In March 1935, days before he died from tuberculosis, the Romanian writer Panaït Istrati penned the preface to the French edition of George Orwell’s first book. In translation, Down and Out in Paris and London became La Vache Enragée, an apt title taken from the 18th-century expression that describes a level of destitution so great that the poor are forced to eat meat from diseased cows. Orwell himself was impressed by the title and congratulated his translator René Noël Raimbault with whom he exchanged correspondence. It was Raimbault who informed Orwell that their first choice for the preface, the author and poet Francis Carco, would not be approached for the job after all…
“It will not be Carco who will contribute our preface but Panaït Istrati. The idea came to (André) Malraux who read my proofs and really liked your book, he thinks that Carco would not have the finesse to write a preface and that Panaït is the man we need. As I really like Panaït, and because he also has suffered ‘La Vache enragée’, he will be well qualified. I agree with Malraux’s feelings.”
Shared Ideals
For two men who had never met, Orwell and Istrati had much common ground: both had experience of the vagabond life (although Istrati’s was far more extensive and not always by choice) both were drawn to France through a love of French literature and both had early works published in periodicals owned by Henri Barbusse. They would certainly have had much to discuss politically even if Orwell would take a few more years to arrive at the level of profound disillusionment with Soviet communism to which Istrati had already arrived.
Panaït Istrati (right) with Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis with whom he traveled to the USSR.
Panait Istrati’s travels in the Soviet Union (1927-1928) and his subsequent attempts to alert communists in the West to the terror and persecution Stalin was inflicting on his people fell on deaf, disbelieving, angry ears. Istrati was vilified, branded a traitor to the cause, a fascist and a liar. Friends such as Henri Barbusse publicly turned against him. He retreated to Romania and published several books until tuberculosis (and run-ins with the far-right Romanian authorities) forced him to take refuge in a sanatorium. Istrati’s preface of La Vache Enragée is a work that, as Raimbault informed Orwell by letter in July 1935, almost didn’t happen…
“We nearly didn’t get it. Panaït sent it to me from Bucharest just 10 days before he died. It was written by the hand of a dying man…it is the last work of this great and pure writer; certain phrases resound like a literary testament.”
Last words…
Even without the knowledge that these are the last published words of a man who is dying from tuberculosis, we can sense the urgency in Istrati’s text as well as a certain difficulty in staying on point; he drifts from the subject of Orwell’s book, then returns to it now and then as though only on occasion remembering what he is supposed to be writing about. He praises La Vache Enragée and yet somehow manages to downplay the achievement as having already been done better by others, and for inhabiting a genre he believes Orwell would have been wise to avoid altogether. He tells us a little of his own life, and of what he sees as the artless state of modern literature. He has an axe to grind and like a well-tutored politician, he has decided to get his point across regardless of the question he has been asked. He is somewhat bitter and, by his own admission, disillusioned, but without a doubt, passionate and sticks to his principles unwaveringly, literally to the end.
Duncan Roberts – March 2024
Note – Proof of Western communists’ contempt for Panaït Istrati and anyone who dared speak ill of Stalin or the Soviet Union can be found in Istrati’s obituary, published by L’Humanité – The French Communist party newspaper – in 1935. Panaït Istrati is dead
Panaït Istrati’s Preface to La vache Enragée – 1st Published in July 1935
PREFACE
I don’t know what sort of novel George Orwell is in the habit of writing, but La Vache enragée is a singular work for our times; due in large to the crystal-clear nature of its construction and by that I mean the total absence of literary devices. In this book, you won’t find a single example of what is often referred to disparagingly as Literature. For the author, this can be considered an achievement, and for the reader, a great gift.
At first glance, La Vache enragée could appear to be straightforward reportage, “a travel journal” as indeed the author himself refers to it. In reality, the book is anything but. No other travel journal has been able to sustain, over 286 pages, such a natural tone, such simplicity or forcefulness, that here has no agenda other than that of revealing the truth, the act, the brutal reality; all the while free from inane constructs or description and never ever tipping over into monotony.
It’s perfectly normal that George Orwell was drawn into Gorki territory; his creation of a character such as Kanavalov surely singles him out as Orwell’s predecessor. Treading the same path, Orwell’s world is that of the box-car vagabond, a life I know little of; my own locale, the mediterranean, being far too rich in food scraps and sun for the vagabond to run around like a madman in search of shelter and a hunk of bread.
