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Moravagine
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Wikipedia article
'Moravagine' is a 1926 novel by Blaise Cendrars, published by Grasset. It is a complex opus, with a central figure (the Moravagine character) like a dark persona of the author which he gets rid of through writing. Its genesis took a decade (with Cendrars hinting at it as early as 1917) and Cendrars never stopped working on it. In 1956, the author somewhat rewrote the text, added a postface and a section titled "Pro domo: How I wrote 'Moravagine'". In its ultimate revision, Cendrars says the book is definitely incomplete, as it was meant to be a preface to a "complete works of Moravagine" that are not there.
Synopsis
The narrator, 'Raymond la Science', presented as a Blaise Cendrars' acquaintance (who himself appears in the novel), writes how, being a physician, he comes across Moravagine, a killer madman detained in an asylum. Moravagine is the last, degenerate heir to a long line of Eastern Europe noblemen. Fascinated by this man, the physician helps him escape then shares his picaresque travel around the world, bumping from Russian terrorists to American natives, in a trail of crimes. Finally they return to Europe just in time for World War I, when "the whole world was doing a Moravagine."
Style, Death and Woman
While characters live a wild adventure, the style in contrast is straight and controlled (as opposed to, for instance, Journey to the End of the Night). This contrast contributes to the peculiar feelings some readers have when reading the novel.
"Moravagine" sounds in French like "mort-a-vagin", or in English, "death-has-vagina" or "death-to-vagina".Blaise Cendrars himself explained: "La dfinition du personnage est contenue dans son nom : Moravagine, Mort--vagin" / "the character's definition is all in his name". In 'En bourlinguant..., entretiens avec Michel Manoll', Archives sonores I.N.A., http://boutique.ina.fr/cd/PDTINA001499 Indeed, Moravagine kills women, while in chapter I (about a woman named Masha), we can read
La femme est sous le signe de la lune, ce reflet, cet astre mort, et c'est pourquoi plus la femme enfante, plus elle engendre la mort.
Woman is under the sign of the moon, this reflection, this dead star, and that is why the more Woman gives birth, the more she engenders death.
New York Review Books Classics edition of the book ( ) has a cover figuring a skeleton in woman dress.
Cendrars was quite conscious that Moravagine was some sort of an other, different, himself. In 'pro domo' he wrote
J'ai nourri, lev un parasite mes dpens. A la fin je ne savais plus qui de nous plagiait l'autre. Il a voyag ma place. Il a fait l'amour ma place. Mais il n'y a jamais eu relle identification car chacun tait soi, moi et l'Autre. Tragique tte--tte qui fait que l'on ne peut crire qu'un livre ou plusieurs fois le mme livre. C'est pourquoi tous les beaux livres se ressemblent. Ils sont tous autobiographiques. C'est pourquoi il y a un seul sujet littraire: l'homme. C'est pourquoi il n'y a qu'une littrature: celle de cet homme, de cet Autre, l'homme qui crit.
I fed, raised a parasite at my expense. At the end I no longer knew who plagiarized the other. He traveled in my place. He made love in my place. But there was never a real identification because each one was self, me and the Other. A tragic one-on-one that makes it possible to write only one book or several times the same book. That is why all fine books are alike. They are all autobiographical. This is why there is only one literary subject: man. That is why there is only one literature: that of this man, this Other, the man who writes.
Inspirations
Among real people that may have been used as models, have been cited:
* Otto Gross, physician and psychoanalyst
* Adolf Wlfli (18641930), very violent psychotic inmate of Waldau's Asylum, near Berne, known for his prolific Outsider art work.
* Favez, nicknamed "Ropraz's Vampire", a Swiss felon that Cendrars may have met during World War I while in the French army.
Editions
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Grasset, 1926.
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Le Club franais du livre, 1947.
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Grasset, 1956. dition revue et augmente de "Pro domo : comment j'ai crit 'Moravagine'" et d'une postface.
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1957.
* 'Moravagine', Lausanne, La Guilde du Livre, 1961 (version de 1926).
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Club des Amis du Livre, avant-propos de Claude Roy, illustrations de Pierre Chaplet, 1961.
* 'Moravagine', dans 'uvres compltes', t. II, Paris, Denol, 1961.
* 'Moravagine', Lausanne, ditions Rencontre, 1969.
* 'Moravagine', dans 'uvres compltes', t. IV, Paris, Le Club franais du livre, 1969. Prface de Raymond Dumay.
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Grasset, coll. "Les Cahiers rouges", 1983.
* 'Moravagine', Paris, Denol, coll. "Tout autour d'aujourd'hui", t. 7, 2003. 'Moravagine' est suivi de 'La Fin du monde filme par l'Ange N.-D', "Le Mystre de l'Ange Notre-Dame", et de 'L'Eubage'. Textes prsents et annots par Jean-Carlo Flckiger.
Critics references
* Flckiger, Jean-Carlo, 'Au cur du texte. Essai sur Blaise Cendrars', Neuchtel, la Baconnire, 1977.
* Touret, Michle, 'Blaise Cendrars. Le dsir du roman (1920-1930)', Paris, Champion, coll. "Cahiers Blaise Cendrars", n 6, 1999.
* 'Sous le signe de Moravagine' (tudes runies par Jean-Carlo Flckiger et Claude Leroy), Paris-Caen, Minard-Lettres modernes, srie "Blaise Cendrars", n 6, 2006.
Studies
* [http://www.lecippe.ch/fr/collection-le-cippe.3/liste-des-livres-parus.9/moravagine.205.html Oxana Khlopina], 'Moravagine de Blaise Cendrars', Bienne-Gollion/Paris, ACEL-Infolio ditions, collection Le cippe, 2012.References
Category:French-language novels
Category:1926 novels
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