Transcription
The core of existence is not depending on someone, on people. Social life, it is necessary but it destroys you because it takes you out of yourself, it forces you to compromise, to accept things that you do not truly want. Every day, we do this. We are forced to make an accommodation with others. Otherwise, it would be impossible. Then, otherwise, we would be hermits, completely. But if we are not, we must live in society. We alienate ourselves bit by bit with each person, and when we recover ourselves, it is truly in solitude. Well, now, I must tell you, I am very proud. I am very proud because in this episode of Dialogue, I am receiving Dominique Fernandez, who is an absolutely fascinating person. I have been reading him for a very, very long time, and he is an Academician. If someone had told me one day that I would receive an Academician on Dialogue, I would never have believed it. He is a man of immense culture, but it is at the service, which touches me greatly, at the service of life, to learn to find our place in the world, because sometimes there is so much culture and you are just crushed, and that is not at all helpful. And Dominique Fernandez will speak to us here about the experience of solitude. How it is sometimes a suffering and how it sometimes allows us to be a world unto ourselves and to be a space of peace. You will see, it is a marvelous journey. I hope you will be as happy listening to it as I was happy to record it. So, I am Fabrice Middal, I am a philosopher and passionate, obviously, about painting, music, poetry, philosophy, which we will look at a little in this episode of Dialogue. You will see, it is simply fascinating. Hello Dominique. Hello. I am very happy to welcome you to talk about solitude. What led you to dedicate yourself and to meditate like this in your book, "La solitude"? Well, I think everyone is led to, well, led to meditate on solitude, and as I live alone, I am particularly sensitive to this issue, and it is a bit of an examination of conscience that I have undertaken, because I am alone. So I asked myself, am I happy to be alone, or on the contrary, do I feel frustrated to be alone? That is the starting point of my meditation. And so, what is your conclusion? Are you happy to be alone? Yes, I am rather happy. From time to time, obviously, I want to be alone, but it is enough for me to have a few friends whom I see regularly, but the core of my existence is solitude. There is a point in your book that says solitude is an experience of fundamental freedom and that the loss of solitude in our time poses considerable problems. But you know, I am not very talkative by nature. I don't need to express myself or chatter with people. So I am always reserved, and as a writer, my instrument is writing, which demands solitude. Obviously, one cannot write in a group like painters. For example, painters can paint together. The Italian Renaissance was like that. Musicians too. But to write, well, at least for me, I need great solitude, silence, a kind of retreat, and that is where I am happy. I am not, no, solitude is truly my preferred environment, and increasingly so with age. At the heart of your book, it is also about helping people to tame solitude. Yes. Which is a bit frightening, and you show that throughout history, it has been greatly celebrated. Yes, many people are afraid of being alone, they do anything, they go to the cinema to feel less alone, they go to the bar, to the bistro. So, I find that if we get used to it, if we become aware that being alone is wonderful, well, obviously, one must have something in one's head for that, because one must be internally populated, if I may say so, to be happy to be alone. There are many references in the book, but I wanted to start with Stendhal, because it is not, I find it a bit unexpected, all the work you do on solitude in Stendhal, and I find that we see well how solitude plays an important role in all his characters. Yes. Stendhal is considered to have been a man of the world, Stendhal was a consul, and he spent his life at the opera, talking to ladies, so he is considered the opposite of a recluse, but when you read his novels carefully, the only moments when his heroes are happy are when they are alone. For example, in "The Red and the Black," when Julien is in his prison because he tried to assassinate Morenal, he says, "If I hadn't been alone, I wouldn't have discovered what happiness is." And in "The Charterhouse of Parma," Fabrice, who is also imprisoned in his dungeon, makes the same reflection. Being alone is truly the deliverance from the world, precisely, it is being independent of others. And Lamiel, she is a female character, she is happy in her tower too. She has a tower in Normandy, I think. And that is where she takes refuge to escape humans. So, it is not about becoming a misanthrope. No, no. Oh no, no, it