The Southern Land, Known by Gabriel de Foigny (review)

B o ok R eview s GabrieldeFoigny. T h e S o u t h e r n L a n d , K n o w n . Trans, and ed. David Fausett. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993. Pp. i + 152. Gabriel de Foigny’s La Terre australe connue (1676) is a little-known utopian master­ piece. Diverting and perplexing, accessible to students yet challenging to scholars, this book deserves to be revived. Foigny writes o f a paradise populated by hermaphrodites who live in equality, harmony, and perfect health because they are biologically complete, rational vegetarians. His fictional narrator is an alienated European: a hermaphrodite born and orphaned at sea, Nicholas Sadeur survives several shipwrecks to land accidentally near Tierra del Fuego in an unknown continent where the utopian “ Australia” is located. The author—a defrocked monk whose loose living and unguarded tongue made him an international pariah—wittily uses Sadeur’s adventures to raise questions about human nature and society, reason and faith. One of the central dilemmas is why Sadeur remains a misfit in a society created by fellow hermaphrodites: in this land where sex and religion can­ not be discussed and whose inhabitants desire only death, Sadeur breaks every taboo and finally is convicted for treason when he cannot overcome his appetites. Everything about Foigny’s book is problematic; controversial in its own time, it was confiscated by Swiss authorities and expurgated by later editors. What makes La Terre australe of lasting interest is the way it addresses important issues while eluding any defini­ tive interpretation. Modem commentators have taken wildly opposing views, with Frédéric Lachèvre (its first modern editor) viewing it as a libertine tract and Peter Kuon arguing that it symbolizes a Christian pilgrimage. Besides speaking to contemporary interests in sexual­ ity and family, Foigny’s work offers mordant social, religious, and political criticism that transcends its original 17th-century context. Finally, the book is, quite simply, fun to read. The great merits of David Fausett’s translation are a light touch and swift pace that, for the most part, admirably capture Foigny’s meaning. But there are traps for the unwary reader who fails to consult the French text or the critical literature. Some anachronisms, omissions, and carelessness occasionally alter the sense, as for example in the creation myth at the end of chapter nine, where the crucial distinction between Europeans and Australians is blurred. Nor does the scholarly apparatus assist with the book’s philosophical complexities. Fausett offers the best summary in English of Foigny’s life (although he has done no new research on that obscure subject) and his bibliography is an admirable guide to the secon­ dary literature. Taking “ boundaries” as his central analytical concept, Fausett deftly con­ trasts Foigny’s Europeans (as bodily existence exemplfied) and Australians (as metaphysics fleshed out). Otherwise, he trivializes a remarkable book by favoring presentist interpreta­ tions, sterile dichotomies, and unsubstantiated claims. Fausett is most interested in any shred o f evidence linking Foigny’s “ Southern Land” to travelers’ reports of New Zealand or Australia; unconvincing as these are, they apparently inspired his rendition of the book’s title, its only acquiescence to pedantry. In sum, while Fausett’s analysis lacks the necessary intellectual rigor and historical context, we are in his debt for crafting an entertaining trans­ lation that finally makes this important work accessible in English. A l i c e S t r o u p Bard College VOL. XXXIV, NO. 4 133 ...