Michel Tournier (1924-)

Le Roi des Aulnes (1970)The Ogre

Michel Tournier b. 19/12/1924 (87 shortly)

parents, met university, studying German

Germanistik, holidays as young boy, remembers processions, swastikas, signs (reversibility)

1929, age 4, tonsillotomy without anaesthetic.

1941, 17, Lycée Pasteur Neuilly, philosophy

1942, licence philosophie

1943, Sartre’s L’Être et le Néant (VP 159)

1946, maîtrise ‘Intellectual intuition in Plato’s philosophy.’

1946, Tübingen, 3 wks – almost 4 yrs

1949, agrégation, failed, Butor also

1950, agrégation, failed again

1950, Radio Diffusion Française

1954, Europe 1, PR

1958, redundancy, Plon, reader

1950s/1960s, hand to mouth

March 1967, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, re-writing of Robinson Crusoe, inversion of civilisation/nature, teacher/pupil, Rousseau Emile, enlightenment, ecological, temporal, rational, subjectivity, transformation, philosophy, Nietzsche, Spinoza’s ethics, Nov 1969 Grand Prix du Roman

Aug 1970, Le Roi des Aulnes, Nov 1970 Prix Goncourt unanime (‘The Ogre’ in The Wind Spirit)

1975, Les Méteores, twins, journey, Venice, Djerba, Iceland, Kyoto, Berlin, separation of unit into two halves, Descartes’ science

1977, Le Vent Paraclet, intellectual autobiography

1978, Le Coq de Bruyère, short stories, re-writing of Genesis, ‘Amandine ou les deux jardins’, allegorical reading of philosophy

1980, Gaspard, Melchior, et Balthazar, re-telling of Nativity from the perspective of the three kings, and the re-introduction of a fourth king, from European mythology, allegory of censorship and freedom of interpretation, transfiguration, original sin, iconoclastic re-writing of the eucharist

1983, Gilles et Jeanne, Bataille, Gilles de Rais, Jeanne d’Arc, child abduction, rape, mutilation, burning and cannibalism

1986, La Goutte d’Or, immigration, prohibition on figuration in Islam, sign versus image, European racism

Themes

Philosophy/experienceInversionTransfigurationNomad/sedentaryOrigin/creationViolence/PerversionMyth

Education = initiation + instruction.

Myth initiates. How?

Creation, Individuation, Maturation, History

• Cosmology• Aetiology• Teleology• Eschatology

‘The bridge from metaphysics to the novel was provided by myth.’ The Wind Spirit, p.156

‘A myth is a fundamental story.’ WS, p.156 ‘Told in this way, the myth is a mere child’s story […] At a higher level, however, it embodies a whole theory of knowledge; at a still higher level a theory of morality, metaphysics and ontology. Yet it remains the same story.’ P.156 ‘A dead myth is called an allegory. The writer’s function is to prevent myths from becoming allegories.’ WS, p.160 Solitude, the monster, the twins, the traveller. Traditional form, subversive content. ‘The important thing is not to innovate at the level of form, but rather to place into a form that is as traditional, established and reassuring as possible a subject matter that has strictly none of these qualities.’ WS (my translation)

The vocation of the ogre

The diversion of an economy of procreation to an economy of abduction/consumption (destruction).

A circuit of desire in which concerns for flesh and bodily processes replace concern for children.

The first words of the novel indicate Abel’s potentially deviant intimacy - from producing children to devouring children.

An amorous, sacrificial and culinary cult.

Sinister Writings of Abel Tiffauges

Memories of Saint-Christophe: Boys’ wounds, Pelsenaire, Nestor, Nestor’s influence, covering his left hand, the absolute in the relative, gyroscope, Saint Christopher, the christophore, density, phoria and children, coprology, alpha & omega, spectacular events eclipsing Tiffauges’ responsibility, Nestor fire.

These childhood memories are interwoven by Tiffauges’ first, tentative explorations of his vocation in contemporary Paris – signs, the name Abel, Bram, the caca shampoo, microgenitomorphism, raw food, the angelic, inversion, discovery of phoria, definitions and etymology, phoria and Etienne, photography, density of children and their cries, Martine, sound recording, roller-skating boys’ wounds, Weidmann, Martine assaulted, arrest, War, destiny.

Fate intervenes to allow Tiffauges to explore and develop his pedephoric vocation.

The Pigeons of the Rhine - Pigeons, science and technique of colombophilia, beginning of a cult of Nature, and a foreshadowing of later events in the Napola. Hyperborea - Transition, subterranean, blessing, accord given by nature, the blind elk, the head forester of Rominten Heath, The Erl-King, p.188 The Ogre of Rominten - Animals and nature act as Tiffauges’ tutor, nature cult, the note of the trumpets recalls the cry of children, aurochs, Goering, expert in phallology and coprology, venery, the phallophoric angel (stag), whose testicles are symbolised in the antlers. The antlers are symbols, inverted and carried. Inversion, phoria, sign. The rite of the ogre is coprology. Alpha and omega. Kaltenborn Castle, The Ogre of Rastenburg. The Ogre of Kaltenborn – Jungmannen. Dr Otto Blaettchen. ‘Beware of the Ogre of Kaltenborn,’ Haïo & Haro, Lothar. ‘Everything is in symbols,’ p.302, Fantasy of purity, community, earth, race and its situation in children. The hypnodrome.

The Astrophore – the flattened corpse, Hellmut, Arnim the Swabian, the concentration camp inmates on forced march, Ephraïm, Auschwitz, the anus mundi, pp.353-57, the cry, p.366-8 = inversion of phorie, alpha/omega joined. Transfiguration.  What has happened? Does he become Le Roi des Aulnes?  Transfiguration. Benign phoria. He saves a child.  What does Tournier’s use of imagery and symbolism in Le Roi des Aulnes tell us about character and history? Symbolism – abstract, timeless, has the effect of dissolving the character’s experiences into eternal significance, history. Imagery – grotesque, abject, has the effort of visceral, intense, personal experience. Time of history collapses into time of experience. Visceral and eternal. Like an ogre.

‘It is Bach's final fugues which inspired the "dessein general" (general plan)of Le Roi des Aulnes (VP, 128). As Tournier explains, the cantor of St. Thomasencoded his own name into the last fugues of The Art of the Fugue by buildinga theme on the notes represented in German notation by the letters B A C Hand thereby, according to Tournier, giving the fugues their "incandescence"(VP, 130). Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that Tournier has slyly Structured Le Roi des aulnes around much the same principle, using the letters of his own name to inspire eight different fugal themes, each beginning with a letterof the name TOURNIER:

• Tiffauges, the protagonist• the Ogre, the archetype which haunts Tiffauges• the Unhold, an elk representing Germany• Rominten, Goring's hunting lodge• the Napola, a military school• Inversion, the reversal of appearances[,value and meaning]• Ephraïm, the Jewish child• the Roi des Aulnes himself […]’

Susan Petit, ‘Fugal Structure in Le Roi des Aulnes’