Literature through Technology. Depicting the Future of the Book from Verne to Barjavel
Résumé
French futuristic novels tend to develop a wide range of representations regarding the book of the future as it is impacted by technical inventions, from the phone to the digital paradigm through photography and film: Albert Robida’s “phono-livre” (La Vie électrique, 1890), Octave Uzanne’s “storyographe” powered by electricity from the human body, Henri Allorge’s “bibliophone” (Le grand cataclysme, 1922), Léon Daudet’s “cinébiblat” and “cinélivre” (Le Napus, 1927), Maurice Renard’s telepathic book (Un homme chez les microbes, 1928) or even René Barjavel’s “télélecture” (Ravage, 1943) among others. It is well known that the historical antagonism between Science and the Humanities deeply influenced the disciplinary boundaries and the respective values of the two fields. But it also appears that such a disciplinary discussion does involve the issue of the material and tangible forms of the book considered as an object. Futuristic novels put a specific emphasis on the acoustic, visual and tactile avatars of the book within a sociocultural context characterized by the rise of Applied Sciences and media communication.
Do these new media and formats compete with or complement to the former book patterns? Are such representations of the book as an audiovisual item some response to the predicted decline of the Humanities? Or are they rather a means of asserting the faith in a new forthcoming kind of literature? Although science may badly affect literature so as to produce an impoverishing mechanization of literary style (Jules Verne, Paris au XXe siècle, 1863), it also gives a valuable opportunity to create more ergonomic formats for a wider distribution and a more easily handheld book. Since the late 19th century until WWII, many futuristic novels propose to consider the book as it is located at the junction of Science and the Humanities rather than in their dichotomous opposition. Regarded as a specific leitmotiv, such a topic of technological and transmedia conversions of the book leads to reconsider the evolution of the identity paradigm of France as a “literary nation”. It also gives the opportunity to investigate the discrepancies and coincidences between the conjectural scope of these futuristic novels and the factual history of technological advances.