The Invasion of the profaners (novel)

the Invasion of the profaners (original title: Invasion off the Body Snatchers ) is a Romance of Science-fiction of the American author Jack Finney published in 1955. This novel is first of all appeared in French under the title Graines of terror (1977) before finding its title French final in 1994.

Argument

All starts in October 1976, in the peaceful small town of Millet Valley, California. Miles Bennell, a general doctor, receives the visit of Becky Driscoll, one of its young loves. Becky entrusts to Miles Bennett which it worries for her cousin Wilma Lentz who claims more not to recognize her uncle Ira. Miles Bennett then decides to accompany Becky in his/her cousin to reassure it and draw this business with light.

On the spot, the doctor does not note any change in the behavior or physique of the uncle Ira that he however knows since years. Wilma does not succeed in clearly explaining to him in what the change consists which it perceives and Miles finishes by him advising to consult his/her friend Manfred Kaufman, a Psychanalyste of San Rafael.

But the following day, of new patients consult Doctor Bennell, asserting whom they have a doubt about the real identity of a member of their entourage. Next Tuesday, Miles Bennell goes to its weekly professional meeting and all the specialists are astonished by this Névrose which seems to be become contagious.

Presentation of work

the Invasion of the profaners , appeared in the United States in 1955, is the first novel of the American author Jack Finney. The account is composed of blackjacks chapters which make alternate scenes of action, moments of reflection and dialogued sequences. The general tone of the novel is that of concern and suspicion, ranges sometimes until the Paranoïa, vis-a-vis an invasion Extra-terrestre which is detectable only on the basis of psychological detail negligible.

The original title Invasion off the Body Snatchers echoes a novel of Robert Louis Stevenson appeared in 1884, The Body Snatcher ( the Robber of corpses ).

History of the French title

A first French edition of the novel is appeared in 1977 with the Guenaud editions under the title Graines of terror . A few years later, the editions Denoël adopted finally the title the Invasion of the profaners , popularized by the French titles of the film adaptations of Don Siegel (1956), left to France in 1967, and of Philip Kaufman in 1978.

It should be noted that the film of Gift Siegel left in the French rooms ten years before is not carried out the French translation of the original novel.

Style

Jack Finney uses the resources of the arts persons of the autobiographical Récit to draw up a report/ratio of intimacy between the narrator, Miles Bennell, and its reader. The hero, who is also the narrator of the history, reports the facts, expresses his doubts, puts forth personal assumptions on the events which he lived and challenges directly the reader. In spite of the strong psychological tension which dominates the intrigue of the novel from beginning to end, Jack Finney does not forget to handle a certain humor.

Complete summary of work

Main characters

The main characters of the novel are classified in the alphabetical order:

Jack Belicec , friend of Bennell Miles;
Theodora Belicec , wife of Belicec Jack;
Miles Timbers Bennell , 28 years, general doctor of graduate Valley Millet of the University of Stanfort, divorced, hero and narrator of the novel;
Bernard Budlong , botanist and biologist;
ED Burley , plumber of Valley Millet;
Doc. Carmichel , psychoanalyst;
Becky Driscoll , divorced, friendly and young love of Bennell Miles;
Benjamin Eichler , lieutenant-colonel of the American army, in station with the Pentagon, friend of Bennell Miles;
Nick Grivett , chief of the police force of Valley Millet;
Manfred Kaufman , known as Mania , psychoanalyst, friend of Bennett Miles;
Aleda Lentz , aunt de Wilma, woman of Will go;
Will go Lentz , uncle de Wilma;
Wilma Lentz , cousin of Becky Driscoll;
Chet Meeker , chief account of Valley Millet;
Gerry Montizambert , director of the cinema of Valley Millet;
ED Pursey , second general doctor of Valley Millet;
Miss Weygand , librarian.

Chronology of the events

All starts in the month of October 1976, in the peaceful small town of Mill Valley, California. Miles Bennell , a general doctor, receives the visit of Becky Driscoll , one of its young loves. Becky entrusts to Miles Bennett which it worries for her cousin Wilma Lentz who claims that his/her uncle Ira is not his uncle Ira. Miles Bennett then decides to accompany Becky in his/her cousin to reassure it and draw this business with light. On the spot, the doctor does not note any change in the behavior or physique of the uncle Ira that he however knows since many years. Wilma does not succeed in clearly explaining to him in what the change consists which it perceives and Miles finishes by him advising to consult his/her friend Manfred Kaufman , a psychoanalyst of San Rafael. But the following day, of new patients consult Doctor Bennell, asserting whom they have a doubt about the real identity of a member of their entourage. Next Tuesday, Miles Bennell goes to its weekly professional meeting and all the specialists are astonished by this new neurosis which seems to be become contagious.

To forget its worries of the day, Miles invites Becky with the cinema to see " The Voyage of Simon Morlay" , but the director comes to seek them in the middle of the meeting. His/her friend Jack Belicec has troubles and takes along his friends to his residence to join his wife Theodora there. Miles and Becky then discover a corpse on the billiard table of Belicec, or rather a lifeless body that Jack Belicec discovered at his place in an old wall cupboard. Miles Bennell inspects the body which seems neither alive, nor dead, but simply flask and like unfinished. Miles notes soon that the body with the same size and the same weight that Jack Belicec and starts to worry. It takes the digital fingerprints of the inert body then and notes with fear that it does not have any of it. Suspecting the atrocious truth, Miles Bennell requires of Belicec to remain on their premises by supervising the body and to call it with the least change which has occurred on the body. Becky and Miles set out again, persuaded of the report/ratio which exists between the history of Wilma Lentz and this unfinished body, while Becky informs Miles of its doubts about the identity of his/her own father.

After having accompanied back Becky at it, Miles receives the visit of the Belicec couple. Theodora is terrified by what she saw, but does not succeed in speaking about it. Miles Bennell calls Manfred Kaufman and decides to go to the residence of Belicec to see what occurs there. Corroded by the doubt, it finally decides to visit the cellar of the house of Becky and it finds in a wall cupboard an unfinished body which is taking the features of Becky Driscoll. Taken of panic, it goes up to seek Becky still deadened and brings back it at his place where it finds the couple Belicec and Mannie Kaufman and tells them what it saw. Millets and Mania then decide to go to see what became the inert body in the house of Belicec, but do not find anything. After their return, Mannie Kaufman exposes its psychoanalytical theory of collective hysteria, emotional conditioning and the autosuggestion which convinces all the assembly.

The following day, Jack and Miles traverse the strange classifieds of the newspapers that Jack had preserved since years for its novels. Miles fall then on a paragraph revealing the strange presence from giant pea or beans thimbles, found in a field of the surroundings of Valley Millet. A botanist, Doctor Bernard Budlong, had then described them like origin undoubtedly extraterrestrial. Again in prey with the doubts, Jack and Miles decide to warn the chief of Grivett police force of the presence of a body not identified in the residence of Belicec. In the course of the day, all the people who had had doubts about close relations come to excuse themselves of their mistake near Miles Bennell, but this last continuous to doubt and is convinced that his/her friend Manfred Kaufman is not really that with which it had made his studies. At the same time, Jack invites Miles to join it in its cellar: four giant thimbles are changing and to take human form. Miles Bennell then decides to prevent the authorities and calls in middle of the night the lieutenant-colonel Benjamin Eichler who works with the Pentagone. This last acknowledges its impotence vis-a-vis these amazing events and the communication crosses on several occasions. Miles knows from now on that the extraterrestrial ones have the hand put on the local communication network. Taken of panic, Miles, Bekcy, Jack and Theodora leave the city in the car. At the time of a stop, they discover two giant thimbles in their trunk, make them burn with gasoline and pass harms it in a motel. The following day, not having nowhere where to go, they decide to return to Mill Valley and to act.

After their return, Miles and Becky observe the peaceful life of Valley Millet and try to pass unperceived, but something with changed. The small daily activities were abandoned and rare are people who garden or carry out some domestic repairs. In a bar, Miles speaks with a sales agent which deplores the lethargy which seems to have reached all the city and its business wastes to him. Miles goes then to the library to find in the newspapers all possible allusions, articles or paragraphs, relating to giant thimbles or suspicious behaviors. When the librarian brings the newspapers to him, all the significant articles were cut out beforehand. Miles and Becky go then to the residence of the family of Becky and realize that his/her cousin and her uncle and aunt are the extraterrestrial ones. On their return on their premises, Nick Grivett, the chief of police force, awaits them for a routine control. They succeed in neutralizing the police officer and fleeing. Miles then decides to go in professor Bernard Budlong. This last explains why extraterrestrial spores had extremely well been able to cross space, pulled by a flow of photons. After their visit, Becky and Miles realize that Jack and Theodora are pursued by the extraterrestrial ones and they decide to take refuge discreetly in the doctor's office of Miles.

In observation behind the blinds of the doctor's office, Bennell Miles and Becky Driscoll attend a strange event. All the inhabitants of Valley Millet gather with the downtown area and see themselves giving of the giant thimbles intended for the close cities which they must deposit in their close relations or friends. Miles understands that the invasion continues and will invade all the American territory. A few moments later, they are joined by Bernard Budlong, Manfred Kaufman and Chet Meeker who retain them then captive. The three men try to convince them that the transformation is beneficial for the human beings which pass then at a higher stage of the evolution. During the transformation, the thimbles copies the molecular structure to be it closest to them and absorbs all vital energy of it. The original, emptied its substance, falls then in dust. The transformation is done in a painless way during the sleep: Miles and Becky do not have thus any more but to wait. Miles however succeeds in making acknowledge with his/her friend Mannie that the transformation is accompanied by some notable nuisances. The doubles live indeed only five years maximum and do not have any more any creativity. Trying an ultimate operation, Miles convinces Mannie to only leave it with Becky for an ultimate night of love, while two giant thimbles are brought and placed behind the door of the cabinet. Miles then leaves the two skeletons its cabinet and exposes them close to the thimbles which devote to all them énerige to duplicate them.

Miles and Becky finally succeed in escaping and flee in the hills of Valley Millet while downtown alarm is given. Arrived at a few meters only of the trunk road, Miles and Becky find themselves in front of an immense field of giant thimbles behind which it know that the inhabitants of Valley Millet await them. Not wanting to be made take without to have reacted, Miles puts fire at the cultivated field. Whereas they are encircled by the extraterrestrial ones with human form, an astonishing phenomenon occurs: the thimbles are detached their stems and fly away, fleeing a planet which became to them too hostile. The life includes then in the small town of Valley Millet. Miles and Becky find their friends Jack and Theodora Belicec which had fought until the end against a disastrous sleep.

Comments

Definition of the human being

In the set of themes chosen by Jack Finney, one of the essential points - as well from a narrative point of view as philosophical - is the definition of the human being: in what the extraterrestrial doubles of the inhabitants of Valley Millet do miss they of humanity whereas they behave exactly like their original and have all their memories? The answer of Finney Jack appears clearly at the beginning of the novel (in the remarks of Wilma Lentz) before being at greater length developed at the end of the account (in the dialog between Miles Bennett and Manfred Kaufman): humanity resides in the creative force and the emotional life of the Man which ensure cohesion between its memories, its character and its acts.

Even if they are presented themselves in the form of a higher intelligent form of life, the extraterrestrial ones of the novel seem subjected to a simple impulse of survival which is expressed in the imperative need for the reproduction of the species. On the other hand, by its creative force and the richness of its emotional life, the human being succeeded in with émanciper of the simple cycle of the biological reproduction to invest the spheres of the spirit and creation.

Extraterrestrial of a new kind

In chapter XVI, Jack Finney lets one of its characters criticize the novels and cartoons of the time and their tendency to propose Martien S or Sélénite S which are only caricatures of human beings: “ One allots to them six legs, three arms, a small antenna on the head, one paints them in green, but they are always of small men. ” Running the counter to this tendency, Jack Finney proposes with its reader a completely foreign extraterrestrial race with the human race, allotting a vaguely vegetable origin to him, but without never revealing all its mystery.

The invasion of extraterrestrial of Finney Jack strikes by its subtlety and its slowness. The entities aliens await simply the sleep of their victims to take their place and their insidious invasion is carried out without weapons, nor violence. Jack Finney prefers the anguish induced by the radical strangeness of its extraterrestrial with the tragic consequences of a violent extermination of the mankind, as in the War of the worlds of H.G. Wells.

The idea of the voyage of vegetable spores through space and their arrival on the planet Ground was exploited in 1909 by a German author, Kurd Laßwitz, in its novel Rosée of star . The scientific possibility of the voyage of vegetable spores through space had been defended as a preliminary by Lord Kelvin which supported that the germ of the life had arrived on Earth since space.

Vegetable plagues

The danger which the flora for the man can represent was already treated in 1947, on a humorous tone, by the American author Ward Moore in Encore a little greenery and in 1951, in a more dramatic way, by the British author John Wyndham in the Day of Triffides . In both cases, the intervention of the human being on the terrestrial flora is synonymous with danger to the existence of the mankind.

Metaphors of the double

The extraterrestrial ones of the novel take human form by Mimétisme. They retort the human molecular structure and absorb individual vital energy. To explain this strange phenomenon, Jack Finney uses different Métaphore S from the double drawn from lived from its characters. Miles Bennell, the hero, uses for example a comparison borrowed from the technique of the photographic development to give an account of the transformation of the extraterrestrial body into human body. The original ectoplasm lets little by little appear its human features, like does it a photosensitive paper in a revealing bath. Theodora Belicec, on the other hand, compares the process with that of the striking of the medals in two stages. The first striking reveals the principal lines of engraving, while the second brings all the details necessary by refining the feature. By this last metaphor, Jack Finney insinuates the idea of counterfeit. A subtle nuance penetrates then between simple technical duplication and the counterfeit under its moral and legal aspect. The extraterrestrial ones consequently seem the counterfeiters of humanity, creating pretenses of human without value.

