing in your dreams isn’t enough, that dissecting reality isn’t enough, that intelligence isn’t enough, that stirring hearts isn’t enough, that strategy isn’t enough, that communication isn’t enough, that even having something to say isn’t enough, nor is working tirelessly enough; and the voice also says that all of that might be and often is a condition, an advantage, an attribute, a strength, of course, but then the voice adds that in essence none of those qualities are ever enough when it’s a question of literature, because writing always demands something else, something else, something else.
Now, I’m not one of those people who salivate when they see a long list in a novel; I generally like prose to keep moving, not stand still and sparkle. So the fact that this passage made me read it out loud and then go find the French and read that out loud made me realize I very much want to read the whole thing. In French.
Here’s the original:
[…] et elle vous révèle, ou vous rappelle, que la volonté ne suffit pas, que le talent ne suffit pas, que l’ambition ne suffit pas, qu’avoir une belle plume ne suffit pas, qu’avoir beaucoup lu ne suffit pas, qu’être célèbre ne suffit pas, que posséder une vaste culture ne suffit pas, qu’être sage ne suffit pas, que l’engagement ne suffit pas, que la patience ne suffit pas, que s’enivrer de vie pure ne suffit pas, que s’écarter de la vie ne suffit pas, que croire en ses rêves ne suffit pas, que désosser le réel ne suffit pas, que l’intelligence ne suffit pas, qu’émouvoir ne suffit pas, que la stratégie ne suffit pas, que la communication ne suffit pas, que même avoir des choses à dire ne suffit pas, non plus que ne suffit le travail acharné ; et la voix dit encore que tout cela peut être, et est souvent une condition, un avantage, un attribut, une force, certes, mais la voix ajoute aussitôt qu’essentiellement aucune de ces qualités ne suffit jamais lorsqu’il est question de littérature, puisque écrire exige toujours autre chose, autre chose, autre chose.
Oh, and the title comes from the book’s epigraph, also a wonderful bit of prose:
« Un temps la Critique accompagne l’Œuvre, ensuite la Critique s’évanouit et ce sont les Lecteurs qui l’accompagnent. Le voyage peut être long ou court. Ensuite les Lecteurs meurent un par un et l’Œuvre poursuit sa route seule, même si une autre Critique et d’autres Lecteurs peu à peu s’adaptent à l’allure de son cinglage. Ensuite la Critique meurt encore une fois et les Lecteurs meurent encore une fois et sur cette piste d’ossements l’Œuvre poursuit son voyage vers la solitude. S’approcher d’elle, naviguer dans son sillage est signe indiscutable de mort certaine, mais une autre Critique et d’autres Lecteurs s’en approchent, infatigables et implacables et le temps et la vitesse les dévorent. Finalement, l’Œuvre voyage irrémédiablement seule dans l’Immensité. Et un jour l’Œuvre meurt, comme meurent toutes les choses, comme le Soleil s’éteindra, et la Terre, et le Système solaire et la Galaxie et la plus secrète mémoire des hommes. »
Roberto Bolaño, Les Détectives sauvages [Traduction de Robert Amutio, Christian Bourgois éditeur, 2006]
Bolaño’s another author I keep meaning to try.
About half way through the second passage you quoted, around “l’Œuvre poursuit son voyage vers la solitude,” my mind wandered to a thought that I have from time to time: “when the sun eventually consumes the earth, there’ll be no one left to listen to Mozart.”
Not quite sure whether to call this a sad or unpleasant thought. More ineffable.
And there it was, a couple of sentences later.
I don’t think I had been unconsciously reading ahead.
And that line of thought took me to this:
Seht die Sterne, die da lehren
Wie man soll den Meister ehren.
Jeder folgt nach Newton’s Plan
Ewig schweigend seiner Bahn. (A. Einstein)
https://poets.org/poem/more-loving-one
and also
https://allpoetry.com/A-Walk-After-Dark
(I have always liked that second poem; it was only after rereading it now that I realised how unfortunately topical it is. But perhaps it’s always been topical; and perhaps that’s even Auden’s point.)
