The passing of Claude Sarraute
Claude Sarraute was a French journalist & writer who died June 20 at 95 - A film/TV critic for Le Monde, where she wrote a column until 1992. She was the famous writer Nathalie Sarraute’s daughter...
This post is by Elisabeth Sauvage-Callaghan - My French Life French Book Club member (+ previous club guest host). Elisabeth is also a member of our very active MyFrenchLife Private Community Group which you’re all welcome to join.
I read this book in one sitting yesterday. Claude Sarraute was a French journalist and writer who died this week (on June 20) at the age of 95. She was a film and TV critic for Le Monde, for which she also wrote a column until 1992. She also participated in the popular radio programs “Les grosses têtes” hosted by Philippe Bouvard, and “On a tout essayé,” as well as the TV show “On va s'gêner,” hosted by Laurent Ruquier.
She was the famous writer Nathalie Sarraute’s daughter. She was married to the American journalist and historian Stanley Karnow from 1948 to 1955, and then to Christophe Tzara, Tristan Tzara’s son, from 1957 to 1966. Her third husband was the philosopher and writer Jean-François Revel, whom she married in 1967, and to whom she remained married until his death in 2006 (it seems that they both had multiple affairs, but remained married. She was buried next to him in the Montparnasse cemetery.)
Frankly, I never knew who Claude Sarraute was until my brother mentioned her passing. I was intrigued and wanted to read her prose. Her outlook on aging and reaching the age of 90 is definitely eye-opening and quite humorous.
She muses over the idea of resorting to assisted suicide but never does it because, all in all, in spite of her many aches and pains and her shrinking life (she could barely walk, and was quasi-deaf and blind by the end of her life), she still loves living.
Frankly, she must have been quite a character. She lived a privileged life, for sure, and quite an interesting one!
Claude Sarraute’s novels included: [Credit to Wikipedia]
Novels
Dites donc! (1985: a collection of texts from her "Sur le vif" section in Le Monde)
Allô, Lolotte, c'est Coco (1987)
Maman coq (1989)
Mademoiselle, s'il vous plaît! (1991)
Ah ! l'amour, toujours l'amour (1993)
Des Hommes en général et des femmes en particulier (1996)
C'est pas bientôt fini! (1998)
Dis, est-ce que tu m'aimes? (2000)
Dis voir, Maminette... (2003)
Belle belle belle (2005)
Avant que t'oublies tout! (2009, an autobiography written together with Laurent Ruquier)
Encore un instant (2017)
If you’d like to read with us in our French Book Club we’re reactivating it now so please leave a comment below. Here is what we’re reading now through until the end of July 2023.
Merci
A bientôt
Elisabeth Sauvage-Callaghan & Judy MacMahon
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When I lived in Paris in the 1980's, I was an avid reader of Claude Sarraute's columns in Le Monde. So much so that I asked if we could meet -- I was an American journalist at the time, thinking of doing a story about her. I spent several hours with Sarraute at Le Monde, watching her write her column, marveling all the while at her energy, her quick wit and political acumen.
If you look up page 556 of the late John Ardagh's book FRANCE TODAY (London: Penguin Books, 1995), you'll see a quotation from Claude Sarraute's dithyrambic 1980 tribute to British television. I'd previously had no idea that she was ever married to Jean-François Revel, a big name in my childhood and adolescence (his prose seemed to take up every second edition of the long-defunct ENCOUNTER magazine).