Westerners have made a categorical imperative out of Mrs. Jellyby’s comically flawed humanitarianism/“do-gooderism” unto a distant other, while one’s own are neglected. In this moral climate, the piety required to love one’s community and the fortitude required to defend it become vices.The novel has since been labeled racist and colonialist, of course, with the result that its publishers did all in their power to squelch sales. Used copies in English translation therefore start at several hundred dollars for a paperback and shoot up several thousand dollars for a hardcover.A French copy was a little more affordable and was matched by a cheap Audiobook version, also in the original French. If I listen while reading along, the gist may get through. My rudimentary French has been improved by reading science fiction novels with which I'm already familiar in English. It works OK as long as the style is fairly straightforward, as science fiction tends to be.
Mind control
Shadow-banning of books arouses my stubborn streak. Sometimes I buy a newly published book even without a strong wish to read it, just to give the author some commercial support.Today, Powerline highlighted a decades-old French novel called "Les Camps des Saints," whose storyline rested on a million-strong immigration from India to France that overwhelms the self-loathing host country. From the Powerline review:
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My county library system has an English version of this. It's filed under Non-Fiction.
The line from the review that stood out for me was:
What emerges is not a particularly harsh despotism—there is only the occasional boot stomping on the human face—but the pain of the survivors is great, because of their vivid memories of what they have lost.
I believe that those of us who have vivid memories of what would be lost are dying off. People much younger than I simply don't see or don't remember anything they would regret losing. Several years ago, I said to a friend that I thought her daughter's world was terribly gray. She agreed but countered with "It's their world."
She agreed but countered with "It's their world."
A sentiment with which I disagree. An "inheritance" is not the property of any child's; it doesn't even exist until the parents die. Until then, it's the parents' property to do with as they see fit, to include putting strings on it as an inheritance, and leaving it to entities other than the children. Or, as was my parents' goal, to consume it all and die broke.
It's the same with our [sic] nation. It's not their world until we die and leave it to...someone. Of course, a Critical Item is the difference in enforcement mechanisms for the two situations.
Separately, your county system seems like a good one.
Eric Hines
I disagree with her sentiment also for a slightly different reason: it's the job of older generations to teach younger generations what is to be valued. My friend's comment seems to me to be a manifestation of what the Powerline review calls "the logic of civilizational repudiation".
The county system here is quite good, I think, but I can't decide if it's funny or scary that they've shelved this dystopian novel under non-fiction.
The question of whose world it is might be referred to Epictetus (see the Enchiridion commentary on the sidebar). Each of us has a world that is our own.
I find sympathy with your remark, Elise, that we who are getting older and closer to death remember a world the young never knew. How true that must have been for our ancestors, though, who grew up riding horses and before cars; how different their world was from the one that came to involve rapid ocean tranist and then air fares, telephones and televisions.
The interior world changed fundamentally with smartphones, which transformed the human experience in a new way. But these old ways of transformation were real as well, and we ourselves lived in a world that was very different from those of even a generation or three before.
Yes, Grim. My grandmother died in 1977 when she was in her mid-90s. The changes she lived through were amazing. Yet she had no fears about future changes. I remember a conversation with her not too long before her death in which she said her only regret about being near the end of her life was that she wouldn't get to see what happened next.
Perhaps the problem lies not just in the young but in people like me who look ahead and fear what is to come instead of looking forward to what happens next.
Today, Powerline highlighted....
The link is to First Things. I didn't see any similar story at Powerline neither at the top of its web page where it links to articles, nor at the bottom where it publishes its own articles.
The book has definitely been blackballed. As far as I can tell, Amazon has no ebook in English, but does have a French language ebook at a reasonable price. English print costs are sky high, indicating that it has been out of print for a long time. However, there are ebooks available on pirate sites. I wonder if this book is an example of what our lefty librarian friends call "banned books"? Since lefties banned it, lefty librarians would call it "weeding," the trade term used for taking books out of circulation.
The Wiki article states the book is about cultural changes due to massive immigration. No wonder our lefty friends wanted it banned.
people like me who look ahead and fear what is to come instead of looking forward to what happens next.
And it occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that this attitude on my part is perhaps another manifestation of "the logic of civilizational repudiation".
When I started reading it, an English version was accessible online. I didn't finish reading it, and neglected to put any link in my review of the book. I got the gist of his parable quickly, and the style and details made me very tired.
Grim..."The interior world changed fundamentally with smartphones, which transformed the human experience in a new way. But these old ways of transformation were real as well, and we ourselves lived in a world that was very different from those of even a generation or three before."
Especially, I think, medical advancements had a huge mental impact on the mental worlds of those who lived when you could expect to have several of your children die before reaching adulthood, and the necessity of enduring surgery without anesthetics.
The English translation is available at the Internet Archive.
Tom...it appears to be access-restricted, no way to download or to read on-line.
I wonder who owns the English-language rights to this publication and whether their investors, if any, would be happy with their apparent failure to monetize this asset for political reasons.
Huh. I'll check that out. The Internet Archive operates like a library, and when I look at it it looks like it can be checked out for 1 hour at a time (just hit the renew button each hour). If it is checked out by someone else, of course, I don't think you'll be able to access it.
I have an account, so I'll sign in and check tomorrow.
When I log into my account on the Internet Archive, it's available for me to borrow.
If you don't have an Internet Archive account, I recommend it. It's free and like a massive public library on the internet. They have tons of stuff going back to the 19th century, some earlier. If it's public domain, then you can download ebook or PDF versions. If it's still under copyright, you do have to borrow it.
In fact, for public domain stuff, I don't know if you even need an account.
The publisher for the English language version is Scribner, and the 2nd edition was published in 1975, if you want to start a campaign to get this asset monetized.
Good recommendation, Tom.
I should have thought of that, considering that I use The Internet Archive practically every day for Project Gutenberg proofing and formatting. I always forget that lots of other books are there, too, not just the ones I'm proofing and formatting.
James, this may turn out to be another book I buy purely out of cussedness and won't enjoy reading enough to finish it. I just don't like being told I don't have access to a book. It's alarming when publishers get together and strangle books; I like to see even minor pushback in the form of a broad portion of the public that will vote with money.
There appears to be an English language pdf of Camp of the Saints at https://www.jrbooksonline.com/pdfs/camp_of_the_saints.pdf
I've downloaded it; my Kindle for PC reads pdfs as well as a variety of other formats.
Eric Hines
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