|
At the start of the Second World War, soldier Pierre Saint-Menoux, a mathematician in civilian life, meets physicist Noël Essaillon. Essaillon has invented a very peculiar substance that allows time travel. Saint-Menoux agrees to assist the scientist and participate in various experiments to uncover humanity’s destiny. He will witness, among other things, the dramatic events described in Ravage and explore the degenerate society of the year 100,000.
Naturally, one thinks of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine when reading the depiction of a distant, dehumanised future that now feels somewhat quaint to the modern reader. I personally found the hero’s wanderings through the past more engaging, even though his tragic end is somewhat predictable given the book’s title.
Fifteen years later, in a new edition, Barjavel added a three-page postscript, “To be and not to be.” Here, he discusses the grandfather paradox, of which Saint-Menoux becomes a victim…
While the novel is considered a pioneer of the genre, I expected much more. I enjoy the concept of time paradoxes and interventions in the past causing unexpected repercussions in the present. However, I’m much less fond of the author’s fatalistic perspective, where God seemingly has the final say on everything. I found the portrayal of the past a bit clichéd, the vision of the future too … bizarre … and, above all, I found the hero dumb as a rock!
Incidentally, and without veering into moralising, one can note a few references to the role of women or the nigger, which might elicit either a wry smile or a wince.
|
Le Voyageur imprudent
Future Times Three