Louise Lyle
220
In La Charpente of 1900, Rosny’s protagonist, a socially
progressive geographer and sociologist named Duhamel, rejects the
notion of “un monde immobile et définitif” in favour of “un monde
relatif et en mouvement”, describing “la croûte terrestre” as “[u]n livre
[qui] nous a été laissé, plus vaste que la Bible”, in which “il s’y trouve
écrit une vérité qui a des millions d’années: l’évolution, le
perfectionnement des organismes”.
3 Serving not only, therefore, as a
vast source book of palaeontological inspirations for the meticulously
described primordial landscapes and exotic flora and fauna for which
Rosny’s prehistoric novels were much admired,
4 planet earth is also,
and even more significantly from our point of view, seen by the author
as a developing record of processes that are still on-going. For, if the
earth is regarded as a text in which may be read the geological and
biological changes to which it and its inhabitants, human or otherwise,
have been and continue to be subject, evolution may be understood as
the narrative linking a whole that is perpetually incomplete in respect
of the chapters still to be written.
As Daniel Compère, comparing Rosny and H.G. Wells,
explains: “Tous deux ont conscience que l’homme est une étape dans
l’évolution, et c’est sur cette certitude que s’appuie leur vision de
l’avenir. Tous deux suivent le même mouvement qui consiste à utiliser
l’histoire, non plus pour expliquer le passé, mais pour décrire le
futur.”
5 It is, then, by means of the extrapolation of evolutionary dynamics inferred from the distant past that Rosny constructs his vision
of futurity in the work which will be the central focus of this chapter,
namely La Mort de la Terre, a short roman d’anticipation of 1908.
Our examination of these evolutionary dynamics, and of the author’s
construction of the earth as the text in which human history is viewed
as a progression spanning past, present and future will firstly, however, take account of two other works, Les Xipéhuz of 1887 and Les
Navigateurs de l’infini of 1910, which may be classified with La Mort
___________________________
3 J.-H. Rosny, La Charpente (Paris: Éditions de la Revue Blanche, 1900), p. 259.
4 These works include Vamireh (1891), Eyrimah (1895), Elem d’Asie (1896), Nomai,
Amours lacustres (1897), La Guerre du feu (1911), Le Félin géant (1919), Le Trésor
dans la neige (1921), Les Conquérants du feu (1929) and Helgvor du fleuve bleu
(1930).
5 Daniel Compère, “La Fin des hommes”, Europe, no. 681-682, jan-fév 1986, 29-36,
(p. 30).
220
In La Charpente of 1900, Rosny’s protagonist, a socially
progressive geographer and sociologist named Duhamel, rejects the
notion of “un monde immobile et définitif” in favour of “un monde
relatif et en mouvement”, describing “la croûte terrestre” as “[u]n livre
[qui] nous a été laissé, plus vaste que la Bible”, in which “il s’y trouve
écrit une vérité qui a des millions d’années: l’évolution, le
perfectionnement des organismes”.
3 Serving not only, therefore, as a
vast source book of palaeontological inspirations for the meticulously
described primordial landscapes and exotic flora and fauna for which
Rosny’s prehistoric novels were much admired,
4 planet earth is also,
and even more significantly from our point of view, seen by the author
as a developing record of processes that are still on-going. For, if the
earth is regarded as a text in which may be read the geological and
biological changes to which it and its inhabitants, human or otherwise,
have been and continue to be subject, evolution may be understood as
the narrative linking a whole that is perpetually incomplete in respect
of the chapters still to be written.
As Daniel Compère, comparing Rosny and H.G. Wells,
explains: “Tous deux ont conscience que l’homme est une étape dans
l’évolution, et c’est sur cette certitude que s’appuie leur vision de
l’avenir. Tous deux suivent le même mouvement qui consiste à utiliser
l’histoire, non plus pour expliquer le passé, mais pour décrire le
futur.”
5 It is, then, by means of the extrapolation of evolutionary dynamics inferred from the distant past that Rosny constructs his vision
of futurity in the work which will be the central focus of this chapter,
namely La Mort de la Terre, a short roman d’anticipation of 1908.
Our examination of these evolutionary dynamics, and of the author’s
construction of the earth as the text in which human history is viewed
as a progression spanning past, present and future will firstly, however, take account of two other works, Les Xipéhuz of 1887 and Les
Navigateurs de l’infini of 1910, which may be classified with La Mort
___________________________
3 J.-H. Rosny, La Charpente (Paris: Éditions de la Revue Blanche, 1900), p. 259.
4 These works include Vamireh (1891), Eyrimah (1895), Elem d’Asie (1896), Nomai,
Amours lacustres (1897), La Guerre du feu (1911), Le Félin géant (1919), Le Trésor
dans la neige (1921), Les Conquérants du feu (1929) and Helgvor du fleuve bleu
(1930).
5 Daniel Compère, “La Fin des hommes”, Europe, no. 681-682, jan-fév 1986, 29-36,
(p. 30).