is not, on the contrary, even. No, no. I am not at all a misanthrope, on the contrary. But no, a misanthrope is someone who depends on others and then doesn't like them. It is about hatred or mistrust, it is about not being free. No. One can be alone without being a misanthrope. One can be alone and open, if I may say so, but the core of existence is not depending on someone, on people. Fundamentally, that is the starting point of the grace of solitude, to feel that one is not dependent on others. One can open up to them, meet them, but it is to free oneself from this dependence. Yes, absolutely. Which is fundamentally inauthentic, because from birth we depend on people. So, as a child, a baby, we depend on our parents. Then we depend on teachers, then we depend on friends, we depend, but we depend. So, while it is wonderful to have teachers and friends, one must not depend on them. One is happy to have them, but one can do without them. Well, it's not that, but some people are unfortunately, I think for them, they are not happy because they depend, and if this dependence cannot be met for one reason or another, they are completely lost. Another way to shed light on solitude is that, in fact, we are alone. And so, not wanting to acknowledge solitude, wanting to flee solitude, wanting to condemn solitude, is fundamentally, in a way, lying to oneself. Yes. I don't know, because you say that we are that we are alone. Yes. You say that one is born alone and dies alone, and spends one's whole life trying not to be alone anymore. Yes, that is, yes, of course. That's it. People are afraid of being alone, when it is a bit our, let's say, there is a dimension where we are alone. There is a dimension where we are alone, we will die alone. Yes, but one must live it as a happiness and not as a lack. That is the problem. How do we live it a bit more happily? Each person has their own method, obviously. There is no universal method, I believe. It is simply, but what do you, what are the different threads you have been able to identify? Well, I, I, what I like is writing my books. So that is a privilege, I wanted to have this instrument, because it is a truly animated solitude, populated especially by novels. I live with my characters, so I am not alone, if you like, but I do not depend on them. That is the main thing, I believe. And for those who are not writers, what can you tell them to help them tame it? There is wisdom. Well, I, there is really no recipe, I believe, but I believe that everyone can find a way to be happy, to be alone. You also talk a lot about Simenon. What, what, what does Simenon show about solitude? Well, there are, uh, his characters are, for me, he is the great novelist of solitude, because his characters, there is even a novel called "The Man Who Watched Trains Go By," who flees Belgium, arrives in France, and watches the trains go by, and that is his occupation, and his characters are always very lonely. They are driven to crime by solitude, but I don't know if they are happy, all things considered, but you show that Simenon shows that one can be alone in a bad solitude, in the crowd, and therefore to rediscover solitude is fundamentally to flee this bad solitude. Perhaps what Simenon showed well is that in social life, we think we have connections, but by fleeing solitude, we feel isolated. Perhaps we can distinguish between isolated and alone. Solitude is the opposite of isolation, fundamentally. And Simenon is a very great writer of confinement, isolated from all connections, in solitude. One can be, one can be connected to everyone in the crowd, one can be with many people. Yes. And be isolated, whereas true solitude is open. Yes, but he himself was a writer. So, he would shut himself away, you know, to, he had a tower in his castle in Switzerland. Well, in the end, we know, he would shut himself away, he would even put up a "Do Not Disturb" sign. And he himself had, he had a social life, an intense social life, but at the same time, an intense solitude, and I believe that he, and the one is not opposed to the other. On the contrary. No, no, it is not opposed, on the contrary. So, one can be alone, one can be isolated, let's say, not succeed in entering this happy solitude while being with many people. One can also, while being in a couple, feel alienated. And there, you tell the story of Tolstoy. Tolstoy, it is, it is, it is frightening. Tolstoy, tell us, was married to Sophie for 48 years, I believe. They had 13 children. Well, some died young at the time, but at the same time, they loved each other but hated each other. Each wrote their diary, which they shared, and it was recriminations against each other. It was reproaches, and all that. And when, at 82 years old, he had had enough of his wife and without warning her, he fled towards the East. He took the train and then fell ill and caught