Ailleurs imaginés, Littérature, Histoire, Civilisations ed. by Jean-Michel Racault (review)

Book Reviews Jean-Michel Racault, ed . A i l l e u r s I m a g i n é s . L i t t é r a t u r e , H i s t o i r e , C i v i l i s a t i o n s . Paris: Diffusion Didier-Erudition, 1990. Pp. 256. The sixteen essays in this collection—organized by the Centre de Recherches Littéraires et Historiques and the Centre Inter-Disciplinaire de Recherches Afro-Indien-Océaniques, both located at the Université de la Réunion—afford perspectives on a wide range of topics from the ancient world to the modern era: imaginary languages and imaginary voyages, the linguistic and ideological quandaries o f native writers reared in colonial territories (such as the Antilles), papers on Cyrano de Bergerac’s works, Gérard de Nerval’s Voyage en Orient, Patrick W hite’s Voss, and Salman Rushdie’s M idnight’s Children, to mention a few examples. In a well-organized and informative essay, Gérard Blanc treats the reciprocal relation­ ship between the contents of the Voyages imaginaires..., the 36-volume collection edited by Charles Garnier and published from 1787-1789, and the set o f three ensuing volumes deal­ ing with accounts of authentic shipwrecks. Another absorbing article is Jean Garagnon’s “ Rousseau et la pensée utopique: le Contrat social et le Voyage de Robertson aux Terres Australes.” The Voyage de Robertson, published anonymously in 1766, concerns a pur­ ported voyage in 1585 but includes extended references to the Contrat social of 1762. Garagnon emphasizes the degree to which Rousseau’s work was used to defend the caste interests of the French nobility. The essay is enhanced by a good set of notes and is a pleasure to read. Since this project was organized in La Réunion, it is appropriate that some of the finest papers concern that very region, including Sophy-Jenny Linon’s “ Contraintes et enjeux idéologiques d ’une topographie imaginaire: les Terres Australes inconnues d’Etienne de Flacourt (1661) et de l’Abbé Jean Paulmier (1663),” which deals with Madagascar. Jean-Claude Carpanin M arimoutou’s “ La Lémurie: un rêve, une langue” covers an arresting, indeed unforgettable, subject: the mind-blasting work of Jules Hermann, Les Révélations du Grand Océan, published posthumously at the end of the 19th century. Her­ mann, the mayor of a town in La Réunion, imagined a fabulous continent in the South Seas in a distant prehistoric era—Lemuria, inhabited by a race of white-skinned giants who exerted a formative influence on the cultures and languages of virtually the entire globe. A cosmic catastrophe caused Lemurian civilization to sink beneath “ le Grand Océan,” i.e., the Indian and Pacific Oceans combined. Traces of the submerged continent found on islands such as La Réunion and Maurice offer signs or clues to be deciphered and inter­ preted. The way was open for a binge of extrapolation in which everything is inverted. Madagascar and its neighboring islands are the center of the world; the language spoken there, le malgache, is the least debased form of the original Lemurian tongue. Europe, to be sure, is Elsewhere, on the fringe. Most languages, including French, have their source in Lemuria. (Hermann excluded the Chinese language, which he believed “ inhuman, extra­ terrestrial” ; indeed, the Chinese were a prime target for his marked racism.) So visionary a scheme entailed nimble etymological gymnastics in the service of a world turned inside out. With a touch of dry humor, Professor Marimoutou cites a passage in an article on “ Creole Mythologies” by Jean-Louis Joubert who informs us that when portions of Hermann’s work were published during his lifetime, “ this Lemurian mythology was received with reti­ cence by the general public on the islands” (123). Overall, the quality of these essays is of a very high caliber; the volume deserves to be on the shelves of research libraries. J o h n T . O ’C o n n o r University o f New Orleans 130 W i n t e r 1994 ...