72 - JACOB, Max (1876–1944).

JACOB, Max (1876–1944). 2 letters from the author, “Max Jacob,” [Paris], June 7, 1932, and March 8, 1936, to Julien GREEN; 2 pages each, in-4 format. Beautiful letters expressing literary admiration. Note: June 7, 1932: He likes Green’s *Épaves* because the book “doesn’t set out to prove anything and takes neither a side nor a position.” I like—contrary to current fashion—that an author tracks down his heroes and sniffs them out. […] Your naked man is a man precisely because he is naked. He is not portrayed as a rich man. […] In truth, you sought only a man, and you endowed him with humanity by giving him the deepest human quality: cowardice. What a stroke of genius! [...] the entire book flows from this cowardice, and the book thus acquires the unity that is the hallmark of great works and that dispenses with any plot (the plot is a hindrance everywhere, even in Dostoevsky) and any kind of demonstration (all demonstrations are false in art, and artificial; they distort human truth too much). I love the logic of your works because it is never a logic imposed by your intellect […] but by your intelligence"... March 8, 1936, after reading *Midnight*: “You are the poet of fear, that primal emotion of the human animal. The face of man is terrible, not grotesque… at least that is how I see it reflected in your books. People tell me from all sides that you are a Dickens—because you have created truths, and truths are, for the uninitiated, always comical, but there is no comedy in your work! The few beautiful or good people in your works emerge from a pallid dawn and grimace, ignoring one another, answering more to the devil than to God. […] You are the poet of fate”…