Word: mathieu
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...aligned with the Christian Socialists, a liberal movement opposed to both Capitalism and Communism: The name Pierre Emmanuel is a pen-name, symbolic of "the rock upon which his faith is founded" (Pierre) and God With Us (Emmanuel). (Pierre Emmanuel's original, and still legal name is Noel Mathieu...
Naturally enough for a novel of these times, the theme is the problem of freedom. Mathieu, a poor professor, has spent his whole life shaking off human responsibilities in a desire to be free, but he has only succeeded in making his life meaningless. Through the three-day span of the story, he sees many people, all of whom try to establish contact with him, and draw him into their society, to give his life a purpose. But though Mathieu would like to take the plunge, he is not convinced of the rightness of being a bourgeois or a communist...
...Sartre or the translator, the style is undistinguished, but every major scene is full of suspense and excitement, even over trifles which can be attributed to virtuosity in drawing character and planning situation, rather than skill in surface texture. Scenes, like the one in a night club where Mathieu and the narcissistic Russian girl whom he loves each slice open their left hand as a mutual sign of defiance of respectability, are convincing and indicative in themselves, and at the same time advance the story. But through it all, there is something unhealthy, embodied perhaps in Sartre's preoccupation with...
...Reason frequently attempts to shock the reader with pointless vulgarity (". . .a faint, sour reek of vomit came from her delicate mouth. Mathieu inhaled it ecstatically"). Existentialists may deny that such scenes are introduced for sensationalism's sake, but they have not explained why it is necessary to expound their doctrine solely from a worm's eye view of life. What one of the characters calls "the freemasonry of the urinal" will seem, to many readers, an accurate description of Sartre's own books...
...island off Africa's southeast coast. Paris estimated that in March and April, at least, 180 Frenchmen and 1,000 pro-French natives have been butchered by white-turbaned, spear-waving extremists of the Malagasy Renovation Party (M.D.R.M.). Despite French airborne reinforcements, the attacks still continued. Deputy Jules-Mathieu Castellani, a teak-faced Madagascar planter, recounted gruesome tortures...