Frères Ennemis: the French in American Literature, Americans In
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Frères Ennemis The French in American Literature, Americans in French Literature Frères Ennemis The French in American Literature, Americans in French Literature William Cloonan LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2018 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2018 William Cloonan The right of William Cloonan to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78694-132-9 cased epdf ISBN 978-78694-935-6 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Table of Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xi Introduction: A Clash of the Comparable 1 Chapter I: The Creation of the American in Paris: The American 13 Chapter II: The Splendor and Misery of the American Scientist: L’Ève future 40 Chapter III: The American Woman and the Invention of Paris: The Custom of the Country 68 Chapter IV: The Expatriate Idyll: The Sun Also Rises 98 Chapter V: Truths and Delusions: The Cold War in Les Mandarins 126 Chapter VI: Embracing American Culture: Cherokee 151 Chapter VII: An American Excursion into French Fiction: The Book of Illusions 179 Chapter VIII: Rerouting: Ça n’existe pas l’Amérique 206 Chapter IX: L’Américaine in Paris: Le Divorce 234 Conclusion: Stasis and Movement 259 Selected Bibliography 275 Index 287 For Betty Acknowledgments I have been inspired and supported throughout my career by Robert Saba, Harry Rosser, and Alexander Dunlop, who provide stringent critiques while remaining the best of friends. A more recent friend, but equally a source of inspiration, is Alec Hargreaves, who has helped me greatly through his encouragement and his knowledge of modern and contemporary France’s political and social history. Terri Johnson has been a tremendous asset in terms of research. Over the years she has managed to uncover both what I had been seeking and what I ought to have been seeking. I am very grateful to her. Wolfgang Adolph has been a calming presence during my too frequent computer crises; his knowledge in that area is vast, as is his ability to assure people like me that, even if a chapter has suddenly seemed to vanish into cyberspace, it is not really lost. Lindsey Scott has proven to be an outstanding proofreader and kindly critic regarding matters of content and form as well as a gifted indexer. Jean-Philippe Postel has been an excellent reader and proofreader, as well as a meticulous and inspired critic, particularly concerning my comments on French culture. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Chloé Johnson and Anthony Cond, both editors at Liverpool University Press who have shepherded me from start to finish through the process of writing this book. ix Preface Les deux Princes sortaient pour s’arracher la vie, Que d’une égale ardeur ils y couraient tous les deux, Et que jamais leurs cœurs ne s’accordèrent mieux. (Racine, La Thébaïde ou Les Frères Ennemis, Act V, scene iii, 110) André Fougeron’s (1913–1998) painting Atlantic Civilization (1953), which adorns the cover of the volume (and can be seen on the Tate’s website) could serve as an iconic image of Franco-American relations from the nineteenth century to at least the middle of the Cold War. The painting mingles social critique with caricature, the serious with the silly. In a series of striking, if burlesque, figures, Fougeron presents an impressive array of French dissatisfactions with Americans, as well as with their own government’s obsequiousness during the Yankee postwar occupation. At the center of the canvas is a gigantic automobile which vaguely resembles an Oldsmobile with an armed German soldier emerging from the roof. Next to the car is a subservient, overweight French politician acquiescing to the American desire to rearm Germany. His corpulence contrasts with the thinness of the elderly, possibly homeless, French couple on a bench. Younger people peer out from an air-raid shelter made necessary by American saber rattling. Children play in pollution caused by factories belching smoke, factories doubtlessly financed in part by American industrialists. A marble pedestal serves as the base for an electric chair evoking the recent execution (1953) of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for spying against the United States. The lazy xi Frères Ennemis soldier with a girlie magazine alludes to the unwanted and often dangerous presence of the American military on French soil, while the black boy shining shoes references American racism. Less overtly anti-American, the image of the H.L.M. (habitation à loyer moderé) recalls the urgent need for cheap housing after the war to shelter French citizens displaced by Allied bombings. A poster on the wall to the right, coupled with the coffins and the dead child in the arms of a woman of color, recall France’s recent colonial misadventures. While the French griefs against l’Amérique