Promise at Dawn

Life as a Work of Art This autobiography is a story of self-discovery which is at once charmingly engaging and profoundly deep. This book is one of two of my absolute favorites. I am a native speaker of Russian and I also read a lot in Spanish -- this is not to boast, but to show that I know to what to compare to. And surely there are books which are better written, not to mention more famous. And yet, as other reviews indicate, I am not alone. How come? Literature and in art general is often intellectualized, taken too seriously and made separate from everyday experiences of life. But experience of reading a book is actually could be just like another experience: observing the beauty of nature, doing Yoga on the mat, staying in a challenges situation in everyday life or having a good conversation with a friend. In all those experiences we discover what we are and what we are capable of. And the book we read, we really read only to the extent that there is something in it which resonates with us and own worldview. The great book is only great for us as it speaks to each us individually while it articulating our own yearnings and dim glimmering. This is one such great book. Paraphrasing Nietzsche, it is a story about life as a work of art. The author constantly finds itself in impossible situations when he faces multiple conflicting constraints; in fact it is sheer impossibility of these life situations which makes them believable: fantasy rarely stretches as far as exigencies of real life do. Making creativity a way of life, Gari always finds spectacular solutions, sometime more so, sometimes less but always creative and unpredictable. He says he has no choice, he promised his mother (hence 'Promise at Dawn'). Freudian undercurrents aside, the book is one paradox after another, all told with disarming irony and self-irony. A perspective on the world which discerns laugher amid sheer tragedy and which turns everything upside down . Sense of humor, as Gary puts is his ultimate defense against injustices of the world. This is a perspective not shared by everyone. The book (as well as other Gary's novels) either arouses the passion and gratitude to the author (coming from that sense of recognition -- we see our own story and our perspective on the world) or flat indifference. Most of my friends love it but some don't see anything in it: they don't get it. There is no way to tell in advance which way it will turn out. I have read the novel in Russian and later in Spanish (Mondadori, Barcelona, 1997) and I also checked English translation. Predictably, both Russian and Spanish versions are more vivid, subtle and evocative. It has nothing to do with the quality of translation but with expressive power of the language itself. Nonetheless, English version is not bad. Finally, an illustration. Students of serious Yoga (which goes beyond asanas) are familiar with Dharana -- a state of concentration when you merge, become one with the object of concentration. That state comes (and then only to committed few) after many years of practice. Here is quote from the book which shows how Dharana emerges -- in the process of writing of his first novel in 1945 -- precisely because constraints and conditions (of war-time fighting) are inhumanly cruel. '... The conditions at Hartford Bridge were not ideal for literary work. It was very cold.... Each night I would put on my flying jacket and my fur-lined boots, prop myself up in bed and write in bed with numbed fingers, my breath rising in visible vapor in the freezing air..... Then I got into my Boston bomber and set off, in the gray dawn, on a mission against powerfully protected targets. It was difficult in such conditions to do literature. But this is not what I was doing. Literature and life were always interconnected for me, and flying and writing were part of the same fight, of the same effort to discover the hidden meaning of life..' (I changed the translation a bit because the one in the book was a bit imprecise.)

This was my top read of 2025…….an absolute classic yarn published in 1961(and yet virtually unknown even to the most avid UK readers of translated French literature) Fortunately I stumbled across this master French Lithuanian author Romaine Gary whilst researching the life of Lesley Blanch, columnist, writer of cookery books and several very fine books including Wilder shores of love (about unconventional Victorian Women explorers.) She being the first wife of Romaine Gary, (the second wife was actress Jean Seberg.) La promesse de l’aube is Romaine Gary’s account of his apron string relationship with his fiercely protective Russian mother and his hopeless attempts to fight free of her dominance whilst passing through boyhood into an uneasy manhood. It is both poignant and cruel, witty and beautifully expressed. Yes, yes, maybe this Monsieur Gary was a wily raconteur who dazzled the literary world with Prix Goncourt and his smoke and mirrors stories about his past….but I believed and loved every word.

Achat pour un cadeau en version anglophone pour un livre dont l'écriture est de qualité et le propos pertinent. Voilà !

Funny, touching, romantic, subtle, witty... and true.

Romain Gary's autobiographical novel (translated from French by John Markham Beach) charts his life up until the final years of World War II. His mother looms large over events as she was determined to make him a hero and artist and made him try various disciplines until he hit upon writing. This being a French author, the language is quite extravagant and philosophical and you get a sense of a man who is looking back on his glory days with a wry eye (which is why I describe this as a novel because there are elements of the book that are larger than life and so open to question to what extent it's an accurate account of what happened). I did find myself engrossed in that relationship he had with his mother though and as someone who had not heard of him until receiving this, I would definitely seek out more of his work on the strength of this.