What Became of the White Savage
Big debate with my father-in-law a few weeks ago. I was still all moved by my reading of Danielle Steel, and I was telling the story ofA Good Woman with enthusiasm, and, I confess, a little admiration, when he cuts me off in frustration. "There are the really good books, and there are the popular books."
I paraphrase: "Popular books follow a recipe. It's done on purpose to hook people. It's not deep, people don't think when they read it. It's like fast food. It's good once in a while, but it's important to elevate our minds with real literature as often as possible." With the Dan Browns, Harry Potters, Marc Levys and Fifty Shades of Grey of this world in mind as popular books.
So, Danielle Steel would be "for the people", and literature, for the educated.
My reaction: it's time to lift my spirit. So I started a novel that this same father-in-law had given me a few years ago: What Became of the White Savage. In his words, it's a book that is both intelligent and enjoyable to read. In addition, it won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for first novel in 2012, awarded by the Goncourt Academy on the sidelines of the great Prize, which is deemed to reward a promising writer. That rocks.
Unfortunately, the novel rocks a little less.
Narcisse Pelletier is 18 years old and embarks on the Saint-Paul as a sailor. The expedition goes badly, the ship is forced to stop on a beach in Australia. Narcisse goes for a walk. When he returns, he realizes that he has been abandoned. No drinking water is visible on the island, not even animals. But black savages who strip him, cut off his ear and ignore him most of the time. He remained there for almost 18 years, until the English found him, unrecognizable. He is now a "white savage". The Frenchman in charge of re-educating him writes regularly to the President about the fascinating character he is dealing with, until he dies, and Narcisse disappears.
I don't understand why this novel won a Goncourt prize.
It's not wrong that it's pleasant to read, in the sense that it's fairly fluid and the sentences aren't overly long, but I still stop at every page to look up a word in the dictionary (to prove it, my Twitter feed). It's sailor vocabulary, and of course you can let it go, but there's so much of it that it gets annoying. And the pompous phrases of the 19th century French bourgeoisie get on my nerves. Even if it's not the author's fault.
All along, I think of Robinson Crusoe. Annoyed by the mention of the Goncourt prize that screams at me every time I look at the cover that the book is a little masterpiece, I wonder what could be so special about it. Why should Narcissus be more memorable than the countless castaways of literature?
Then, on page 178, the narrator explains it to the President, who has taken a census of all the publications evoking stories of sailors shipwrecked in hostile lands.
Those who, in their misfortune, were lucky enough to have companions in misfortune must be excluded from this census. The group of survivors, even if it was reduced to a pair, gave them a strength, a courage, a daily practice of their mother tongue that Narcisse did not enjoy. Symmetrically, if I may say so, I will cut out the modern Robinsons who were thrown on a desert island. I do not say that their sufferings were lesser, but they who had to face only nature cannot compare their ordeals to those of Narcissus.
There remain the cases of isolated sailors among the savages. [...] Settled in the heart of a tribe, most often having taken a wife and established a family, they generally found a function in trade, serving as a link between their adopted family and passing ships. [...] Intermediaries between two worlds, they have never forgotten what they chose to leave behind and know how to bargain in their best interests.
[…]
Deserters and missionaries certainly live alone among the sometimes most frightening savages, but they have chosen it.
Relief came [to isolated sailors cast ashore among some tribe] after a stay of three to twenty months. [...] The stay of more than ten times as long [as Narcissus] changed the nature of the ordeal, and not only its duration.
Another factor may have played a role: of all these unfortunate people whose adventure is known, the youngest was twenty-six years old, as much as an adult. At eighteen, when he arrived among the savages, Narcisse was still a child, or a very young man.
For those who skipped that last part (I won't hold it against you), here is the summary. Narcissus is special because:
- he was alone;
- there were savages;
- he forgot his homeland;
- he didn't choose his ordeal;
- he stayed on the island very long;
- he was young when he got there.
Still. I don't understand why this novel won a Goncourt prize.
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What Became of the White Savage
François Garde
Folio
14,95 $
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