Thanks for posting your ruminations on Malraux. Having worked my way through the rest of Lazare/Lazarus, I can see your point vis-a-vis putting that one at the end of the reading cycle. I've tried to absorb as much as possible, and understood his myriad recollections as hints of what is yet to come in my reading. BTW, his "fictive" rendering of the Germans' first use of poison gas in World War I in the first part of the book is pretty amazing. The ghastly images tend to shift in and out of focus and time in the minds eye which I think is mirrored in the latter part of the book as he describes in autobiographical fashion his lapses in and out of consciousness (on more than one level) as he nears death in the hospital. Of course the poison gas section was written many years earlier, but it seems to be one Malraux hallmark of many - cf the prison sequence in Days of Wrath. It would be sloppy to call it surreal, but...?
I've located a copy of the 1955 issue of Time magazine in which Malraux was featured as the cover subject. If I get my hands on it, I could pass along a copy, if you're interested and haven't seen it before. And a 1957 French periodical, in English (?), in which he's also a featured subject. Not heavy-duty reading to be sure, and I'm actually more interested in his earlier endeavors, but it's a start.
The odyssey began when I came across my copy of Man's Fate in a small shop outside of Eagle Harbor, Michigan, in the Upper Penninsula - which has its own legacy of resistance, e.g. the Calumet miners strike of 1913. (Big Annie of Calumet is another book I picked up this summer while traveling. It portrays Annie Clemenc's decisive role in the miners' struggle and provides a more general overview of the part that women played in carrying things forward. Another good read...)
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/ dave /