bronchitis, pneumonia, on the train. And so he was taken in by the stationmaster of Astapovo, a small station east of Moscow. And his wife rushed there, obviously, but he refused to let her come to his deathbed, to his agony. And so she camped in the wagon, it was a station, so there was a railway, there were wagons. She camped for a week in the wagon without permission to see him. She was only allowed in when he was practically dead. So, it is a couple who were united for 48 years, and very united, both physically and intellectually, and morally, and at the same time, completely, well, each was sealed off. It is an extraordinary story. And you show that it is not the fault of one or the other. It is not their fault, it was, each. What was the character of each of them? What made there be such resentment between them? Well, he was an idealist. She was a woman of, fortunately for him, because she managed the household, the children, especially very much so, and especially since he had open tables, as in Russia. So there were always 20 people at the table, so she had to manage all that. Obviously, there were servants at the time, there was all that, but still, one needed a mistress of the house to organize this enormous household. And he was a bit in the clouds, you know, he had ideas like that. He wanted to abolish taxes, the army. He was excommunicated because he wanted to abolish the church too. But so, they were in fact incompatible, but still, like almost everyone else, I believe. I believe that the human being is profoundly alone, and when they think they are not alone, it is still accommodations, compromises, because there, it is a bit, yes. There, we see, we see a bit of an extreme point. Each poisoned the other's life, and neither of them had any fault towards the other. They were just poisoning each other. Ah, no, there is no fault. Inconceivable, there was no infidelity in the sense of, no, it was simply a different conception of life. And another author you talk about who illuminates another aspect of solitude is Auguste Strindberg. Ah yes, him, yes, I know him less well. I know his life less well, but he is, I believe, that's what you're saying? Yes, fundamentally, that is solitude. To wrap oneself in the cocoon of one's soul, to become a chrysalis, and to await the metamorphosis, because it always comes. Yes, yes, yes. But society truly destroys you. Social life is necessary, but it destroys you because it takes you out of yourself, it forces you to compromise, to accept things that you do not truly want. Every day, we do that when we live with, we are forced to make an accommodation with others. Otherwise, it would be impossible. Then, otherwise, we would be hermits, completely. But if we are not, we must live in society. And I am like that, but I know that living continuously in society destroys you because we alienate ourselves bit by bit with each person, and when we recover ourselves, it is truly in solitude. Then, after that, you make a truly astonishing analysis of the great musicians or great writers who found themselves forced to be alone. Deaf because they were deaf. Yes. And how that was a chance. But yes, that is, that is perfectly well observed, to notice that. Yes, there are four, I have identified four great deaf, illustrious individuals. The first is Ronsard, because often people don't know that. No, I didn't know at all. He was deaf, he was a diplomat, you know, and around 18, he was afflicted with deafness, which was incurable at the time. And so he began to study the poets, Virgil, Petrarch, all that, and he became a poet, and perhaps if he hadn't been deaf, he wouldn't have become a poet. And then the other example is Beethoven, obviously, that is well known, and I believe that when you look at his biography, there is a leap in his production of works when he was not deaf and when he became deaf. First of all, what you say, which is very, which is very beautiful, is that when he discovers he is deaf, he is not at all happy, he is ashamed, and he wants to hide it. Yes, he protests. Yes, well, he describes it in his letters. Yes. And then at one point, he accepts it and sees how much of a chance it is for him. Yes, it is, it is, and he understands that it is not by becoming deaf that he was able to write the great, the great, his genius sonatas, which are where there is a leap in quality, in depth, compared to the earlier works. The earlier works are still inspired by Haydn, by Mozart. They are pleasant, but it is not the great Beethoven, it is when he is completely deaf. That is what is very strange, because it is not that by being deaf he becomes a better musician, it is because it forces him into a form of solitude that will force him to turn inward and invent. It is not because one is deaf that one has genius, it is not that, but when one is deaf, one is no longer subjected to the aggression