La vanité ou le miroir des faux-semblants dans Chaque heure blesse de Raoul Danaho
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2018
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Abstract
La vanité, dans sa représentation la plus générale, nous invite à arrêter quelques instants notre course en avant, à mettre de côté nos divers agissements et à nous interroger sur notre destinée. La littérature, la peinture se focalisent souvent sur la fragilité de la vie. Elle est comparée à un souffle, à une vapeur qui paraît pour peu de temps. Les biens terrestres, les plaisirs mondains paraissent vains et éphémères et la quête incessante de l’homme toute aussi illusoire. Raoul Danaho, dans son roman Chaque heure blesse, publié en 1968, évoque l’histoire d’un jeune homme qui cherche sa propre identité et sa propre place dans le monde. Albert, cet homme originaire de Cayenne, s’est retrouvé à Paris, mais il n’y trouve pas la tranquillité souhaitée. La vie ne présente aucun attrait à ses yeux. Il doit « s’efforcer de vivre ». Il se sent vide, incapable de fusionner avec le monde environnant et l’écriture de Danaho devient par là même fragmentaire comme pour « réfléchir » la vanité de l’existence. Albert cherchera -t-il « vainement » à « poursuivre sa route », « ce tâtonnement dans le noir, cette marche aveugle dans la nuit » ou la rhétorique de la vanité se distendra-t-elle donc pour lui permettre de trouver une voie salutaire ? La Rochefoucauld énonçait avec une certaine acuité les propos suivants, renvoyant l’homme à lui-même, à ses semblables et au prisme réfléchissant: « Ce qui nous rend la vanité des autres insupportable, c’est qu’elle blesse la nôtre» (1664, 390). Nous sommes en droit de nous demander si la lumière parviendra à atteindre et à irradier le cœur humain.
Vanity, in its most general representation, invites us to stop for a moment our race ahead, to set aside our various actions and to ask ourselves about our destiny. Literature, painting often focuses on the fragility of life. It is compared to a breath, a vapor that appears for a short time. Earthly goods, worldly pleasures seem vain and ephemeral and the incessant quest of man equally illusory. Raoul Danaho, in his novel Every Hour Hurts, published in 1968 evokes the story of a young man who seeks his own identity and his own place in the world. Albert, this man from Cayenne, ended up in Paris, but he did not find the desired tranquility. There is no attraction to life in his eyes. He must “strive to live”. It feels empty, unable to merge with the surrounding world and the writing of Danaho becomes by the same fragmentary as to “reflect” the vanity of existence. Will Albert seek “vainly” to “continue his journey,” “This groping in the dark, this blind march in the night,” or is the rhetoric of vanity so distended to allow him to find a salutary way? The Rochefoucauld stated with some acuity the following words, referring the man to himself, to his fellows and to the reflecting prism: “What makes us the vanity of others unbearable is that it hurts ours” (1664, 390). We are entitled to ask ourselves whether the light will be able to reach and radiate the human heart.
Vanity, in its most general representation, invites us to stop for a moment our race ahead, to set aside our various actions and to ask ourselves about our destiny. Literature, painting often focuses on the fragility of life. It is compared to a breath, a vapor that appears for a short time. Earthly goods, worldly pleasures seem vain and ephemeral and the incessant quest of man equally illusory. Raoul Danaho, in his novel Every Hour Hurts, published in 1968 evokes the story of a young man who seeks his own identity and his own place in the world. Albert, this man from Cayenne, ended up in Paris, but he did not find the desired tranquility. There is no attraction to life in his eyes. He must “strive to live”. It feels empty, unable to merge with the surrounding world and the writing of Danaho becomes by the same fragmentary as to “reflect” the vanity of existence. Will Albert seek “vainly” to “continue his journey,” “This groping in the dark, this blind march in the night,” or is the rhetoric of vanity so distended to allow him to find a salutary way? The Rochefoucauld stated with some acuity the following words, referring the man to himself, to his fellows and to the reflecting prism: “What makes us the vanity of others unbearable is that it hurts ours” (1664, 390). We are entitled to ask ourselves whether the light will be able to reach and radiate the human heart.
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vanité, vie, mort, miroir, identité, écriture, life, death, mirror, identity, writing
Citation
"Quêtes littéraires" 2018, nº 8, s. 166-179