L'ÉQUINOXE DE SEPTEMBRE: September Equinox

De Montherlant gathers together here a series of essays, a short story, and a diary dealing with the September European crisis, part theory, part actual reporting on the contemporary scene. A rather controversial series of arguments on the positive values of war, as it releases the individual from self- contemplation, as inaction is replaced by action, as new life is more easily generated when the deadwood is wiped out. His journal is more personal, more barbed, a day by day record of the September mobilization in which he took part, mirroring the calm, the indifference of the French troops and the lack of interest of the people. At the close he attacks the moral anaemia of France today, as evidenced by its foreign policy and the negative response of the people themselves. De Montherlant takes a very debatable position, but is a man of great background with a witty, trenchant pen -- one of the few men of letters in France today to have written on the current situation.