@Julian: Primed by the reference to Mozart, I was momentarily expecting a quote from Alfred Einstein.
In the first Auden poem, the final line should not be “Though this might take me a little time” but “Though this might take a little time.” I’m shocked at this lapsus auris, but he was getting on by then.
do not listen to those critics ever
I think WH tended to do that sort of thing on purpose. It took me a while before I quite tumbled to this. He’s a master of that ars est celare artem thing. I was an aficionado of Eliot – still am – before I discovered Auden, and initially was quite thrown by Auden’s studied carelessness.
(There are a couple of Auden’s poems that I can’t read out loud all the way through without tearing up. None of Eliot’s.)
I think WH tended to do that sort of thing on purpose. It took me a while before I quite tumbled to this. He’s a master of that ars est celare artem thing.
Ah, you’re probably right.
the cross-rhythm stab with “non plus que ne suffit” is so delicious!
@david eddyshaw
Or try this:
https://www.poetry.com/poem/3763/the-end-of-the-world
@rozele: Yes! And the English translation missed that. How could it be done? “no more than it’s enough doing grueling work”?
when the sun eventually consumes the earth, there’ll be no one left to listen to Mozart
I know several people online who intend to personally live longer than that, and I don’t expect myself to live that long but would definitely expect at least some of my works to be still accessible after that time.
In other words, unless human civilization is indeed already on the way down, there would probably be many people capable of listening to Mozart even past that time. Whether they would want to listen to Mozart – or at least any more than we would want to listen to, say, Solage – is a different question.
I know several people online who intend to personally live longer than that, and I don’t expect myself to live that long but would definitely expect at least some of my works to be still accessible after that time.
This is all sheer fantasy, a sign of how hard it is for humans (who famously “cannot bear very much reality”) to accept death.
I think WH tended to do that sort of thing on purpose. It took me a while before I quite tumbled to this. He’s a master of that ars est celare artem thing.
Reading that poem, I definitely get the feeling that it’s purposeful, but also not just “studied carelessness”. It changes the rhythm; it makes you read the line at a different pace. Like suddenly but gently shifting the gear down a notch.
@Trond Engen:
I could suggest “and neither is it enough to work tirelessly,” but I suspect I have a greater tolerance for impersonal forms than native speakers.
Maybe “no more than unremitting work is enough.”
At the end of the list some part of me wanted to sing Alors on danse.
Auden greatly admired William Cullen Bryant’s poetry, especially Bryant’s depictions of a Transcendentalist connection to the natural world—something which Auden found he was not always able to share. Bryant was also quite skillful at breaking poetic meter to emphasize things, for example, as I noted before in “Thanatopsis.”
rozele: the cross-rhythm stab with “non plus que ne suffit” is so delicious!
Me: How could it be done? “no more than it’s enough doing grueling work”?
Giacomo: I could suggest “and neither is it enough to work tirelessly,”
Hat: Maybe “no more than unremitting work is enough.”
Yeah… what makes the effect in French? The change of pace, the switch from a negative to a positive form, the inverted syntax, but also, I think, the parallelisms – the verb is the same just unnegated, the subject is interchangeable with those in the long list, and finally, it ends resuming the rhythm of the list, with “que ne suffit le travail acharné”. That’s a lot to ask for in a translation.
I’ve started reading La plus secrète mémoire des hommes and it’s just wonderful — there’s something about certain writers that gives you the exhilarating feeling that they know and command all the resources of their language and can take you wherever they want and you know you’ll enjoy the voyage, and he’s one of them. (Compare Melville and Bellow in English, or Gogol and Bunin in Russian. Or Nabokov in both.)
I read the novel in French, too, and enjoyed it, with some reservations. My review or whatever it is is mostly about the Sarr novel as a response to The Savage Detectives and Bound to Violence.
Ah well, I haven’t read those, so I have to take it on its own. I just got to another delightful paragraph:
It’s got Serer in it!
Sukk lé joot Kata maag, Roog soom a yooniin, Sa pirogue passa derrière l’océan et Dieu fut sa seule compagnie.