Aux sources du roman colonial (1863–1914): l'Afrique à la fin du XIXe siècle (review)

'Sous tous les rapports, le roman populaire est un opérateur de lisibilité des fantasmes collectifs' (p. 22). This major contribution to scholarship joins and effectively supersedes a very short list of previous studies on the area and fills an important gap in our awareness of fiction which helped shape contemporary and still often current attitudes in France towards Africa and Africans. The roman colonial proper, written by colons, dates from the inter-war years: this book retraces the emerging mindset as determined and disseminated by armchair adventurers. While considerable attention had previously been given to Jules Verne, whose Cinq semaines en ballon provides the starting-date for this study, his work had never been contextualized in the 35,000 pages of novels bravely covered by the exceptionally well informed Professor Seillan. 'Réexaminer et non réhabiliter' (p. 8) is a judicious watchword, and no extravagant claims are made for the popular adventure novels which dominate his corpus. Such lucidity is apparent throughout, from the introduction, which sets out literary antecedents, generic tendencies, period ideology and narrative typology, through five main sections — 'Les Explorateurs', 'Les Aventuriers', 'Les Politiques', 'Les Fondateurs' and 'Pour une topique du roman d'aventures coloniales' — to a trenchant conclusion, followed by a full bibliography and an invaluable index of names.

The period covered was one of political upheaval in France and rapid colonial expansion (post hoc and arguably in part propter hoc) following her defeat by the Prussians. Accounts of new explorations came thick and fast, providing raw material (often left undigested) for feuilletonistes. Ubiquitous positivism emerged as a 'stupé fiante langue de bois officielle' (p. 8) and imposed its intolerant authority on newly discovered cultures. The pedagogic function in creating for young people 'une machine à reproduire et à diffuser des pré jugés' (p. 172) was extended to adult readers treated with knowing (if often ignorant) superiority. High emotion and exacerbated melodrama were the order of the day. Happily, there are novels that buck the trend, or reveal occasional self-doubt, but the very repetitiveness of popular literature reminds us both of our natural tendency to concentrate on writing of quality and that this writing is the exception rather than the rule, and therefore a poorer guide to an age's currents of thought. Seillan presents the variations on that mindset admirably. Even with regard to Verne, the only writer here already widely analysed in respect of his 'colonial' works, Seillan has fresh insights to offer. He is sharp at every turn, pithily encapsulating interim observations and unusually willing to criticize French attitudes. Yet his criticism reveals a regrettably gallocentric coverage: only one item in English (and that by a Frenchman) is once referred to, despite the considerable body of writing in English relevant to his subject. In claiming that 'la fiction d'exploration africaine [a été] inventé e par Jules Verne' (p. 38), he forgets that Defoe's Captain Singleton (1720) presented a much earlier 'coast to coast' (p. 41) crossing of Africa. Apart from this limitation and occasional lapses of detail, however, this substantial contribution can be recommended not only as a remarkable summa but also as a stimulus to further research.