Banana Tourist
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Et que faisait-il, la veille encore, dans une hutte abandonnée, à flanc de montagne, comme un animal ? Qu’avait-il voulu faire ? Qu’avait-il espéré ? Il avait toujours eu peur de l’obscurité et il était allé s’installer, tout seul, dans la montagne ! Car il avait peur de l’obscurité, peur des bruits qu’on entend tout à coup dans les broussailles. Il avait peur des pieuvres et des poissons qui piquent et il s’était obstiné à pêcher dans le lagon ! Il avait le vertige et il s’était embauché pour travailler au barrage à Great Hole City ! Il était timide au point d’en rougir quand on l’interpellait et, à Paris, il s’était entraîné à parler en public au nom d’un parti politique !" |
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Touriste de bananes (1938) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon.
The novel is very similar in substrate to Quartier nègre (1935) and Ceux de la soif (1938), all dealing with the degradation of a European in a colonial environment; in this case a neurotic young man who wishes to go back to nature.
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Plot
Oscar Donadieu, who has long left his family after the death of his father, Oscar Donadieu, a shipowner in La Rochelle, is on his way to Tahiti where he will settle as a “banana tourist”, that is to say, in isolation eager to live a back to nature life on the island, far from civilization. The boat which takes him to Tahiti, takes on board Captain Lagre, accused of having killed a young officer: he is brought back to Papeete to be tried there. The cause of the tragedy is a young native that the two men were fighting over, Tamatéa.
Disembarking in Tahiti during the rainy season, Donadieu settles for a few days at the hotel “Au Relais des Méridiens”, where the regulars lead an existence consisting of idleness and artificial pleasures. But the new "tourist" discovers an abandoned hut near a waterfall and settles there. Shortly after, some friends of Papeete visit him with Tamatéa. More and more, Donadieu wants to join the civilized world. His loneliness weighs on him all the more as his relationship with Tamatéa has evolved and has now become very intimate.
At the hearing of his trial, Lagre seems totally absent: for him, what happened was an accident. Donadieu, for his part, refuses a place in an office. Little by little, exhaustion undermines him. Several times he takes the path to Papeete, but returns before he gets there. One day, however, he goes all the way: it is the day of Lagre's judgment, and he has the opportunity to see the baseness of colonial justice. He feels compelled to revolt, but does not have the strength. He understands that his ‘back to nature’ ideal, but refuses to resign himself to the life he witnessed at the “Relais des Méridiens”. Death is for him the last resort: after a last embrace with Tamatéa, he commits suicide.
Particular aspects of the novel
Continuation of Le Testament Donadieu , of which we find the epilogue here: we learn what became of the members of Oscar's family after the funeral of Martine and her husband on the occasion of which the young man had returned from America
Data sheet of the book
Space-time frame
Space
On board the Cargo "Île-de-Ré", during the crossing from Marseille to Tahiti.
Time
Contemporary period.
The characters
Main character
Oscar Donadieu. Youngest son of the Donadieu family. Single. 25 years.
Other characters
- Ferdinand Lagre, captain of the boat " l’Ile-d’Oléron"
- Tamatéa, Tahitian, prostitute of Papeete.
Editions
- Serial pre-publication in the daily "Paris-Soir", from February 22 to March 29, 1938, under the title "Tomates de Tahiti"
- Original edition: Gallimard, 1938
- Tout Simenon, tome 21 , Omnibus, 2003 Template:ISBN
- Police Folio, n ° 384, 2005 Template:ISBN
- Romans durs, tome 3 , Omnibus, 2012 Template:ISBN
Source
- Maurice Piron, Michel Lemoine, L'Univers de Simenon, guide des romans et nouvelles (1931-1972) de Georges Simenon, Presses de la Cité, 1983, p. 66-67 Template:ISBN
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