En vérité, tout devrait être différent de ce que c’est.
Mathias Storch’s Le rêve d’un Groenlandais (aka Singnagtugaq, aka Sinnattugaq, French translation by Inès Jorgensen and Jean-Michel Huctin) is the first Greenlandic novel, originally published in Greenlandic in 1914 and then in a Danish translation by Knud Rasmussen in 1915. the French translation was published by Presses de l’Université du Québec as part of their Jardin de givre series, which republishes classic texts about the Arctic and also publishes new translations of work by northern writers, including a selection of Greenlandic texts. it’s the second Greenlandic text from this series that I’ve read, following Augo Lynge’s Trois cents ans après: Grønlandshavn en 2021, a utopian novel that feels in many ways like a direct follow-up to Le rêve d’un Groenlandais. I should mention, too, that there is technically an English translation of this, translated from Rasmussen’s Danish by Torben Hutchings under the title Singnagtugaq: A Greenlanders [sic] Dream, but it’s very difficult to access; if you read French, the French translation is more accessible and also, while Jorgensen worked from the Danish text, Huctin engaged in “validation linguistique à partir du texte original groenlandais”, so I’m inclined to see the end product as preferable to the English version that only looked at the Danish text.
Le rêve d’un Groenlandais has, itself, a utopian element. the bulk of the novel is set in the early 20th century, following two parallel plots: first, the novel’s main protagonist, Paavia, navigates his dissatisfaction with the structures of life in Greenland and especially with the colonial education system, such as it is; second, Paavia’s best friend Siilarsi, an orphan adopted by a relative, finds himself the odd one out in a tragic love triangle, as the young woman he loves, Suffia, is required by her family to marry Siilarsi’s adopted brother Juuserfi. the novel moves back and forth between these two threads, but it nonetheless feels like Paavia is the main character and the Siilarsi-Suffia-Juuserfi plot feels like an afterthought. this is probably my biggest Critique of the novel as a novel: I think it would have been stronger if either it had focused solely on Paavia or if it had really let Siilarsi (or Suffia!) be a co-protagonist.
ideologically I would say it’s an improvement over Trois cents ans après. where Lynge’s attitude towards traditional Greenlandic life is dismissive at best and actively condescending at worst, Storch seems to be attempting to chart a middle path, one where there is room for traditional subsistence practices but also where education opens new, “modern” possibilities. its strongest social critique is leveled at the education system, which both Paavia and the narration (and so presumably Storch) regard as the key to solving Greenland’s problems. this is brought up, for example, in the portrayal of the colonial administrative council. during a hunting celebration, we find this passage, for example:
Pendant le festin, on parla beaucoup et on raconta bien des histoires, mais quasiment tous les récits tournaient autour de la nourriture et autres gourmandises. Pas un mot ne fut prononcé sur des sujets plus élevés tels que le progrès, les questions sociales ou la façon dont le pays et sa population étaient gouvernés.
L’un d’entre eux parla quand même de ses souvenirs de délégué [au conseil d’administration] ; mais ce qui l’intéressait, ce n’étaient que les occasions où, après les réunions, il avait participé à des beuveries. Mais aussi, qui s’était vraiment soucié de leur donner les conditions pour être capables de parler de choses utiles ?
the implied dichotomy here between what is “useful” (politics, progress, governance) and what is not (traditional foodways, hunting) is really striking; this is probably the most condescending moment in the book in terms of its representation of “traditional” life. alongside this is the tension during the administrative council meeting between the Danish delegates and the Greenlandic delegates, who complain that the rules of procedure do not allow them to express themselves “à notre façon”. it’s left a little ambiguous, from the narration’s perspective, whether the pastor who’s running the meeting is right to be exasperated or if the Greenlandic delegates have genuinely identified a structural problem that needs to be addressed.
