The Flanders Road By Claude Simon


Claude Simon believed there were three fundamental problems in writing: how to begin, continue and end a phrase. The simplicity of this concern only accentuates the care and discipline with which the author set to work. The spotless tone of his narrative follows the rule to the letter: a credo by which he abided throughout his life. The impeccable sentences, long and endless, covering page after page of epic prose and invaded by comments in parenthesis (and comments to comments in parenthesis in within parenthesis, accentuating the labyrinthian descent into the subconscious) are part of an idea of syntax that brings not only a musical sense to his prose but a scrupulous design rigorously preserved, where rhythmic intensity provides the vital sense of movement that characterizes his unique style.

Memory is located right at the center of his literary cosmos and is the root from which the narrative blossoms. In May 1940, the captain de Reixach is killed by a German soldier. The question that surfaces insistently throughout the story is whether the captain rode his horse to his death (that is, knowing that he was going to get killed). The incident, seen by other soldiers, one of them his cousin Georges, is analyzed over and over in search for the truth (a truth that as we learn, will remain a fundamentally subjective matter). While the soldiers are detained in a prisoner’s camp (the image of the train that takes the soldiers to the camp and the conversations that follow intrude in the narrative disconnecting and separating the sense of continuity that is achieved by other means) other characters surface in the story. Blum and Iglésia offer their own accounts adding to the confusion of what really happened.

By playing with the idea that reality and memory are always tinted by our own perception and thus become subjective and individual, Simon takes pleasure in disorienting us, as we try to put together the facts that become more mysterious as we keep going, rejecting the assumptions that appear and disappear in our mind, persistently misleading our sense of direction. The structural complexity of the novel equals that of the memory, where dialogue, emotion, and vision concur in the same design.

“What I wanted was to forge a structure that fits this vision of things”, said Simon in an interview while discussing this novel, “which allows me to present one after the other elements that in reality overlap, to find a purely sensory architecture. Painters are very lucky. It only takes a moment to become aware of the different elements of a canvas. I was haunted by two things: discontinuity, the fragmentary aspect of emotions that one experiences, and which are never connected to one another, and at the same time their contiguity in consciousness.”

La Route des Flandres is a masterpiece of conception and design: juxtaposition of time values and interruption attain (surprisingly -because at first it seems that fragmentation could hurt the narrative discourse) an impeccable level of symmetry in his writing. Syntax is free of a sense of time (or more accurately, it follows the time of perception and not the time of clocks) and submits to a principle of cause and effect, therefore, images are disjointed, spasmodic and dissimilar. There is a relentless interaction between the time remembered and the time of the recollection itself, seen as two different and often contradicting phases. The memories in question are at first those that Georges relates to Bloom and later to Corinne (but more exactly, those memories of what was told to Bloom recreated, becoming then a chain of events transformed by perception and time). And so, following this fascinating plan, it is not only to remember but to remember what was remembered and thus adding to the state of uncertainty that prevails: a scheme that Claude Simon follows to perfection. With imposing authority, the novel reaches the subconscious and questions constantly our sense of direction, thus proposing a challenging, unique and refreshing reading experience. Claude Simon همه چیز بلوطی بود و سپس بلوطی قرمز. «چهره‌های سرخ و سفید و خانه‌ها به رنگ خون گاو» و مرگ تا شانه‌های گُل سرخ و سیاه می‌رسید. «صدای سم اسب‌ها روی گلهای یخ‌بسته شنیده می‌شد.» Claude Simon Claude Simon’s style reads like a combination of Faulkner and Proust; the never-ending shift of perspectives and time, the never-ending paragraphs and sentences, ‘The Flanders Road’ is as disorientating as it is beautiful, yet at times the disjointed nature of the prose and story, which is merely Simon’s interpretation of time via his unique narrative style, takes away from the poetic prose style and psychologically harrowing recollection of the brutality of war-Simon’s prose is almost dream-like and this jars against the brutal reality of the story, until it becomes something ethereal and unreal rather than a harrow and unflinching recollection of war;

“….if it had rained spears, all huddled now in the stands with the sculptured gingerbread floating in the sky, with the whipped cream clouds, motionless, like meringues, that is swollen, puffed up on top and flattened underneath as if they had been set on an invisible sheet of glass, neatly aligned in successive rows which perspective brought closer together in the distance, to form, far away, towards the misty horizon, above the treetops and delicate factory chimneys, a suspended, motionless ceiling, until when you looked more carefully you realised the whole drifting archipelago was imperceptibly sliding….then Iglesia saw him, he told them later, separate, disassociated from the binoculars from the anonymous motley of colours, on that filly like a streak of pale bronze, and wearing the black cap and bright pink silk bordering on mauve that she had somehow imposed on both of them, like a kind of voliptous and lascivious symbol...”

