Michel Tournier’s Strange Tale - Le Roi des Aulnes
On the occasion of Michel Tournier’s death in January this year, Bernard Pivot, the president
of the Académie Goncourt, stated that he could have or rather should have been awarded
the Nobel prize (click here). Pivot is not alone in his admiration for Tournier as, indeed, he has become
one of the most celebrated and studied writers in recent French literature.
He published his first novel at the ripe age of 42, having previously translated German non-
fiction and worked on the radio. Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique, which came out in
1967, was a reworking of the Robinson story – itself later reworked by Tournier as a
children’s book, Vendredi ou la vie sauvage (1971). It won the Grand Prix de l’Académie
française and inspired Gilles Deleuze to write his seminal essay L’île déserte, in which he
lauded praise on Tournier’s work (and trashed Defoe’s along the way).
Le Roi des Aulnes followed in 1970. It is the only novel to date to have been awarded the
Goncourt prize by unanimous decision. It is also a most peculiar and disturbing read. The
protagonist, Abel Tiffauges, has a rough upbringing in a Catholic boarding school where he
encounters Nestor, a larger than life character who opens his eyes to the interpretation of
signs. Nestor dies in a fire but Tiffauges feels spiritually guided by him and embarks on a
journey of self-discovery that will lead him, following various twists of fate, to Kaltenborn,
where young boys are trained up to be the cream of the Third Reich.
The novel is disturbing partly because it takes us back to a murky past, one which recent
Nobel prize winner Patrick Modiano also explores at great length in his work: the war, the
Occupation, Nazi Germany. The ‘ogre’ Tiffauges not only relishes his time spent in the plains
of East Prussia, but has a very unusual, passionate relationship with children. While not
sexual in any conventional sense, he experiences a sense of euphoria in carrying them, a
sensation that Tiffauges obsessively looks to decipher, to interpret as part of a grand
structure, narrative or myth. The reader is encouraged along the way to do so as well: to
become mythologists, mini Lévi-Strauss’s.
However, Tiffauges’s obsession with sign-reading makes him appear like a conspiracy
theorist. So just as we too are encouraged to become hyper-attentive readers, we are also
mocked for trying to look for revelations under each and every aspect of the novel. This is
indeed what we discovered in the time spent discussing Le Roi des Aulnes together at the
Reading Group. We could have gone on all night. Next time, we just might as we head off to
Pointe Noire in the Congo in the company of Alain Mabanckou. RDV on 12 May at the
Institut français.
Dominic Glynn is Lecturer in French at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR).