Invasion of the Sea. Jules Verne

issues of human morality and social responsibility tended to be foregrounded more often. Consider, for example, the dystopian portrayal of the “City of Steel” (Stahlstadt) constructed by Verne’s first truly evil scientist, Herr Schultze, in Les Cinq Cents millions de la Bégum (1876, The Begum’s Fortune); or the famous “Gun Club” engineers Barbicane and Maston in Sans dessus dessous (1889, The Purchase of the North Pole), who, as caricatures of their former selves, are wholly indifferent to the potentially catastrophic effects on the entire world when they attempt to alter the earth’s axis with a blast from a gigantic cannon; or, finally, in Maître du monde (1904, Master of the World), the once-heroic aeronaut Robur turned crazed megalomaniac, who, with his powerful vehicle Epouvante, now seeks to rule all the nations of the earth. In these and many later Voyages Extraordinaires, the central “message” of the story seems to echo the dictum of François Rabelais: “Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme” (science [knowledge] without conscience leads to the ruin of one’s soul). Further, in many of these works, it is only through the last-moment intervention of a providential deus ex machina—in the form of a gas leak, a lightning bolt, etc.—that the heroes are saved, the presumptuous scientist(s) punished, the scientific “novum” eliminated, and the status quo safely reestablished.

      In contrast, Verne’s Invasion of the Sea seems astonishingly “politically incorrect” in its near total inattention to the potential human and environmental consequences of constructing an inland sea in North Africa. And the sudden earthquake that functions as the deus ex machina climax of this novel, rather than destroying the project and causing a return to the status quo, actually completes the French scientists’ work-in-progress: the “Sahara Sea” is ultimately created, albeit by natural causes instead of by human design. Finally, suggesting the wrath of a vengeful God, an ensuing tidal wave drowns the rebellious Tuareg and their leader Hadjar, who had fiercely opposed this project from the beginning. The implication is quite clear: both morality and destiny are on the side of Science and Progress.

      Although some critics have dismissed Verne’s Invasion of the Sea as merely “one more panegyric to the civilizing mission of the Europeans,”²⁵ its true status within Verne’s oeuvre is considerably more complex. What caused the aging and ailing Verne to suddenly revert to the apparent positivistic ideology of his earliest works? Why, for the first time in his Voyages Extraordinaires, did he abruptly end his narrative after the completion of the scientific project in question, portraying no fictional follow-up to its realization? Why, after so many late novels in which he had sympathetically portrayed numerous oppressed peoples—for example, Greek freedom fighters in L’Archipel en feu (1884, Archipelago on Fire), Hungarian nationalists in Mathias Sandorf (1885, Mathias Sandorf), French-Canadians in Famille-sans-nom (1889, Family without a Name), and Russian peasants in Un Drame en Livonie (1904, A Drama in Livonia)—did Verne apparently turn his back on the fate of the Saharan Tuareg in their fight against French colonialism? And why, instead of A New Sea in the Sahara, did Verne choose at the last moment to retitle this work The Invasion of the Sea—a title that, ironically, would seem to reflect the perspective of the Tuareg themselves as victims of this twofold “invasion”? There are no definitive answers to these important questions, and scholarly opinion on them continues to be divided.²⁶ But one fact is certain: this novel is both more polyvalent and less prone to facile reductionism than any one-dimensional reading of it might suggest. If Jules Verne’s Invasion of the Sea “closes the circle” on his life’s work, critical discussion of the book itself remains far from closed.

      i

The Oasis of Gabès

      “How much do you know?”

      “I know what I heard in the port.”

      “Were people talking about the ship that’s coming to get—coming to take Hadjar away?”

      “Yes, to Tunis, where he will go on trial.”

      “And be sentenced to death?”

      “And be sentenced to death.”

      “Allah will not allow that to happen, Sohar! No! He won’t allow it!”

      “Sh!” said Sohar suddenly, listening intently as if he heard footsteps on the sand.

      Without standing up, he crawled to the entrance of the abandoned marabout in which this conversation was taking place. It was still daylight, but the sun would soon disappear behind the dunes bordering this side of the coast of the Gulf of Gabès.¹ At the beginning of March, twilight does not last long on the thirty-fourth parallel of the northern hemisphere. The solar orb does not approach the horizon obliquely, but appears to fall vertically, like a body obeying the law of gravity.

      Sohar stopped, rose, and took a few steps through the doorway, which was scorched by the heat of the sun’s rays. In one brief glance he took in the surrounding plain.

      To the north, a kilometer and a half away, swelled the verdant treetops of an oasis. To the south stretched the endless band of yellowish shoreline, fringed with foam flung up by the backwash of the rising tide. To the west, a group of dunes stood out against the sky. To the east was the broad expanse of the sea that forms the Gulf of Gabès and that washes the Tunisian coast as it curves south toward Tripolitania.

      The light westerly breeze that had cooled the atmosphere during the day had died down as evening fell. No sound came to Sohar’s ears. He had thought he heard someone walking near the marabout, a square structure of old white masonry sheltered by an ancient palm tree, but realized he had been mistaken. There was no one, either in the direction of the dunes or in the direction of the beach. He walked all around the little building. There was no one, and no footprints in the sand, except for the ones he and his mother had left in front of the entrance.

      Barely a minute had elapsed after Sohar went out when Djemma appeared at the door, worried because she did not see her son coming back. As he came around the corner of the marabout, he waved to her reassuringly.

      Djemma was an African woman of the Tuareg tribe,² more than sixty years old, but tall, strong, energetic, and erect in bearing. There was a proud and passionate look in her eyes, which, like those of all women of her ethnic background, were blue. Her white skin appeared yellow under the ochre dye covering her forehead and cheeks. She wore dark clothing, a loose-fitting haik made of wool abundantly provided by the flocks kept by the Hammâma who lived near the sebkha (salt marshes) and chotts (salt lakes) of lower Tunisia.³ A wide hood covered her thick head of hair, which was only now beginning to turn grey.

      Djemma stayed where she was, without moving, until her son joined her. He had seen nothing suspicious nearby, and the silence was broken only by the plaintive song of a few pairs of bouhabibi, or Djerid sparrows, flitting about near the dunes.

      Djemma and Sohar went back into the marabout to wait for nightfall, when they would be able to reach Gabès without attracting attention.

      The conversation continued.

      “Has the ship left La Goulette?”

      “Yes, mother. It rounded Cap Bon this morning. It’s the cruiser Chanzy.”

      “Will it get here tonight?”

      “Yes, unless it puts in at Sfax. But it will more likely come and anchor off Gabès, where your son—my brother—will be taken aboard.”

      “Hadjar, Hadjar,” murmured the old woman.

      Shaking violently with anger and grief, she cried out, “My son, my son! Those foreigners will kill him, and I’ll never see him again. And he’ll no longer be here to lead the Tuareg in our holy war. No, no, Allah will not allow this to happen!”