In 1974, the novel A Big Hug by an unknown writer named Emile Ajar was published in France and was a great success. The book tells the story of Monsieur Cousin, a Parisian statistician who lives alone in a two-and-a-half-room apartment with a python named A Big Hug. Page after page, the reader is revealed to the elaborate defense system Cousin has built within his soul and around his life in the midst of the bustling world, but it also becomes increasingly clear to him that he himself is not protected from loneliness and the need for love.
Only years after the first publication of this book was it revealed that behind the mysterious name of Emile Azhar was the famous writer Roman Gary, who hid his identity as a challenge to what he saw as the automatic reaction of criticism to his books. Gary committed suicide in 1980, and his letters that were discovered after his death indicate that he attached great importance to the original ending he wrote for the novel and hoped that one day it would be published as an appendix to the book. To fulfill his wish, all reprints of the novel also include the original final chapter entitled “Ecological”, and this is also done in the translation before us.
Roman Gary (1914 – 1980) writer, pilot-diplomat and film director
He was born in Vilnius as Roman Katsav, and spent part of his childhood in Warsaw before moving with his mother to live in Nice, France. In 1938 he was drafted into the French army and served in the air force. At the outbreak of World War II, he exiled to Britain and fought as a pilot in the army. France From 1946 to 1961 he served as a diplomat in the French Foreign Service.
His first stories were published in 1935, and in 1937 he wrote his debut novel, Wine of the Dead, which was not accepted for publication (it was first published only in 2014). In 1945, his first novel, European Education, was published, and in 1956 he won the Goncourt Prize for his book Roots of the Sky (Hebrew translation by Mordechai Schneerson, published as of 1988). Dissatisfied with the critical response to his books, he chose to publish A Big Hug in 1974 under the pen name “Emile Azhar”; his second novel, All Life Before Him, won the Goncourt Prize for the mysterious Azhar in 1975. Gary was thus the only writer to win this prestigious award twice (for this episode, see the translator’s afterword in this book). In 1968 and 1972, he directed two films based on his own scripts.
Gary was married to writer and journalist Leslie Branch (1944-1961) and American film actress Jean Seberg (1963-1970), mother of their son Alexander, who took her own life in 1979. His last partner was Leila Lavie, a model and radio broadcaster. He committed suicide by shooting himself on December 2.12.1980, XNUMX, and in a note he left behind, he wrote, among other things: "No connection to Jean Seberg."
A big hug – Chapter One
I'll get straight to the point, without further ado. The zookeeper, who is interested in pythons, told me:
“Cousin, you should really continue. Put all this down in writing without hiding anything, because there is nothing more exciting than personal experience and direct observation. And above all, avoid literary writing altogether, the subject deserves it.”
It is also worth mentioning that a large part of Africa is spoken French, and that the great studies of scholars have determined that the pythons came from there. I must therefore apologize in advance for all sorts of slurs, linguistic disruptions, sudden leaps, twists, refusals to obey, stuttering, squints and illegal wanderings in language, syntax and vocabulary. The question at hand is a question of hope, of something else, and of another place, of cries that are the same for every soul. It would be unbearable for me to demand in an offensive way to use words and grammatical forms that have already been trampled on and trampled on from all sides, without finding a way out. The issue of pythons, especially in Greater Paris, requires a significant breakthrough in all matters concerning relationships. It is therefore important to me to give the language of this essay a certain freedom, an opportunity to take shape in a way that is different from that of the wear and tear of language. Hope demands that the vocabulary not be given a final shape, out of failure.
That's what I told the zookeeper, and he agreed with me. "Exactly. That's why I think your essay on pythons, which has such a rich personal charge, could be very useful. And don't hesitate to write about Jean Moulin and Pierre Brossollet, the heroes of the Resistance, because neither of them has anything to do with your zoological essay. You will then have complete justification for mentioning them, in order to find direction, to set up contrasts, to provide points of reference, to position yourself. After all, the point here is not just to have luck play you, but to undermine all the relationships in the game through luck."
I didn't understand anything but I was very impressed. The incomprehensible always impresses me, because it may contain something that is for our benefit. For me it is rational. From this I conclude without any legal Joan of Arc Early — I say this with the French speakers around the world in mind and with due respect — that I am now at the heart of the matter. After all, it is an indisputable fact that pythons fall into the category of unloved things.
