by Jean Raspail
translated by Norman Shapiro
The Social Contract Press, 314 pp., $12.95
Here's an even more controversial book, reprinted still again and generating anger and rage in many of its readers.
Raspail's novel, which was first published in 1973, speculates in what way the West would respond to a massive refugee problem from the South. To wit, one million Indians are massed on decrepit ships, headed for France-the author's country of birth-where they assume their lives will be better. They're packed like sardines, in disease and squalor, but willing to take the chance to change their lot in life.
So how will the West, in this case the French, respond? Blow them up before they arrive? Deny them entry? Mow them down if they try to land? Or simply let the refugee flotilla drift around the world, from country to country, until they're all dead?
It's not a pretty story but too close to the bone to be ignored. Raspail doesn't know anything about plotting. The premise would have been fine for a short story, actually. But for this work, there are too many chapters become needless digressions. Nevertheless, the novel is being increasingly discussed in the academic world because it provokes-if nothing else-heated arguments by its defenders and distracters.
Read it and decide for itself, but be prepared for some nasty arguments with your friends.
Charles Larson is the magazine's book reviews and fiction editor.
