Jean-Christophe, Volume I
1911
Jean-Christophe begins his life in a German backwater, born to a failed composer father sinking into drink and a mother who loves him fiercely but cannot shield him from the household's collapse. Rolland traces the boy's journey from infancy through adolescence with revolutionary intensity: we watch Christophe discover his gift, wage war against petty authorities, form passionate friendships, and refuse every compromise that might dull his fire. This is a novel about artistic genius as a form of rebellion - the insistence on living at full volume in a world that demands conformance. Rolland wrote it in the years before the Great War, and the book pulses with that era's faith in the individual will, its belief that one person armed with conviction could shake the stars. It's a portrait of the artist as a young hothead, full of fury and tenderness, and it demands everything from its hero - and from anyone brave enough to follow him.
Editions
X-Ray
“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.””
— Romain Rolland
“Everything is music for the born musician.””
— Romain Rolland
“stones are hard everywhere.””
— Romain Rolland
“the public will only stand genius in infintesimal doses,sprinkled with mannerisms and fashionable literature...A fashionable genius!Doesn't that make you laugh?..what a waste of power!””
— Romain Rolland
“But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.””
— Romain Rolland
“هیچ چیز به اندازه عشقی که منظور معینی نداشته باشد فرساینده نیست.نیروی شخص را می خورد و از میان می برد. سودای شناخته شده روح آدمی را سخت به خود مشغول می دارد؛ شخص از آن یه ستوه می آید؛ ولی دست کم می داند به خاطر چه. هر چیز تحمل پذیر است مگر احساس خلا...””
— Romain Rolland
“A limited number of types,good and bad serve for all ages.””
— Romain Rolland
“Islands of memory begin to rise above the river of his life. At first they are little uncharted islands, rocks just peeping above the surface of the waters. Round about them and behind in the twilight of the dawn stretches the great untroubled sheet of water; then new islands, touched to gold by the sun.””
— Romain Rolland