Colours combine and coalesce to form the unique tapestry of Simon’s literary style; pinks, blues, reds and greens symbolic of the different themes which run through the novel-from the lustful affair of Iglésia and de Reichax’s wife (which is again echoed in the suicide of de Reichax’s ancestor, which is in itself echoed in de Reichax’s suicide charge) or of man’s mortality and existential angst. Yet the themes and events of the novel are purely incidental, the quiddity of Simon’s prose, the unique rhythm and cadence of his style and words, as if the characters are in fact somnambulists whose lives constantly shift between dreaming and being awake-if indeed there is a difference;

“I drank drinking all of her taking all of her into me like those oranges that despite grown-ups telling me that it was dirty, that it was impolite, noisy I like to make a hole in and squeeze, pressing, drinking her belly the globes of her breast slipping under my fingers like water a pink crystalline drop trembling on the bent blade of grass under that light rustling breeze that precedes the sunrise reflecting containing in its transparence the sky tinged pink by the dawn.”

Dewdrops on a blade of grass as the soldiers retreat, sunshine on the water which contains a corpse, the imperceptible shaking of the hay as a couple make love-one of Simon’s primary concerns is that of language-

“summoning up the iridescent and luminous images by means of the ephemeral and incantatory magic of language, words invented in the hope of making the palatable-the unmentionable reality”

To distort and disguise and make uncertain the fine line between reality and invention and to articulate the inexpressible horrors of the situation the characters find themselves in. ‘The Flanders Road’ is a not an easy read, but is worth exploring the highly original prose style of the author.
Claude Simon اگه همین الان یکی بزنه رو شونم بگه استاد حالا این کتابه که میخونی راجع به چیه؟, جوابم قطعا اینه که به والله اگه بدونم خودمم یا شاید بگم اسب. رسما هیچی نگرفتم ازش دیگه یه ۲۰ صفحه ای که از وسط کتاب رد شدم تعارف گذاشتم کنار با کتاب و گفتم ببخش ما به درد هم نمی‌خوریم. کاش فقط سخت خوان بودی، کاش فقط هفت خان بودی ولی داستانت کو بابا؟ مثلا اون اوایل که سلین میخوندم برام سخت بود ولی داستان داشت و کم کم آدم رو جذب خودش می‌کرد، حتی من رو هم جذب خودش میکرد. باور کنید من آدم پلشتی هستم و نه فقط با آدم ها بلکه با کتاب ها هم رودرواسی دارم و نه نمی‌توانم بگویم و امکان داره در همین راستا با یک کتابی که دلم باهاش نیست ازدواج کنم ولی آخه تو خیلی من رو نخوان و سافستیکیتد بودی و من زیر شکمم درد گرفت. البته که تو نوبل بردی و خیلی خفنی و من بیشعورم که ادامه ندادم و من رو بخاطر کم فرهنگی بودنم ببخش. در این کتاب نقطه وجود ندارد، یک جمله شاید ۳ تا ۴ صفحه یک نفس میراند و حتی آدم هم نفس کم می آورد و من که هستم. ترجمه؟ حالا من خیلی حالیم نیست ولی باور بفرمایید که برای ناتمام گذاشتن کتاب کاتالیزگر موثری بود. کتاب پر بود از ...، نه به سبک سلین‌ها نه، چون خود مترجم گفته بود که صحنه های نستی کتاب رو ... میکنم و نمیتونم بگم خط داستانی عوض نمیشه. Claude Simon Take all of Proust, mix in some Faulkner, add a pinch of Conrad, bake in Buñuel's oven to a rich golden brown, and ta-daaa! Claude Simon's La Route des Flandres.
This intense novel will go down in the annals of my reading life as the book that got me back to reading after a two-month hiatus, my longest since I was 15-years-old.
It is an insane journey through the horror of a few days/centuries of war both universal and personal. Everything is helter-skelter. A chaos of the space-time continuum. The plot has been shrapnelled. There is no security anywhere, no certainty that what you are reading is actually happening or a dream or words or guts spilling out. Orgasms and death co-exist in a tumult of night on earth. These pages bound in blood and skin turn as a world burns without end.
Beautiful and unnerving at the same time.
The kind of book that is an experience in itself.
You have to like horses a lot to fully enjoy this, however. Claude Simon

The

review The Flanders Road

During the German advance through Belgium into France in 1940, which led to the fall of France, Captain de Reixach is shot dead by a sniper. Three of his dragoons, involved with him in different capacities, remember him and help the reader piece together the realities behind the man and his death.

