The Mother

Agenda

Volume 1

Undated 1959

(On Anatole France and La Révolte des Anges)

...These children don't understand [Sri Aurobindo's irony]. They read it prosaically (gesture indicating the surface). Strangely enough, it's the same phenomenon when they read Anatole France. And Anatole France, read without understanding his irony, is abominably commonplace.

They don't grasp the irony.

Sri Aurobindo had it. He understood the irony of Anatole France so well, he had this same thing – so subtle, so refined...

“Very good,” he would say while reading La Révolte des Anges “Yes, it is true, which of the two should we believe?”¹ (Mother laughs).

¹ Jehovah, or the rebellious Angel who wanted to take his place.
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