So Koestler spent time in Paris in 1946 – right when Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote a scathing parody or review of Koestler’s “The Yogi and the Commissar” for “Les Temps Modernes”, the magazine founded by Sartre. Camus was around, of course, as was de Beauvoir. They all hung out.
Here is what we know: One night Boris Vian gave a party, sometime in December. (Was it a Christmas party? Sure, why not.) Everybody was there. Again, Merleau-Ponty’s review of Koestler’s book had just come out. Camus felt that that Merleau-Ponty – and by extension Sartre – ignored or tolerated or accepted Stalin’s purges and “show trials”, of which Koestler is still one of the prime witnesses.
This is where it gets blurry. According to Beauvoir Camus arrived late, in a bad mood and grumpy because “his golden age was about to end”. She doesn’t mention the Soviet angle. Sartre writes that Camus was angry with Merleau-Ponty for justifying the show trials and left even angrier and that he and Jacquest Bost ran after him to convince him to hear Merleau-Ponty out. And Michelle Léglise, Vian’s wife at the time, just remembers that a fight between Sartre and Camus *almost* broke out.
In “The Boxer & the Goalkeeper – Sartre vs. Camus” Andy Martin spends a lot of time on this night – it’s in the title of his book after all. He tries to get “inside his subject’s heads”, which means he’s making shit up. So Martin writes things like that even though his magazine was called “Modern Times” Sartre reminded Camus more of “The Great Dictator”.
Most importantly he claims that there was an actual physical confrontation, at least “according to some” – that Camus had Merleau-Ponty in a headlock and challenged him to a fight; that Sartre stepped in for his editor because Camus’ beef was with him anyway; that the partygoers gathered around them – “this was the Big Fight everybody had been half-fearing, half-longing for.”
Camus biographer Olivier Todd mentions the incident only briefly: “During a jazz-inspired party” (which makes it sound like a couple of 20somethings dressing up for a Gatsby-themed bash, but whatever) Camus, “in a nasty mood”, attacked Merleau-Ponty, because of the Koestler parody and the purge trials. “Sartre defended Merleau-Ponty, and Camus left, slamming the door.” Todd doesn’t say whether this slammed door echoes at all.
(Todd also insists on calling de Beauvoir by her nickname – “castor” or “The Beaver” – which makes for a very uncomfortable reading experience in more than one way.)
And there is yet another version, and it’s the one I prefer: Instead of a fist fight or a big scene Camus simply asked everybody present “What if we are all wrong? What if there really are moral values?” – which might have been the most brutal thing he could do anyway. Even today.