of the outside world, and even the pleasant aggressions of friends, parents, all that, one is deprived of others. So one must be, one must be fully with oneself, much more fully. So you even say something that I find very beautiful and very profound, which is that deafness is not so much an illness as, fundamentally, the very meaning of his work. Yes, of course. And you quote Romain Rolland's phrase: "The cause of this infirmity was within Beethoven himself, and not in..." Yes, I think, I believe I suggest that he wanted to be deaf, but that is not a wish one can make, but unconsciously, when it happened, it corresponded to his deep wish. And the same for Goya, because Goya is the third great deaf person, who, in his painting too, when he became deaf, painted those things, the Quinta del Sordo, his black paintings, they are called, yes, the house of the deaf, in France, the house of the deaf, yes, completely hallucinated, those mad paintings, of that dog sinking into quicksand, yes. Before, he used to paint portraits of kings, very magnificent ones, but here there is a kind of thing, as if the fact of entering solitude allows us to access a deeper truth. It opens the mind to something else. And the fourth is Smetana, less known, but he is still the founder of Czech music, before Dvořák, and Smetana is a very good, very great musician, and he became deaf, and in those three-quarters, or two, there are two, I believe, two quartets, where he also paved the way for modern quartets. So, I know his life well, but I think all four of them said, the first time, they said, "Damn, I'm deaf, what a misfortune," and then they understood that it was, on the contrary, a blessing, a privilege, a way to be much more themselves than they were before. Fundamentally, it is almost a metaphor, because in a certain sense, for each of us, the ordeal of solitude at first. Yes. It seems bitter, painful, but if we enter into it, it will open us to a depth, and that is what you are trying to show. So, I obviously do not recommend people to become deaf, no, but to try to enter into solitude. You show very well that solitude has such a bad reputation. You say the ivory tower, people are blamed for entering the ivory tower. Yes, but that is absurd. The ivory tower is wonderful when one is capable of living in it. Obviously, the ivory tower, all these metaphors, it is truly the, but the problem, the boredom, is that we cut ourselves off from the world. Here, we can be alone without cutting ourselves off from the world. That is what you quote from Montaigne: "The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be oneself." Ah, well, there you go, but the title of my book is "To be a world unto oneself." It is also Montaigne. To be a world unto oneself means that we are sufficient unto ourselves, but without rejecting the real world. You see, that is what is important. It is not fleeing, or it is like Cephas who flees into the desert. But it is not self-satisfaction either, or the hermit on his column, you know, like Saint Simeon, but it is a complete world and inner fullness, but without being opposed to others. And then, it is very beautiful, you tell this anecdote that I had forgotten, when Sarkozy went to see L'Estrade, 100 years old, if you want to tell it, because. Yes. So, L'Estrade turned 100. He was the first Academician to reach 100 years old. The first. Ah yes, and I forgot to mention, you are an Academician, so you must, you must. You knew him? Yes, yes. No, I didn't know him. It was Madame Caros, who was the, well, the current secretary, the president. So Sarkozy decided that he had to visit L'Estrade, who was in his apartment, and he brought Madame Scarron, who was the president of the Academy, with him. She is the one who told me. And so, well, after pleasantries, Sarkozy asks L'Estrade, "But Master, what do you do to occupy yourself?" He says, "I read. I read a lot." Ah, so you read the newspapers? Never. The newspapers are the world arriving everywhere. We are saturated with various information. I read, I read, I read Plato, and the other one, who was like a cult figure for Sarkozy, he was completely crushed. So, it is, I find the anecdote testifies to this astonishment at the richness of solitude. Yes, but there are the great authors, it is precisely Plato, Montaigne, these are the things we read, I believe, when we are 100 years old. So, that is truly the movement. But you show very well that the bad student is sent to the corner, being alone is a punishment. So we have all this background. Yes. Yes. But that it is a punishment, and there you go. And when Sarkozy says that to L'Estrade, it is fundamentally, one must be entertained by current events to flee solitude. No, he reads to enter into solitude. And so, these are two different models of reading. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Yes. Go to the corner. Indeed, that was the punishment for schoolchildren in the past. No, it is no longer allowed. Did you reread Montaigne to write your book? You quote him? Or Montaigne regularly. Or yes, I reread the chapter, of course, especially. Because there are other phrases from Montaigne that are so profound, so insightful, "One must reserve a back shop for oneself, entirely free and all one's own." I love that phrase, a back shop where no one enters, but where one is at ease. Well, I have read Montaigne a lot, but rereading him, I said to myself, rereading him today, one must reserve a back shop for oneself. I said to myself, this is the antipode of the transparency we are supposed to have today, and the saturation of, well, it's frightening. If you turn on the radio, at full speed, they talk to you about Israel, about Ukraine, about the flood there, about football here. Well, we are completely alienated in things that are very interesting, but it completely alienates you. I mean, it's not. You also talk about the relationship between solitude and melancholy, and the link to Saturn. Yes. Yes. Melancholics are, well, it's a bit different. One can be, one can be alone, sometimes too much solitude causes melancholy. Sometimes, myself, I know, I want to withdraw from someone. It's not absolute, you know, it's not absolute. It's not absolute. One is not capable of being completely alone, except for people who refuse the world, but that's not it. So, for you, it's more about taking a moment to enter into solitude. Yes. To recharge and become a world unto oneself. A moment, it's a question of proportion. Most people take 10% of their life. I try to take 80%. That's all. One of the moments I found moving was when you talk about your meeting with Paul Celan. So, we know that Paul Celan was deeply marked by the Shoah, one of the greatest poets, and you find yourself meeting him one day? Yes, I used to see him at friends' houses, and one day we went to play tennis, and I remember it very well. He was a bit, and I don't know why he accepted, he took his racket and barely moved, and afterwards I understood, but afterwards, he committed suicide a short time later by throwing himself into the Seine. Fundamentally, he resented, well, it's not that he resented, but he observed that people tended to forget the Shoah, and that is what made him suffer. It wasn't so much the memory of the Shoah, but the fact that the living, it was the 1970s, so it was still 25 years after, the living had turned the page, and he had not turned the page. And playing tennis, it was as if I had turned the page. I mean, he is a man, he can play, he can have fun like us. And he couldn't have fun because he hadn't turned the page. You see, it's very beautiful. You say, "It is there that I found it, but very moving. I offended him by pushing him onto the field of play, of nonchalance." Yes, necessarily. Believing that he could be happy with this distraction, assuming he was cured. He who always carried the weight of what had happened before. There. And I still see him with his racket. As he was very, very kind, he didn't impose his distress on us, he wasn't someone who imposed his distress, but he was incapable of having fun, of playing. So, to put on a racket, well, it wasn't me who put it on him, we were a group, but it was like an offense to what he truly was. It was as if, by wanting to enter into this nonchalance, you did not respect his solitude. Exactly. Especially not his pain. Incurable. Absolutely incurable. He wrote poems that are very difficult to read because he hated the German language because it was the language of Germany, and he destroyed the German language in his poems. That is why it is very difficult, it is very difficult to translate, and it is very difficult to understand even, because for me, it was one of my first great shocks in life to have read Paul. Yes. No, but it is admirable, but it is, it is, but it is of great sorrow. I have not forgotten his face. He was asked for something he could not give. There. And so I was complicit in this. Thank you very much. I think we get a glimpse of the breadth of all the faces of solitude. Yes. Thank you infinitely. Thank you for following this episode of Dialogue. It is truly a sincere thank you, because it is truly precious that you have watched this episode to the end, that it speaks to you, that I do this for you. So it is truly an exchange, and I am truly aware today that around Dialogue, there is truly a community of people for whom taking care of the world, taking care of oneself, taking care of others matters a great deal, and it is truly wonderful to see that we are such a community. So, do not hesitate to share, to like. It may seem like nothing, but it is truly very important. It is part of a sort of happy contagion that our world greatly needs. Well, I embrace you and I thank you once again. [Music]