Les Immémoriaux

by Victor Segalen

"Immémoriaux," les Tahitiens ont trahi leurs dieux et leurs coutumes. Le drame se joue au moment de l'arrivée des Européens sur les rives enchantées de la Polynésie, a la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Il prend ici figure d'allégorie: en vain, Paofai, le dernier païen, partira a la recherche d'une écriture capable de sauvegarder les mots qui ne doivent pas mourir; et moins de vingt ans suffiront aux Occidentaux pour anéantir une culture restée jusque-la intacte.Dans ce premier livre, une active nostalgie mène Victor Segalen, non a déplorer, mais a recréer la belle société antique et forte, ses fêtes, son culte du "jouir," son alliance heureuse avec la nature. Quant a la langue sacrée des Maori, il la réinvente par une prose sans exemple, qui en devient le simulacre. Le livre, publie en 1907 sous un pseudonyme, acquiert tout son sens aujourd'hui ou nous en mesurons le caractère prémonitoire."

Genres: France, Roman

339 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Victor Segalen was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic.

He was born in Brest. He studied naval medicine in Bordeaux. He traveled and lived in Polynesia (1903–1905) and China (1909–1914 and 1917). He died by accident in a forest in Huelgoat, France ('under mysterious circumstances' and reputedly with an open copy of Hamlet by his side).

In 1934, the French state inscribed his name on the walls of the Panthéon because of his sacrifice for his country during World War I.

He gave his name to the Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 University of medicine, literature and social sciences in Bordeaux under the Academy of Bordeaux where he studied, and to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Brest where he was born.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Thomas]

notable as a kind of anthropological novel that draws on a tremendous amount of primary source material to represent the tahitian viewpoint and culture, and it is genuinely sympathetic to the tahitian perspective while mostly avoiding falling into noble savage type stuff. as a novel i'm not sure it is all that satisfying though, and it lacks the enigmatic quality you will find in René Leys

[Philippe Guglielmetti]

Intéressant, mais hélas pas facile de faire la part entre la réalité historique et la fiction.