What do you think?
Rate this book
Kampuchéa
C’est le récit d’un voyage le long du fleuve Mékong, effectué entre le procès des leaders khmers rouges à Phnom Penh (2009) et la révolte des chemises rouges en Thaïlande (début 2010). Tout part, d’une certaine façon, de la découverte, par hasard, des temples d’Angkor par Henri Mouhot en train de poursuivre un papillon. Car la France est très présente. Elle est la puissance coloniale dont de nombreuses traces demeurent. Et Paris est le lieu où quelques jeunes Cambodgiens, vers le milieu du XXe siècle, viennent poursuivre de brillantes études : ils seront les « frères », numérotés par ordre d’importance, qui se retrouveront plus tard à la tête de l’inconcevable mouvement révolutionnaire des khmers rouges arrivés au pouvoir le 17 avril 1975 et qui organiseront une méthodique extermination de tous ceux qui résistent à leur système. L’auteur explore la mémoire de cette tragédie récente, dans le paysage souvent enchanteur du Mékong. La littérature n’est jamais loin, pour le meilleur (Pierre Loti, Malraux, Kessel ou encore Conrad) mais aussi pour le pire (Douch, l’un des hauts dignitaires après Pol Pot, à l’ouverture de son procès, déclame du Vigny).
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
5 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Deville
33 books40 followersPatrick Deville (born 14 December 1957) is a French writer and studied comparative literature and philosophy at the University of Nantes. During the 1980s, Patrick Deville lived in the Middle East, Nigeria and Algeria. In the 1990s, he regularly visited Cuba and Uruguay.
In 2011, Lire magazine editors selected Kampuchea as the best French novel of the year. His novel Plague and Cholera (life of the bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin) was one of the most prominent of the literary season (2012), and was a finalist in almost all French book awards. He received the Fnac and the Prix Femina prize for the novel.
His books have now been translated into a dozen languages.
(Rephrased from Wikipedia)
In 2011, Lire magazine editors selected Kampuchea as the best French novel of the year. His novel Plague and Cholera (life of the bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin) was one of the most prominent of the literary season (2012), and was a finalist in almost all French book awards. He received the Fnac and the Prix Femina prize for the novel.
His books have now been translated into a dozen languages.
(Rephrased from Wikipedia)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Read
June 23, 2015Reviewed in July, 2012
This book could be classed under travel writing as it describes a journey up the Mekong river, but Kampuchéa is much more than that.
It could be classed as history since it recounts conquests and conflicts which took place over several centuries.
It could be classed as geography in that it describes the Mekong river basin and the activities of the various peoples, Chinese, Burmese, Laotians, Thais, Cambodians and Vietnamese who live along it.
But it is first and foremost political analysis because the core of Kampuchéa is an examination of the utopian movement known as the Khmer Rouge (Communist Khmers) who set up a fearsome experiment in social engineering called Democratic Kampuchéa, controlling the country by the most brutal means for four years until they were removed from power by the Vietnamese in 1979.
Patrick Deville uses his extensive research to argue that the seeds of the Khmer Rouge experiment were sown by a 19th century French explorer called Henri Mouhot who wrote that the abandoned and forgotten city of elaborate temples which he had seen at Angkor Wat in the interior of Cambodia couldn’t possibly have been built by such a barbarous people as the Khmers, or Cambodians as they are now known. Deville claims that a group of young Cambodians studying in Paris one hundred years later, in the 1950s, and who would go on to found the Khmer Rouge, became aware of Mouhot’s writings and were incensed by Mouhot's description of the Khmers as barbarians. They became determined to eradicate all traces of the decadence which emerged in their country under colonialism, the black market, the opium trade, etc. They planned to return their people to the simple state they had lived in during the era of the Angkor Wat temples.
The theme of 'return' or ‘travelling backwards’ runs through this greatly fragmented book. Deville is continually traveling backwards in time from his baseline of the UN supported trials of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders which is ongoing in Phnom Penh for some years now.
Meanwhile he is describing his journey backwards up the Mekong river towards its source even while he is retracing the history.
And the final element of the 'return' theme in this fascinating book: during the wet season, the Mekong river itself flows backwards to flood the inland lake around the abandoned temples of Angkor Wat, the lodestone of this entire nightmarish account.
This book could be classed under travel writing as it describes a journey up the Mekong river, but Kampuchéa is much more than that.
It could be classed as history since it recounts conquests and conflicts which took place over several centuries.
It could be classed as geography in that it describes the Mekong river basin and the activities of the various peoples, Chinese, Burmese, Laotians, Thais, Cambodians and Vietnamese who live along it.
But it is first and foremost political analysis because the core of Kampuchéa is an examination of the utopian movement known as the Khmer Rouge (Communist Khmers) who set up a fearsome experiment in social engineering called Democratic Kampuchéa, controlling the country by the most brutal means for four years until they were removed from power by the Vietnamese in 1979.
Patrick Deville uses his extensive research to argue that the seeds of the Khmer Rouge experiment were sown by a 19th century French explorer called Henri Mouhot who wrote that the abandoned and forgotten city of elaborate temples which he had seen at Angkor Wat in the interior of Cambodia couldn’t possibly have been built by such a barbarous people as the Khmers, or Cambodians as they are now known. Deville claims that a group of young Cambodians studying in Paris one hundred years later, in the 1950s, and who would go on to found the Khmer Rouge, became aware of Mouhot’s writings and were incensed by Mouhot's description of the Khmers as barbarians. They became determined to eradicate all traces of the decadence which emerged in their country under colonialism, the black market, the opium trade, etc. They planned to return their people to the simple state they had lived in during the era of the Angkor Wat temples.
The theme of 'return' or ‘travelling backwards’ runs through this greatly fragmented book. Deville is continually traveling backwards in time from his baseline of the UN supported trials of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders which is ongoing in Phnom Penh for some years now.
Meanwhile he is describing his journey backwards up the Mekong river towards its source even while he is retracing the history.
And the final element of the 'return' theme in this fascinating book: during the wet season, the Mekong river itself flows backwards to flood the inland lake around the abandoned temples of Angkor Wat, the lodestone of this entire nightmarish account.
May 11, 2012
Écrire des carnets de voyage, c'est un peu comme faire la recension d'un livre. Il faut naviguer entre deux écueils. Le premier est celui du résumé poussif du livre, de la narration plate des étapes de son voyage. Certains auteurs, tel Jean Rolin que j'adore, réussissent à merveille dans cet exercice difficile. Mais le risque est grand de verser dans une prose répétitive et nombriliste.
Le second est de se lancer dans de vastes considérations générales. Le voyage ou la lecture sont alors réduits à un prétexte pour une réflexion plus ample. Le récit dérive alors vers l'essai au risque de perdre le charme qui doit entourer les carnets de voyage.
Patrick Deville zigzague entre ses deux écueils en remontant le Mekong depuis le Vietnam jusqu'à la Chine . Son livre est composé d'une cinquantaine de chapitres, très courts, qui peuvent parfois donner le sentiment de la confusion à force de virevolter dans l'espace et dans le temps. Sans doute faut-il avoir déjà quelques notions de l'histoire du Kampuchea démocratique, le nom donné par les Khmers rouges au Cambodge, pour en goûter tout le sel. A cette condition, ce récit kaléidoscopique réjouira tous les amoureux du Cambodge et au-delà tous ceux qui aiment, le temps de quelques pages, s'évader vers les berges tropicales d'un long fleuve asiatique.
Le second est de se lancer dans de vastes considérations générales. Le voyage ou la lecture sont alors réduits à un prétexte pour une réflexion plus ample. Le récit dérive alors vers l'essai au risque de perdre le charme qui doit entourer les carnets de voyage.
