La conquête des îles de la Terre Ferme by Alexis Jenni (review)

This novel is a return to the subject of war, a thematic whose treatment led the author to receive the Prix Goncourt in 2011 for L'art français de la guerre. In contradistinction to that earlier work's focus on twentieth-century colonial conflicts, this text is a rewriting of the early sixteenth-century conquest of Tenochtitlán and settlement of the Oaxaca valley by Cortés and his fellow conquistadors. The novel is principally narrated by Cortés's faithful secretary Juan de Luna, ironically nicknamed Innocent by the Marquis of the Valley. Innocent typifies the archetypal conquistador of poor noble stock in search of fame and glory, if not for his monastic education and romantic worldview, fueled by the picaresque Spanish literature of his time. While the text does participate in the long tradition of exposing Spanish atrocities during the conquest of the Americas, the author does not shy from providing vividly critical descriptions of the Aztec culture, in particular the ritual sacrifice and cannibalism. Although it can be problematic to disambiguate between the modern authorial voice and that of the historically situated narrator, in the final analysis the destruction of native culture and life is the central theme of the novel, one which is articulated in a decidedly tragic mode by Jenni. As the Spanish approach Tenochtitlán, the narration shifts, becoming polyvocal via the inclusion of sections in italics that give voice to Aztec perceptions and strategies regarding the newcomers. Paradoxically, cultural differences dictate that the Aztec continue to present greater gifts in hopes of convincing the Spanish of Aztec invincibility. This only results in further inciting the insatiable avarice of the invaders, however. Following poignant depictions of gruesome battles, the long siege of Tenochtitlán, and the eventual defeat of the Aztec, the New World that is instigated by the forceful coming together of Spanish and native cultures is portrayed primarily through the coupled metaphors of impotence and disconnection. The proleptic first chapter describes a barren, apocalyptic landscape, wherein the vital force of the world is flagging, with the narrator recounting his own initially sterile liaison with an Indigenous woman dying of smallpox. The text comes full circle by returning in the final chapter to that once infertile relationship and the improbable birth of a child from the union of a Spaniard and a Native. However, the denouement takes on a prophetically macabre tone when the reader discovers that the child is doomed to forget the history out of which it is born. The only heritage left to this symbolic child which represents the future of the Americas, as well as the inception of modern global capitalism, is a terrible legacy of violence, unsatisfied desires, and spiritual and cultural amnesia (405). With this novel, Jenni captivatingly evokes the past in order to better elucidate the present.