The Ecological Vision of J.M.G. Le Clézio

Chapter 1: Haï

Haï marks a seminal point in Le Clézio’s literary development and can be viewed as an introduction to the author’s ecological vision, to a mode of thinking and being in the world that will underpin the three studies that follow.⁵ The chapter is directly inspired by a period Le Clézio spent living amongst the Emberas and Waunanas, the Indigenous peoples of the Panamanian rainforest where he actively participated in their shamanic ceremonies. His primary aim in this chapter is to draw our attention to the contemporary relevance of Indigenous thought and practice. The text emerges as a powerful subversion of anthropocentrism, of the nature/culture dualism that underpins Western thought and social practice.

My chapter is divided into two parts mirroring the stages of a shamanic festival. In the first section, I explore the philosophical themes underpinning Amerindian cultural practice. Here I draw attention to the central role played by material energy, by le vivant, calling to mind Henri Bergson’s concept of an intelligence or language within all living beings and within matter. In other words, the chapter collapses the oppositions between subject and object, inner and outer, thought and life that lie at the core of Western reason. Instead, the focus is on a poetic sensorial language of expression, or what might be called its magical function, the mode of communication between all forms of life.

In order to broaden the scope and to enrich the reader’s experience, I explore the thematic parallels between Amerindian thought and several Western philosophers whose writings have clearly influenced the composition of the text. Here, the direct impact of the phenomenological approach of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as well as his later writings on animals can be detected. Indeed, the key role Merleau-Ponty accords the body and senses in the production of meaning is a core theme of all four books. In other words, there is a fundamental rejection of representational language viewed as a tool of power over others, non-human and human. I also draw attention to the importance of earlier research conducted by the biosemiotician Jacob von Uexküll, whose concept of the Umwelt, of animal territories, has considerably widened our understanding of animal behaviour especially that of insects and birds, thereby enriching our reading of literary texts. Indeed, his writings have been a particular source of inspiration for the poet and writer Jean-Christophe Bailly. At the same time, I address the theme of human–animal equality, bringing to the fore intertextual relations with the anthropologist Philippe Descola and the philosopher Bruno Latour. The wider political and ecological implications of this approach are also developed. My study of Haï is supported by brief references to Le Clézio’s later poetic writings, including an analysis of short passages.

In the second part of my chapter, I focus directly on the shamanic festivals, principally on the stage named ‘Beka, La Fête Chantée’. Here I examine the crucial role played by sensorial language, especially that of sound in a communication with the non-human world. I explore in this context the act of metamorphosis, a poetic rendering of Gilles Deleuze’s notion of ‘becoming-animal’. For instance, by imitating the voice or sound of frogs, Indigenous peoples can themselves ‘become’ frogs. Furthermore, it is music itself that lies at the very core of the natural world (p. 52), strengthening the central ecological theme of the interrelationship of all forms of life.

At the same time, however, Le Clézio draws attention to an Indigenous awareness of the fragility of life and of the dangers posed by introspection and by egocentrism. These dangers express themselves as illness, signalling ‘la nécessité de s’exprimer’ (p. 41) and highlighting the crucial role of poetic language in releasing the forces of life. As we shall see later, in Le Clézio’s book Bitna, sous le ciel de Séoul, it is the very sound of the storyteller’s words that triggers a metamorphosis, prolonging the life of the mortally ill Salomé.

In the concluding section of the chapter, I address directly the theme of transcendence or the mystical: by shedding their anthropomorphic skin in these festivals, humans can communicate with the very source or ground of life. It is in this relationship to the earth and to cosmic forces that the term ‘becoming-animal’ acquires an enriched significance. This theme is developed in different ways in the three chapters that follow.

Importantly, throughout the essay Le Clézio engages with the wider sociopolitical significance of Amerindian thought. The text opens and closes with images of the destructive power of the contemporary Western city. In the final pages, we are warned of the very real possibility of an apocalypse and of the urgent need for continual poetic expression. This critique in Haï of the Western concept of civilisation, of colonialism and indeed of war itself (pp. 13, 17–18) is developed in Bitna in the portrayal of contemporary Seoul against the background of the conflict between North and South Korea. It emerges as a major theme of Alma, arguably the author’s most ambitious and far-reaching work to date.

Haï can be said then to anticipate the ecological approach I shall adopt in this book, that is known as la zoopoétique as developed by the Proust specialist and semiotician Anne Simon. It covers the three areas addressed above – poetic expression, the philosophical and the political – and necessarily involves a close reading of the language of the texts.⁶ The essay acquires a certain prophetic power in the light of the massive ecological destruction we are now witnessing, a very real threat to life on earth.⁷