People say that Malraux is a liar and a conman.

They say so because of his Antimémoires, and other works about semi-real historical events, Man’s Fate for example.

But Malraux never claimed to write the truth, indeed he named his memoirs, “Antimémoires” (anti memoirs) precisely because they are not stricto-sensu biographical, and they begin by a rather short but very clear introduction, stating that he is not here to write regular and objective memoirs.

Of course he was a famous mythomane, and sometimes he seems to believe in his own inventions. See his numerous passages about the French Resistance partisans, where it seems that Malraux is an action movie star liberating much of the South of France with his wit and sheer luck, or his talks with De Gaulle, where the grounded and intelligent writer converses with a semi-divine President, his heads in the clouds thinking of his mission to save the country.

But maybe the reason to read Malraux is not in finding what is true or not, and neither to agree or disagree with his political views. His views on India and the East can also be sometimes tainted with lingering Orientalism… Yet André Malraux is a fascinating read, especially in his Antimémoires.

After all Dracula read it.

Yes, yes, the quote was not in the original Japanese version of Symphony of the night, but still, whoever was in charge of the English script was brilliant and full of insight. What would an immortal vampire do with his time, if not read long and unending books on philosophy ?

What a strange choice for Dracula to read Malraux, why would he be interested in semi-fictional accounts of Charles De Gaulle and the partisans near Toulouse ? And yet it makes perfect sense if we can see that all of this is a pretext to reflect on the essence of life itself.

All the action-movie-like adventures of Super Malraux, his travels across strange and mysterious lands such as Nehru’s India and Mao’s revolutionary China (without forgetting a picturesque and somewhat autistic and depressed Japan), are nothing but a background to the question that Malraux is always asking us : what is a Man ?

A miserable little pile of secrets, such is the answer of one of his characters in the beginning of his Antimémoires, but what does it mean ?