Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G. Dantec’s universe

Sociocriticism XXXIV-1-2|2019 La représentation Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse David Boucher http://interfas.univ-tlse2.fr/sociocriticism/2812 Electronic reference David Boucher, «Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse», Sociocriticism [Online], XXXIV-1-2|2019, Online since 17 avril 2020, connection on 01 juin 2023. URL: http://interfas.univtlse2.fr/sociocriticism/2812 Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse David Boucher OUTLINE Introduction The social imaginary of a certain September11 This cultural subject of decadence Conclusion TEXT th In tro duc tion Ed mond Cros, the cofounder of so ciocriti cism along with Claude Duchet, claims that this realm of study is “es sen tially con cerned with that which the text tran scribes, which is to say, the mod al it ies of in‐ cor por a tion of his tory at the level of forms1” (Cros, 2003, p. 13). With re gard to sci ence fic tion, Roger Bozz etto, lit er ary critic and spe cial ist in the field, pro poses an idea that is not far from that of Cros’: “(...) sci ence fic tion texts also offer the subtle reader, in ad di tion to the pleas ure of dis cov ery, the op por tun ity to ques tion the po ten ti al it ies and lim its of the so cial ima gin ary of his time, and to ques tion the ideo lo gical un thought un der pin ning this ima gin ary 2” (Bozz etto, 2007, p. 14). Al though, to some, the genre is ste reo typ ic ally clas si fied as para l it er at ure, in ten ded merely to en ter tain, sci ence fic tion has proven it self a genre cap able of trans mit ting depth and nu ance. In fact, as made evid ent by cer tain nov els, this form of lit er at ure has often sought to re flect and com ment on so cial phe nom ena rather than simply provid ing a means of di ver sion for the pub lic. This art icle will ex hibit the ap proach of so ciocriti cism to the novel Arte fact. Ma‐ chines à Écrire1.0, writ ten by the French Ca na dian writer Maurice G. Dantec. More spe cific ally, this study will demon strate that the world rep res ent a tion put forth by the au thor of this novel re lies upon 1 Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse a cata strophic and apo ca lyptic “ideo lo gical un thought” (Bozz etto) which aims to cri ti cize, if not warn, con tem por ary oc ci dental so ci ety. Ad di tion ally, this in vest ig a tion will es tab lish the par tic u lar it ies offered by and spe cific to the sci ence fic tion genre within the con text of so ciocriti cism. In order to carry out the pro posed ana lysis, this essay will ex plore the no tion of the so cial ima gin ary (ima gin aire so‐ cial), as defined by Pierre Pop ovic, which in the novel is char ac ter ized by the events of Septem ber 11 , 2001. This concept shall serve as a frame work with which the prot ag on ist in the first part of the novel will be stud ied; in order to do so, this study will ex plore how the plot ap pro pri ates and ex acer bates the idea of an im min ent so cial and global apo ca lypse. Morever, the concept of cul tural sub ject (sujet cul‐ turel), as de veloped by Ed mond Cros, will be util ized to em phas ize the “ideo lo gical un thought” in Dantec’s novel, which seems to in dic‐ ate that, with the idea of so cial ima gin ary in mind, the mur derer at the end of the novel is a meta phor for the mal aise present in a cul ture that fosters ni hil ism. th Be fore ana lyz ing the text in ques tion, a brief sum mary of the plot is ne ces sary: Arte fact. Ma chines à Écrire1.0 is a work of sci ence fic tion lit er at ure, where philo soph ical ru min a tions and char ac ter ist ics of dark thrillers come to gether and re define the lim its of the genre. Sep ar ated into three parts, the book tells three dif fer ent stor ies which ap pear seem ingly dis con nec ted at first glance. The first story, en titled To wards the North