Wandering Star

Hello Gentle Reader

J.M.G Le Clezio was the Nobel Laureate in Literature of two thousand eight. This was the last Nobel Laureate in that Horace Engdal, the former Permanent Sectary of the Swedish Academy; had announced. In June of two thousand and nine, his successor Peter Englund, was appointed the current Permanent Sectary of the Swedish Academy. Horace Engdal had announced in the ten years of his Permanent Sectary duties, he had announced nine Nobel Laureates they are as listed as the following with their corresponding year:

Two Thousand – Gao Xingjian
Two Thousand and One – (Sir) V.S. Naipaul
Two Thousand and Two – Imre Kertész
Two Thousand and Three – J.M. Coetzee
Two Thousand and Four – Elfriede Jelinek
Two Thousand and Five – Harold Pinter
Two Thousand and Six – Orhan Pamuk
Two Thousand and Seven – Doris Lessing
Two Thousand and Eight – Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio

Peter Englund has only announced two Nobel Laureates, the first in Two Thousand and Nine, Herta Muller, and the second just last year of Two Thousand and Ten with Mario Vargas Llosa. There will however be a third to his resume of Nobel Laureates that he has announced shortly. The clandestine debating, the secret voting, and soon the grand unveiling of this Nobel Laureate will happen shortly.

Upon the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature of Two Thousand and Eight Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio’s was overshadowed, by critics say “J.M.G who?” and criticizing the former Permanent Sectary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdal as being Anti-American, Eurocentric and that his comments were uncalled for, when he responded to a question posed to him by a journalist about whether or not an American author would win the prize. That moment had overshadowed the crowning moment of the career of Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who has been called “Frances Nomadic Author,” and early on in his career was dubbed the “Steve McQueen of French Literature,” and was a new icon of the left bank.

One thing anyone will hear about this Nobel Laureate is his incredible shift from his early novels to his later novels. From the years of nineteen-sixty three, till nineteen-seventy five roughly Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio formally experimented in his works. He was seen as a innovator and a rebel of the literary tradition. However in the late seventies something happened. Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio stopped this experimentation and focused on his more mature themes of childhood, adolescents, and travelling.

This is what the Swedish Academy may have meant by their reason for awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to this particular author with the following statement: “[J.M.G Le Clezio is an] author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.” – It should come to no surprise that Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio is a well traveled man living throughout the world, and holding dual citizenship both of France and Mauritius.

“Wandering Star,” was first published in France in the year nineteen-ninety two; and later translated into English in the year two-thousand and five. This novel comes close to being overtly poetic, with its rushing beautiful landscape depictions. But what had concerned me the most when I picked up this novel by the Nobel Laureate in Literature was the fact that it may be considered overtly political. There is nothing more that as an individual I myself could possibly despises, then politics. However it was pleasant surprise to see that there was no hidden agenda in this novel. Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio does not pick a side with this dispute between Israel and Palestine. He discusses both of these two groups of people as both of them suffering. Both of them in pain, and both wanders, that have experienced hardships. The moving scenes are the traveling over the mountains. The tragic loss of home and one’s own roots.

When first opening this book and reading the beautiful scenes of life in Saint-Martin-Vésubie was beautiful and touching; it was a scene of paradise. Even though were continued, and the Italian’s obviously had captured this picturesque alpine village, there is still a quiet sense that nothing is wrong. Sure there are out of the ordinary scenarios, to the character of Esther. Her father helps the Jew’s cross the mountains. She and all the other Jews must go and have food card rations verified or checked, by the Italian soldiers, but there is still a sense of childhood peace and enjoyment to it. Esther plays with the girls in the torrent of the river and the streams. She swims, and splashes water at the boys who come and gawk at her and the other girls, letting themselves be known, from their constant giggling. She wanders through the fields, and the hills, with the slight paranoia fear of vipers curling and slithering through the grass. Yet sometimes the war comes very close to her as well. The first time, was the site of seeing the peasants working in the fields harvesting the crops, with their scythes. Or the talk and gossip or the deliberate discussion of how all the Jews are going to be killed. It is at these moments, that the pastoral dream and reality is shattered for an instant and one can sense the creeping feeling of the SS and Hitler and the Nazi’s curling like the vipers in the grass. Out of site, but certainly on one’s mind.

One of my favourite scenes is when Mario, takes Esther out into the fields – the two hunting for vipers; and how Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio describes the two serpents making love.

“Esther saw something she wasn’t sure of laying on the shingle beach by the riverbank. It looked like a thick rope made if two short twisted fibres – the colo[u]r of dead leaves – that shone in the light as if someone had just taken it out of the water. Suddenly Esther shuttered – the rope was moving! Horrified, Esther watched through the grass as the two intertwined vipers slithered and twisted over the beach. At one point their heads parted, two short snouts, eyes with vertical pupils, mouths open. The vipers remained stuck together, staring fixedly at each other, as if in ecstasy. Then their bodies started twisting on the rocks again, slithering between the pebbles, coiling to one side. Clinging to one another in knots that slipped up and down, came undone, lashing their tails like whips. They continued to slide, roll, and, despite the crashing of the river, Esther thought she heard the scraping sound of scales running over one another.”

For me this one of those scenes that stood out. There was that dangerousness of the animals, themselves, and yet their peaceful love making. Their glistening scales could be seen in my minds eyes. This is one of those many poetic scenes in this novel. The novel is riddled with them. Little pebbles of a beach, scattered across it, and Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio takes the reader by the hand and leads them through these scenes of tragedy and beauty. Emotional scenes, of confusing scenes. Scenes of love and scenes of being lost and alone, drifting and migrating to and fro. It is the love of these two vipers, and the competing attention of two boys for Esther and her sexual awakening, her sudden disposition in the larger world, and then the migration and search for a habitat; at the cost of the native Arabs and there sudden disposition in the world. It is a novel of beauty but at times, overkill of poetics, and not a whole lot of action at times. Moving in some parts, and other wise drifting dull that, the words no longer hold one’s attention but are causally scanned for, at face value and left at that. However there is a reason that Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio became a Nobel Laureate and that is for his exploration of human beings throughout the world and the traveling and the migration and ecology that has become the human world. Certainly I look forward to reading other works by this Nobel Laureate as well.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

M. Mary

P.S. Stay tuned for later, to find out who is the Nobel Laureate in Literature of Two Thousand and Eleven -- by the way I am aware that some of the years have their first letters capitalized and others do not; I am tired and do not feel like going through it all and correcting it.