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In Béatrix Beck: Léon Morin, prêtre (Paris: Gallimard, 1952) / The Passionate Heart, translated from the French by Constantine Fitz Gibbon (New York: Julian Messner, 1953), we follow Barny (based on the author), living in Occupied France during the Second World War as she cares for her daughter France (based on Bernadette Szapiro). The novel, written in a sparse but absorbing style, provides a fascinating window into the time, place and people.
A good part of the novel revolves around the intellectual and social relationship that develops between Barny and Léon Morin, a priest. There's a lot of back and forth as Barny seeks to both stay alive during wartime, protect her daughter, and develop existentially as a human being. At first she's furtive with Morin, who early on responds: "'Do you never feel the need to exchange ideas with your equals? What a savage!'" (Gibbon translation, page 65).
A little later, we learn what happened to Barny's (Jewish) husband: "Without being asked, I . . . told him that my husband had died in the war, probably through suicide. I anticipated that the priest would show shocked horror or would express pity. He did neither, simply saying: 'Yes, there have been many marriages broken.'"
Barny likes Morin, certainly, but initially wonders why he takes the time to chat with her at all: "'How can you include me, spiritually, among your sisters, since they're presumably Christian and I'm not?'
'What's that got to do with it? Nothing, nothing at all.'" (Gibbon translation, pages 74-75).
Given the wartime setting, there's a lot of background as well as internal energy that drives the novel. Not incidentally, Léon Morin, prêtre was adapted into a very fine black and white movie by Jean-Pierre Melville (released in 1961) as well as a French TV version in 1991.
I tend to like stories that focus on women or priests living through a time of crisis, so this was a double winner for me.
Today's Rune: Journey.
A. The time is right for the writings of Béatrix Beck (1914-2008). Let's start here with the context of her life.
She was born in Switzerland on the cusp of the Great War. Her mother was Irish. Her father, Christian Beck, was culturally a Belgian (French) Walloon poet; he was a literary associate of Alfred Jarry (Ubu Roi) and André Gide, among others.
As Jarry had in 1907, Christian Beck died of consumption -- t.b., tuberculosis -- two years into the Great War, when Béatrix was not quite two herself.
Béatrix was educated in France (at least mostly), all the way though law school. When she was in her twenties, her mother committed suicide.
Béatrix became a communist around this time, and in 1936 married Naum Szapiro, who was Jewish. Together they had a daughter, Bernadette, who appears in Beck's fiction as "France."
In 1940, while serving in the French army, Naum committed suicide, leaving Béatrix and Bernadette to fend for themselves when the Germans and their Vichy allies took over. Fortunately and amazingly, the two survived.
B. The time is right again for Béatrix Beck for at least five reasons.
1. She is lesser known in English-speaking languages and this could easily be rectified.
2. Her autobiographical writings reflect her (existential) "search" as a young widow, as a woman who endured the German occupation and cared for her daughter, who worked an office job, who sided with the Resistance, whose husband and "baby daddy" had been Jewish, who explored Catholicism, and who helped save Jewish refugees around Grenoble where she and Bernadette were situated, in southern France near the Alps.
3. Her other writings, later ones, went off in new directions that may be equally interesting.
4. Her connections -- and her parents' -- with key literary folks of the era, artists, philosophers and so on, are worth exploring. André Gide, for instance, took her on as secretary in the years before his death in early 1951.
5. Fascinating angles. Multicultural viewpoints, intersecting Bohemian types, survival, resilience, gender, religion, culture -- all of it is of interest. Walloon father of non-Belgian lineage, Irish mother, Jewish husband, gay employer (Gide) -- kaleidoscopic experiences, for sure. Hence: very much of contemporary relevance, yes? (More to follow down the line).
Today's Rune: Harvest.
So about a year ago, I finished about half of Roger Ebert's Life Itself (2011). Then I left it at an auto mechanic's shop and someone walked off with it. Then I got another copy at Half Price Books and set it aside for completion. That was a few months ago.
This past weekend, a DVD copy of The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (1984) arrived in the mail, but I figured it might be a bit depressing so laid it aside for "later." I did read the cover and noted that Studs Terkel was the narrator.
On Sunday, word was out that Nobel Prize-winning writer Doris Lessing had died. In conversations that day, Lessing came up. Not surprising. Then Studs Terkel came up. The Spanish Civil War came up. And that evening, Ebert came up -- remembering that he died this year, too, back in April.
Okay, by that evening I had also decided to give The Good Fight a shot, depressing or not. (It isn't -- quite the opposite). Then, having recently finished a Béatrix Beck novel, I grabbed the nearest next book on a stack of them which turned out to be none other than Roger Ebert's Life Itself. Trying to figure out where exactly I'd left off, I looked at the table of contents and noticed the chapter 52 title header, "Studs." Coincidence? Knowing that both Ebert and Studs Terkel were all things Chicago, it had to be the same Studs, right? Indeed, it was, and on the first page of the chapter (page 397 of my hardback copy), Ebert recounts being asked to drive Studs and a visitor around Chicago. And the visitor was . . . Doris Lessing. I got a shiver. That's just too strange, all the day's major people of discussion converging into synchronicity verbally and in Ebert's book on the very day we first learn of Doris Lessing's death. What are the chances they'd appear on the same page, together, on that same red letter date?
Whatever it means, there it is.
With Léon Morin, prêtre / Léon Morin, Priest (1961), Jean-Pierre Melville delivers a strong adaptation of Béatrix Beck's 1952 novel, Léon Morin, prêtre (English edition, The Passionate Heart). It's so good, so interesting.
Moving at a novel's pace, Melville showcases more dialogue than is typical of his other films, and to good effect. With a tense backdrop (a town in occupied France during the Second World War), the main characters build an intense personal relationship in which they discuss spiritual matters, including aspects of Catholicism, Judaism and "heresy." And, how best can people live during wartime and at all times? To hook contemporary audiences these days, the main character (a widow with a daughter named France) has a crush on another woman and also on a certain priest. How will this play out?
Jean-Paul Belmondo (À bout de souffle / Breathless) as Léon Morin and Emmanuele Riva (Hiroshima mon amour) as Barny are both in top form. What a delight. If a grade had to be assigned, A+ all the way. The clear black and white Criterion Collection DVD includes deleted scenes, allowing one to glimpse ways Jean-Pierre Melville chose not to go with the completed film.
Finally, it appears that most or all of Béatrix Beck's novels are out of print, and most have not been translated into English at all. Seems like an ideal project to bring them back to life in the 21st century.
Today's Rune: Partnership.