Sky (“Vers le nord du ciel”), re counts firsthand the at tacks from Septem ber 11 , 2001 against the World Trade Cen ter, from the eyes of a hu manoid alien char ac ter, who is en‐ trapped in the South tower and ends up sav ing a young girl dur ing his es cape. This char ac ter is por trayed as a sort of posthuman; he de‐ scribes him self as being the fu ture of an im proved human race. Chased by “men in black”, the prot ag on ist is fol lowed from New York to North ern Que bec where his civil iz a tion’s moth er ship awaits him. In the end, only the girl, whom he saved at the be gin ning, sur vives, while the alien is caught in the cross fires of his as sail ants (the “men in black”). The alien prot ag on ists’ sub sequent re sus cit a tion in a hos pital room, and not in a galaxy far, far away, is in dic at ive of his fail ure. The second part of the book, Arte fact, am bigu ously de scribes the thoughts of a writer and am ne siac who wakes up in a white room, loc ated in Italy, re min is cent of the hos pit al ized extraterrestrial in 2 th Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse the pre vi ous story. In fact, the lat ter rep res ents the body into which the present am ne siac char ac ter is re born. A strange type writer that types out the life of this writer char ac ter, a stranger to him self, serves as a pre text which present the reader with re flec tions, bring‐ ing to mind the works of Georges Ba taille and Maurice Blan chot. These con tem pla tions con clude with cer tain theo lo gical con sid er a‐ tions ori gin ally de veloped by Grégoire de Nysse. The in ter tex tual ref‐ er ence to The Naked Lunch by Wil liam Bur roughs – through the image of the type writer among other in dic a tions – con sti tutes an‐ other point of in ter rog a tion, char ac ter istic of this part of the book, and dis tances the story from tra di tional plot struc tures by break ing the more con ven tional, con tinu ous nar rat ive form. The third and final part of the book is called This Prince’s World (“Le Monde de ce Prince”). This title re calls the words of Jesus Christ con cern ing the devil: “Now is the judg ment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John, 12, 31). This story de scribes the ac tions of a Satan ist serial killer who refers to the devil as “his brother”. A sort of modernday Nero who sets fire to a sec tion of the city of Montreal, this char ac ter makes the world a macabre play ground for his ghastly schemes by let ting loose a bac terial pan demic. He does this on cam‐ era, for mil lions to see, in clud ing fan at ical In ter net users who visit his web site: wel comet o hell.world. The nov el istic form chal lenges its con‐ tent: it is dif fi cult to de term ine if this psy cho path is in deed an avatar of the prot ag on ists of the first two stor ies in the novel or if he is simply an other char ac ter who il lus trates the anxi et ies and threats of our con tem por ary so ci ety. One thing is cer tain: the final apo ca lypse in the book, whether real or fan tas ized (the text leaves the reader with doubt as to its le git im acy), is evoc at ive of the one de scribed in the first story (Septem ber 11 , 2001). th The so cial ima gin ary of a cer tain Septem ber11th As in dic ated by Francesca Lovece, the tra gic events of Septem ber11 , 2001 have since res on ated in works of vari ous au thors by way of “his‐ tor iz a tion mech an isms of the present”. This concept sur faces through/for the con struc tion of a spe cific so cial ima gin ary: 3th Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse Le 11septembre2001 est un nœud nar ratif particulièrement sig ni fic ‐ atif et témoigne d’une spécificité de la nar ra tion policière. (…). Le 11septembre devi ent alors un sujet d’élection pour révéler et re ‐ produire les mécanismes d’his tor isa tion du présent et leur rap port aux moy ens de com mu nic a tion. (…). Dans Villa Vor tex les pays