Le « cancer américain » : Henry de Montherlant et les États-Unis

Abstract

If Henry de Montherlant's barbs at women have not gone unnoticed, less attention has been paid to all those he hurls at the United  States. In both cases, the writer attacks a modernity that he considers harmful. Like his misogyny, his anti-Americanism is unoriginal in a  society that fears being plagued by "American cancer" (Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu). Montherlant uses all the clichés of the time to  make the United States a crude civilization, obsessed with efficiency and work, but unable to access the subtle pleasures of a refined  culture. However, the pamphleteer vein of his work dried up quite quickly, as if the writer himself was aware of the limits of his  indictment. Too caricatural probably, his criticism of the United States leaves room for a form of selfmockery. At the same time that he  makes fun of the United States, the writer also makes fun of himself.