Alma, published by Gallimard in 2017, joins the Mauritian cycle where, inspired by the history of his family, J.M.G. Le Clézio evokes the Mascarenes, and particularly Mauritius. Although far from autobiography by the creation of characters, Alma is a novel of filiation, a quest for origins, without breaking with the rest of the work, started in 1963. Here, instead of a narrative structure, it is a question of “musicalization of the novel”, joining Huxley’s Counterpoint.
Alma is similar to a counterpoint, an organized superposition of distinct melodic lines, by the alternation of voices, which recalls Désert or Onitsha: those of Jérémie Felsen and Dominique Felsen known as Dodo, linked by kinship, that a generation separates, which perhaps cross furtively at the end of the work. Their paths are opposite: while Jérémie comes from France to Mauritius, Dodo, who left Mauritius, has been in France for a long time.
Uncertain rapporteur of a reality that he dreamed before having known it (14-15), Jérémie arrives on the island, equipped with a talisman which comes to him from his father: the gizzard stone of the raphus cucullatus or “dodo”, on which he intends to write a memoir. Its objective is multiple. He meets those who know the past of the island and his family, those who make the island present, Krystal who benefits and suffers from sex tourism, Aditi who, through an NGO, is concerned about wildlife and the flora… He has an inner curiosity: “I will go everywhere, I want to see everything” (147). Each chapter is an encounter and an approach to the island. In his careful description of what remains of a ruined sugar factory soon to be replaced by an amusement park, he places himself between a near past and an imminent future, but the sight of a dodo skeleton brings him back to the dawn of the world, “when the island was still new – new of humans” (81).
The other voice in the first person, differentiated by the italics, is that of Dodo, the last of the Felsen on the island, affected by syphilis, designated by the Greek sigma, which has eaten away his face and prohibited all descendants. For him, life is only a single day, which he evokes in the present, in simple words and propositions, accepting the tearing of sigma. Jérémie's tension responds to Dodo's resignation.
To these voices are added those of micro-narratives. Marie-Madeleine, natural daughter of the governor of the islands of France and Bourbon, complains in the style and spirit of the eighteenth century: “I have reason to believe” (168), “first cousin of my late father” (172). The story of Ashok who discovers the lake of fairies is close to a tale. The voice of Saklavou, spirit of slavery, vituperative, vengeful.
In addition to tones or timbres, there is a play on consonances and repetitions of themes. Jérémie, with the intention of recalling those who lived on the island, cites the Mauritius Almanac, suggesting the polycultural dimension of the place, imposing a rhythm to the proliferation, even because of the alphabetical order. Words from the Upanishads (192), an old Scottish song, “Auld Lang Syne,” also favor sounds. The song becomes a leitmotif for the two characters, signaling the end of a world: “[…] when you sing it, it means there is no goodbye” (180). The Creole melody is heard more in Dodo raised in Mauritius. It suits him all the more because, due to its syntactic and phonetic distortions, it takes on a childish naivety: “cassava biscuits” (63), “told zistoire Topsie” (64). Le Clézio says he does not need to speak or hear French to write it (October 5, 2017). He would be like a composer imagining a melody just by writing a score, a faculty he attributes to the musician Dodo (76).
The repetition of motifs punctuates the novel, variations which recur in the same character: the lyrical evocation of nature, the Fersen, the dodo, slavery or else pass from one character to another: a song, Topsie, Alma...
Multiple interferences exist. The disappearance of raphus cucullatus leads to that of the tambalacoque which it allowed to germinate. “Dodo” is the name of the bird and that of the last descendant of the Felsen, both moving and ridiculous. The man is used to making people laugh about his illness by managing, for lack of a nose, to lick his eyes. Echoing this, the bird is mocked on the deck of the boat by the crew.
“Alma” designates the Felsen property and its first hostess and, depending on the language: a foster mother, a young girl, by her paronyms: breath (atma), whiteness (alba). The Maya shopping center (from Sanskrit: illusion) has the alias Krystal, “the illusion of eternal youth” (74). Onomastics creates a nebula of values.