One was a distant relative, one his orderly, and the third who had been a jockey in his stable before the war, had also been his wife's secret lover. The Flanders Road

برای مرگ هایی که نداشته ایم...
اثر شاعرانه،ناشاعرانه‌ی نویسنده‌ای که نوبل را به حق گرفت.

سیمون در مورد جاده‌ فلاندر می‌نویسد:
 در آن چند ساعت از یکی از شب های پس از جنگ که من در خاطر دارم، همه چیز در حافظه ژرژ یک جا جمع می شود؛ فاجعه ماه مه ۱۹۴۰، مرگ فرماندهش در جلو گروهان سواره نظام، دوران اسارتش، قطاری که او را به اردوگاه اسیران جنگی می برد و غیره. در همه چیز در یک سط�� قرار می گیرد؛ گفت وگو، احساس و نگرش در کنار یکدیگر هستند، من می خواسته ام بنایی بسازم که با این نگرش به اشیا و امور متناسب باشد... تا نوعی معماری حسی محض را برپا دارم. Claude Simon Bailing out of this one at p82. Oneworld Classics is almost as impressive as Dalkey in bringing esoteric out-of-print novels back into the world. Have a gander at their catalogue if such a thing impresses you. I put the link up. Be grateful, punk. The Flanders Road is an important novel of the nouveau roman movement: Mr. Simon uses an atemporal third-person narrative voice, narrating war horrors in a nightmarish stream-of-thought style, popular among Beckett and late-period modernists. For the contemporary reader, the style is a dated experiment, tiresome to read and more historically curious than narratively explosive. I don’t have the patience to wade through punctuation-free avant-garde monsters these days. I think I’m growing up.
Claude Simon ماجرا چه اهمیتی دارد آن گاه که تو دیگر نبوده ای نیستی و هستی. باید نشست و به یاد آورد بی هیچ نظمی بی هیچ رشته ای که بشود پی اش را گرفت که این ذهن از پای بست ویران است. سرگردان در خیابان هایی که می رسند به هوا محل از بالای آن ایوان آن سوی شهر را نگاه کنان و با خودت بیت هایی از خاقانی خواندن و پس تر از روی آن راه پله ها که تو را می رسانند به بغاز و تماشای ماهیگیرها روی پل- تماشای دخترانِ چشم کمندِ ترکمن در کنارِ مزار خرقانی و خنده های دخترانی از بیت لحم چه رویایی- بستنیِ نعمت و بزرگراهِ آزادگان حرکت کنان خیره و خندان به یاد روهام و ریتم موسیقی استاس تونه حاشا که دست به هیچ چیز نمی بری تو! تنها نشسته ای و بی هیچ دخالتْ خاطره ها یکی در دیگری همدیگر را در نقطه هایی قطع می کنند ایستاده در آن نقطه ای و نت های موسیقی همه ی آنچه را که نباید گفت با تو گفته اند؛ حالا که یک بارانِ ریز و تند از صبح اینجا را گرفته است و بوی قهوه بوی خنده ی تو نقطه سرِ خط

• خواندن سه گانه ی: (کودکی/ناتالی ساروت) – (دگرگونی/ میشل بوتور)- (جاده ی فلاندر/ کلود سیمون) ، یک مواجهه ی درونی بود با ذهن، خود علیه خود. گرچه مواجهه ی جانفرسا اما بی اندازه دلچسب

1398/01/23 Claude Simon Retreat and defeat: the disorder and panic of retreat, the chaos and bitterness of defeat – the chaotic recollections of the main character are gradually shaping into a dire plot.
The Flanders Road is like an eerie painting done by some gifted fauvist – it consists entirely of blots, stains, smears of bright paint and it is lush and arresting…