ages présentistes sont intégrés et absorbés à l’intérieur d’un système fic ‐ tion nel aux lim ites de la sci ence fic tion [sic], qui répond à la fictionnalité du présent par une sur charge de fictionnalité 3 (Lovece, 2011, p.13). Prior to the pub lic a tion of Arte fact. Ma chines à Écrire 1.0 in 2007, Dantec had already ex plored themes re lated to the 11 of Septem ber in his book Villa Vor tex (2003). To quote Lovece, Septem ber11 , 2001 as “a sig ni fic ant nar rat ive knot” serves as a way of link ing fic tion with real ity, thus cre at ing a so cial ima gin ary char ac ter istic/rep res ent at ive of the 21 cen tury. Fur ther more, this no tion of the so cial ima gin ary, im port ant in so ciocriti cism, is de veloped by Pierre Pop ovic in his book Ima gin aire so cial et folie littéraire. Le second Em pire de Paulin Gagne: 4 th th st L’ima gin aire so cial est composé d’en sembles in ter ac tifs de représentations corrélées, organisées en fic tions lat entes, sans cesse recomposées par des pro pos, des textes, des chromos et des im ages, des dis cours ou des œuvres d’art. Par ex emple, le bona partisme et le pos it iv isme for ment deux de ces en sembles dans l’ima gin aire so cial du second Em pire, et les deux fic tions qui les struc turent ont plus d’un point com mun 4 (Pop ovic, 2008, p.24). With this per spect ive in mind, lit er at ure it self ap pears in ev it ably at‐ tached to this ima gin ary and to its form a tion pro cess. Pop ovic ex‐ plains: “Ce qui est appelé par con ven tion ‘littérature’ est ce qui résulte d’une form al isa tion problématique de l’ima gin aire so cial, aussi bien sur le plan du système générique que sur le plan des textes 5” (Pop ovic, 2008, p.28). The oc ci dental so cial ima gin ary, es pe cially that of Amer ica, is in sep ar able from the events of Septem ber 11 , 2001. The ter ror ist at tacks that took place on this day demon strate, “les cinq modes ma jeurs de sémiotisation de la réalité6” (Pop ovic, 2008, p. 26), which Pop ovic defines as being at the source of any so cial ima‐ gin ary. He would un der stand this as a nar rat ive mode/une narrativité 5 th Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse (for ex ample, stor ies of her oes who saved in no cent lives in burn ing build ings, like the fire fight ers who were present on the day of the at‐ tacks): a po etic mode/une poéticité (the good versus evil meta phor, used by George W. Bush, the Amer ican pres id ent in power at the time); cog nit ive ana lysis/des régimes cog ni tifs (the pleth ora of es says writ ten in the fields of so ci ology, psy cho logy, etc., in an ef fort to sci‐ en tific ally un der stand the events in ques tion and their af ter math); an icon icity/une iconicité (all heroic sym bols and icons cre ated in films and comic books post Septem ber11 ); a the at ric al ity/une théâtralité (for ex ample, im ages of planes hit ting the two towers, re play ing on tele vi sion screens all over the world). Through out the years, this trau matic event has in spired the ap par i tion of sev eral lit er ary texts, some of which pro claim the end of a world (of an era) and some of which pro claim the end of the world it self, as is the case with cer tain alarm ists like Dantec and his novel Arte fact. Ma chines à Écrire1.0. In this way, Dantec writes, in on of his po lemic pub lic a tions: “Ce qui sur git des décombres du World Trade Cen ter n’est plus tout à fait l’his toire telle que nous l’avi ons con nue avant, jusqu’à son ap oxie 7” (Dantec, 2009, p.128). He adds that: “Il y aura bien un af fronte ment décisif et cata clys mique entre civil isa tions 8” (Dantec, 2009, p.129), a state ment with which, con cep tu ally, someone like Ed ward W. Saïd would ob vi ously not agree with 9. th The first part of Arte fact. Ma chines à Écrire 1.0 dis plays cer tain ele‐ ments of Pop ovic’s idea of “real ity‐se mi ot iz a tion”, already in tro duced, which, ac cord ing to