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Clash of Civilizations
Jean-Christophe Rufin   Brazil Red
Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. 2004 /  / 429 pages
ISBN : 0393052079

Original Title: Rouge Brésil
Translator: Willard Wood

List Price: $24.95

Imprimer

An humanitarian doctor and author of numerous essays such as The Humanitarian Trap , Jean-Christophe Rufin made himself known from a literary standpoint with his novel The Abyssinian . In The Lost Causes , he gives a disenchanted and lucid vision of humanitarian acts. Head of a clinic at 29 years-old, Vice President of Doctors without Borders from 1991 to 1993, he could easily have pursued a career in politics, like Bernard Kouchner, but decided instead to follow his irrepressible desire to write. Rufin seems to want to rewrite his own life, to conquer it, to live it as an adventure at the behest of the wind. The study of civilizations fascinates this down-to-earth humanist above all, and serves, for that matter, as the subject of his latest novel whose story takes place in Brazil.

During a visit to Rio, Rufin discovered an inconspicuous little museum, and though a bit squalid, it contained a treasure: the story of the country’s conquest by a handful of Norman invaders. Having done some investigation, he discovered that orphaned children, having a particular ability to learn languages, were sent over to serve as interpreters with the Indians. This theme of paternal absence haunts the novelist. Having found the framework of his adventure, he took his inspiration from a relatively unknown expedition led by the Admiral Villegagnon in 1555. Aboard his fleet were two children, Just and Colombe Clamorgan. After an epic oceanic crossing, the ships run aground on an island in the Bay of Rio. To protect themselves from the “indian enemy”, these Knights of Malta construct a fort. Just shares in their fears, in their sabotage of the surrounding environment and in their thirst for conquest and commerce. In this closed world, Huguenots and Catholics kill each other to defend their own dogmas. Colombe flees “civilization” to explore the country and to meet Indians who end up adopting her. She assimilates into their lifestyle, transforms into a veritable native. Just finds her in the end, thus proving his love to her.

Two civilizations mix without ever meeting one another. Their religious conceptions are as antithetical as can be: that of the monotheists who have chased God from the world and destroy Nature, and of the Indians for whom spirits are ubiquitous. Jean-Christophe Rufin sees in this original confrontation a metaphor, a sort of laboratory that holds the seed of our civilization’s evolution. His leanings are no doubt in the direction of the Indians, their rituals, their sense of the sacred and even their cannibalism, a symbol of their melding of cultures. He offers us an ecological fable that serves also as an emphatic warning bell, most likely a sign of a new shamanic wave or of radical ecology via the United States.

Through his research, Rufin opens our eyes to a forgotten part of our history, myriad details about the 16th century, about the language, at times vernacular, their habits and customs, even their costumes… Refined, classic writing, a true sense of dialogue and setting, humor, bizarre humor at that, irony, colorful characters, suspense and generously assembled chapters… all Rufin! In the same vein as André Malroux and Lucien Bodard’s novels – for whom he does not hide his admiration – this passionate epic, full of life and emotion is also that of the birth of a passionate love, a quest for meaning, an investigation of identity and spirituality. The invigorating response to this quest: let yourself embark on a journey to the New World, the one that exists within you.


Emmanuelle De Boysson / Translated from the French by Edward C Hollo
( Mis en ligne le 28/04/2005 )
Imprimer

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