I will begin with the issue of nature and the most demanding question that arises from it: the question of nutrition. The reader will see that I am not avoiding touching on the most painful subject: not only do pythons feed on fresh meat, they feed on living, breathing meat. That's how it is. When I brought Big Hug back from Africa, after an organized trip that I will have more to say about later, I went to the Museum of Life Sciences. As soon as I saw him, displayed by a black man in front of the entrance to the all-inclusive hotel, I felt an immediate friendship towards this python, a warm and spontaneous feeling, a kind of reciprocity. But I had no idea what the living conditions were that he needed outside of me. But I wanted to maintain them with all my might. The veterinarian told me in a nice Southern accent:
“Captive pythons feed exclusively on live prey. Mice, guinea pigs, and even small rabbits from time to time will do him good…”
He smiled at me sympathetically.
“They swallow, just swallow. It’s interesting to watch a python open its mouth when the mouse is in front of it. You’ll see.”
I turned pale with horror. And so, upon my return to Paris, I encountered this problem of nature with all its might. I had encountered it before, and first of all in my head of course, but I had not deliberately contributed anything to its advancement. I overcame the first step and bought a white mouse. But when we arrived at my living quarters, I took her out of the box, and she quickly changed before my eyes. The moment I felt her whiskers in the palm of my hand, her personal dimension began to swell. I live alone and I called her Blondine, precisely because of her womanhood. I always do what is most urgent first. The more I felt her smallness in the palm of my hand, the greater her presence grew, and the space of my private living quarters suddenly filled to bursting point. She had pink, transparent ears and a tiny, moist nose, and these are things that would not mislead a man who lives alone; they swell to great proportions, because of her tenderness and femininity. When there is a lack of it, it only grows bigger and bigger and takes up all the space. I deliberately chose and bought a fine white mouse to give it a big hug for food, but I didn't have the manly strength to do so. I have weaknesses, and I say this without boasting. It's not to my credit, I'm just stating it as a fact, that's all. There are even moments when I feel so weak that I'm sure there's been a mistake here, and since I have no idea what I mean when I say it, that's enough to make it clear how serious the matter is.
Very quickly, Blondine began to take care of me. She climbed on my shoulder, groped the back of my neck, tickled the inside of my ear with her whiskers, a thousand and one of those little things that delight and create closeness. Meanwhile, my python almost starved to death. I bought an Indian guinea pig because India is more demographic, but he too soon found a way to make friends with me without putting any effort into it. It's amazing how lonely animals feel in a two-room apartment in Greater Paris and how much they need someone to love. I couldn't throw this creature into the mouth of a starving python, just out of consideration for the laws of nature.
I didn't know what to do. Big Hug needs to be fed at least once a week, and he trusted me with that. He's been under my care for twenty days now, showing his affection for me and wrapping himself around my waist and shoulders. He puts his beautiful green head in front of my face and looks straight into my eyes, as if he's never seen anything like it before. My remorse grew so dramatic that I ran to consult Father Joseph from the church on Rue Vanves.
This priest always gives me good advice. He treats my affairs with sensitivity because he understood that I did not come to him for God but for him. It touched his heart. He is very sensitive to the subject. If I were a priest, I would have this problem too. I would constantly feel that I was not really loved. Like those husbands who want others around them only because they have a beautiful wife. Father Joseph therefore treated me with some degree of sympathy in the “Ramses” café opposite the church.
I once heard my office manager say to a colleague at work: “This person has no one inside.” I was devastated for two whole weeks. Even if he wasn’t talking about me, the fact that this sentence upset me so much proves that he was indeed directed at me — you shouldn’t talk bad about people behind their backs. It’s impossible to be truly and completely present; people are in a state of waiting and deserve to be treated with respect. I mention this here because there are expressions like “wait until the bush” that make me reflect. “This person has no one inside…” I didn’t wait too long and pulled out the picture of a big hug that I keep in my wallet alongside all the proof of my existence, my ID card and my “personal accident” insurance policy, and I showed my office manager that there was actually “someone inside,” contrary to what he said.
“Yeah, I know. Everyone here is talking about it,” he said.
“May I ask you, Cousen, why did you adopt a python and not an animal that is easier to bond with?”
“It’s very easy to get attached to pythons. They bond by nature. They bind themselves.”
“And yet?”
I put the picture back in my wallet.
"Nobody wanted him."
He looked at me curiously.
“How old are you, Cousin?”
“Thirty-seven.”
This is the first time he has been interested in python.
“Do you live alone?”
