Madame de Staël: The Dangerous Exile Book

Almost everyone has read Camus--certainly The Stranger and the Fall and perhaps The Plague--and probably not so many have read Sartre--Being and Nothingness, No Exit, Nausea, Roads to Freedom--but they are equally well known literary/philosophical writers from mid-20th century France whose friendship and falling out is the subject of this very fine, insightful, closely argued book.

While biography carries Camus&Sartre along, intellectual history is equally if not more important. So in a way Camus&Sartre is a kind of primer in existentialism, absurdity, Marxism, and much more.

Camus is the more romantic figure, a pied noir from Algeria who was a handsome cultural icon, important in the French Resistance and a writer of exceptional clarity. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and he died relatively young after winning the Nobel Prize when he was even younger.

Sartre is a froggy kind of character, not just because he's French, but because he's wall-eyed, short, and jumps all over the place. Initially devoted to philosophy, it took him a long time to become politically committed, but once he did become committed, he used his astonishing intellect to dominate intellectual debate in France from the 1940s through the 1960s.

Aronson comes close to novelistic depth as he interweaves the facts of these two writers' lives and the trends of their thoughts. Some of the distinctions are very subtle and conditioned on a basic grasp of Marxism, the difference between Marxism and Soviet Communism, colonialism, the French-Algerian war, and the tensions between justice and freedom...compounded by whether one accepts History as a determinative reality (Hegel) or choses to insist on the individual's freedom from History in matters of conscience.

Along the way, Aronson draws frequently on Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's long-time soul mate, lover, and debating partner. She had a one-night fling with Camus, but that adds little to the story. More important are her written reflections, which are quite acute.

The pity one feels while reading this book is primarily for oneself, living in contemporary America (circa 2016). The ground truths of political thought are largely unexplored here these days, certainly not in the presidential primaries. Reductionism suits the media, so that's how our politicians go about campaigning. Which is not to say any of them, except perhaps Bernie Sanders, could expound in any theoretical detail on why he embraces his personal political philosophy--socialism, in Sanders' case.

At the height of the Vietnam debate, things were somewhat different, at least on university campuses. At that time Camus, Sartre, Marcuse, and many others had an impact on us (I was in college then.) We understood that something must be going on beyond the bloodshed and mudslinging.

But in a way the Cold War simplified things for us. The issue was chiefly capitalism versus communism. Which was the more pernicious? Before long gender issues, race issues, feminism, environmentalism, and other "isms" complicated matters, each required very specialized analyses. It became more difficult to talk across problem sets. But a few of us kept at it, and succeeding generations did what they could, and even though anti-intellectualism reigns in America (and always has), we still have, mostly on campuses, some folks capable of and interested in sophisticated commentary on why we do the things we do and how much freedom and justice result from us doing what we do.

Aronson's book ends with a detailed reflection on Camus' problems with his native Algeria and the war France fought to hold onto it as a colony. At a certain point Camus was so reviled for his stance that he simply had to shut up. His problem was that while he recognized violence as inescapable in human affairs, he would twist himself into a pretzel to avoid sanctioning it. Sartre, in contrast, believed violence was justified and necessary in situations like Algeria. In No Exit, his best known play, he has one character remark that the real problem with existence is "other people." This is a barbed joke but essentially true. In the case of Algeria, the French settlers were the "other people," and so were the indigenous Arabs. Could they get along? Camus said yes. Sartre said no. Sartre proved right.

One shocking fact is that France eventually sent 400,000 troops to Algeria. That is a massive, massive force. It won, but it lost. France could have a scorpion in its palm as long as it wanted it there. It didn't want it there very long.

Knowing yourself, you will read this book or you won't. I found the human and intellectual struggle between these two giants fascinating and relevant. But there are a lot of knots to be untied in this narrative, and I can easily foresee that many readers would decide not to bother untying them.