What to do when you have a novelist mother, Nathalie Sarraute (1900-1999), who will be one of the beacons of a literary school, the New Roman, and will have, during her lifetime, in 1996, her “Pléiade”? Surely not become its pale copy, thought, rightly, Claude Sarraute. Comedian? She tried it, but she too was inhabited by the desire to write. Then a journalist. Claude Sarraute assumed with panache his passion for the ephemeral of this profession, knowing that it would die without “Pléiade” and without making the headlines of all the newspapers.
Born on July 24, 1927, in Paris, she died on the night of Monday to Tuesday at her Parisian home at the age of 95, her son Martin Tzara announced to Agence France-Presse. She had already had her name engraved on her grave in the Montparnasse cemetery, alongside that of the essayist Jean-François Revel (1924-2006). She spent thirty-nine years with this third husband, after the American journalist Stanley Karnow, then Christophe Tzara – the son of Tristan Tzara – with whom she has two children. “I don’t know anything, he knows everything, she said about Jean-François Revel, with whom she had a son and a daughter. He is happy to teach me. My naivety has always made Revel and the boys howl with laughter. »
fake ingenue
This asserted naivety was rather a pose, or a way of protecting oneself. It is enough to read Claude Sarraute to be convinced of this. She pretended that she had nothing left of her years at the Ecole alsacienne and the Sorbonne where she had passed a degree in English, or of the reading of her mother, whom she admired. But that wasn’t true. Of the forty years she spent at Le Monde, from 1953, we generally remember her daily post “Sur le vive”, on the last page, from 1983 to 1992. She had previously written in the section then called “Spectacles”, then ran a television column for seven years.
Her famous note, that she wanted that of a “chatter”, where she spoke willingly of her “Mimi” – François Mitterrand – or her “Jacquot” – Jacques Chirac -, who did not always appreciate her remarks, clashed in a newspaper proud of its austere reputation. Moreover, when, in November 1983, André Laurens, then director of Le Monde, proposed “Sur le vive”, the reception of the department heads was icy.
Who can swear they’ve never been annoyed by this fake ingenue’s snappy talk? But what journalist can ignore how difficult it is to come up with a good and funny idea every day for a text that must be delivered by 9:30 a.m. at the latest? Coming across Claude Sarraute rue des Italiens every morning – in the historic building of Le Monde – was like encountering a blond tornado at a time when others are still a little asleep. At dawn she had taken the metro to Pont-Marie station – near Île Saint-Louis where she lived with Revel – got off at Chaussée-d’Antin, took her daily corydrane, a stimulant based on aspirin and amphetamines – “as Sartre took, it makes me smarter” – had distributed a few “darling”, “my love” or “sweet, do you have a story for me? and got to work.
“Beach” and “Big Head” Books
On July 11, 1992, she wrote the last “On the Go” with the title “See you soon” and beginning: “I’m leaving, there, children. I leave tomorrow. And, when you get back from vacation, you won’t find me in my dressing room, upstairs, on the right, at the exit of the newspaper. We close it. It’s not that I’m tired of chatting, not at all, I’m happy with you. But I feel like I’m going around in circles in my little box. I want to change. No tone, that no. Length. His new column, “What a story! did not become an institution like Sur le vive.
To “change length, not tone”, Claude Sarraute also wrote “beach” books, as she laughed. About fifteen, from Say so! (JC Lattès, 1985) to Encore un instant (Flammarion, 2017), via Allô Lolotte, it’s Coco (Flammarion, 1987, which was very successful). While she was still at Le Monde, and afterwards, she put her verve and outspokenness to the service of entertainment radio shows. From 1985 to 1995 at “Big heads”, by Philippe Bouvard. Then with Laurent Ruquier, “Rien à waxer”, “On va s’gêner”, and again “Les Grosses Têtes”, taken over by Ruquier in 2014. She was sometimes absent for health reasons, and came back saying she hated “the great age, because everything is going to hell. Fortunately, there is the head that works ”. And laughter.