…if it had rained spears, all huddled now in the stands with the sculptured gingerbread floating in the sky, with the whipped cream clouds, motionless, like meringues, that is swollen, puffed up on top and flattened underneath as if they had been set on an invisible sheet of glass, neatly aligned in successive rows which perspective brought closer together in the distance, to form, far away, towards the misty horizon, above the treetops and delicate factory chimneys, a suspended, motionless ceiling, until when you looked more carefully you realised the whole drifting archipelago was imperceptibly sliding…

And like in a painting there is no time: life, love, death, imprisonment, adultery, horse races, the past, the present – all happens simultaneously and all is timeless.
The war is dreadful and engulfing but there are also horses and women…
I drank drinking all of her taking all of her into me like those oranges that despite grown-ups telling me that it was dirty, that it was impolite, noisy I like to make a hole in and squeeze, pressing, drinking her belly the globes of her breast slipping under my fingers like water a pink crystalline drop trembling on the bent blade of grass under that light rustling breeze that precedes the sunrise reflecting containing in its transparence the sky tinged pink by the dawn.

War is merciless and it returns the world to the state of its primordial chaos. Claude Simon ‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، این داستان حولِ محورِ جنگ و آسیبهایِ غم انگیزِ جنگی و زندگیِ سربازانِ بیچاره و مسائلِ ذهنی و روانیِ آنها و خانواده هایشان میچرخد... میتوان راویِ داستان را سربازی به نامِ <ژرژ> یا بهتر بگویم، ذهنِ آشفته و جنگ زدهٔ ژرژ، بنامیم
‎ژرژ سربازی ساده از گروهانِ سواره نظامِ فرانسه میباشد.. او شبی دردناک در ماهِ مِی از سالِ 1940 را به یاد می آورد که در آن شب و در میانِ دودِ باروت و مه و لجنزار، فرمانده اش <سروان رکساچ> با اسبِ خود، ناگهان به زمین افتاده و توسطِ یکی از چتربازانِ آلمانی، کشته میشود... ژرژ به اسارت گرفته میشود و در قطار به سویِ بازداشتگاهِ آلمانی ها در حالِ حرکت است و در ذهنِ آشفتهٔ خویش، موضوعِ کشته شدنِ فرمانده را بارها و بارها مرور میکند و گهگاهی به این نتیجه میرسد که شاید فرمانده از زندگی خسته شده و به هدفِ خودکشی، خود را به کامِ مرگ کشانده است... این تصورات، ژرژ را رها نمیکند، بنابراین به کمکِ یکی از همرزمانِ خویش، یعنی <بلوم> از چندین تن از سربازانی که آن شب در آن حادثه حضور داشته اند، پرس و جو میکند، تا به حقیقت دست یابد... در میانِ این راوی ها و شاهدان، سوارکاری به نامِ <ایگلزیا> حضور دارد که از دوستانِ قدیمیِ فرمانده یا همان سروان رکساچ بوده است و او را به خوبی میشناسد... جنگ تمام میشود، ولی ژرژ بازهم بی خیالِ این موضوع نمیشود و به سراغِ زنِ بیوهٔ سروان رکساچ یعنی <کورین> میرود و این شک و تردیدی را که رهایش نمیکند را با کورین در میان میگذارد
‎خلاصه عزیزانِ من، این داستان مُدام از یکسو به سویِ دیگر پرتاب میشود .. از حال به گذشته و از گذشته به حال پَرِش میکند و نویسندهٔ کتاب <کلود سیمون> نوعی سرگردانی را برایِ خواننده به وجود می آورد
‎در این میان، ترجمهٔ بد و نامفهومِ مترجم نیز کار را برایِ فهم و خوانشِ داستان، دشوارتر میکند.. از همه چیز عذاب آورتر، سانسورهایِ بسیار زیادی است که به صورتِ سه نقطه از سویِ مترجم در نوشته هایِ این کتاب دیده میشود... یکی نیست به آقای بدیعیِ محترم بگوید: مگر شما را مجبور کرده بودند که چنین رُمانی را ترجمه کنید، که بخواهید اینگونه سانسور در آن ایجاد کنید!!؟؟؟؟ چرا چنین آثارِ مشهوری را به گند میکشید!!!؟ این یعنی خیانت در حقِ ادبیات و فرزندانِ کتابخوانِ این سرزمین
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‎امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی> Claude Simon