Fw: C of L49 For Romain Gary

[Dave Monroe]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Very Misc. Romain Gary was an interesting (enough) writer, although not even close to TRP. But one of the most interesting aspects was his late in life "double-life", so to speak. Having become a lionized successful literary figure in France, he hated the "tower"---my metaphor----this confined him in. So, he wrote new novels in deep secrecy, as the 'voice' of an undereducated Arabian, I believe.

---

April 18, 2009 at 7:09 pm

The New York Times Book Review
17 July 1966, pp. 24, 26

To the Editor:

In a recent letter to the editor, Romain Gary asserts that I took the
name “Genghis Cohen” from a novel of his to use in a novel of mine,
The Crying of Lot 49. Mr. Gary is totally in error. I took the name
Genghis Cohen from the name of Genghis Khan (1162-1227), the
well-known Mongol warrior and statesman. If Mr. Gary really believes
himself to be the only writer at present able to arrive at a play on
words this trivial, that is another problem entirely, perhaps more
psychiatric than literary, and I certainly hope he works it out.

Thomas Pynchon,

New York City.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000824131346/pynchonfiles.com/cohn.htm
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cohen.html
http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/cl49/GengCo.html

Gary wrote his works both in French and in English; the French are
considered better. LA DANSE DE GENGIS COHN (1967) was a tragi-comic
novel about the ghost of a Jewish stand-up comedian who takes
possession of his Nazi executioner. Roots of Heaven (1956), was set in
Africa. The story of the inhuman aspects of progress and greed won the
Prix Goncourt and was adapted for the screen in 1958. LADY L (1959)
was a social satire. In 1968 the Cinema Control Commission asked for a
ban on Romain Gary's film Les Oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou (The Birds
Come to Die in Peru). George Gorse authorized the release. CHIEN BLANC
(1970), filmed by Samuel Fuller in 1982, was a commentary on racism
and politics. In the story a dog is trained to attack blacks only.

As Émile Ajar Gary published four novels, of which LA VIE DEVANT SOI
(1976) also won him the Goncourt award. Others were GROS-CÂLIN (1974),
PSEUDO (1976), and L'ANGOISSE DU ROI SALOMOM (1979). As Fosco
Sinibaldi he wrote a novel titled L'HOMME À LA COLOMBE (1984) about
the inefficiency of the United Nations. In 1962, Gary married the
American actress Jean Seberg, born in 1938. They had met in 1959 and
nine months later Seberg divorced her husband. She had started her
career in the U.S. in Saint Joan (1957), but brought then vitality and
emotional appeal to French films of the early sixties. Among her films
were Bonjour tristesse (1958), A bout de souffle (1960), In the French
Style (1962), Lilith (1964), Paint Your Wagon (1969), Airport (1969),
L'attentat (1972), The Wild Duck (1976). Displeased with movies made
from his books, Gary directed Birds in Peru (1969), based on his story
and starring his wife Jean Seberg. Shortly afterward the film was
finished their marriage enden in separation.

Seberg looked better in French films than those of Hollywood. In the
U.S. Seberg became politically active, supporting Civil Rights
Movement. She was persecuted by the F.B.I. until her death. Seberg
committed suicide with barbiturates in 1979. Her body was found in the
back of a car. She had disappeared from her home a week before.
Earlier, on returning from filming in Guyana, Seberg attempted to
commit suicide by throwing herself in front of a subway train. Romain
Gary shot himself in Paris, on December 2, 1980.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rgary.htm

Romain Gary
The Man Who Sold His Shadow
Ralph Schoolcraft

224 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2002 | ISBN 978-0-8122-3646-0 | $49.95s | £32.50 | Add to shopping cart
A volume in the Critical Authors & Issues series

"A concise, fascinating, brilliant critical biography remarkable for
its scholarship. . . . Schoolcraft's memorable biography of Gary, the
first to appear in English, will serve as a point of departure for
anyone who is interested in twentieth-century French fiction."—Choice

In this book Ralph Schoolcraft explores the extraordinary career of
the modern French author, film director, and diplomat—a romantic and
tragic figure whose fictions extended well beyond his books. Born
Roman Kacew, he overcame an impoverished boyhood to become a French
Resistance hero and win the coveted Goncourt Prize under the
pseudonym—and largely invented persona—Romain Gary. Although he
published such acclaimed works as The Roots of Heaven and Promise at
Dawn, the Gaullist traditions that he defended in the world of French
letters fell from favor, and his critical fortunes suffered at the
hands of a hostile press. Schoolcraft details Gary's frustrated
struggle to evolve as a writer in the eye of a public that now
considered him a known quantity. Identifying the daring strategies
used by this mysterious character as he undertook an elaborate scheme
to reach a new readership, Schoolcraft offers new insight into the
dynamics of authorship and fame within the French literary
institutions.

In the early 1970s Gary made his departure from the conservative
literary establishment, publishing works that boasted a quirky,
elliptical style under a variety of pseudonymous personae, the most
successful of which was that of an Algerian immigrant by the name of
Emile Ajar. Moving behind the mask of his new creation, Gary was able
to win critical and popular acclaim and a second Goncourt in 1975. But
as Schoolcraft suggests, Gary may have "sold his shadow"—that is, lost
his authorial persona—by marketing himself too effectively. Going so
far as to recruit a cousin to stand in as the public face of this
phantom author, Gary kept the secret of his true authorship until his
violent death in 1980 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The press
reacted with resentment over the scheme, and he was shunned into the
ranks of literary oddities....

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13778.html

Romain Gary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romain_Gary

http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Gary_Romain.html

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308900/


Full cast and crew for
The Longest Day (1962)

[...]

Writing credits
Cornelius Ryan	 	(screenplay)
Cornelius Ryan	 	(book)
Romain Gary	 	(additional episodes written by) & ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056197/fullcredits#writers

Romain Gary / Jacques Chancel - Radioscopie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1zNgOeG6Kg