The Prospector (The Verba Mundi Books)

From Publishers Weekly
Le Clezio, who is best known for his Prix Renaudot-winning first novel, The Interrogation (1963), has created a gentle portrayal of a man haunted by visions of his ideal childhood. The round of seemingly endless summer seashore days and lessons at the knee of their mother, comes to an end for Alexis L'Etang and his sister Laure with their father's financial ruin and his death. The elder L'Etang's one legacy is an obsession with the treasure of the "Unknown Corsair," supposedly buried on Rodrigues Island. Determined to recapture their earlier prosperity, Alexis leaves for Rodrigues in 1910, where he is bewitched by the quest for the treasure, by the soothing routine of sunny days and by the love of a native girl, Ouma. Four years later his second idyll is interrupted by WW I and Alexis leaves the Indian Ocean for the very different geography of Ypres and the Somme. It is clear that Le Clezio, whose ancestor was a French corsair who settled on Mauritius, loves his setting--maybe too much. His writing is deeply evocative and descriptive even when simply furthering the plot, but many of his lengthy descriptions of Mauritius, Rodrigues and Alexis's ocean voyages between them are overwrought. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Haunting and lyrical, this Bildungsroman of the narrator's search for the lost treasure of the Corsair is near-mythic but has realistic details that bolster its plausibility. Set in early 20th-century Mauritius, the story follows the life of a young man who, after the death of his father, tries to restore his family's fortunes by tracking down some buried gold (hence the title); he is assisted by a young island woman, reminiscent of Rima in William H. Hudson's Green Mansions , who helps him recognize other things of value. The simple, exotic life of the islanders is portrayed appealingly, but realistic details of their exploitation by European colonists and the miseries of war are not left out. Le Clezio is an acclaimed winner of the French Prix Renaudot, and this novel, a best seller in France, will further enhance his reputation. Essential for academic and large public libraries.- Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Le Cl{‚}ezio, one of France's finest writers (The Mexican Dream ), is an incantatory and dazzlingly visual novelist. This hypnotic and mythic novel begins on Mauritius in 1892. Young Alexis, enamored of the glory of the pristine island, is devastated when a hurricane destroys his home and, ultimately, leads to his father's death. He inherits only one legacy: his father's obsession with a buried treasure on a distant island called Rodrigues. Armed with an old cryptic map and a dreamer's determination, Alexis sets out to unearth this treasure and rescue his mother and sister from poverty. Once on Rodrigues, however, Alexis loses track of time and succumbs to the pure, lulling splendor of the place and the magic presence of a lithe, coppery, harpoon-wielding woman named Ouma. But his idyll is obliterated when the world goes to war in 1914. Le Cl{‚}ezio brilliantly conveys the sublime and terrible beauty of life and its twin, death, in devastating evocations of the pulse of the sea, the blaze of the sun, the horrors of violence, and the miraculous lyricism of the mind. A remarkable work. Donna Seaman

From Kirkus Reviews
The prolific Le Cl‚zio (The Interrogation, 1963; The Giants, 1975, etc.) offers the second title in the publisher's Verba Mundi series (see Sylvie Germain, p. 1091): an intensely lyrical first- person story of a man's life of disappointment. Near 1892, Alexis L'Etang spends his childhood on Mauritius, which seems to him an Edenic place of tropical forest, open sky, and ocean (``As far back as I can remember I have listened to the sea'') where he lives in virtually blissful happiness with his parents, beloved sister Laure, and good black friend Denis. The expulsion comes about, however, with the father's bankruptcy--his plan to bring electricity to the island is dashed by a great hurricane--and with the steady taking of the island's lush acreage (including the site of the family's house) for conversion into cane fields, this being done by the family's uncle Ludovico, who massively exploits black labor for his ends. With his father's death, Alexis is forced into doing office work for Ludovico's company, but his Eden-charged dreams of the sea, of adventure, and of the hidden treasures of ``the Unknown Corsair''--all having been highly romanticized for the boy by his dreaming and poetic father- -lead him finally to sea and to the doomed treasure-quest that occupies the rest of his story. At a length and lyric pitch sometimes repetitive and even wearing, Le Cl‚zio describes, frequently with great beauty but also with a focus that comes and goes, Alexis's sea journey to the island of Rodrigues; his lonely sojourn there, along with his love for the wild and beautiful Ouma; his survival as a WW I soldier; return to Rodrigues; and finally- -without treasure, without Ouma, without his happiness, without Eden--back to what remains of his commerce-scarred childhood home. Often piercingly vivid, and poignant at the close, though patience can be an asset in getting there. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French


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Le Clezio, one of France's finest writers ("The Mexican Dream" ), is an incantatory and dazzlingly visual novelist. This hypnotic and mythic novel begins on Mauritius in 1892. Young Alexis, enamored of the glory of the pristine island, is devastated when a hurricane destroys his home and, ultimately, leads to his father's death. He inherits only one legacy: his father's obsession with a buried treasure on a distant island called Rodrigues. Armed with an old cryptic map and a dreamer's determination, Alexis sets out to unearth this treasure and rescue his mother and sister from poverty. Once on Rodrigues, however, Alexis loses track of time and succumbs to the pure, lulling splendor of the place and the magic presence of a lithe, coppery, harpoon-wielding woman named Ouma. But his idyll is obliterated when the world goes to war in 1914. Le Clezio brilliantly conveys the sublime and terrible beauty of life and its twin, death, in devastating evocations of the pulse of the sea, the blaze of the sun, the horrors of violence, and the miraculous lyricism of the mind. A remarkable work.


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