Jean Raspail, Michel Houellebecq, and Jenny Erpenbeck: Acknowledging the Barbarian Within

Year 2019, , 1 - 18, 27.06.2019

John Hawley

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2019-0003

Abstract

This paper seeks to discuss recent sites of contestation of the implications one assigns to migration from Africa and the Middle East to Central and Western Europe. It will be predominantly Eurocentric in its data and analysis, dealing less with the motivations of the migrants and the second generation, and more with the various responses to that migration among Europeans (e.g., what are “they” doing to “us”). The major literary texts involved in the paper will be Michel Houellebecq’s Submission (2015), and Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone (2015), with initial consideration of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints (1973). In these encounters, the overriding question is less “Who are these people,” than “Who are we in the face of these others?” Despite their varying motivations, they are texts that continue to define Europe by viewing it against the backdrop of the other. I will conclude with a reference to two projects that seek to engage viewers/readers vicariously in the lived experiences of particular Africans forced to flee their homes. Such empathy elicits an aggressively negative reaction among some Europeans, a white paranoia that foresees the extinction of a romantically imagined pure ethnically-based culture and recalls earlier campaigns with similarly violent results.

Keywords

Migration, Nationalism, Xenophobia, France, Germany

References

• Beardsley, E. (2018, June 29). “In the shadow of a terrorist attack, rapper is targeted by France’s right wing.” National Public Radio Music News. Online. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/623939587/in-the-shadow-ofa-terrorist-attack-rapper-is-targeted-by-frances-right-wing Accessed 3 July 2018.
• Cohen, R. (2018, September 29). “Return of the German Volk.” New York Times. Online (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/german-election-afd.html) Accessed 31 December 2018.
• D’Addario, D. (2015, November 4). “Michel Houellebecq’s Submission portrays a 21st century French revolution” Time. Online http://time.com/4101182/a-21st-century-french-revolution/ Accessed 15 January 2019.
• Erpenbeck, J. (2017). Go, Went, Gone. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. New York: New Directions.
• Gopnik, A. (2015, January 20). “The next thing: Michel Houellebecq’s Francophobic satire.” The New Yorker online (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/next-thing) Accessed 31 December 2018.
• Heller, C., Pezzani, L., Mann, I., Moreno-Lax, V., & Weizman, E. (2018, December 26). “‘It’s an act of murder’: how Europe outsources suffering as migrants drown.” New York Times. Online https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/26/opinion/europe-migrant-crisis-mediterranean-libya.html Accessed 26 December 2018.
• Houellebecq, M. (2015). Trans. Stein, L. Submission. New York: Picador.
• Iheka, C. & Taylor, J., (Eds.), (2018). African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
• Killing, A. (2018). Migration Trail. https://www.migrationtrail.com/ Accessed 26 December 2018.
• Killing, A. “Border Crossings.” (2018). Ted Talk. Online https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=UUi3UCNvdLU Accessed 26 December 2018.
• Machelidon, V. & Saveau, P., (Eds.), (2018). Reimagining North African Immigration: Identities in Flux in French Literature, Television, and Film. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
• Ochola, A. (2016). “Representing African migrants’ experience in Europe: a study of narratives on the Surprising Europe website.” Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Media Studies, JMK, Independent Thesis Advance Level (Master’s degree) http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A968050&dswid=-4154
• Raspail, J. (1973, 1985 [French]; 2017 [English]). Trans. Norman Shapiro. The Camp of the Saints. Detroit: Social Contract.
• Shatz, A. (2015, April 9). “Colombey-les-deux-Mosquées.” London Review of Books 37.7: 15-18. Online https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n07/adam-shatz/colombey-les-deux-mosquees Accessed 15 January 2019.
• Williamson, C. (2018). “Review of The Camp of the Saints.” In: The Conservative Bookshelf. http://www.completereview.com/reviews/popfr/raspailj.htm. Accessed 15 January 2019.
• Zaouiche, M. (2005, November 14). “How much more French can I be?” Time. Vol. 166, Issue 20. Online http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.scu.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=2f09c01b-abd4-4a05-b589-8c82772484d5%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=18768550&db=ulh. Accessed 26 December 2018.