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Gillian Bickley

The World as It Shall Be

by Emile Souvestre

Translated by Margaret Clarke

Wesleyan University Press $234

The World as It Shall Be was written to satirise the world and to warn  of the dark future humankind was creating. Much of the satire can  find a contemporary target today. The feared future Emile Souvestre described was simply the present writ large. Looking around us, a century and a half into that future, we perhaps see the same present and accept the logic for the same future, waiting in the wings.

This is the first English translation of the French novel Le Monde tel qu'il sera, the first fully illustrated book of science fiction when published in 1846. It provides a link between the earliest works

of future fiction and the likes of George Orwell's 1984.

Souvestre was known internationally during his brief life (1806-1854) for the originality of his fiction. His success in  France can be gauged by the publication of a first study of his life and literary achievements three years after his death, and by continuing frequent reprints. His widow received the Prix Lambert - given to 'the families of authors who by their integrity and by the probity of their efforts have well deserved this token' - from the Republic of Letters.

The satirical and moral purpose of the novel is conveyed through a simple narrative. A young newly married couple, Marthe and Maurice, travel to the year 3000. They visit various institutions and meet several individuals. But their expectations of a renewed society, just and spiritually pure, are bitterly disappointed. 'In the midst of all these great improvements in material things he looked for the human being, and saw him just as poor, depraved, and disinherited.'

Maurice speaks of his hopes, and is misunderstood. 'It seems that our friend is slightly touched,' one of the listeners comments.

'No,' another replies. 'He is a child.'

The objects of the satire are surprisingly contemporary. An early feminist proclaims that, 'The rights of women were as simple as they were clear: they consisted in not recognising those of men.'

Plays (we might substitute 'films') are satirised for their emphasis on special effects and animal characters, their focus on star performers, the slightness of the stories and their lack of interest in character. Hard comments are directed at politics and government, the law, the civil service, public libraries, prison discipline, the literary world, artists' colonies  and history.

The World as It Shall Be ends with God's disappointment with man and the world man has made. 'Because they have conquered  the seas, imprisoned the air,  and mastered fire, they said to themselves - We are the masters  of the world, and no one can call  us to account.'

God unleashes destruction on the world, destruction brought by the very water, air and fire that men and women had believed their servants. A modern reader might interpret this as destruction by pollution of the environment, over-exploitation of the natural world and a too speedy implementation of an imperfect understanding of natural laws. The World as It Shall Be finishes on an optimistic note: 'Peace to men of good will. It is for them that the human race will be born again, and a new world will rise from the ruins.'

Would Souvestre have written so confidently today?

Margaret Clarke's translation is careful, well informed, lucid and smooth and the preface by I. F. Clarke, her husband, offers the enthusiastic and most interesting fruits of his vast knowledge of future fiction writing, produced from a lifetime's scholarship. The notes mediate the French original for those more versed in English than French literature, indicating comparisons with the social criticisms of the English novelist Charles Dickens and referring to the English poet William Wordsworth's utopian hopes arising from the French Revolution.

One might also point to a strong similarity to the creator of Gulliver's Travels, the 17th-century English satirist Jonathan Swift.

The original illustrations for The World as It Shall Be are delightful.



The World as It Shall Be