to the extent that the novel is offering a critique of Danish colonialism, it is focused on the colonial education system, which is, firstly, entirely religious (it’s less explicitly concerned about this, but it does seem to recognize a tension between the duties of a catechist and the duties of a teacher, a role that catechists are also expected to perform) and, secondly, utterly inadequate to prepare Greenlanders for anything other than traditional life. if even the subsistence hunters in the novel are literate, that appears to be the only #impact of their schooling; meanwhile, Storch points to the dysfunctional administrative council as an indication that Denmark is failing to prepare delegates for the requirements of the role of delegate, and while the Greenlanders are vaguely aware that there is a “Greenland fund” that’s meant to support them, they don’t really understand what it is or how it works, only that they see no real benefits from it (except limited and stigmatized welfare assistance for the destitute). Paavia’s elderly mentor Siimuut, who has been encouraging Paavia to develop what we might call a critical consciousness, tells him that education is the key to the future and to “progress”:
Je t’ai déjà dit que le malheur ici tient à notre ignorance tant que nous n’apprendrons pas davantage, nous ne serons pas capables d’avancer. Même les gens parmi nous qui parlent de progrès ne savent pas exactement ce qu’ils veulent ! Et quand de temps à autre, il leur arrive d’essayer de s’exprimer sur ce qu’ils ont entendu dire sur ces questions, leurs pensées s’embrouillent presque toujours. Peut-être es-tu encore trop jeune pour comprendre ce que je veux dire, mais souviens-toi de ceci : quand tu seras mûr pour ça, il te faudra être un travailleur parmi tes compatriotes. En vérité, il s’agit là d’une grande tâche, et le travailleur recevra sa rémunération.
the other really striking aspect of this book is how religious it is. the last chapter of the novel is Paavia having a dream-vision of a utopian Godthåb (now Nuuk) in the year 2105. Storch offers few details about this future, however, other than a general sense that it is “better” (and, in particular, that there has been some language development, with Greenlandic words that Paavia doesn’t understand, which in context seems likely to be “modern” technical and political vocabulary). what he does offer is a religious affirmation: Paavia encounters a future projection of Siimuut, who tells him that this vision has been granted to him by the power of god, because he is one of god’s elect, and enjoins him to work in the past to create this bright future. someone who can read both Greenlandic and Welsh should read this alongside Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd.
conversely, though, the two most scathing critiques in the novel are leveled first at Paavia’s home village’s catechist-teacher (a Greenlander) and then at the Danish pastor responsible for the district. I was particularly struck by his “self-reflection” when he realizes that the young couple he’s married (Suffia and Juuserfi) are not actually in love and that, in fact, Suffia was in love with Siilarsi, who has now disappeared, he realizes how useless he’s been:
Pour la première fois lui revint avec force qu’à l’origine, il était venu au Groenland pour faire quelque chose pour les Groenlandais; mais en repensant à toutes les années qu’il avait passées dans le pays, il était incapable de mentionner une seule chose importante qu’il eût faite pour la population. Jamais il ne se mêlait à eux, jamais il n’engageait avec eux des conversations susceptibles d’avoir une signification pour leur avenir.
Ainsi, des pensées plus tristes les unes que les autres se succédaient, et sa conscience l’accusait et le condamnait pour tout ce qu’il n’avait jamais fait. Il avait souvent vu dans la société des Groenlandais des conditions qui n’étaient pas ce qu’elles auraient dû être, oui, il avait même envoyé des rapports au Danemark; il lui était également arrivé de penser à la façon de remédier aux différents manquements — mais jamais il n’était passé à l’action; toujours il en avait repoussé le moment. Et que répondrait-il le jour où le Grand Juge lui poserait la question du nombre d’âmes qui avaient été sauvées par son travail durant les nombreuses années qu’il avait passées à l’étranger?
so far, so good: a classic critique of liberal inaction. maybe he’ll learn from this self-critique! instead, though, he talks things over with his wife, and this is his conclusion:
Il ne me reste qu’une seule chose à faire: je dois quitter ce pays par le premier bateau cet été, car je n’ai pas reconnu le jour où j’ai été visité.
(this is apparently a reference to Luke 19:44.) useless! despite — or perhaps because of — how Christian the rest of this book is, I have to think this is intentionally a biting satire of liberals whose politics is entirely a matter of what makes them feel good — I’m thinking about Sara Ahmed’s discussion of shame in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, the way shame encourages the shamed to turn away from the source of their shame, to retreat and to disengage from it. in a colonial context, as here, this is an obviously reactionary move.
anyway. this is not the best Greenlandic book I’ve read — that honor goes to Niviaq Korneliussen’s Homo sapienne (aka Last Night in Nuuk, aka Crimson) — but I do think it’s worth a read. as Karen Langgård observes in her introduction, it offers an important internal perspective on Greenland a century ago and how Greenlanders navigated the double consciousness created by Danish colonialism. it’s also one of surprisingly few examples of First Novels in colonized languages that’s readily accessible in translation:think it’s worth attending to Storch’s aesthetic project and his engagement with the particular affordances of the novel form for both aesthetic and political purposes. if you read French — or if you can get your hands on the English translation — I encourage you to take a look.
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