Patrick Deville zigzague entre ses deux écueils en remontant le Mekong depuis le Vietnam jusqu'à la Chine . Son livre est composé d'une cinquantaine de chapitres, très courts, qui peuvent parfois donner le sentiment de la confusion à force de virevolter dans l'espace et dans le temps. Sans doute faut-il avoir déjà quelques notions de l'histoire du Kampuchea démocratique, le nom donné par les Khmers rouges au Cambodge, pour en goûter tout le sel. A cette condition, ce récit kaléidoscopique réjouira tous les amoureux du Cambodge et au-delà tous ceux qui aiment, le temps de quelques pages, s'évader vers les berges tropicales d'un long fleuve asiatique.
March 20, 2020
Kampuchéa is a series of short chapters about the writer’s adventures in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and even Thailand and some of their historical figures, including from the former Indochina.
Deville refers to a lot of other writers who echo his own experiences. The book can sometimes be overwhelming as there are a lot of names and places that he cross references, not necessarily following a chronological order.
However, Kampuchéa is a book that makes you want to travel, to learn about the countries you explore and I recommend it for the people interested in South East Asia.
Deville refers to a lot of other writers who echo his own experiences. The book can sometimes be overwhelming as there are a lot of names and places that he cross references, not necessarily following a chronological order.
However, Kampuchéa is a book that makes you want to travel, to learn about the countries you explore and I recommend it for the people interested in South East Asia.
February 16, 2017
this was "meilleur roman francais 2011" ("best French novel") but it doesn't read at all like a novel. It's more an exploration of what it is to be Khmer, an exploration of the Mekong and its delta, and a political musing on what the Khmer Rouge were about. His starting point is the writing of a now-forgotten 19th-century French explorer and writer, Henri Mouhot, who more or less rediscovered Angkor Wat for the West, and who wrote that it could not possibly have been built by Khmers, as they were a bunch of savages. Deville suggests that the group who were to become the numbered brothers of the Khmer Rouge regime encountered Mouhot's work in Paris a century later, and determined that they would give the Khmer people, and their history, back to Cambodia. As we know, it didn't work out quite like that. And the Khmer Rouge didn't treat Angkor Wat itself very well during those terrible years, using parts of it as an ammunition store, and trying to blow some of it up, without success. That's if you believe what the guides tell you when you go there. An interesting read, but a fragmented one. He ends with what reads like a simplistic conclusion, but actually pins Cambodia's place in the world quite well: (my translation) "We can forget them, the Khmer Rouge. Let them die in their air-conditioned cells. One or two million dead in four years. Not even the record of the century."
June 15, 2021
I wanted to read about Cambodia, Laos and their neighbours, there is so much to learn about their history and role in the cold war and as colonies. but not from this author. arrogant, boring, confusing, cynical, a life and book of men. what a waste of time. 1 star for my own travel memories and future plans.
July 5, 2017
This is an OK book. My biggest concern is the constant switch between stories that make it very hard to follow. I also did not like the multiple obscure references that forced me keep Wikipedia open in the background
February 5, 2013
After three decades of covering civil wars and coups across the globe, Deville's voice is full of nostalgia, retained emotion and sadness. The mass murderers swarm in our world and Deville sees no sign of it changing:
"La planète défile sous la carlingue et j'essaie de surprendre les progrès de la raison dans l'Histoire et sous mon train d'atterrissage[...] Khieu Samphân, ancien chef d'état du Kampuchéa démocratique, bientôt octogénaire, [...] demande sa remise en liberté pour se consacrer au jardinage. L'ombre de mes ailes glisse sur l'Océan Pacifique. A Ciudad Juarez, dans le nord du Mexique, le chef de cartel Vincente Leyva se fait serrer pendant son jogging. A Lima, le procès de l'ancien président Fujimori suit son cours. L'ombre de mes ailes glisse sur l'Océan Atlantique. A Arusha, le procès des Rwandais suit son cours. A La Haye, le procès des généraux croates Gotovina et Markac suit son cours [...]
On pourrait cesser de lire les journaux."
(Kampuchéa, p.13)
The anger still shows now and then: "Ce cinglé de Daniel Ortéga", "Nous sommes une dizaine de naufragés assis sur des bancs, quelque part sur cette planète comme une grenade dégoupillée dans la main d'un dieu idiot et distrait". But most of it has drowned in resignation.
