Le Dialogue Des Discours Dans Les Romans D'Albert Cohen
Description:... Analyzes several novels by Albert Cohen (1895-1981) - "Solal", "Mangeclous", "Belle du Seigneur", and "Les Valereux". Cohen, through his heroes, describes crisis and tensions between Jews and non-Jews. In "Solal" the hero is a beautiful and intelligent Jew born on a Greek island, who is accepted into the Gentile society of Paris and Geneva; he becomes a minister and marries a non-Jew. Solal accepts the antisemitic image of the Jews created by the non-Jews and experiences self-hatred. In "Mangeclous" (1938) the heroes use expressions from "La France juive" by Édouard Drumont, reflecting the antisemitic atmosphere in Europe in the late 1930s. Pp. 129-141 discuss the ways in which Cohen, using Drumont's antisemitic expressions, ridicules the antisemitic stereotypical image of the Jew. Notes that Cohen, himself an assimilated Jew, did not try to escape from Jewish themes as did many other Jewish writers of his time. On the contrary, he reflected on the incompatibility and conflict between these two worlds, and how one side (the Jews) tried to ignore this incompatibility.
Show description