Romain Gary
Romain Gary was a Jewish-French novelist, film director, World War II aviator and diplomat. He also wrote under the pen name
Émile Ajar
.
Born Roman Kacew (Yiddish: קצב, Russian: Кацев), Romain Gary grew up in Vilnius to a family of Lithuanian Jews. He changed his name to Romain Gary when he escaped occupied France to fight with Great Britain against Germany in WWII. His father, Arieh-Leib Kacew, abandoned his family in 1925 and remarried. From this time Gary was raised by his mother, Nina Owczinski. When he was fourteen, he and his mother moved to Nice, France. In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his father's origin, parents, occupation and childhood.
He later studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris. He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges. Following the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, he fled to England and under Charles de Gaulle served with the Free French Forces in Europe and North Africa. As a pilot, he took part in over 25 successful offensives logging over 65 hours of air time.
He was greatly decorated for his bravery in the war, receiving many medals and honors.
After the war, he worked in the French diplomatic service and in 1945 published his first novel. He would become one of France's most popular and prolific writers, authoring more than thirty novels, essays and memoirs, some of which he wrote under the pseudonym of Émile Ajar. He also wrote one novel under the pseudonym of Fosco Sinibaldi and another as Shatan Bogat.
In 1952, he became secretary of the French Delegation to the United Nations in New York, and later in London (in 1955).
In 1956, he became Consul General of France in Los Angeles.
He is the only person to win the Prix Goncourt twice. This prize for French language literature is awarded only once to an author. Gary, who had already received the prize in 1956 for
Les racines du ciel
, published
La vie devant soi
under the pseudonym of Émile Ajar in 1975. The Académie Goncourt awarded the prize to the author of this book without knowing his real identity. A period of literary intrigue followed. Gary's little cousin Paul Pavlowitch posed as the author for a time. Gary later revealed the truth in his posthumous book
Vie et mort d'Émile Ajar
.
Gary's first wife was the British writer, journalist, and Vogue editor Lesley Blanch (author of
The Wilder Shores of Love
). They married in 1944 and divorced in 1961. From 1962 to 1970, Gary was married to the American actress Jean Seberg, with whom he had a son, Alexandre Diego Gary.
He also co-wrote the screenplay for the motion picture,
The Longest Day
and co-wrote and directed the 1971 film
Kill!
, starring his now ex-wife Seberg.
Suffering from depression after Seberg's 1979 suicide, Gary died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on December 2, 1980 in Paris, France though he left a note which said specifically that his death had no relation with Seberg's suicide.
“Noaptea, mi-a fost frig, m-am sculat şi m-amdus să-i mai pun încă o pătură.”
“Since when one has started dreaming, there were so many cries for help and so many bottles thrown into the sea, that it is amazing we still can see the sea when we should see only bottles.”
“As long as you live, you hope. You think that everything will just...get better.”
“Men sometimes die much earlier than they are burried.”
“Loyalty is not the kind of exclusive deal, it's just a sincere communication and the same values.”
“Ты прошла такую школу невзгод, что в итоге прониклась ненавистью не только к несчастью, но также и к несчастным. Это хорошо известная защитная реакция, впрочем, именно так буржуазия, вышедшая, кстати, из народа, ожесточилась и окопалась в своей ожесточенности... Но есть одно, чего я не понимаю. Ты говоришь, что любишь меня. Как можешь ты кого-то любить, не любя его таким, каков он есть на самом деле? Как можешь ты любить меня и в то же время просить меня полностью измениться, стать кем-то другим? Если бы я отказался от своего революционного призвания, от меня ничего бы не осталось: ты не можешь одновременно требовать, чтобы я отказался от того, каков я есть, и оставался тем, кого ты любишь.”
“Elle est inquiète, il faut du temps, nous sommes encore un peu étrangers l'un à l'autre, hésitants, incertains, il nous manque des discordes, des différends, des heurts, la découverte de nos travers, défauts et petitesses, toutes ces incompatibilités qui nous permettront de mieux nous sculpter l'un dans l'autre, de bricoler nos rapports, de nous ajuster, d'épouser peu à peu nos formes respectives, et la tendresse vient alors enrichir ce qui manque à l'un par ce qui manque à l'autre..”
“Aimer est une aventure sans carte et sans compas où seule la prudence égare.”
“Aimer est la seule richesse qui croît avec la prodigalité. Plus on donne et plus il vous reste. [...] Moins il reste de chacun, et plus il reste des deux [...] Je vivrai jusqu'au plus grand âge, pour te donner ma mémoire. J'aurai toujours patrie, terre, source, jardin et maison: éclair de femme. Un mouvement de hanches, un vol de chevelure, quelques rides que nous aurons écrites ensemble, et je saurai d'où je suis.”
“Je fus encore une fois surprise par la vue de mon visage dans la glace: il n'avait rien à voir avec mes décombres. Ce n'était pas un visage de vaincu. Marqué par la fatigue, mais au fond des yeux il restait encore quelque chose. Je ne dis pas : quelque chose d'invincible. Et pourtant, peut-être y a-t-il invincibilité. Les hommes oublient toujours que ce qu'ils vivent n'est pas mortel.”
“All men have a legend because of death. Humanity wasn't legendary any longer: it was a myth.”
“Sometimes I have the feeling that we live in a dubbed movie and everybody moves their lips but the voices don't correspond. We are all post-synchronized and sometimes is very accomplished and looks natural.”
“They thought I suffered from lack of exterior, when I suffered from excess of interior”
“I don't consider myself to be definite, but in waiting position and eventual appearance”
“Printing mistakes adds value because of the probability calculus, which makes their intrusion into something problematic and almost impossible, even when everything's conceived, precisely, to avoid the intrusion of human error.”
“I am weak, I say with no presumptions. I have no merit, I note it, that is all. There are times that I feel so weak there most be a mistake, and as I don't know what I mean with this, I am not going to say anything else”
“I've had a lot of fun. Good-bye, and thank you.”
“Disease Carrying thoughts swarm and multiply in the dark and twisted labyrinths of our minds, and all that is needed is a mob and a good political slogan for the epidemic to be spread once again, with a burst of automatic weapons or a mushroom cloud.”
“Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.”
“Reality is not an inspiration for literature. At its best, literature is an inspiration for reality.”
“Literature is greater than any of us, dammit.”
“If there is something that opens horizons, it is precisely ignorance.”