Henri Calet
There are countries where the whole world covers us, bends over us kindly, as if it were there to shelter us: countries with large forests, for example.
Here, not at all. We don't feel like family there, no. There is nothing like a house in nature. It's quite the opposite.
It's quite the opposite. Since finally it is the roof that makes the house, the wider and more spacious it is and the more shelter it provides. So that it always seems to us (and it generally happens) that a house widens upwards, that the roof always extends beyond it to the right and left. But a mountain, no. And even less a mountain of mountains - as we encounter in Switzerland everywhere. It becomes more and more tapered, pointed. It ends up making a simple cape, barely a beak, a lightning rod net. You'd have to knock it over to take advantage of it, there's no point trying. That doesn't discourage anyone. Not the Swiss anyway. It's true that they are used to it. But the others, you and me? Well, they only have one resource.
Another thing: you sometimes get lost among clouds, which form and dissipate at the same speed. And sometimes they just roll by you, touching you. It would be enough to extend your arm.
When the cloud disappears, you suddenly see before your eyes stones, and more stones. Immense rocks, cut in every way, but which seem light. And on top of that the sun (which sometimes seems to swing them); the sun with all its lights: its lights of gold, of silver; its blue and green lights too. Its neon lights, its snowy lights. Its lights like helmets have.
But it's an understatement to say that you see them, you are confronted with them, you have to respond, they are the ones who urge you to speak. To say what? For example, that on these proud summits, the eternal snows...
Ah! you see that you can't talk about the mountains either. You would have to admit first, this is the most difficult for you, that you are a writer. That you are more precisely a writer, and therefore stuck in the fashions of your time. In material of not very good quality, where the sublime is immediately garrulous, and the grandiose is grandiloquent.
Here too, you only have one resource left.
I think I understand very well what happened to Henri Calet (and quite a few others): he lost his mind, he fell in love with Switzerland.
It is obviously a love like any other love: rather clumsy, which betrays itself both by great obstinacy, but by a lively awkwardness: to which all masks are good; and first of all those for which he is criticized (very rightly): levity, self-importance - indeed, even triviality and misunderstandings. I know the thing very well, I've been there. I too was in love with Switzerland. I even tried to let it be understood, but in a somewhat circumvented manner, which convinced no one.
Well, Calet is ready to do it again, if necessary (it's too painful to be misjudged). And if we think about it, when we lack both language and security, when every detail is designed to disturb us and words deceive us, love is after all the only resource left to us.
Jean Paulhan, 1948, in Complete Works.
Resources
Le Croquant indiscret: investigation into fashionable Paris in the 1950s, signed Henri Calet
Mention of Henri Calet in a text by Jean Paulhan :
- Un des premiers de l’équipe : Jean Paulhan de Bernard Baillaud
Bibliography of texts published in the NRF
The texts below, published in La Nouvelle Revue Française, are grouped into four main sets: texts by Henri Calet, notes and columns by the author, texts about the author, and, when available, translations by the author.
Texts by Henri Calet
- La Belle Lurette, 1935-09-01
- Temps pris, 1936-11-01
- À pas comptés, 1958-02-01
Notes by Henri Calet
These texts by Henri Calet may include reading notes, mood notes, performance reviews, miscellaneous pieces, or previously unpublished texts. They appeared in NRF sections such as Chronique des romans, L'air du mois, Le temps comme il passe, etc., or in tribute issues.
- Vie de Klim Samguine, I, II, par Maxime Gorki (Rieder), 1936-05-01, Notes : lettres étrangères
- Étrange famille, par Michel Matveev (Éditions de la N. R. F.), 1936-08-01, Notes : récits et romans
- Déclaration, 1956-09-01, Le temps, comme il passe
Texts about Henri Calet
These texts may include thematic studies about the author, correspondence, reading notes on works by or about the author, interviews conducted by the author, or works edited by the author.
- La Belle Lurette, par Henri Calet (Éditions de la N. R. F.), by Eugène Dabit, 1936-01-01, Notes : romans et récits
- Henri Calet, by Marc Bernard, 1956-09-01, Notes
- Henri Calet préparait un ouvrage sur Paris. Depuis 1953 jusqu'au moment..., by Fr. P., 1957-07-01, Le temps, comme il passe
- Peau d'ours, par Henri Calet (Gallimard), by Georges Anex, 1958-08-01, Notes : la littérature
Chronological distribution of texts published in the NRF (1908-1968)
This chart shows the chronological distribution of texts across the four categories defined above: Texts, Notes, Translations, and Texts about the author.
Bibliography of texts published in Les Cahiers de la Pleiade
The texts below, published in Les Cahiers de la Pleiade, are grouped into three sets: texts by Henri Calet, texts translated by the author, and texts about the author.