him, form the basis of any so cial ima gin ary. These ele ments are played with and ex tra pol ated in a hy per bolic, even dis tor ted, man ner, as a res ult of the novel’s sci ence fic tional con text. This re ci pro city between the so cial ima gin ary sub stance and its lit er ary por trayal de pends on a par tic u lar tech nique which in tro‐ duces a third di men sion to the second, in other words a lit er ary es‐ trange ment, char ac ter istic of the sci ence fic tion genre. Darko Suvin sug gests: “Sci ence fic tion is (…) a lit er ary genre whose most ne ces‐ sary and suf fi cient con di tions in clude the in ter ac tion between es‐ trange ment and know ledge, and whose main struc ture is con tained within an ima gin ary dif fer ent from the au thors’ em pir ical world” (Suvin, 1977, p.15). The sci ence fic tional rep res ent a tion of real ity does not, mean while, dis tance it self from real ity nor does it stray away from its so cial ima gin ary, like some may be temp ted to think. This is 6 Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse be cause the strange ele ments which char ac ter ize the genre (ali ens, ad vanced tech no logy, etc.) often serve in cri ti ciz ing the world, so ci‐ ety, thus play ing a role in the con struc tion of the res ult ing so cial ima‐ gin ary. In this light, when it comes to sci ence fic tional rep res ent a‐ tion, one must be wary in cat egor iz ing strange gad gets or mon sters as in sig ni fic ant; it is usu ally through these subtle ob jects and char ac‐ ters that the novel will un der line and bring into ques tion cer tain as‐ pects of so ci ety or hu man ity. Through the “nar rat ive mode” men tioned by Pop ovic, and in il lus tra‐ tion of the men tioned con cepts, the hero from the first part of the novel who saves the young girl who is pris oner in the South tower on the 91 floor can be dir ectly com pared to the New York fire fight ers who risked their lives on Septem ber 11 . Yet, through use of es‐ trange ment in this ex ample and as defined by Suvin, this hero is an alien and not a human. This choice in rep res ent a tion re verses the ar‐ che type con struc ted by H.G. Wells in War of the Worlds, in which Wells por trays the in vader and not the hero as being an ex tra ter‐ restrial, and thus fram ing our so cial ima gin ary dif fer ently. Fur ther‐ more, while sci ence fic tion from the 1950s, marked by Mc Carthy ism, aimed at rep res ent ing com mun ism through ref er ence to alien in va‐ sions – both sym bol ic ally as so ci ated with the col our red – Dantec uses a dif fer ent tech nique, one in which the alien char ac ter is good and, most im port ant, acts as the main nar rator, giv ing to his voice au‐ thor ity and vera city. This is done in order to em phas ize a grow ing and im port ant as pect of the 21 cen tury so cial ima gin ary, marked by the at tacks on Septem ber 11 , namely a his tor ical paradigm shift tinged by an apo ca lyptic vis ion of the world. As such, and as men‐ tioned be fore, Dantec’s idea (op posed to Saïd’s view), which pre dicts a “de cis ive and cata clys mic con front a tion between civil iz a tions”, would lead one to be lieve that, in his novel, the an ti cip ated in vader is the ter ror ist. The main storyline, how ever, presents this prob lem dif fer‐ ently, ob lit er at ing all con ven tional Manichean logic. The main in vader is neither the alien nor the ji hadists (at least not only), but someone else within our own civil iz a tion. 7 st th st th The alien in Arte fact. Ma chines à Écrire 1.0 is not rep res en ted as being of a scary, mon strous or slimy nature as would nor mally be the case in other more tra di tional forms of sci ence fic tion. Ben Laden’s ji‐ hadists are the in vaders in the novel, and they are por trayed as being 8 Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse com pletely human, all too human (to para phrase Ni et z sche). With re‐ gard to the