Reading Environmental Apocalypse in J.-H. Rosny Aîné
233
and in the advancement of evolutionary narratives through the successive reigns of different life forms from the very origins of life to the
advanced organisms of an almost unimaginably distant future. To
these natural realizations of the “terrestrial” text, however, there corresponds a clearly manufactured, human aspect, as, for example, in the
archaeological discovery of Bakhoûn’s record of mankind’s historic
victory over the Xipéhuz in the livre lapidaire which accompanies the
mineral relics of the now extinct species. Similarly, the “annales anciennes” of the “écrivains de l’âge radioactif” evoked in La Mort de la
Terre (pp. 142-43) serve as a written warning for future generations of
humans about their impending doom, effectively mirroring that which
may be read in the transformation of the Earth’s crust as the age of
geological catastrophe begins.
It is, however, a highly ironic awareness of man’s relationship
with his environment that Rosny evokes in titling the text in which he
deals most explicitly with the issue “La Mort de la Terre”. For while
the graceful surrender of the heroic Targ graphically signals the death
of humanity, the Earth actually persists in all its grandeur, with the
newly dominant species of ferromagnétaux living in apparently closer
harmony with their surroundings than mankind ever did. As Targ
reflects:
Il [l’homme] fut le destructeur prodigieux de la vie. Les forêts moururent et leurs
hôtes sans nombre, toute bête fut exterminée ou avilie. Et il y eut un temps ou les
énergies subtiles et les minéraux obscurs semblèrent eux-mêmes esclaves…
- Cette frénesie même annonçait la mort de la terre […], la mort de la terre pour
notre Règne! (p. 219)
Explicitly recognizing the arrogance of the anthropocentric
perspective that has led him, along with the rest of his species, to historically articulate the death of mankind as the end of the world itself,
Targ finally understands the insignificance of mankind’s existence in
relation to the immensity and permanence of the Earth. Yet while a
part of Targ’s history and that of all his collected forebears and nonhuman successors may, as we have already suggested, be read from
the Earth, an alternative and complementary account of his struggle is
recorded in the written account of events which constitutes La Mort de
la Terre itself. Simultaneously revealing what we may term the “récit
233
and in the advancement of evolutionary narratives through the successive reigns of different life forms from the very origins of life to the
advanced organisms of an almost unimaginably distant future. To
these natural realizations of the “terrestrial” text, however, there corresponds a clearly manufactured, human aspect, as, for example, in the
archaeological discovery of Bakhoûn’s record of mankind’s historic
victory over the Xipéhuz in the livre lapidaire which accompanies the
mineral relics of the now extinct species. Similarly, the “annales anciennes” of the “écrivains de l’âge radioactif” evoked in La Mort de la
Terre (pp. 142-43) serve as a written warning for future generations of
humans about their impending doom, effectively mirroring that which
may be read in the transformation of the Earth’s crust as the age of
geological catastrophe begins.
It is, however, a highly ironic awareness of man’s relationship
with his environment that Rosny evokes in titling the text in which he
deals most explicitly with the issue “La Mort de la Terre”. For while
the graceful surrender of the heroic Targ graphically signals the death
of humanity, the Earth actually persists in all its grandeur, with the
newly dominant species of ferromagnétaux living in apparently closer
harmony with their surroundings than mankind ever did. As Targ
reflects:
Il [l’homme] fut le destructeur prodigieux de la vie. Les forêts moururent et leurs
hôtes sans nombre, toute bête fut exterminée ou avilie. Et il y eut un temps ou les
énergies subtiles et les minéraux obscurs semblèrent eux-mêmes esclaves…
- Cette frénesie même annonçait la mort de la terre […], la mort de la terre pour
notre Règne! (p. 219)
Explicitly recognizing the arrogance of the anthropocentric
perspective that has led him, along with the rest of his species, to historically articulate the death of mankind as the end of the world itself,
Targ finally understands the insignificance of mankind’s existence in
relation to the immensity and permanence of the Earth. Yet while a
part of Targ’s history and that of all his collected forebears and nonhuman successors may, as we have already suggested, be read from
the Earth, an alternative and complementary account of his struggle is
recorded in the written account of events which constitutes La Mort de
la Terre itself. Simultaneously revealing what we may term the “récit