Mohamed-Alioum Fantouré’s Le récit du cirque…de la Vallée des Morts: The Limitations of Stylistic Innovation

Summary

Mohamed-Alioum Fantouré, the Guinean exile whose real name is shrouded in secrecy, is one of the most politically committed and artistically innovative of the second generation of writers in Francophone Africa. This essay focuses on his second novel, Le récit du cirque…de la Vallée des Morts (The Tale of the Circus…of the Valley of Death), which reveals his political stance and also demonstrates his stylistic originality. However, it should be noted that even though our main concern here is with the limitation of the author's stylistic innovations, it is necessary to dwell very briefly on the theme of the novel in order to give better attention to the primary focus of our essay.

Like his first novel, Le cercle des Tropiques (1972), Le récit du cirque… is a biting satire of dictatorship. But unlike the former, it does not stop at exposing and ridiculing dictatorship. Rather, it goes further to castigate the victims and observers of dictatorship whose indifference facilitates its establishment and sustainability. The novelist's strictures against them stem from his conviction that timely resistance can stifle the growth of an incipient dictatorship. As he puts it: ‘En vérité, ce ne sont pas les injustices dans les sociétés de notre époque qu’on doit combattre, c’est l’indifférence qu’on devrait attaquer’ (25) (‘In truth, it is not injustice of our time that we must fight against, it is indifference that we should attack’).

This observation brings back to mind part of Emperor Haile Selassie's reminiscences of his country's invasion and occupation by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini from 1936 to 1941, in his address to the League of Nations, here reproduced from the website en.wikisource. org:

Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph. (Translated by the Haile Selassie I Press)

Equally, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ (attributed to Edmund Burke).

In Le récit du cirque…, a country simply named Ce-pays (This Country) is ruled by a ruthless dictator – Rhinocéros-Tâcheté. The members of the ruling class have created around him the myth of invincibility which they exploit to discourage social groups or individual citizens from challenging the excesses of the regime.