Interview with Roman Gary “The Double Writer”

This week, 37 years ago, the French-Jewish writer Romain Gary passed away at the age of 66. He is one of my favorite authors, thanks to his style and personality. And not only in my opinion, as he is the only writer to have won the most prestigious “Goncourt” prize twice, albeit under two different names. I will return to this later. Before that, I would like to refer to an interview I conducted with him for “Maariv.”

Roman Gary and Judaism

There were not many prominent Jews among French writers andGary Yes, he did, and on the international level as well. But his Jewishness was not a decisive factor. Even at the time of the interview I conducted with him in a Tel Aviv restaurant, his Jewishness was still not clear. He did not deny it, but he never emphasized it either, in keeping with his cosmopolitan, supranational and non-nationalist approach.

“Let’s ignore my Jewishness,” he told me in an interview, “it plays no role in my views, except perhaps for the universal mark in me that I am probably a typical Jew. But I have no affinity for Judaism as a Jew.” He explained: My visit to you now stems from a more human than a literary-professional consideration. Israel is in danger, under the shadow of threats, and this is also a factor that spurs my curiosity. I repeat, not necessarily because of my Jewishness.” However, when I asked him earlier if he was Jewish, he replied: “My name was originally Kassaf and in Hebrew you have a word for “money.” What does it mean?” When I explained to him, he smiled: “Really, a beautiful name, a successful name.”

And he continued: “I am not sensitive to the concept of nation. In my opinion, nationalism is not essentially different from chauvinism. Indeed, patriotism is something entirely different. In Israel there is patriotism, that is, love of others. Among the Arabs there is nationalism, which is all hatred of others.” He noted that in his opinion Israel is interesting because it is a wonderful example of human achievement and victory.

He is reluctant to talk about the Israeli-Arab conflict, but noted that most Arab views are unacceptable to him. At the same time, he said: “Israel’s shortcomings lie in its virtues. “Here in Israel,” he said, “everyone is healthy, everything is normal and reasonable.” (You have to remember, this was more than forty years ago.) “Therefore,” he continued, “if I write a book about Israelis, the plot will not take place in Israel but in an abnormal, exotic, morbid atmosphere of some kind.
As far as I know, he did not carry out this intention.

This was not his first visit to Israel. During World War II, he served as a pilot in the France The free and bomber unit in which she served was stationed at a base near Acre. “I was there today and there is no trace of that airport,” he said during the interview, recalling: “I was called into action to attack enemy submarines approaching the coast of the country. I discovered an Italian submarine on the surface of the water, I dived and attacked, but I missed. To this day I regret that, not because of any desire to kill, God forbid, but because of the feeling that I had not properly fulfilled my duty.” And he also found it necessary to explain to me, as if justifying himself, what caused him to miss.

Roman Gary was married to the actress Jean Seberg and they had a son, Diego. When they were already divorced and she was apparently a drug addict and connected to underground movements of blacks in the US, she committed suicide (there was also suspicion of murder). Those close to Gary claimed that he never recovered from his death.

The birth of Emile Ajar

At a certain point in his literary success, there were critics who claimed that he had finished the horse. In response – and in keeping with his personality – he made a move that mocked his critics: he began writing under a borrowed name – Emile Ajar, whose books were very successful, such as “All Life Before Him,” which was also adapted into a play and a successful film directed by Moshe Mizrahi and starring Simone Signoret.

Gary enjoyed watching his critics praise Emile Ajar's books and writhe when the truth came out. The mystery surrounding the unknown Emile Ajar's personality became a devil's dance that forced the hiding Gary to invent more stories and arranged for a family member named Paul Popovich to pose as Emile Ajar. Another example of Gary's feverish mind. It was of course Popovich's beautiful and unexpected hour that he got carried away and really started playing the game. It was too much and Gary decided to pull the awl out of the bag and revealed the truth, much to the mockery of the critics.

All of this behavior is typical of his sarcastic nature and his tendency to deceive people's minds. Therefore, it is possible that a significant portion of the stories in his works or in the biography he presented were nothing more than the fruit of his imagination, contrary to his claim. At the time I interviewed him, I was still under the impression of the passage in "A Promise at Dawn" in which he told how his mother prepared in advance a package of letters to be sent to him after her death so as not to grieve him while he served in the army in World War II.

I asked him if this was true and he replied: “Except for the dialogues, which are necessarily fictional, the entire book is based on facts and documents. My mother’s letters, preserved in the archives of the National Library in Paris, will testify to this.” It is difficult to determine with certainty whether this is indeed the case, especially since in our conversation he confirmed regarding the rest of his characters that they are not real but fictional.

Gary's biography also includes years of service as a diplomat for France. He recounted this period, for example, when he was serving in communist Bulgaria, the spy services tried to use a method they accepted on him: they sent him one of their agents and during their communion, they photographed him and showed him the photographs, trying to blackmail him into working for them. He was not alarmed and responded: "This picture and this one and this one are the best. Can I get copies?" The blackmail, of course, failed.

After a while, Gary resigned from the diplomatic service, partly because the manners involved in the profession did not suit his character, which sometimes caused him to speak bluntly. For example: at one point he glanced at “The Seventh Kingdom” and wrote and directed a film called “The Birds Come to Die in Peru,” about a frigid married woman, and therefore nymphomaniac, who never stopped finding lovers and eventually commits suicide. The role was wonderfully played by his wife Jean Seberg. The film was banned from screening in France by a review committee of which he was a member, but was absent during the vote. He told me about it:

“The reasons for the disqualification were extremely frivolous. They claimed that since 60 percent of women suffer from sexual frigidity that causes neurosis, the film could influence them to take their own lives. I replied to them that Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina was a prostitute and eventually committed suicide, and since, according to statistics, at least 60 percent of married women have sex outside of marriage – then, according to the committee’s logic, “Anna Karenina” should be disqualified. In the end, the disqualification order was overturned.”)

In 1980, as mentioned, Gary committed suicide, and despite the letters he left before his death, the reason for his suicide is unclear. Some versions claimed that he felt that his creativity had run out, and others claimed that he – who was a ladies' man – felt, or feared, the loss of his virility. These versions were also voiced in the context of commentaries on one of his books entitled: “From Here On, Your Ticket Is Invalid,” as it was said on subway signs. The book dealt with the anxiety of successful middle-aged men who conquer women. Anxiety about what? – Is it the loss of virility or the ability to create?

The interview with Gary took place just days before I was sent by the “Maariv” newspapers to be their writer in Paris and Europe for a few years. I took a few issues with the interview with me to give to him, but I was unable to meet him. But I continued to follow him and his work with alertness and amazement.