What Happened With the White Savages of François Garde Review?

“My name Narcisse Pelletier and I’m a sailor on the Saint-Paul.” Again and again the young Frenchman speaks this sentence, not to lose its identity. For he is alone at the end of the world. Eighteen years later, he has the set and forget with him all the achievements of its civilization. . Only shreds of his name What remains are: “L’R’sis- TIE Let pole”

The Saint-Paul anchored on November 5, 1843 in a secluded cove on the Australian coast. A few sailors go ashore to fetch fresh water.

An hour later, they return empty-handed and without the eighteen Narcisse back. The search for him remains without success. The ship takes off without him.

1861 access sailors of a cargo ship on the nearby beach a man on, alone, naked, on tattooed and “the skin, the hair and the size of clearly a white man.” In Sydney you pass it to the governor, who, however, can the feral subject to mumble the only incomprehensible syllables, what to do know quartered him in a prison cell and would like to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Random learns Vicomte Octave de Vallombrun of the newcomer. For four years of French aristocrats is dedicated as a member of the “Société de Géographie” of science. But he is frustrated. The Pacific “terrae incognitae” are no longer to discover, and the life of the “savage” has lost its authenticity under the influence of Christian missionaries and European dealers. The Vicomte pulls it back to France.

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The “white savages” awakened new interest in him, and he met him at a visual inspection to the European Governor representatives of science, the Curia, the nobility, trade and seafaring has loaded. In the garden sits the man, “shredded his earlobe and half demolished is”, “mute and rigid” on his feet, covered only with a cloth around his loins, eats and drinks only reluctantly and with his hands, spitting out the wine offered in disgust out. One turns in different languages ​​at him; it responds to the differences in the “sound and rhythm,” confirms “lucidity” but no understanding, and he does not speak. Alone Vicomte Octave’s mention of the Emperor Napoleon dissolves slowly and painfully brought forth “Po-lon” and follow more syllables. Gestures such as “hand on heart” refers to the savage and imitate them by; Joy and tears come into his eyes. All those present are taken as the Vicomte managed to build trust and overcome an unbridgeable gap translucent

Now is every indication that the mysterious man from France comes. the ship’s passage there paid him willingly, the governor, and Vicomte Octave de Vallombrun gets guardianship. As a father he wants to take care of his charge – and seize its unique opportunity to finally be able to show yet groundbreaking research results. What he learns about the adventures of his compatriot “in exile among savages” firsthand, he will write and the “Société” hand over as his “farewell gift”.

As a toddler must Narcisse learn everything new, that belongs to a civilized existence, language and correct behavior, and the Vicomte report to the board of the “Société” regularly report on the rapid progress of his pupil. Questions about his past life answered Narcisse but with silence – not out of anger or spite, but because they are incomprehensible to him. By the world of his origin approaches, he moves away more and more of the savage. Again, he is an identity on to another to accept.

In September 1861 reached Octave and Narcisse Paris, where she expects the General Assembly of the “Société”. The hall is crowded: fine gentlemen, journalists, scientists. Octave has well prepared Narcisse at the hearing, must he still feared that he withdraws into silence intimidated. Nevertheless, the event turns into a disaster.

Why, Octave asked about his opening speech, the main person holds in the background? How sure can you be that he was not a deserter or swindler who was able to return to this original way innocent and free of charge to France? then showered and when they Narcisse with questions about diet, religion, housing, children’s education and the coexistence of men and women, it produces only unintelligible fragments of words, “difficult to interpret”. If he is not an imposter, as was the young man “a moron” argues to vorderster front Révérend Père Leroy; he would him the public “by littenen humiliation” in his “prayers include”.

followed by a private disappointment. While receiving family Pelletier – the father’s cobbler – the presumed dead son with a village festival and a church service, but after years of estrangement anyone a warm recognition is possible, and to take him in a lack of space and money.

What is now of the once civilized, then feral, then re-civilized research subject be? Disillusioned Octave needs to realize that he released in his own life needs without ever more details about the indigenous people of Australia to learn Narcisse from him. When they meet for the last time in December, 1867, Narcisse is married and works as a warehouse manager of the lighthouse on the island of Ré. Octave leads him to hand his records further and further back into the past, penetrating question after question in him, “and before that, Narcisse?” Torments him so “in the name of science”. Narcisse suffers dodges. “Before that it was not Narcisse … After that it was not Narcisse … Who were you?” harassed him Octave. Finally Narcisse collapses: “Speech is like dying.”

Alternating we read the personal letters of the Viscount of “Monsieur le Président” and – from Narcisses perspective, but described in the third person – “what with the white savages happened. ” However, Octave like designed its reports scenic and dialogue, so that a consistently intense, vivid reading experience arises that both perspectives and time periods (before and after Narcisses retrieval) opens.

detects After Narcisse surprised at the beach that his comrades have passed without him, he notes a few days in making sure they would pick him up soon. But he will instead spend years with the native savages. The first did not notice it. After all, it is their indifference rather than attacking the views and eaten to be. In his solitude on the edge of the trunk – “Nothing, he had nothing in common with them.” –  drive him to escape plans and suicidal thoughts.

Over time, however, his attitude and his emotional world is changing. Pain, loneliness and the loss of any interpersonal soft basic needs: “fear, hunger, pain, thirst, boredom, exhaustion, despair, anger, dejection”. Finally, he gives himself to his fate between the “inability to live in this tribe, [and the] inability to do without him.” No matter where it takes the savages, he follows them by far. They eat what they hunt or can catch, and they live without time and destination. Enter the name “Amglo” him what is called “sun.”

François Gardes prize-winning novel. This book I have on the list Zu my 20.