Through this tone seeps a deep compassion for a certain type of human beings : those who pursue a dream, whether they reach or not, which, when reached, often turns sour, bitter, nightmarish, their beautiful romantic vision ending up in death: it is Mohout dying of fever in the enchanted Angkor he discovered for Europe; it is Pavie who sacrifices his whole life to the Mekong and the people who live off it ; it is this young Chinese woman he meets by the Red River, who is leaving her village and farm to go to the big City in the hope of a better life. It is, strangely, the three friends from rue Saint-André-des-Arts who dreamt of a Cambodia as seen by Rousseau and who, carried away by their romantic vision, turned it into a bloodbath. Deville has harsh words for the Pol Pot regime. When he talks about the men, his tone becomes more intimate, full of melancholy:
"Cet homme maigrelet, qui estime avoir assumé la lourde tâche de faire torturer puis assassiner plus de douze mille de ses compatriotes, s'est éclairci la voix, a bu un peu d'eau, puis, au désarroi des responsables de l'interprétation simultanée vers le khmer et l'anglais [...] a récité la fin de La Mort du loup d'Alfred de Vigny :
Gémir, pleurer, prier est également lâche
Fais énergiquement ta longue et lourde tâche
Dans la voie où le sort a voulu t'appeler
Puis, après, comme moi, souffre et meurs sans parler."
(Kampuchéa, p.18)
These are the melancholic colours that Deville finds to paint the figures of the Khmer leaders. Lost between their childhood is French Asia and their young age in post World War II Paris where sexual revolution was simmering, they dreamt of a Cambodian revolution modeled on the French one -the dream of purity, of absolute, of Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse.
He has much harsher words for those who used Asia as a playground for their own personal ambitions. This is for Garnier, who played general throughout south-east Asia and sent thousands of people to death simply to stage his little wars. This is for Hun Sen, the current leader of Cambodia, put in place by the leaving Vietnamese in 1985 and still in place today. This is for Mayrena, founder and only ruler of the very short lived Royaume de Sedang ("Le Règne du Malin" is the title he chooses to tell the story of the man who became the inspiration for Malraux's Perken in La Voie Royale and Coppola's Kurtz in Apocapypse Now).
Deville spares the poor devils who killed thousands for a dream. He does not forgive those who tricked and manipulated for the sake of their own personal wealth.
This view of South East Asia, through the people who built it, the dreamers who explored it, the madmen who bled it, gives to what should have been a travel book the emotional resonance of a novel. Intentionally, Deville had the word put on the book cover : "roman", indicating that he was not so much interested in presenting historical and geographical facts than narrating a destiny.
"La planète défile sous la carlingue et j'essaie de surprendre les progrès de la raison dans l'Histoire et sous mon train d'atterrissage[...] Khieu Samphân, ancien chef d'état du Kampuchéa démocratique, bientôt octogénaire, [...] demande sa remise en liberté pour se consacrer au jardinage. L'ombre de mes ailes glisse sur l'Océan Pacifique. A Ciudad Juarez, dans le nord du Mexique, le chef de cartel Vincente Leyva se fait serrer pendant son jogging. A Lima, le procès de l'ancien président Fujimori suit son cours. L'ombre de mes ailes glisse sur l'Océan Atlantique. A Arusha, le procès des Rwandais suit son cours. A La Haye, le procès des généraux croates Gotovina et Markac suit son cours [...]
On pourrait cesser de lire les journaux."
(Kampuchéa, p.13)
The anger still shows now and then: "Ce cinglé de Daniel Ortéga", "Nous sommes une dizaine de naufragés assis sur des bancs, quelque part sur cette planète comme une grenade dégoupillée dans la main d'un dieu idiot et distrait". But most of it has drowned in resignation.