Irrational and psychoanalyze

Jack Finney opposes the objective reality of an extraterrestrial invasion to the collective illusion of an invasion for psychological reasons. While utilizing a psychoanalyst in his novel, Jack Finney recalls an astonishing case of Collective hysteria which had defrayed the American chronicle in 1944: the maniac of Mattoon ( The Mad off Mattoon ). This clinical case, duly analyzed by the psychologists of the time, clarifies one day new the facts of the novel and insinuates the doubt in the spirit even of the hero, itself doctor and rationalist. The only exit available to the hero of the novel to escape the traps tended by its unconscious, it is to find tangible proofs of the objective reality of the extraterrestrial invasion. The combat against the invasion alien passes consequently by a fight baited against oneself and its own doubts, its convictions and its prejudices.

Sociological approach of the cinema

Jack Finney integrates into its novel a reflection on the Cinéma:

the cinema is the privileged place of imagination and unreal (point of view defended by Miles Bennell);
the cinema supplements the sensory experiment of the public by confronting it with unheard of situations (point of view defended by Betty Driscoll);
the cinema creates behavioral stereotypes and contributes to model a language nonverbal commun run at a whole company (Betty Driscoll).

For anecdote, it should be noted that the two main characters of the novel will see a film entitled to the cinema " the Voyage of Simon Morley " who tells the history of a man who found the means of going up time. This fictitious film is a direct allusion to the novel éponyme that Jack Finney will publish fifteen years later.

Political interpretations

The topic of the novel of Jack Finney, quickly popularized by its very first film adaptation carried out by Gift Siegel in 1956, was interpreted in two different and relatively opposite ways.

The first made account a lampoon against the Fascisme represented by “hunting for the witches” of the Maccarthisme, while the second was aligned rather on the political line of the maccarthism which set up the Paranoïa anticommunist in theory of national security. Just like the profaners insidiously infiltrated - and without nobody noticing anything - peaceful small an American city, it was feared that the Communisme surreptitiously did not infiltrate the american company to lead it to its loss.

On this second point, some romantic details of the account of Finney Jack can result regarding the novel as an allegory Anticommuniste and in bringing closer his extraterrestrial to a diagrammatic and negative vision of Communism:

participation of all in the culture and the reproduction of the extraterrestrial species at the expense of the personal activities: priority of the interests of the community on those of the individual;
the small town of Valley Millet does not know any more any economic activity and despairs all the sales agents who stop there: rejection of the liberal economy based on the consumption of mass and the circulation of the goods;
the human ones retorted do not have any more any taste for the Créativité and the personal initiative: rejection of any personal initiative.

The American realizer Don Siegel affirmed on the other hand to have wanted to depict only the Indifférence, the passivity and the Conformisme of his contemporaries.

Film adaptations

The novel of Jack Finney knew four more or less faithful film adaptations. It should be noted that the first film adaptation intervened one year only after the publication of the novel.

1956 : the Invasion of the profaners of burials , realized by Gift Siegel. If the intrigue as a whole is close to the original novel, certain differences are notable. Significantly, Gift Siegel and Daniel Mainwaring, the scenario writer, removed the happy end novel to replace it by an open end. When the film finishes, the invasion of extraterrestrial was not stopped, but the land authorities start to take the danger with the serious one.

1978 : the Invasion of the profaners (film) , realized by Philip Kaufman

1993 : Body Snatchers, the invasion continues , carried out by Abel Ferrara

2007 : Invasion , realized by Oliver Hirschbiegel

French editions

Jack Finney, Seeds of terror , translated from American by Michel Lebrun, Guenaud Editions, 1977;
Jack Finney, Seeds of terror , translated from American by Michel Lebrun, Clancier-Guenaud Editions, 1986;
Jack Finney, the Invasion of the profaners , translated from American by Michel Lebrun, Denoël, coll " Presence of the futur" , n° 546,1994.
Jack Finney, the Invasion of the profaners , translated from American by Michel Lebrun, Gallimard, coll " SF" folio; , n° 27,2000.

Quotations

The numbers of page of the quotations which follow are drawn from the edition Folio SF (2000) quoted in bibliography.

It is rigorously impossible that two people are exactly similar, it does not matter what you read or saw in films , chap. II, p. 22;
Even at our time, Wilma, it is not as simple as you believe it to become insane. , chap. II, p. 24;
There is no cause of death, since it did not die there. This being did not die because it not lived forever. , chap. IV, p. 46;
The human spirit is a strange and marvellous thing, but I am not quite certain that it realizes there. It can all include/understand, all to analyze, of the atom to the universe… except itself. , chap. VII, p. 80;
There is an adaptability to any other existing form of life, under some condition that it is. , chap. XVI, p. 195;
There is quantity of events which the majority of people never meet in the real life, also they imagine them in terms of cinema. The cinema is the only resource which they have to visualize that of which they do not have any experience. , chap. XVIII, p. 219.

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