Henry De Montherlant
MONTHERLANT, HENRY DE O BIBLIOGRAPHY. Philippe Jullian,Prince to the movies, and then home to bed. of Aesthetes, New York: Viking, 1968. Montherlant soon fell in with one particu- Stephen Wayne Foster lar youth, who was fourteen, with the knowledge of the boy's mother. Although MONTHERLANT,HENRY not a novice in these matters, the older novelist came to rely on Peyrefitte's ad- DE (1875-1770) French novelist, dramatist and vice as to how to conduct the affair. After essayist. A Parisian by birth, Montherlant Montherlant settledin thesouth of France, was educated in an elite Catholic board- their friendship continued on a weekly, ing school, whose atmosphere of particu- sometimes daily postal basis, thoughwith lar friendships and ambivalent student- verbal dodges to fool the censor. Through teacher relations left an abiding impres- the tragic events of the declaration of war, sion. At the age of sixteen he fell passion- the defeat of France, and the beginning of ately in love with a younger boy-an inter- the Occupation, the two remained obses- est evoked in La Ville dont leprince est un sively preoccupied with their affairs with boys. Both men got into scrapes with the enfant (1952) and Les Garcons (written in 1929 but published posthumously). authorities, but while Montherlant was In World War I he used family able to use influence to smooth things connections to make sure that he had a over, Peyrefitte lost his job with the Quai taste of combat without really being en- d1Orsay. dangered by it. His first novel, Le songe Although a first version of the (1922),is an account of the war initiating novel Les Gargons was written in 1929, the full text, which shows the pupils of a lifelong personal cult of virility and courage that many have subsequently Sainte-Croix in an almost frantic ballet of found spurious.
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