UN CADEAU FOR JONAH AND J.J.

NRO-TC ^ | Rod Dreher/Trevanian

[swilhelm73]

I thought of Jonah and John when a friend forwarded me this passage from the 1979 novel "Shibumi," by the novelist Trevanian. It's a conversation between Le Cagot, a Basque, and Hel, an Englishman: Le Cagot patted the hostess's bottom and sent her after their food. "I don't think we have made a great friend there, Niko. And he is a man to be feared." Le Cagot laughed, "After all, his father was French and very active in the resistance."

Hel smiled. "Have you ever met one who was not?"

"True. It is astonishing that the Germans managed to hold France with so few divisions, considering that everyone who wasn't draining German resources by the clever maneuver of surrendering en masse and making the Nazis feed them was vigorously and bravely engaged in the Resistance. Is there a village without its Place de la Resistance? But one has to be fair; one has to understand the Gallic notion of resistance. Any hotelier who overcharged a German was in the Resistance. Each whore who gave a German soldier the clap was a freedom fighter. All those who obeyed while viciously withholding their cheerful morning 'bonjours' were heroes of liberty!"

Hel laughed. "You're being a little hard on the French."

"It is history that is hard on them. I mean real history, not the verite a la cinquieme Republique that they teach in their schools. The truth be known, I admire the French more than any other foreigners. In the centuries they have lived beside the Basque, they have absorbed certain virtues- understanding, philosophic insight, a sense of humor- and these have made them the best of the 'others'. But even I am forced to admit that they are a ridiculous people, just as one must confess that the British are bungling, the Italians incompetent, the American neurotic, the Germans romantically savage, the Arabs vicious, the Russians barbaric, and the Dutch make cheese. Take the particular manifestation of French ridiculousness that makes them attempt to combine their myopic devotion to money with the pursuit of phantom 'gloire'. The same people who dilute their burgundy for modest profit willingly spend millions of francs on the atomic contamination of the Pacific Ocean in the hope that they will be thought to be the technological equals of the Americans. They see themselves as the feisty David against the grasping Goliath. Sadly for their image abroad, the rest of the world views their actions as the ludicrous egotism of the amorous ant climbing a cow's leg and assuring her that he will be gentle."

[Cicero]

Strangely enough, this is exactly what I said on an earlier thread this evening, in response to that news article about French outrage at the comment of one of their bete noires that the German occupation was actually pretty mild in France--but very much better said.