French writer and diplomat (1914–1980)
Romain Gary, born Romain Kacew (8 May 1914 - 2 December 1980) was a Jewish-French novelist, film director, WWII pilot and diplomat. He wrote under many pseudonyms including Shatan Bogat, Rene Deville and Fosco Sinibaldi. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice, once under his own name and again under the pseudonym Émile Ajar.
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Ты прошла такую школу невзгод, что в итоге прониклась ненавистью не только к несчастью, но также и к несчастным. Это хорошо известная защитная реакция, впрочем, именно так буржуазия, вышедшая, кстати, из народа, ожесточилась и окопалась в своей ожесточенности... Но есть одно, чего я не понимаю. Ты говоришь, что любишь меня. Как можешь ты кого-то любить, не любя его таким, каков он есть на самом деле? Как можешь ты любить меня и в то же время просить меня полностью измениться, стать кем-то другим? Если бы я отказался от своего революционного призвания, от меня ничего бы не осталось: ты не можешь одновременно требовать, чтобы я отказался от того, каков я есть, и оставался тем, кого ты любишь.
همیشه موج نهم تنهایی، قویترین موج، همان که از دورترین نقطه میآید، از دورترین جای دریا، همان است که تو را سرنگون میکند و از سرت میگذرد و تو را به اعماق می کشاند، و سپس ناگهان رهایت میکند، همانقدر که فرصت کنی تا به سطح آب بیایی، دستهایت را بالا ببری، بازوهایت را بگشایی و بکوشی تا به نخستین پر کاه بچسبی. تنها وسوسهای که کس هرگز نتوانسته است بر آن غالب شود: وسوسهٔ امید.
The whole of his life was only one long protest against his lack of importance: that, I’m sure, was what drove him to kill so many magnificent animals — some of the finest and most powerful in creation. One day, I won the confidence of a writer who comes regularly to Africa to kill his ration of elephants, lions and rhino. I had asked him where he got this need and he had had enough to drink to make him sincere: ‘All my life I’ve been half-dead with fear. Fear of living, fear of dying, fear of illness, fear of becoming impotent, fear of the inevitable physical decline. When it becomes intolerable, I come to Africa, and all my dread, all my fear, is concentrated on the charging rhino, on the lion rising slowly in front of me out of the grass, on the elephant that swerves in my direction. Then at last my dread becomes something tangible, something I can kill. I shoot, and for a while I’m delivered, I have complete peace, the animal has taken away with him in his sudden death all my accumulated terrors — for a few hours I’m rid of them. At the end of six weeks it amounts to a real cure.’ I’m sure there was something of that in Orsini — but above all, there was a violent protest against the smallness and impotence of being a man, the smallness and impotence of being Orsini. He had to kill a lot of elephants and lions to compensate for that.
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