alien’s dis course, he com mu nic ates him self with a dis‐ tinct ive nar rat ive au thor ity, in part re lated with his su per hu man qual‐ it ies (tele pathy, night vis ion, etc.) that go bey ond tra di tional human heroic traits. These qual it ies render this char ac ter su per ior, in wis‐ dom and phys ic al ity, to any human being. This hero even re marks, at one point, that he was able to fore see the ter ror ist at tacks on the World Trade Cen ter ahead of time, using a tech no logy de veloped by his civil iz a tion: “Je con nais sais tant de choses sur tous ces événements que j’avais pu ob server sur la télévision du futur 10” (Dantec, 2010, p.29). This vis ion of a world in chaos, in apo ca lypse, is com mu nic ated to the reader by the alien’s fa tal istic vis ion which acts as the voice of truth and au thor ity through out the story. This is done so as to give cred ib il ity to a re cur ring idea that paces the text and acts as an echo of the so cial rumor post Septem ber2001 that of the end of a/the world. This idea is made ob vi ous in sev eral pas sages: “Le XXI siècle vient de com men cer11” [talk ing about the ter ror ist at tacks (Dantec, 2010, p. 26)], “On ne rate pas un ren dez‐vous avec la fin d’une civil isa tion planétaire12” [still talk ing about the same events (Dantec, 2010, p.146)], “Nous partirons juste au mo ment où ce monde com men cera pour de bon à se désintégrer13” (Dantec, 2010, p.146). These are just some ex amples. This pess im istic and alarm ist nar rat ive go hand in hand with the idea of a global, apo ca lyptic war : “La "guerre" ellemême changeait fon da mentale ment de nature: de mon‐ diale elle de venait glob ale 14” (Dantec, 2010, p. 114) and “La guerre‐globe al lait ainsi de venir la sphère cog nit ive de toute l’humanité15” (Dantec, 2010, p.115), and demon strate this re la tion ship. There fore, through fa tal ist ex ag ger a tion in re sponse to a reallife trau matic event, the dis course em ployed by the alien both shape and rep res ent part of the so cial ima gin ary of Septem ber11 . In the pro‐ cess, the “ideo lo gical un thought” (Bozz etto) typ ical of the au thor’s ideas is re vealed (philo soph ical con ser vat ism mixed with re li gious un der tones 16): an “un thought” that re calls the voices of those re ac‐ tion ar ies who made them selves heard at the be gin ning of this troubled 21 cen tury. In other words, lit er at ure gives a voice to all of those who par ti cip ate in the cre ation of any given so cial ima gin ary, even if it means being told through ideas which con tra dicts our own (if we don’t agree with Dantec…) or through the eyes of some thing as for eign to it as a fic tional alien. e th st Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse This cul tural sub ject of dec ad ‐ ence In Dantec’s fic tional world, these crum bling Word Trade Cen ter towers al leg or ize the de cline of the West, doomed to im plo sion and de struc tion, credo of a par tic u lar form of philo soph ical con ser vat ism. As Os wald Spen gler puts it, this out look dia gnoses and cri ti cizes the dec ad ence of West ern So ci ety and fore sees total ruin as being the in‐ ev it able out come to which it is doomed. We must there fore take note of this “ideo lo gical un thought” to un der stand that Arte fact. Ma chines à écrire1.0 can not be con sidered as the com plete image of the so cial ima gin ary left be hind by Septem ber11 (as this is not the role of lit‐ er at ure), but rather as a re flec tion that frames this ima gin ary within the con text of a spe cific ideo lo gical, if not theo lo gical, axis. Fur ther, other lit er ary or in tel lec tual voices would ob vi ously have to be con‐ sidered to grasp the whole image of this ima gin ary as Ed ward W. Saïd, for ex ample, who took part in the de bate on the event of Septem ber11 . How ever, this being the case, Dantec does man age to ac cur ately and hol ist ic ally rep res ent a feel ing of col lect ive anxi ety which emerged as a res ult of this tra gic event. To bet ter un der stand his rep res ent a tion, the ana lysis of an other key char ac ter, that of the serial killer fea tured in the last part of the novel, is ne ces sary, see ing as it is he who poses a major ter ror ist threat to so ci ety. This ant ag on‐ ist thus thwarts the ideo lo gical and simplistic scape goat logic that is ap par ent in the dis course of the ex tra ter restrial char ac ter in the first story. 