I consider Bozo to be one of the most fascinating of all the characters who subsist within the pages of this book. Marvellously suited to the conventions of ‘The Grand Literary Creation’, it almost seems a shame that George Orwell didn’t see fit to turn him into one. Then again, the splendour of any ‘Grand Literary Creation’ is also what hastens its own downfall; Gorki himself ran his subject into the ground, burning all bridges behind him. In the genre of the vagabond-philosopher, he has no equal, he remains the master with no modern day pupil. That’s why I myself have refrained from taking that road. Despite the many pariahs of destiny that I’ve met on my travels, on the occasions when I’ve tried my hand, I‘ve failed. The Russian colossus has said everything that has to be said on the subject for at least a hundred years hence. That doesn’t mean to say that the characterful vagabond doesn’t exist; the amiable tramp or dangerous scoundrel, whether they’re called Villon, Gorki or Kanavalov, on or off the page, are no less of a reality.
The great Dutch novelist, A.M de Jong, met one of them; a real-life thief who wrote to him from his prison cell. Jong even visited him and attested to the fact that he was a poet and a good sort. Since then, the man in question has travelled all over Holland recounting his life at well attended conferences. I can’t seem to recall his name or the title of his poetry collection but it’ll come back to me.
Last year I myself discovered the Romanian writer Petre Bellu and even wrote the preface to his book, Defence has the word, which sold 65,000 copies despite its glaring flaws. Where is it written that a man is only great if he writes or paints magnificently? The grandeur and beauty of human personality is not measured with the yardstick of art. I could even take the opposite stand. Many of us have had the pleasure of knowing and admiring men with moral integrity, and exceptionally soulful characters, some of whom languish in the depths of social injustice. I’m not asking who will save them from their misery. I’m only asking who will reveal them to us, and above all, by which means. For someone of Gorki’s genius, it was child’s play to bring such an original portrait to life in such a perfect form. But, as I have already said, that way is shut, even for Gorki. Since the war, literature really has become Literature with a capital L. Anyone who is frank will have come to this conclusion for themselves and to their own detriment. Almost nothing today is readable and due to ever increasing production and rampant consumerism, contempt for ‘Literature’ is universal, even more so amongst those who write than those who read. For my part, I admit to my writer’s soul being much diminished compared to ten years ago. I have come to the conclusion that this is an art that has lost its nobility, that the verb has been corrupted and that the sincerity of artistic feeling is rarely to be found in today’s books.
George Orwell appears to side-step this problem by foregoing artistic feeling. He writes without artifice. He does not describe, or at least very little. He never rambles on, avoids the most unavoidable of details, never gets carried away and eschews all paths that might lead to great art or ‘Literature’. And yet, from the first to the last page, La Vache Enragée reads like the most riveting novel and displays the most rare of artistic qualities.
Is it because he lived it all? Even this reality is wasted. We ruin the most precious moments of our reality by attempting to turn them into art. We’re not satisfied with pure, unadorned moments unless they’re narrated. We follow the well trodden paths of literary grandiloquence and fall into artistic hypocrisy. The artless authenticity that gives our existence meaning; we banish it from our hearts, all the while chasing its shadow.
The miracle of this book lies in all that is genuine. We follow Orwell, as though we were his companion. He shows us the appalling reality of the slums of Paris and London and we share the view unflinchingly. This is not one of those fantasies where writer and reader face one another while the characters of the modern novel parade before them. There is nothing conventional, no melodrama, not even any literary drama. We experience the book without suffering or disgust even though all is truly appalling and stomach turning.
How does Orwell maintain this delicate balance? He himself says “it is a fairly trivial story”, and would therefore lend itself to melodrama. It is a common tale, beautifully told on occasion and always well measured. It is a world I know something of, except for those horrible English night-time shelters (spikes), which are, thank God, unknown to us in the East and we appear to do well enough without them. I’ve been a dishwasher in Egypt and Switzerland but never in Paris. And though I owe much to the city, I’ve also lived my fair share of hand-to-mouth there. I too have drifted through streets like the ‘rue du Coq d’or’, in Belleville, Batignolles and in the suburbs.
But I would never dare to recount those adventures in the way that George Orwell does with such crystal clarity in the pages of his book. I will go even further: La Vache Enragée is a work that forces us to think, to meditate on the melancholy of our existence; much like a Balzac novel, but without Balzac’s overwrought nature being forced upon us.
The art of literature must regain this authenticity or suffer a long, slow death.
Panaït Istrati – Bucharest, March 1935.
Translated by Duncan Roberts – Oxford 2024.
Note: Panaït Istrati’s preface was not included in the 2nd French translation of Down and Out in Paris and London by Michel Pétris in 1982. Istrati’s words ceased to be available in print with the final run of La vache Enragée in 1954. To my knowledge, Istrati’s preface has not previously been translated into English.
Sources:
George Orwell, Correspondance with my translator René-Noël Raimbault. Jean Michel Place. 2006
George Orwell, La Vache Enragée, translated – René N Raimbault & Gwen Gilbert. Gallimard. 1935