The Style Claude Lefort

Abstract

As one of his translators, I would like to say a few words about Claude Lefort’s style; Raymond Aron, who was on Lefort’s doctoral committee, commented on it. I have the following information in the form of a note Lefort wrote to me as I was about to take on the translation of his thesis (Le travail de l’oeuvre Machiavel: The Work of the Oeuvre Machiavelli). It reads as follows: “I am sure my book is difficult to translate. My thesis director, Raymond Aron, vigorously criticized my style, which he considered to be Proustian; that was by no means a compliment! Since those days I have tried to be more concise.” He goes on to authorize my shortening and/or simplifying of his sentences, which I was indeed sometimes able to do. But was Aron’s allusion to Proust entirely negative? Or did his ears hear all that his lips were saying? And does Lefort’s propensity for jovial self-deprecation forbid our application of a broader interpretation of the Proustian allusion? For, although in this early (1972) thesis the sentences do indeed tend to meander-ings and tucked-in afterthoughts (or what the French call “repentirs”), both authors thereby remain faithful to their mental movements’ ranging through the depths of a meditation followed through to its reluctant release. A case in point: at the very beginning of his book, Lefort imagines a critic accusing him of the “perversion” of desiring to pursue the discourse of his interpretation of Machiavelli even beyond the silence that would hypothetically be imposed, were one to stumble upon an interpretation that would end that discourse.