Abstract
This article studies the ways in which animals are represented as both “real” and “symbolic” figures in Patrick Deville’s Peste & Choléra (2012). The novel focuses not only on the scientific and medical developments in which its principal subject, the scientist Alexandre Yersin, was involved, but also presents the corresponding dark underside of this progress and the violence that accompanied the lifesaving and lifechanging innovations. Deville is known for exploring the complicated repercussions of historical events that continue to be felt to the present-day. I argue that throughout Peste & Choléra, scenes with animals serve as particularly sharp reminders that human advancement does not come without a cost. Although the animals appear primarily confined to scientific laboratories or relegated to the edges of human settlements, Deville writes about them in an expansive style, constructing a complex web of layered biblical and literary references. I contend that, through these passages, Deville encourages a multiplicity of ways of reading animals and refuses to let them be carelessly cast as simply scientific elements, forgotten victims of modernity.
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Notes
Throughout this article, Yersin refers to the figure in Deville’s text rather than the historical figure. Although Deville is clear that his novels are based on careful historical research—“les citations entre guillemets sont exacts, les lieux sont exacts, les faits historiques sont exacts, les personnes que je rencontre le sont, etc.” (Deville & Michon, 2016, 274)—he also insists that his texts be qualified as novels (274). Peste & Choléra can be read as a continuation of Deville’s Sic Tranist trilogy (2014), which are described on the back cover as “romans d’aventures sans fiction.” For Deville, while his texts are based on scrupulous research, “le romanesque naît au moment de la construction du récit, de l’écriture. Ça devient de la littérature par la manière non seulement logique mais analogique dont cela est articulé” (Nicolas, 2011). See Viart (2019) for more about Deville’s “romans sans fiction”.
Peste & Choléra is narrated in the third person, unlike Deville’s earlier trilogy, Sic Transit, of which it can be read as a kind of continuation. A “fantôme du futur” haunts the novel, travelling along the path of Yersin and taking notes (his first appearance is on p. 16). While he can be read as a kind of avatar of Deville himself, this link is never made explicit, nor is it ever specified that this “fantôme du futur” is indeed the narrator. The spectral figure establishes the contemporary perspective of the novel, as emphasized not only by the knowing comments about the historical events of the twentieth century still to come, but also by his modern accoutrements—Marlboro-lights and a cell phone (Deville, 2012, 89). For more on the narration of Peste & Choléra, see Bernard (2016) and Viart (2019).
The focus of this article is specifically on Deville’s animal references, but they are far from the only intertexts in Peste & Choléra. As Isabelle Bernard notes: “Sa prose devient plus flamboyante que jamais dans cette publication riche de traces et de souvenirs individuels et collectifs” (2016, 234).
Anne Sennhauser makes a similar point in Devenirs du romanesque. Les écritures aventureuses de Jean Echenoz, Jean Rolin, et Patrick Deville: “[…] la vaste entreprise encyclopédique de Patrick Deville s’est engagée sur les sentiers du savoir pour éclairer le présent […]” (2019, 331). For more on the specific ways in which Patrick Deville writes about the past, see also Viart (2014).
It should be noted that Deville makes clear that Yersin’s scientific projects are as successful as they are in part due to the fact that Yersin is working within a colonial framework on what is, essentially, “un empire dans l’Empire” (2012, 188). For a careful analysis of the complex ways Deville engages with colonial history in Peste & Choléra, see Asholt (2019), who emphasizes: “La relative réussite de cette vie n’est possible que grâce aux conditions exceptionnelles d’une colonie” (178).
Elise Benchimol also notes the proliferation of idiomatic expressions in the text, highlighting that the title itself is based on an expression “choisir entre la peste et le choléra,” and that the metaphor of “la peste brune” runs throughout the novel as well (2019, 190).
The “petite baleine blanche” appears on pages 9, 10, 29, 43 (3 times), 61, 63, 71, 99, 100, 132 (twice), 199, 209.
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Epp, M. Physical and Figural Animals in Patrick Deville’s Peste & Choléra. Neophilologus 106, 217–230 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-021-09708-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-021-09708-3