9 th th As men tioned be fore, the psy cho path killer calls him self the devil’s ally (he calls the lat ter his brother), and his modus op erandi is to up‐ load his tor tures, murders and plan et ary bac teri olo gical con tam in a‐ tions on line, thus ex ploit ing in a twis ted way what Guy De bord calls the société du spec tacle, as a means of so ci etal de struc tion. More than any other, this prot ag on ist in carn ates, in its being, the ugli ness and slag of its civil iz a tion, which is presen ted as being on the de cline (ex‐ cess ive voyeur ism, ob ses sion for sen sa tion al ism, tele visual ob jec ti fic‐ a tion of human be ings, etc.). The no tion of cul tural sub ject, de veloped by Ed mond Cros, provides in sight into un der stand ing why the killer goes bey ond his own self and acts on a so cial level: 10 Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse Français Les ré cits de Mau rice G. Dan tec pensent les en jeux po li tiques, his to riques et phi lo so phiques d’au jourd’hui et de de main. La so cio cri tique per met de mieux mettre en lu mière ces der niers dans son œuvre, tout en dé voi lant la mé ca nique de la sciencefiction en gé né ral. Son roman Ar te fact. Ma chines à écrire1.0 pro pose en effet, par une mé ca nique de la dis tan cia tion (Suvin), un ima gi naire so cial (Po po vic) du 11sep tembre, dont le ca tas tro phisme ré vèle qu’à la source du XXI siècle en crise, il y a un sujet cultu rel (Cros) de la dé‐ ca dence. Español Las his to rias de Mau ri ce G. Dan tec re fle jan los pro ble mas po lí ti cos, his tó ri‐ cos y fi lo só fi cos de hoy y ma ña na. La so cio crí ti ca per mi te re sal tar los mejor en su obra, a la vez que des ve la la me cá ni ca de la cien cia fic ción en ge ne ral. Su no ve la Ar te fact. Ma chi nes à écri re1.0 pro po ne, me dian te un “dis tan cia‐ mien to” es pe cí fi co del gé ne ro (con cep tua li za do por Suvin), un “ima gi na rio so cial” (teo ri za do por Po po vic) del 11 de sep tiem bre, cuyo ca tas tro fis mo re‐ ve la que en el ori gen de la cri sis del siglo XXI hay un “su je to cul tu ral” (no‐ ción for mu la da por Cros) de la de ca den cia. INDEX Mots-clés science-fiction, sociocritique, sujet culturel, imaginaire social, Maurice G. Dantec Keywords science fiction, sociocriticism, cultural subject, social imaginary, Maurice G. Dantec Palabras claves ciencia ficción, sociocitica, sujeto cultural, imaginario social, Maurice G. Dantec AUTHOR David Boucher David Boucher est détenteur d’un doctorat du Département des littératures de langue française de l’Université de Montréal depuis mars2018. Il est chercheur à l’Institut International de Sociocritique (I.I.S.) et au Modern Language Association (M.L.A.). Il a publié plusieurs textes scientifiques sur divers sujets, dont la sciencefiction, comme par exemples le chapitre intitulé «L’apocalypse selon Nelly Arcan » dans le livre Écrire au-delà de la fin des temps? Les littératures au Canada et au e Sociocriticism of science fiction and of its representation in Maurice G.Dantec’suniverse Québec en 2017 et l’article «Les spectres du totalitarisme dans Les Particules élémentaires» dans un numéro antérieur de la revue Sociocriticism en 2016. En janvier2020, il va entamer son postdoctorat à l’Université Harvard au Department of Comparative Literature et au Department of Romance Languages and Literatures sous la direction de la professeure Françoise Lionnet.