On April 20, 1951, the French Nobel Prize winner Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958) wrote to his English translator: ‘Most diaries are expressions of dissatisfaction. The only diary that should be preserved is not written: the diary of the happy days…”
His diary spanning thirty years, a selection of which has now been translated with the title Looking through a keyhole, is indeed full of despair and uncertainty. Yet there are also happy days, or at least happy moments. Especially if the writer is alone with his books and notebooks: ‘Working from nine thirty to twelve, from three thirty to seven, and from eight to ten. I go to bed and read Tolstoy before I fall asleep. Intensely happy.’
Martin du Gard is still a little-known figure among us, unlike his predecessor Marcel Proust and his contemporary André Gide. Unjustly, because thanks to the eight-part novel cycle The Thibaults and the unfinished novel-in-diary form Lieutenant Colonel de Maumort we know that Martin du Gard can be counted among the greatest of European literature. Fortunately, Anneke Alderlieste has presented himself as the ideal advocate for his oeuvre. She has also translated this diary, which has been supplemented with dozens of letters and memories, into exemplary Dutch.
The diary covers the years 1919-1949 and has its origins in the notebooks ‘soiled with car grease and mud’ that Martin du Gard wrote full during the First World War. After the war, he decides to continue with a ‘peace diary’ to help him write his novels and plays.
Nobel Prize
Martin du Gard was of good descent and could afford to devote his entire life to literature. Once he conceived a plan for a new book, he rented a mansion far from Paris and locked himself up for years doing nothing but reading and writing. This is how we follow the emergence of . step by step Les Thibaults, the cycle of novels for which Martin du Gard was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1937, while the epilogue had yet to be published.
Since he was a 17-year-old student War and peace Tolstoy was his great example. This overwhelming reading experience gave him the idea for the long-winded novel and convinced him of the need to ‘look into the depths’. That is what Martin du Gard does in his novels and in this diary. He lowers the plumb line into the depths of the human psyche and without condemning anything he tries to put into words as accurately as possible what he finds in the depths of the human soul. He does not spare himself. His doubts and his innate tendency to withdraw from the world like a hermit are amply discussed. Even when the news of the Nobel Prize reaches him, he flees Paris.
The selection that the translator made from the 3,500 page journal has produced a fascinating picture of a writer who prefers to be alone, but who at the same time has a great talent for friendship. Sometimes someone was allowed to visit, but usually there was extensive and careful correspondence. The letters Martin du Gard sent to André Gide shortly after the Second World War and the letters he received in return are of a moving intimacy.
Not included are the letters that the couple Martin du Gard exchanged. Despite all the struggles, their marriage lasted 43 years, until Hélène’s death. In her introduction, Anneke Alderlieste writes that she rather finds these letters material for a biography. That could be, but then we probably only get to read quotes, while Martin du Gard writes the correspondence for a reason. journal including his wife’s letters, which he considered “relevant rectifications.” Enough material for a sequel in the unsurpassed Private Domain series, in which this part also appeared.
Development of a writer
In January 1918 Martin du Gard wrote to his cousin Pierre Margaritis: ‘The secret of my life, the motive of all my efforts, the source of all my strong emotions, all my expressions, the essential fire of my artist vocation (need to ‘ survival’) – is the fear of death. The fight against oblivion, against the dust, against Time. Remember that. You have ‘the key’ by Roger Martin du Gard…’
Nearly forty years later, at the end of his diary, Martin du Gard rereads his own letter, after which he writes in his diary: ‘The entry from 1918 would be correct if I replaced the word fear with obsession, constant preoccupation or even idea- fix.’
It is nuances like this that show how a writer develops, in his thinking, in his looking at reality, in his desire to ‘touch the complex, unanalyzable core of things’. It can always be more precise, the attention can always be sharper. The passages on the art of observation and the importance of dedication should be taken to heart by every writer, novice or advanced.
Roger Martin du Gard: Looking through a keyhole – Diaries and memories. Translated from the French by Anneke Alderlieste. The Workers’ Press; 502 pages; €29.99.