It is not a question of a metaphorical link but of a bundle of evocations which tend towards a spiritual unity. Dodo is human and monstrous, he has no face, but he has grace. He heals a dying child: “[…] I blow into the holes in his nose, and the child starts to cough […] he gains his life.” (260) “The Wonderful Tramp” is a kind of epic hero. The spiritualism session followed by Jérémie links the picturesqueness of the island to the descent into hell specific to the epic (226-233).
Themes and sounds alternate and reading plans overlap.
One of the plans is the prophecy that we already found in War and The Giants. Aditi calls Jeremiah “the vigilante” (142). He has “the name of a prophet” (143). Moreover, he denounces the dysfunctions of a society. One of the chapters in which Dodo is the speaker is called The Prophet. Ironically. Because it is in spite of himself that Dodo, followed by the crowd of excluded people, points out the misery of the world. (256).
Prophecy does not have the violence of previous works. Saklavou, alone, vituperates and curses. Jérémie humorously imitates the jokes of the island's good society: "Rob Rosko − even if he is Ukrainian Jewish through his parents, but thank God it's not too obvious, [...] not at all "marked" (217-218).
Le Clézio also lends some humor to Dodo, who, despite his innocence, is amused by the washing of his feet by the nuns. From the words of Simon Peter in the Gospel: “What! You Lord, you wash my feet! » he compares those of the tramps: “...mo lipié prop moi, not good washed mamzelle!” (155).
What is denounced is linked to devouring. Young black Topsie's fear of being eaten by the whites joins the disappearance of the dodos that the first settlers hoped to eat. Dodo says “[…] the disease that eats my face also eats my name” (50). Black people were prey for the planters, women remained prey for visitors to the island. The island is devoured by tourism.
Writing is the cure for swallowing. Dodo chalks the names of his parents on the graves in the cemetery. Jérémie writes the names of the inhabitants, of evocative places: Petite Julie, Grande Rosalie. Aditi writes the names of the plants and animals of the island.
The time of the prophets is suspended. Jérémie evokes the moment when the dodos “begin their last dance” (87). The time “when everything is still possible, just a little before death” (141), recalls that evoked by The Mexican Dream.
The studious research of J.M.G. Le Clézio on the Aztecs or on Mauritius arrives at an ahistorical moment, a timeless one which reproduces whatever one does, where the awakening is contemporary with the fall.
We could say of Alma what Octavio Paz says of the works of Balzac or Proust: “It is a hybrid of inspiration and scientific investigation, of utopia and criticism. A mythical story, a myth which is incarnated in history and ends in judgment. A Last Judgment where society condemns itself with its principles.” (1956, 306). Alma's polyphony represents different facets of the identification of an island, of a quest for the missing part of oneself, of a timelessness. The reading is a spiral that goes from informative to epic poetry, to vision.
Michelle Labbé
Translated by Adina Balint
(2024)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
CHAUDEY, Marie, « Le Clézio retourne à l’île Maurice », La Vie, 2§ octobre 2017, p. 76 ; DEVARRIEUX, Claire, « Le Clézio, Dodo le Héros », Libération, 6 octobre 2017,http://next.liberation.fr/livres/2017/10/06/le-clezio-dodo-le-heros_1601422 ; HUXLEY, Aldous, Contrepoint, 1928, traduit par Jules Caster, Plon, 1953 ; JANICOT, Alma mater, La Croix, 14-10-2017 https://www.la-croix.com/Culture/Livres-et-idees/Alma-mater-2017-10-12-1200883653 ; LECLAIR, Bertrand, « Ce que Le Clézio doit à l’île Maurice », Le Monde, 20 octobre 2017, p. 5 ; LE CLÉZIO, J.M.G., Alma, Paris Gallimard, 2017 ; LE MÉNAGER, Grégoire, « Le Clézio et ses démons », L’Obs n° 2763, 19-10-2017, p. 86-87 ; PAZ Octavio, L’arc et la lyre, 1956, 1965 pour la traduction française de Roger Munier, Gallimard. Entrevue avec Nicolas DEMORAND, https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l invite de 8H20/l invite de 8h20, 5 octobre 2017.