The Century of French Intellectuals (3 Volumes)

Author: (French) Michel Vinokur, translated by Wang Yifeng and Sun Guirong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: If Barres had not been born, if he had not written, then his era would have been entirely different, and we would be different too. I believe that in contemporary France, no living person has engaged in literary creation that can rival Barres. Barres created something that was presented to the world and accepted by it—not a temporary framework of a system, but something that goes deeper into our lives, a new attitude, a strange way of thinking, a fresh way of perceiving. —Léon Blum
In the past thirty years, all French intellectual trends, whether people like it or not, and regardless of their origins, whether Marxist thought, Hegelian thought, or Kierkegaardian thought, must be understood in relation to Jean-Paul Sartre to reveal their characteristics. —Jean-Paul Sartre Sartre will elevate the entire young generation seeking new paths, and the movement that is currently brewing—brewing solemnly—will soon spread. A new generation of pillars is being born, on whom the hopes of tomorrow will be. And us, we can only wait to step off the historical stage; some will be condemned, while others will be forgotten by posterity. —Roger Martin du Gard
This chronicle of French intellectuals is less a history of individuals, ideas, and works (though it is indeed a history of this kind) than a history of the friendships, conflicts, or hatreds between these people. When looking back at the era of Barres, the era of Gide, and the era of Sartre, we seem to return to those eventful and turbulent years, and we also grasp their symbolic significance. We see again the vivid, flesh-and-blood figures—the main and supporting characters who once tried to influence the century in which they lived with their thoughts and actions. Through these vivid images, the history of France in the 20th century is presented to us, from the Dreyfus Affair, which marked the beginning of the intellectual era, to the death of Sartre and Aron, which rang the death knell for the intellectual century. However, Michel Vinokur still doubts the notion of the end of intellectuals.