Régis Messac (1893–1945)

Régis Messac and his little novel 'Quinzinzinzili' were unknown to me until one of the invitees at an authors' event in 2019 in a French chain store offered his reading suggestions. Why it took me this long to read this little book, is due to a variety of reasons. However, it's all a matter of time, circumstances and mental readiness.

The story was written in first-person POV and published in 1935, and is set in a post-apocalyptic world, after Japan attack Honolulu. Messac's character, Gérard Dumaurier, gives account of how he lived through the entire period of desolation. There's mention of a Second World War - which would indeed break out later - and of the various nations being pitted against one another: USSR -> Japan Germany What is Quinzinzili? As mentioned, oral language plays a huge role here, as the children developed their own lingua franca, derived from French. The author explained it as an evolution of a part of the prayer Holy Father, precisely the phrase: Who art in heaven, qui es in cœlis. Quizinzinzili would soon stand for God himself or anything from God, any divine intervention. So too with other words that would acquire a different or additional meanings

Gérard himself lives his life, will support the children when needed (like in need of fire to warm themselves or fetch water from the river, as the group is soon deprived of every basic comfort: clothes, proper food, water, ... they are in survival mode and have to hunt: moles, rabbits, ...). The children don't need Gérard per se, he's tolerated and on some occasions very well respected, as if he was a descendant of God.

The cultural and linguistic differences also lead to Gérard not having any faith in this new generation of mankind, the children that will have to rebuild it all from scratch. None of them are deemed intelligent enough to handle it all. However, the only girl in the group seems to stand her ground, even challenges those boys who seek to overpower her. Love would not come into play, or rather, it wouldn't be love, but a more mechanical version of it. Procreation for survival and continue the human race.

The primitive character of the group also leads to untimely deaths. What's problematic gets removed... until someone returns from the dead. God comes back into play then, even if the boy in question showed how he managed to live. Plato's cave, anyone?

In the end, and as Gérard has not let himself in with the group's behaviour and decisions, this dark and pretty melancholic story is a kind of monologue about the non-belief in the future of mankind, especially in a generation that does not know or realise where it comes from, what civilisation looked like before, what evolution there has been until the all-destroying war. In short, why bother worrying about how they'll fare if your life is nearing its end and you're no longer considered relevant for the group? The group will find a way to continue. And if not "your" group, then an other will.

While it's not exactly an uplifting story, it does make you think about life, about the state of the world (today or any day). The short chapters and the pleasant style (interspersed with pinches of humour) make this one hell of a page-turner. Published in 1935? Still relevant today, very much so.

This little 2017 reissue contains a preface (by Éric Dussert, the original preface (about creating a better or different world, while promoting the series Hypermondes, which reminds me of the contemporary French festival Hypermondes: two editions have so far been organised, and two anthologies have been published) and a letter from writer Théo Varlet to Régis Messac, written in 1936.… (more)