Now I was suspicious. It turns out they were going to give the employees psychological tests to see if they were deteriorating, if they were changing. They were doing it to preserve the environment. Maybe that’s what he was doing to me now. I broke out in a cold sweat. I didn’t know at all whether the attitude towards pythons was positive. Maybe they got a bad score on the psychological tests. Maybe in their eyes it meant someone was unhappy with their job. “Lives alone with a python,” I’d already seen it written in my personal file.
“I intend to start a family,” I told him.
I was going to tell him I was getting married, but he thought I was talking about the python. He watched me with growing curiosity.
“This is a temporary situation, I’m thinking of getting married.” That’s right. I intend to marry Mademoiselle Dreyfus, an office colleague who works on my floor, in a miniskirt. “Congratulations,” he said. “But you’ll have a hard time convincing your wife to live with a python.”
He was gone before I could say anything in my defense. I know very well that most young women today would refuse to share an apartment with a seven-foot-long python, and that the thing it loves most is to wrap itself around you from head to toe. But Mademoiselle Dreyfus is a Negro herself. She is certainly proud of her origins and her natural environment. She is a Negro from French Guiana, as her name, Dreyfus, indicates, a name that the natives there often adopt, out of local pride and to encourage tourism. Captain Dreyfus, who was innocent, spent five years in a forced labor camp there for no wrongdoing, just like that, and his innocence burst out before everyone's eyes. I read everything there was to read about Guiana when in love and discovered that fifty-two black families had adopted the name Dreyfus, out of national pride and the racism in the army in 1905. That way no one dares to touch them. For example, there was one Jean-Marie Dreyfus who was convicted of theft, and this almost caused a revolution, because of sacred things and national property. It is clear, then, that I did not sneak an African python into my house to excuse and explain why no young woman wants to live with me, because of the prejudice against pythons, and why I have no friends of my own kind. And by the way, the director of the office, he is also not married and does not even have a python at home. The truth is that I have not asked anyone to marry me, even though Mademoiselle Dreyfus and I are very close and at the first opportunity, but it is true that pythons are generally considered disgusting, ugly, and they inspire fear. You have to, and I say this with complete recognition of the source of the problem and without despair, you have to feel a great selective affinity, there has to be a shared cultural heritage, for a young woman to agree to live like this in pairs with such a declaration of love right under her nose. That is all I ask. I may be expressing myself in hints, but in Paris, ten million people live on the streets, not including vehicles, and one must, even if one takes a risk, shout with an open heart, conceal and not reveal the main point. By the way, Jean Moulin and Pierre Brossollet were only caught because they crossed themselves, because they went to outside meetings.
Continuing the story, I once boarded a metro car at Porte de Vanves, empty of people, except for one gentleman sitting alone in the corner. I immediately saw that he was sitting alone in the car, and of course I went to sit next to him. We remained in this position for a while, and a certain uneasiness developed between us. There were many empty seats in the car, so it was a difficult situation from a human perspective. I felt that in just a second we would both switch places, but I didn’t give up because that was the point, in all its horror. I say “this” so that they understand me. Then he did a very nice and very simple thing to make me feel comfortable. He took out his wallet and pulled out photographs. He showed them to me one by one, the way families of people who are very dear to you show themselves in order to make an introduction.
“This is the cow I bought last week, a Jersey cow. And this is a pig, three hundred kilos. Huh?”
“They are beautiful,” I said excitedly, thinking about all the people who are looking for each other and can’t find them. “Are you a farmer?”
“No, just like that,” he said. “I love nature.”
It's lucky that I got to my stop because we had already told each other everything and reached this point in confessions that it was very difficult to move forward from and beyond because of the internal traffic jams.
I will be precise and say right away, out of concern for clarity, that I am not straying from the point and that I was on my way to “Ramses” to consult with Father Joseph, but in this essay I am following the natural course of the pythons in order to better adhere to my subject. This course cannot be performed in a straight line but in successive bends, twists, spirals, coils and relaxations, which sometimes create real hoops and twirls, and it is very important to continue in the same manner here, out of sympathy and understanding. The essay needs to feel at home, between these pages.
I also note that Big Hug shed his skin for the first time in my house about the same time I began writing these notes. Of course he was unsuccessful and returned to being himself again, but he tried valiantly and grew a new skin. Metamorphosis is the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me. I sat by him and smoked a short pipe while he shed. On the wall above him hung the pictures of Jean Moulin and Pierre Broussault, which I have already mentioned here in passing, just like that, without any obligation on your part.
Want to read more?
- You are welcome to buy the book. Using this link.
- If you would like to learn more about Roman Gary (Emile Azhar), you are welcome to read Gil Kesari's article, who had the privilege of interviewing him.