Through this tone seeps a deep compassion for a certain type of human beings : those who pursue a dream, whether they reach or not, which, when reached, often turns sour, bitter, nightmarish, their beautiful romantic vision ending up in death: it is Mohout dying of fever in the enchanted Angkor he discovered for Europe; it is Pavie who sacrifices his whole life to the Mekong and the people who live off it ; it is this young Chinese woman he meets by the Red River, who is leaving her village and farm to go to the big City in the hope of a better life. It is, strangely, the three friends from rue Saint-André-des-Arts who dreamt of a Cambodia as seen by Rousseau and who, carried away by their romantic vision, turned it into a bloodbath. Deville has harsh words for the Pol Pot regime. When he talks about the men, his tone becomes more intimate, full of melancholy:
"Cet homme maigrelet, qui estime avoir assumé la lourde tâche de faire torturer puis assassiner plus de douze mille de ses compatriotes, s'est éclairci la voix, a bu un peu d'eau, puis, au désarroi des responsables de l'interprétation simultanée vers le khmer et l'anglais [...] a récité la fin de La Mort du loup d'Alfred de Vigny :
Gémir, pleurer, prier est également lâche
Fais énergiquement ta longue et lourde tâche
Dans la voie où le sort a voulu t'appeler
Puis, après, comme moi, souffre et meurs sans parler."
(Kampuchéa, p.18)
These are the melancholic colours that Deville finds to paint the figures of the Khmer leaders. Lost between their childhood is French Asia and their young age in post World War II Paris where sexual revolution was simmering, they dreamt of a Cambodian revolution modeled on the French one -the dream of purity, of absolute, of Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse.
He has much harsher words for those who used Asia as a playground for their own personal ambitions. This is for Garnier, who played general throughout south-east Asia and sent thousands of people to death simply to stage his little wars. This is for Hun Sen, the current leader of Cambodia, put in place by the leaving Vietnamese in 1985 and still in place today. This is for Mayrena, founder and only ruler of the very short lived Royaume de Sedang ("Le Règne du Malin" is the title he chooses to tell the story of the man who became the inspiration for Malraux's Perken in La Voie Royale and Coppola's Kurtz in Apocapypse Now).
Deville spares the poor devils who killed thousands for a dream. He does not forgive those who tricked and manipulated for the sake of their own personal wealth.
This view of South East Asia, through the people who built it, the dreamers who explored it, the madmen who bled it, gives to what should have been a travel book the emotional resonance of a novel. Intentionally, Deville had the word put on the book cover : "roman", indicating that he was not so much interested in presenting historical and geographical facts than narrating a destiny.
March 4, 2013
À lire! L'auteur part du procès des Khmers Rouges, au Cambodge, et remonte le temps, tout comme il remontera le Mékong. Il nous entraîne dans un mouvement continuel d'une époque à l'autre, et d'un endroit à l'autre. Nous suivons Pol Pot et ses comparses à Paris, dans la jungle, au pouvoir, bondissant des contrastes apparents entre son amour de la poésie, Rimbaud en particulier, et la nature sanguinaire de son régime (entre un million et deux millions de personnes torturées, massacrées). Nous voyageons des ruites d'un temple ancien, au Viet Nam, et jusqu'au nord du Laos. Nous croisons nombre d'explorateurs, de colonisateurs, de révolutionnaires. L'histoire révue par un romancier, ce qui lui donne un dynamisme, une fougue qu'un historien pourrait difficilement atteindre.
August 10, 2013
As I travelled in the same regions as Patrick Deville it was very easy for me te relate to the stories he tells It didn't annoy me that he switched from travel diary, to historical anecdotes, to filosophical essays, to political essays etc. It made me reflect on all the aspects of Indo-China past and present.
Read
September 27, 2016balade géographique et historique au Cambodge, Vietnam et Laos
tres bien écrit, mais quand on ne connait pas bien l'histoire et la géographie de ces pays, on est un peu perdu
mais j'ai appris plein de choses et j'ai pris plaisir à lire ce livre
tres bien écrit, mais quand on ne connait pas bien l'histoire et la géographie de ces pays, on est un peu perdu
mais j'ai appris plein de choses et j'ai pris plaisir à lire ce livre
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews