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<\/p>\nThe Camp of the Saints is an ugly book, even the most militant of its admirers must admit. There is good reason why this is the most controversial novel by a serious writer of the past 50 or so years. First published in French in 1973, The Camp of the Saints, because of its supposedly prophetic nature, has a growing cult status on the alt-right. Jean Raspail imagines the sudden arrival, on the beaches of the French Riviera, of a hundred vast, dilapidated vessels and nearly a million desperate immigrants from India, \u201cthe people of the Ganges\u201d.<\/p>\n
After weeks of futile, well-meaning debate about how to meet this looming challenge, the French state collapses. The navy refuses to intercept this armada as it crawls towards Europe. Army detachments
are sent south to repel the hordes when they land, but they mutiny and desert, refusing to fire on defenceless, starving people. The French president launches into an impressive broadcast, reminiscent of those made by leaders in wartime, demanding that the soldiers act in defence of France \u2014 but then halfway through the speech he loses his nerve, changes his mind and says they should act according to their consciences.<\/p>\n
The collapse is truly apocalyptic \u2014 the book\u2019s title is a quote from the Book of Revelations. The population of Provence flees north, in scenes reminiscent of the debacle of June 1940. Only a few diehards \u2014 gung-ho career officers, Catholic traditionalists and proud aristocrats \u2014 resist, holing up in a small hill village for a last stand. Meanwhile, round the world, seeing the abject weakness of the West, many more such invasion fleets are being prepared. In New York, London and Paris, the
oppressed immigrants already there rise up, seizing power unresisted, occupying apartments, rioting and raping.<\/p>\n
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The depiction of the migrants throughout is savagely, even gleefully, racist. The \u201cfloating slum\u201d stinks atrociously because these people cook using human shit as fuel. Their leader is \u201ca dung-roller by trade, a kneader of excrement, a shaper of guano briquettes, a coprophage in times of famine\u201d, who bears on his shoulders a monstrously deformed son. No other individuals are singled out from this \u201chuman torrent\u201d but it is lasciviously described as in constant sexual frenzy. \u201cOver the bodies, between breasts, buttocks, thighs, lips, fingers, ran streams of sperm \u2026 It was thus that, in shit and lust \u2014 but also hope \u2014 the Last Chance Armada pushed on towards the West.\u201d <\/p>\n
Not just a repellent but a worthless book, then, by a worthless writer? Not at all. Raspail (1925-2020), although now best known for this dystopia, was the author of more than 30 remarkable novels and travel books. Although never elected a member of the French Academy, he received many distinguished prizes, including in 2003 the Academy\u2019s Grand Prix for a life\u2019s work. <\/p>\n
A New York Times reviewer in 1975 damned the book as \u201cavowedly racist\u201d, but also observed that \u201cRaspail is a writer of undeniable power, and his torrent of invective suggests C\u00e9line at his most choleric. His political fantasy has the fevered intensity of a unified vision, giving it a visceral impact \u2014 like a truncheon in the kidneys, say.\u201d When it was reissued in France in 2011, it sold well (apparently half a million copies have been sold over 50 years) and received extensive media coverage, including a long, friendly interview with its author in Le Figaro.<\/p>\n
And vicious as these passages about the migrants are, they are not the main focus of the novel. The focus instead is on the moral and spiritual collapse of the West that prevents it putting up any resistance to being overwhelmed. The bulk of the narrative turns back to the ten or so weeks that the flotilla is en route, to turn even harsher scorn on the hopeless reactions of the French politicians and commentators in the media, guilt-laden clergymen and self-serving activists, would-be benefactors and addled protesters.<\/p>\n
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