I’m unsure how many people are familiar with or have read Michel Tournier’s The Ogre. Originally published in 1970, the novel resurfaced as a blip on the public radar in 1996 when it was made into a film starring John Malkovich.
The early parts of the novel—The Sinister Writings of Abel Tiffauges—written in the first person from the protagonist’s point of view, are mystical in tone and somewhat engaging. After that, for reasons I’ll never understand, Tournier alters the narrative voice to the third person, then oscillates between the third-person omniscient narrator and Abel’s first-person narration.
The jarring back and forth between voices shreds the coherence and continuity of the plot, and about two-thirds of the way through the book, Tournier seems to struggle with his creation. The fictional landscape he creates overwhelms him, and the reader can almost sense him struggling to find a coherent way out.
One lay reviewer referred to the novel as “one of those books you can’t put down even though you know that the writer is doing little more than taking a giant shit in your brain.”
It certainly has that feeling at times.
Anyway, I happened to pluck the novel from my shelves the other day and was struck by the brief but vivid exposition on pre-mortal existence in the book’s second paragraph:
And I do believe I issued from the mists of time. I’ve always been shocked at the frivolous way people agonize about what’s going to happen to them after they die and don’t give a damn about what happened to them before they were born. The heretofore is just as important as the hereafter, especially as it probably holds the key to it.
As for me, I was already there a thousand, a hundred thousand years ago. When the earth was still only a ball of fire spinning around in a helium sky the soul that lit it and made it spin was mine. What’s more, the dizzying antiquity of my origins explains my supernatural power: being and I have traveled side by side for so long, we’re such old companions that while we may not be especially fond of one another, by dint of being together almost since the world began, we understand one another and can’t refuse each other anything.
For me, the part about the “heretofore is just as important as the hereafter, especially as it probably holds the key to it” is a keen insight and represents one of the chief shortcomings of conventional Christian thought.
The seriousness, joy, and beauty of mortal life diminish if it is bookended only by the hereafter. How much richer and more meaningful mortal life becomes if it is also bookended by the heretofore, especially when one includes the idea that the key to the hereafter resides in the heretofore—the “why” of why we are here and “why” we should choose resurrection lays nestled in the decisions we made before our incarnation.
Note: This post was sparked by an aphorism by Laeth and Dr.Charlton's expansion of the idea.
The early parts of the novel—The Sinister Writings of Abel Tiffauges—written in the first person from the protagonist’s point of view, are mystical in tone and somewhat engaging. After that, for reasons I’ll never understand, Tournier alters the narrative voice to the third person, then oscillates between the third-person omniscient narrator and Abel’s first-person narration.
The jarring back and forth between voices shreds the coherence and continuity of the plot, and about two-thirds of the way through the book, Tournier seems to struggle with his creation. The fictional landscape he creates overwhelms him, and the reader can almost sense him struggling to find a coherent way out.
One lay reviewer referred to the novel as “one of those books you can’t put down even though you know that the writer is doing little more than taking a giant shit in your brain.”
It certainly has that feeling at times.
Anyway, I happened to pluck the novel from my shelves the other day and was struck by the brief but vivid exposition on pre-mortal existence in the book’s second paragraph:
And I do believe I issued from the mists of time. I’ve always been shocked at the frivolous way people agonize about what’s going to happen to them after they die and don’t give a damn about what happened to them before they were born. The heretofore is just as important as the hereafter, especially as it probably holds the key to it.
As for me, I was already there a thousand, a hundred thousand years ago. When the earth was still only a ball of fire spinning around in a helium sky the soul that lit it and made it spin was mine. What’s more, the dizzying antiquity of my origins explains my supernatural power: being and I have traveled side by side for so long, we’re such old companions that while we may not be especially fond of one another, by dint of being together almost since the world began, we understand one another and can’t refuse each other anything.
For me, the part about the “heretofore is just as important as the hereafter, especially as it probably holds the key to it” is a keen insight and represents one of the chief shortcomings of conventional Christian thought.
The seriousness, joy, and beauty of mortal life diminish if it is bookended only by the hereafter. How much richer and more meaningful mortal life becomes if it is also bookended by the heretofore, especially when one includes the idea that the key to the hereafter resides in the heretofore—the “why” of why we are here and “why” we should choose resurrection lays nestled in the decisions we made before our incarnation.
Note: This post was sparked by an aphorism by Laeth and Dr.Charlton's expansion of the idea.
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