TROUBLED SLEEP is set in 1940,
after France was invaded
by Germany.
French soldiers were commanded
to "fire as they see fit."
Then their commanding officers
disappeared.
They had counted on this war to make men of them, to give them their rights as heads of families and as war veterans. It was to have been a solemn initiation, a means of freeing them from the shackles of the other, the Great War, the World War, which had stifled their youth with memories of splendor. This war of theirs was to have been greater and still more world-wide. By firing on the Heinies they were to have accomplished that ritual massacre of fathers which marks the entry of each new generation into life. But as things turned out, they fired on nobody, they indulged in massacre, the whole thing had gone wrong. They had remained minors and their fathers were still leading the procession, very much alive, hated, envied, adored, and feared. While the sons, twenty thousand warriors, remained bog down in a rancorous childhoood.
If you–or anyone you know–are a serious fan of modern French & German literature,
please click here.
In my youth, I had a Profounder-than-thou attitude until I attempted to read Sartre's
"Being and Nothingness." I might as well have been reading Sanskrit.
But I have to credit Mr. Sartre for the best definition ever of the word freedom.
Freedom is the ability to say the word NO.
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