may not be completely justified, they are at least open to discussion. But the presentation here is so lacking in nuance as to preclude any reaction other than rejection or acceptance. Elements not presented in the painting are references to the causes of American displeasure with the French. The Gallic belittlement of the Marshall Plan, as a political ploy to strengthen American power in France; the widespread insistence by French intellectuals that the Cold War, created by the Americans, required France to make a clear choice between solidarity with the Soviet Union or the United States, a choice that was self-evident for the left; the haughty disparagement of American consumer goods and popular culture by a nation which craved both – these were some of the factors which led Americans to lose patience with the French and proclaim with increasing shrillness that America had saved France during the war with little help from the local citizenry. Here too, despite the rhetorical overkill, there were issues which merited discussion, but more often than not, it was posturing and exaggeration on both sides which carried the day. Frères Ennemis seeks to examine the literary expression of the mutual frustrations and antagonisms bedeviling two nations which share largely similar values, but frequently find themselves at odds, often for reasons which appear trivial next to what unites them. Less bloodthirsty toward each other than Racine’s Étécole and Polynice in La Thébaïde, France and the United States nevertheless often appear to behave like two warring siblings, more given to bombast than persuasion. The ensuing chapters will chronicle the acting out of this phenomenon at different moments in time. In the waning years of the Cold War, French attitudes, at least in their literary expression, would soften somewhat, as more nuanced versions of l’Amérique and its denizens began to appear in contemporary novels. Just as historical and cultural events contributed initially to each nation’s antagonistic perception of the other, these same factors, encouraged by the xii Preface eight years of the Obama administration, have affected France’s currently more tolerant view of the States. Opinions tied to current events are notoriously fragile, and it remains to be seen to what degree the current openness, at least in literature, to the American experience will survive the presidency of Donald Trump. xiii Introduction A Clash of the Comparable [Franco-American relations] have been, are, and always will be conflictive and excellent. It is the nature of things … the U.S. finds France unbearably pretentious. And we find the U.S. unbearably hegemonic. There will always be sparks, but not fire … (Jacques Chirac, cited in Richard Kuisel, The French Way, 91) It stands to reason that France was seen by many, especially in France itself, as the obvious cultural counter- weight to America … France [saw itself] as an enlightened civilization whose fruits could, and indeed should, grow with profit everywhere. Americans had a similar view of their republic and its mission in the world. (Ian Buruma, Year Zero, 292) Jacques Chirac’s description of the Franco-American rapport as a seemingly endless acting out of tensions and rapprochements between frères ennemis provides a succinct, accurate summary of French and American personal and political behavior since the nineteenth century. Both nations have always been capable of finding something annoying or disappointing in the comportment of the other but, barring unforeseeable events, the two powers remain destined, or condemned, to be allies on the international scene, all the while eying their personal dealings with a degree of méfiance. It is important to bear this simple truth in mind throughout the following analysis of the ways in which French and American fiction depict 1 Frères Ennemis the often fraught encounters between the citizens of the two countries. France and the United States are frequently at odds but, perhaps despite themselves, they are always allies. Allies who rarely forego the occasion to look down on each other, but without ever seriously contemplating a breaking up of their alliance.1 Still, the somewhat confrontational national perceptions are striking and contribute to the “special” relationship that exists between the two countries and peoples. The study of French and American attitudes toward each other is hardly new. To cite a selection of the more recent works, Jean-Philippe Mathy’s Extrême-Occident (1993) attacks Franco-American tensions from a variety of perspectives, including literature, history, the social sciences, and even travel writing. In his French Resistance (2000), Mathy continues his examination of “Franco-American culture wars” through deft analyses of specific moments of Franco-American friction, such as the issue of “French Theory,” the Sokal Affair,2 and different national understandings of colonialism and postmodernism.