Man's Fate
Encyclopedia
Man's Fate is a 1933 novel
written by André Malraux
about the failed communist insurrection
in Shanghai
in 1927, and the existential
quandaries facing a diverse group of people associated with the revolution. The literary critic Christopher Hitchens
, while noting that Malraux had spent almost no time in China, claimed that the novel "pointed up the increasing weight of Asia in world affairs; it described epic moments of suffering and upheaval, in Shanghai especially (it was nearly filmed by Sergei Eisenstein); and it demonstrated a huge respect for Communism and for Communists while simultaneously evoking the tragedy of a revolution betrayed by Moscow." Along with Les Conquérants (1928), La Voie Royale (1930) it forms a trilogy on the Chinese revolution.
, China
, and concerns mainly the socialist insurrectionists and people involved. The four protagonists are Ch’en Ta Erh (whose name is spelled Tchen in the French version of the book), Kyoshi ("Kyo") Gisors, the Soviet emissary Katow
, and Baron De Clappique. Their individual plights are intertwined throughout the book.
Chen Ta Erh is sent to assassinate an authority, succeeds, and is later killed in a failed suicide bombing attempt on Chiang Kaishek. After the assassination he becomes governed by fatality and desires simply to kill, and thereby fulfill his duty as a terrorist, a duty which controls his life. This is largely the result of being so close to death since assassinating a man.
He is so haunted by death and his powerlessness over inevitability that he wishes to die, simply to end his torment.
Kyo Gisors is the commander of the revolt and believes that every person should choose his own meaning, and not be governed by any external forces. He spends most of the story trying to keep power in the hands of the workers rather than the Kuomintang
(KMT) army, and resolving a conflict between himself and his wife, May. He is eventually captured and, in a final act of self-determination, chooses to take his own life with cyanide.
Katow
had faced execution once before, during the Russian Civil War
, and was saved at the last moment - which gives him a feeling of psychological immunity. After witnessing Kyo's death, he watches with a kind of calm detachment as his fellow revolutionaries are taken out one by one, to be thrown alive into the chamber of a steam locomotive waiting outside - intending, when his own turn comes, to use his own cyanide capsule. But hearing two young Chinese activists talk with trembling fear of being burned alive, he gives them the cyanide (there is only enough for two), himself being left to face the more fearsome death - and so he dies in an act of self-sacrifice and solidarity with weaker comrades.
Baron De Clappique is a French merchant, smuggler, and obsessive gambler. He helps Kyo get a shipment of guns ended, and is later told if he doesn’t leave the city in 48 hours he will be killed. On the way to warn Kyo he gets involved with gambling and cannot stop. He considers gambling “suicide without dying”. Clappique is very good humored and cheerful all the time but is suffering inwardly.
He later escapes the city dressed as a sailor.
one of choosing one's own meaning. This was exemplified by Kyo, and its alternative was shown in the fatality of Ch'en. Katov
for example chooses to give his cyanide pill to two other prisoners and thus accepts being burned alive himself, having saved those two men from suffering.
Another point presented in the book addresses how people interact with one another. Ferral and Old Gisors both believe they can understand and possess in a person only what they can change. Ferral is shown this through his relationship with Valerie, and Old Gisors through his with Ch'en.
French literature award in 1933, and in 1999 was named number five in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
.
, who spent three years preparing his film version of Man's Fate
before the producing studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, cancelled the production one week before filming was to begin in November 1969. The Italian
director Bernardo Bertolucci
proposed adapting the film in the 1980s
to the Chinese government; they preferred his alternative proposal, The Last Emperor
, a 1987
biopic
based on the life of the Chinese Emperor
Puyi
.
During 2001, U.S. filmmaker Michael Cimino
announced he would create a film version of Man's Fate but the project remains unrealized.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
about the failed communist insurrection
April 12 Incident
The April 12 Incident of 1927 refers to the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party organizations in Shanghai by the military forces of Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang...
in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
in 1927, and the existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
quandaries facing a diverse group of people associated with the revolution. The literary critic Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, while noting that Malraux had spent almost no time in China, claimed that the novel "pointed up the increasing weight of Asia in world affairs; it described epic moments of suffering and upheaval, in Shanghai especially (it was nearly filmed by Sergei Eisenstein); and it demonstrated a huge respect for Communism and for Communists while simultaneously evoking the tragedy of a revolution betrayed by Moscow." Along with Les Conquérants (1928), La Voie Royale (1930) it forms a trilogy on the Chinese revolution.
Plot summary
The novel occurs during a 22 day period mostly in ShanghaiShanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and concerns mainly the socialist insurrectionists and people involved. The four protagonists are Ch’en Ta Erh (whose name is spelled Tchen in the French version of the book), Kyoshi ("Kyo") Gisors, the Soviet emissary Katow
Katow
Katow is a character from André Malraux's existential novel Man's Fate. He is a Soviet emissary and one of the organizers of a Communist insurrection in Shanghai, China. When the revolt fails and the Communists are left without ammunition, he is captured and later burned alive.Katov's convictions...
, and Baron De Clappique. Their individual plights are intertwined throughout the book.
Chen Ta Erh is sent to assassinate an authority, succeeds, and is later killed in a failed suicide bombing attempt on Chiang Kaishek. After the assassination he becomes governed by fatality and desires simply to kill, and thereby fulfill his duty as a terrorist, a duty which controls his life. This is largely the result of being so close to death since assassinating a man.
He is so haunted by death and his powerlessness over inevitability that he wishes to die, simply to end his torment.
