Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary

[Diane]

Rating: 4+ Stars
Read: January 2018

This is my TBR takedown book for this month. It is the memoir about Romain Gary and his remarkable life. We learn about his childhood in Lithuania and his young adulthood in France. It is also a tribute to his mother, who seemed to also be quite remarkable. Gary was raised alone by his mom after his father walked out of their lives early on. It had to be difficult to be a single Mom of Jewish descent in 1920's-30's Europe. She strongly believed that Gary would grow up to be very successful. She predicted that he would be an author, an ambassador, and wealthy enough to have his suits tailor-made in London. All of this came true. He even became an attorney and a decorated WWII pilot. She also predicted that he would one day win the Nobel Prize in literature. This one didn't come true. I suppose it is possible for him to receive this posthumously. After all, he did win 2 Prix Goncourt's (only author to do so) and made it onto the 1001 list.
Overall, a very well-written memoir.

[Jen]

Sounds interesting. I did love the book we read recently so would like to read this one sooner rather than later

[Kristel]

Read 2012
This is a memoir written by Romain Gary and is also a book from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Mr Gary wrote this memoir as a tribute to his mother. Romain Gary is of Jewish and Russian origin became a French citizen. He is the only son of his mother, he never knew who is father was and she raised him single-handedly and single-mindedly. The first chapter is the ending but only a glimpse and it leaves you guessing. Mr. Gary is lying on the beach at Big Sur. He also introduces us to the four gods; Stupidity, Absolute Truth, Mediocrity and Acceptance and Servility. In chapter 2, mother love is introduced. He talks about how her love made future love so difficult and he wished she would have had someone else besides to love. He talks about Freud and explores any possibility of Oedipus complex which he rejects. He describes the psychoanalysts as “sharks feeding on refuse underwater”. His mother early on painted the picture for her son’s life so concretely that Romain never questioned it. She planned that he would be an artist, he became a writer, she planned that he would get a law degree and then go into the French air force and be a lieutenant. He got his law degree, joined the air force but because of bias he was not allowed to be a commissioned officer because he hadn’t been a French citizen long enough. She planned that he would go into the diplomat service after he was out of the service. WWII came into the picture and Romain spent more time in the service than he was planned. He started as a private but he became an officer and he was decorated with the Cross of the Liberation pinned on by General de Gaulle under the Arc de Triomphe. He was not a man who was meant to kill though he was brave. He said many times that he never killed. In the end, he valued life especially the life of animals and he especially had a connection to the ocean. He felt that everything he did was really his mother’s accomplishments. She lived her dreams through her only son and he often talked about his career as a Champion of the World.
This was very good. I enjoyed his writing and humor though there is a backdrop of sadness throughout. This is not in the book but Mr Gary died in 1980 by self inflicted gunshot. His actress wife Jean Seberg committed suicide in 1979. Among his literary works areA European Education published in France in 1945 and The Roots of Heaven which one the Prix Goncourt, top French literary honor. It also became a motion picture.

[George P.]

A very entertaining memoir by Lithuanian-Polish- and finally French writer/WW2 air force officer/diplomat Romain Gary. He had a very remarkable upbringing and employs a great deal of sarcasm and whimsy in telling of it. For instance he was in a pistol duel in WW2 in a hotel hallway while London was being bombed, in which he wounded his opponent "more than what was healthy for me". A central theme is the extreme bond between him and his mother, who transforms herself from a Russian Jew into a French Catholic and is convinced and convinces him that he will be a great man.
Unfortunately it is not easy to obtain a copy (thanks U of Utah library).

[Amanda]

Read this book just off of finished “Roots of Heaven” by Gary as well. I gave that one 5 stars, and this one 4, in that I really liked it but didn’t have quite the same oomf impact of the former. I did love how he talks about that book and his other works and where he got various inspirations from throughout this book. Very cool.
I also think it’s hilarious that his mother raised him insisting he was going to be an ambassador, war hero, and famous brilliant writer in a way that is usually reserved for melodramatically delusional figures in literature (and real life). The fact he really did do and become all these things is quite remarkable and kind of a bait and switch from the tone of how he writes his early life.

I also loved the way that his mother becomes the most French French person to ever live and the “real” French are like “no, it doesn’t count if you and at least your last 4 generations weren’t born here”. I love how Gary discusses this elitism and sense of superiority given to families like his, but he then realizes one is truly French when in actuality you resent other French people and everything they stand for. I have an American friend who came to Quebec to “become French” and thought their enthusiasm to drop their own heritage and language to do so would endear them to the Quebecois. “That was your first mistake” I told them as they realized it was not going to pan out. Too real, Romain Gary, too real.

Would definitely read more of his books in the future.