Niourk

Niourk is a Romance of Science-fiction of the French writer Stefan Wul, published in 1957.

Argument

Presentation of work

Niourk is the second novel of Stefan Wul and appeared in 1957 in the collection “Anticipation” of Black the Fleuve editions. The account is composed of five parts divided into forty-eight very short chapters often (a page for shortest). The various parts of the novel make it possible the author to take again the narration at various times of the time of the account.

Style of the author, sober and precise, and the relative simplicity of the narration make Niourk a novel accessible to a very large audience. The novel is appeared besides in collections intended for the teenagers.

Summary of the history

Universe of Niourk

In the world of Niourk, the planet Ground become intolerable was given up by its human population with the profit of Mars and especially of Venus. Only some cruel tribes turned over at the wild state survived. The oceans in major part disappeared revealed barrels of nuclear waste which contaminated and makes transfer marine species like octopuses, multiplying by ten their animal intelligence. Human civilization stopped at a advanced developmental stage, in a hyper-robotized terrestrial western world and entirely automated.

Geography of Niourk

If Stefan Wul locates its action in a drained Atlantic Ocean, in an Post-apocalyptic future , it however leaves enough indices to its reader to enable him to replace the places on a geographical map:

Santiag of Cuba , the city of the gods of the tribe of the black child, corresponds to Santiago of Cuba;
the river Huds of the novel corresponds to the river Hudson;
and Niourk are the deformed contraction of the word New York.

In a world where the ocean was drained, the temperature dropped and the continental shelves form vast snow-covered mountains.

Characters

The characters are classified alphabetically:

Bagh , barbarian, warrior of the tribe of the black child, chief in the absence of Thôz;
Capt 4 or Jax , captain androïde of the Venus planet;
Doc. 1 , ship's doctor androïde, originating in the Venus planet;
black Child , called later Alf , hero of the history, black teenager of a barbarian tribe;
Ing 3 or Brig , engineer androïde, originating in the Venus planet;
Thôz , barbarian, warrior and chief of the tribe of the black child;
the Old man , wizard and wise of the tribe of the black child;

Chronology of the events

On a Earth devastated by a nuclear apocalypse having led to the draining of all the oceans, a tribe survives by driving out wild dogs and jaguars, some share between Cuba and the coast of the continent of North America. The Old , the wizard of the tribe, is on the point of joining Santiag of Cuba, the field of the gods, but announces with the tribe that it will be necessary for his return to sacrifice the young person black child . The tribe awaits the return of the Old man impatiently, but this one does not give any more signs of life. The black young child then decides to only go up to the city of the gods to find it. He discovers finally his corpse cold in the snow of the streets of Santiag of Cuba, eats his brain by superstition in order to acquire his wisdom and takes in an old arms manufacture a laser weapon, without knowing very well what it is. On its return in the plain, a fire devastated the village and the members of the tribe left all. The black child then decides to follow their traces which carry out towards north.

When it finds them finally, the members of the tribe, taken along by Thôz their chief, undergo the radioactive giant octopus attacks. After their difficult victory, the members of the tribe survive by eating the tentacles of the rubbery corpses which strew the beach. Accompanied by the bear which it succeeded in taming in way, the black child joined to them his and guides them towards north, with the research of the town of Niourk. But at the end of some time, the members of the tribe notice a form of phosphorescence coming from their intestines and end up dying, inflated helium. The black child arrives only in front of the doors of the big city of Niourk.

The town of Niourk impresses much the black child by his very high towers, its gigantic statue of woman and its robots. The black child and his bear visit the deserted buildings of the city and enter by chance a laboratory, releasing inadvertently from the famished mutant rats. The child attends impotent dead of his bear, but succeeds in fleeing by descending the exterior facade of the building. The child then is recovered and looked after by Doc. 1 and Brig , two androïdes Venusian which failed on the planet Ground on board their spacecraft. After his re-establishment, the black child becomes aware of his intelligence multiplied by ten by the radioactivity and starts to reading all the books that it finds on board Venusian vessel. He ends up accumulating very vast knowledge which enables him to be duplicated psychiquement, to give on the way the energy systems of the town of Niourk, to repair the spacecraft of Venusian and to give life to clones of the members of his tribe. The black child - who baptized Alf in homage to the alphabet which enabled him to acquire all its knowledge - ends up leaving the planet Ground his orbit to place it in the center of the universe, with a simple small star in orbit as a sun. Alf entrusts the town of Niourk to the clones of his/her two Venusian friends left again on their planet and turns over to “the only life which is worth to be lived”, the hard and rough life of its tribe in the jungle.

Comments

Evolutions of the species

Stefan Wul proposes in Niourk two concurrent visions of the possible evolution of the mankind.

The first relates to the emigration of the human populations towards Venus which was accompanied by a disappearance of human the reproduction, considered consequently as animal and primitive and replaced by the shape of cloning giving of the asexual beings anthropoïdes.

The second relates to the evolution of the black child itself whose intelligence is multiplied by ten by radiations to which it is subjected during all his tour. Once cured of their harmful effect, the black child seizes all the extent of his intelligence and passing from the stage of the homo sapiens with that of the homo multipotens , whereas the Venusian ones are relegated by the black child at the stage of homo artificialis .

Traditional of the science fiction

This novel is regarded as a great classic of the Science-fiction in the following reference books:

Annick Beguin, 100 principal titles of the science fiction , Cosmos 2000,1981;
Lorris Murail, the Masters of the science fiction , Bordered, coll “Compact”, 1993;
Stan Barets, science-fictionnaire , Denoël, coll “Presence of the future”, 1994.
Koro Young, " the large ones of science-fiction" , " Corose" , 1994

Criticisms specialized

Ronny L. Idels, HORIZONS OF FANTASTIC, n°5, 1969;
Claude Carme, HORIZONS OF FANTASTIC, n°15, 1971;
Philippe Denis, CHOSE, coll Fiction (re-examined), n°229, 1973.

French editions

Niourk of Stefan Wul knew various French editions:

black River, coll “Anticipation”, n° 83, 1957, cover of Brantonne;
Denoël, coll “Presence of the future”, n° 128, 1970 (Republication in 1977 with a cover of Stephan Dumont) (republication in 1994);
Gallimard, coll “Folio-junior - Science fiction”, n° 6, ISBN 2-07-034106-2, foreword of Christian Grenier, cover of Enki Bilal, illustrations of Victor Fuente, 1980;
Gallimard, coll “Folio junior Special edition”, n° 439,1993, ISBN 2-07-033439-2, foreword Christian Grenier, cover of Enki Bilal (republication in 1998);
in complete Works 1 , Lefrancq, coll “Volumes”, 1996, ISBN 2-87153-197-8;
Gallimard, coll “Folio SF”, n° 64,2001, ISBN 2-07-041953-3.

Quotations

The numbers of page of the following quotations refer to the edition Lefrancq (1996) quoted in bibliography:

“the thought is only one whole complex of muscular microphone-contractions or muscular microphone-feelings. And even if you think an abstracted word, it is never but the fast and unconscious microphone-formation of this word by the lingual muscles which even constitutes your thought. ”, Fifth part, chapter IV, p. 309.

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