Kyo Gisors is the commander of the revolt and believes that every person should choose his own meaning, and not be governed by any external forces. He spends most of the story trying to keep power in the hands of the workers rather than the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
(KMT) army, and resolving a conflict between himself and his wife, May. He is eventually captured and, in a final act of self-determination, chooses to take his own life with cyanide.
Katow
Katow
Katow is a character from André Malraux's existential novel Man's Fate. He is a Soviet emissary and one of the organizers of a Communist insurrection in Shanghai, China. When the revolt fails and the Communists are left without ammunition, he is captured and later burned alive.Katov's convictions...
had faced execution once before, during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, and was saved at the last moment - which gives him a feeling of psychological immunity. After witnessing Kyo's death, he watches with a kind of calm detachment as his fellow revolutionaries are taken out one by one, to be thrown alive into the chamber of a steam locomotive waiting outside - intending, when his own turn comes, to use his own cyanide capsule. But hearing two young Chinese activists talk with trembling fear of being burned alive, he gives them the cyanide (there is only enough for two), himself being left to face the more fearsome death - and so he dies in an act of self-sacrifice and solidarity with weaker comrades.
Baron De Clappique is a French merchant, smuggler, and obsessive gambler. He helps Kyo get a shipment of guns ended, and is later told if he doesn’t leave the city in 48 hours he will be killed. On the way to warn Kyo he gets involved with gambling and cannot stop. He considers gambling “suicide without dying”. Clappique is very good humored and cheerful all the time but is suffering inwardly.
He later escapes the city dressed as a sailor.
Characters
- Ch'en Ta Erh – the assassin. Protagonist.
- Kyo Gisors – the leader of the revolt. Protagonist.
- Baron De Clappique – a French merchant, smuggler, and obsessive gambler. Protagonist.
- Old Gisors – Kyo's father, one-time Professor of Sociology at the University of PekingPeking UniversityPeking University , colloquially known in Chinese as Beida , is a major research university located in Beijing, China, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China. It was founded as Imperial University of Peking in 1898 as a replacement of the...
, and an opium addict, acts as a guide for Kyo and Ch’en - May Gisors – Kyo's wife and a German doctor, born in Shanghai
- KatowKatowKatow is a character from André Malraux's existential novel Man's Fate. He is a Soviet emissary and one of the organizers of a Communist insurrection in Shanghai, China. When the revolt fails and the Communists are left without ammunition, he is captured and later burned alive.Katov's convictions...
– A Russian, one of the organizers of the insurrection, he is burned alive for treason. - Hemmelrich – A Belgian phonograph-dealer.
- Yu Hsuan – His partner.
- Kama – A Japanese painter, Old Gisors' brother-in-law.
- Ferral – President of the French Chamber of Commerce and head of the France-Asiatic Consortium. He struggles with his relationship with Valerie because he only wishes to possess her as an object.
- Valerie – Ferral's girlfriend.
- Konig – Chief of Chiang Kaishek's Police.
- Suan – Young Chinese terrorist who helped Ch’en, later arrested in the same attack in which Ch'en was killed.
- Pei – Also helped Ch’en.
Major themes
The most noticeable theme is the existentialExistentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
one of choosing one's own meaning. This was exemplified by Kyo, and its alternative was shown in the fatality of Ch'en. Katov
Kátov
Kátov is a village and municipality in Skalica District in the Trnava Region of western Slovakia.-Geography:The municipality lies at an altitude of 163 metres and covers an area of 4.274 km². It has a population of about 574 people.-External links:...
for example chooses to give his cyanide pill to two other prisoners and thus accepts being burned alive himself, having saved those two men from suffering.
Another point presented in the book addresses how people interact with one another. Ferral and Old Gisors both believe they can understand and possess in a person only what they can change. Ferral is shown this through his relationship with Valerie, and Old Gisors through his with Ch'en.
Awards and nominations
This book won the Prix GoncourtPrix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...
French literature award in 1933, and in 1999 was named number five in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
.
Film adaptations
Three attempts have been made to adapt Man's Fate as a motion picture. The first involved Fred ZinnemannFred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
, who spent three years preparing his film version of Man's Fate
Man's Fate (unfinished film)
Man's Fate was a 1969 unfinished film directed by Fred Zinnemann and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .-Pre-production:Following the critical and commercial success of his 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned Zinnemmann the Best Director Oscar, the...
before the producing studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, cancelled the production one week before filming was to begin in November 1969. The Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
director Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
proposed adapting the film in the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
to the Chinese government; they preferred his alternative proposal, The Last Emperor
The Last Emperor
The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...
, a 1987
1987 in film
-Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....
biopic
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
based on the life of the Chinese Emperor
Emperor of China
The Emperor of China refers to any sovereign of Imperial China reigning between the founding of Qin Dynasty of China, united by the King of Qin in 221 BCE, and the fall of Yuan Shikai's Empire of China in 1916. When referred to as the Son of Heaven , a title that predates the Qin unification, the...
Puyi
Puyi
Puyi , of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan, was the last Emperor of China, and the twelfth and final ruler of the Qing Dynasty. He ruled as the Xuantong Emperor from 1908 until his abdication on 12 February 1912. From 1 to 12 July 1917 he was briefly restored to the throne as a nominal emperor by the...
.
During 2001, U.S. filmmaker Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
announced he would create a film version of Man's Fate but the project remains unrealized.
See also
- Shanghai massacre of 1927Shanghai massacre of 1927The April 12 Incident of 1927 refers to the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party organizations in Shanghai by the military forces of Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang...
- Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil WarThe Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....