The Camp of the Saints Fourth American Edition Edition

This is a book I likely never would have heard of, had its critics not been so vocal in denouncing it because they either didn’t like what it had to say, or they didn’t like how it was said.

This was written in the early 1970s, and the heart of its plot is eerily prescient of the challenge that today’s Third World immigration poses to the much more prosperous areas of the West. The basic plot is that 100 decrepit ships ported in the Indian subcontinent are peacefully taken over by a spontaneous uprising of about a million inhabitants, who then set sail on a course that has them seemingly headed for some destination in the presumed Western land of milk and honey. Most of the story is a telling of endless prevarication and ultimate futility of various Western governments to decide how to best respond to the approaching crisis of the fleet’s arrival on some unannounced but definitely Western shore.

The big question the thoughtful reader must ponder is: “How should the West in general and each individual in particular react if this happens?” The book allows one possible future to play out in its pages. The idea of a million refugees showing up at the door is no longer far-fetched in 2018—it is actually happening, even though in the real world, they are not all showing up in one place on a single day. (Even as I read, news has surfaced of a “convoy” of merely 1500 heading via Mexico for the US to demand admission and asylum, a number trivial by comparison, but which already seems to have stymied the authorities!)

Many self-appointed guardians of Western civilization simply assume that such an invasion of their country should (and would) be met with force of arms. But when faced with mowing down, blowing up, or otherwise exterminating a million people in a fleet that just keeps on coming, what would actually be done? The author himself, in a postscript, admits that he himself “would not have had the courage to fire one shot when brought face-to-face with those hordes of living, breathing misery.”

At the opposite extreme of the above position are the usual suspects that would welcome all such immigrants with open arms, not only brushing off concerns about the rightness of it, but also oblivious to the difficulty their nations would have actually coping with it, airily assuming that “somehow it will all work out” without any meaningful sacrifices (on THEIR part, anyway).

This book’s detractors usually slam it as a mere racist screed. Although this charge is not a wholesale exaggeration, the narrator’s attitude defies quite so simple a diagnosis. It is certainly true that the narrator and a few of the supporting actors freely and regularly express disgust for the dark-skinned immigrant fleet’s denizens and their culture; there are frequent references to the “overwhelming stench” that exists anywhere near the fleet, mentions of the “turd eaters,” repeated narrative about the free and loose sexual mores, and frequent noting of the large number of grotesquely disfigured individuals, just to cite a few of the disparagements. More thoughtful readers may feel (as I did) that much of this is just a part of the author’s generally acerbic manner of commentary. What some will read as disdain could also be the author’s attempt to describe what he believes is a generally alien and miserable mode of existence that the more prosperous citizens of the world would be repelled by if forced to accept it themselves as a downstream effect of accepting these migrants into their countries. Near the end, when a small group is rallying to resist, one person joining them is non-white, and when explaining how he chose his side, says that “being white isn’t really a question of color--it’s a whole mental outlook.”

The narrator dares to voice some uncomfortable perspectives that are even bigger lightning rods for criticism today than they were back in the 1970s when this was written. One excellent example: "It's a known fact that racism comes in two forms: that practiced by whites - heinous and inexcusable, whatever its motives - and that practiced by blacks - quite justified, whatever its excesses, since it's merely the expression of a righteous revenge, and it's up to the whites to be patient and understanding."

Having written all of the above, there are a few things that make me reluctant to recommend this to most readers:

- The book moves slowly. But rather than building suspense, I found that it just got kind of ponderous and boring as it went on. The narrator’s basic points were made pretty early, and soon became repetitious as it slogged on. I stuck with it, hoping it would get better, but ultimately I did not find it all that interesting, enlightening, or even entertaining. It could lose about 200 pages and still say 95% of what it wants to say.

- The book is unlikely to drive any readers to change their minds on this subject. If anything, it pushes so many buttons and is so polarizing that it is likely to harden their existing attitudes and opinions.

- The people that would benefit the most from some clear thinking about the practical aspects of the immigration issue will probably not read this book. They will pass on it because they heard that it is racist or because they blithely assume that in real life it would somehow just "work itself out."

Jean Raspail said that over the 18 months it took to write this book, it consumed and aged him. It is easy to see why, probing human nature to the depths explored in this book is exhausting to the soul, but yet, he did it and the results are sublime.

Raspail’s credentials are a lifetime spent in world travel and dispassionate sociological examination. He is an expert on recognizing the elements that lead to the extinction of civilizations and societies and has written a novel (a novel, not a government document) whose premise is the end of Western civilization, drawing heavily on past European and African revolutions and biblical theology. Even as an English translation, the writing is powerful and a deeply intellectual and an analytical mind shines through. Apocalyptic scenarios are sketched with humour and whimsy and a clear appreciation of the absurd.

Raspail reiterates that this is a parable: a superficial story combined with a deeper message. People who read the novel, anxiously searching to apply labels of racism, imperialism, supremacism, fascism etc, will be quickly satisfied, since after all one of the central themes is the toxicity of this behaviour and its consequences to society, and they are immediately and effectively caricatured. Don’t be intimidated by anyone into missing this incredible novel, every page is precisely tuned to evoke an emotion. The intellectual terrorism wielded abundantly by characters in the novel, is in plain view in many of the reviews and articles that you see. Raspail has an earthy approach that is more easily identified with the many societies he has observed, and his unflinching imagery may be unpalatable to some and courageous to others.

As with “The War of the Worlds”, “1984”, “Animal Farm” and “Fahrenheit 451” (to name a few of the most visible books of this nature), those most in need of the reflection this novel should inspire, will be the quickest to denounce both the novel and its creator, presuming to know him through a story he has told. But fiction novelists and fiction movie-makers are free (today and hopefully always) to imagine "what-ifs" and develop powerful themes, even if apocalyptic or dystopian, and readers and movie-goers are still free to read and view, and to examine their own minds, societies and consciences.

This books is almost creepy to read as if Europeans have read it before the whole immigration/refugee thing started and staged it for the rest of the world to watch step by step, line by line, this reads as a script of current affairs; sad to a point as we watch old Europe die in front of our eyes..