Word: charlies
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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HYPNOS WAKING (279 pp.)−Rene Char-Random House...
...Rene Char is a Frenchman with a great, hulking frame (6 ft. 3 in.) and a jaw like a duck press. By almost unanimous consent of his countrymen, he is the greatest French poet of his time. Existentialist Author Albert Camus spoke for the French intelligentsia when he saluted Char as "the great poet for whom we have been waiting." But English-reading people must take a French poetic reputation, like the credentials of ambassadors, largely on trust. In this bilingual sampler of his work, U.S. readers will be able to decide for themselves that measure for measure...
Honor More. In the Byronic manner, Char's life is part of his poetry. His first poems appeared in 1929 when he was 22. A slim volume titled Arsenal sold 26 copies; in his job as a whisky and champagne salesman, he had found less trouble disposing of his wares. Later he took over the family business (building supplies) in his native village near Avignon. It was the war that changed him from a drifter into a dedicated man, and how it happened is the subject of a diary he published under the pen name Hypnos...
Hypnos was a nom de guerre before it became a nom de plume. Rene Char, a combat artilleryman in the defeated French armies of 1940, took to the hills above his village. There, as Hypnos, he led a band of guerrillas so bravely that later he received a commendation from General Eisenhower. His simple patriotism that puts country above home and family is expressed in one of his aphorisms: "Be married and not married to your house," which expresses what 17th century Cavalier Poet Richard Lovelace said more fancifully: "I could not love thee, dear, so much...
...recalled. "That was when he read a TIME personality piece in which I reported that on occasion his temper boiled over violently and he expressed himself in fine barracks-room language. Purple-faced, Ike denied my report in language that almost scorched the White House walls down to the char marks made by the British burning...