The Camp of the Saints

infobox Book |
name = The Camp of the Saints
title_orig = Le Camp des Saints
translator = Norman Shapiro


image_caption =
author = Jean Raspail
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series =
genre = Novel
publisher =
release_date = 1973
english_release_date = 1975
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-684-14240-6
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Camp of the Saints" ("Le Camp des saints") is a 1973 French novel by Jean Raspail. A translation by Norman Shapiro was published by Scribner in 1975 (ISBN 0-684-14240-6). It was republished by The Social Contract Press in 1995 (ISBN 1-881780-07-4); "The Washington Post" reports that reading the novel "focused" the ideas of John Tanton, Social Contract Press' founder. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500897_pf.html On Immigration, A Theorist Who's No Fence-Sitter - washingtonpost.com ] ] In 2001 the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the novel had been published five times in the US and was "widely revered by American white supremacists and is a sort of anti-immigration analog to "The Turner Diaries"." [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=172 SPLCenter.org: Fear and Fantasy ] ]

Plot

The story begins in Bombay, India, where the Dutch government has announced a policy that Indian babies will be adopted and raised in the Netherlands. The policy is reversed when the Dutch consulate is inundated with parents eager to give up their infant children as it would be one less mouth to feed. An Indian "wise man" then rallies the masses to make a mass exodus to live in Europe. Most of the story centers on the French Riviera, where almost no one remains except for the military and a few civilians, including a retired professor who has been watching the huge fleet of run down freighters approaching the French coast. The story alternates between the French reaction to the mass immigration and the attitude of the immigrants. They have no desire to assimilate into French culture but want the plentiful food and water that are in short supply their native India. Near the end of the story the mayor of New York City is made to share Gracie Mansion with three families from Harlem, the Queen of England must agree to have her son marry a Pakistani woman, and only one drunken Soviet soldier stands in the way of thousands of Chinese people as they swarm into Siberia.

Response

In 1975 "Time Magazine" panned the novel as a "bilious tirade" that only required a response because it "arrives trailing clouds of praise from French savants, including Dramatist Jean Anouilh ('A haunting book of irresistible force and calm logic'), with the imprint of a respected U.S. publisher and a teasing pre-publication ad campaign ('The end of the white world is near')".cite news
author= Paul Gray
title=Poor White Trash
date=1975-08-04
work=Time Magazine
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913401,00.html
accessdate=2008-08-05] In 2002 Lionel Shriver described the novel as "both prescient and appalling," unquestionably racist but "written with tremendous verbal energy and passion." Shriver writes that the book "gives bilious voice to an emotion whose expression is increasingly taboo in the West, but that can grow only more virulent when suppressed: the fierce resentment felt by majority populations when that status seems threatened." [http://www.newstatesman.com/200206100028 New Statesman - Population doomsday ] ] William F. Buckley Jr. praised the book as "a great novel" which raised questions on how to respond to massive illegal immigration in 2004. [http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/buckley/wfb200407231332.asp National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com) ] ] In 2005 the paleoconservative Chilton Williamson praised the book as "one of the most uncompromising works of literary reaction in the 20th century."cite book | last = Williamson | first = Chilton | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today's Conservative Thinkers | publisher = Citadel Press | date = 2005 | location = | pages = 279 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = ]

Jared Taylor, of the "American Renaissance", says of it:

"The Camp of the Saints" puts the white man's dilemma in the most difficult terms: slaughter hundreds of thousands of women and children or face oblivion. Of course, a nation that had the confidence to shed blood in the name of its own survival would never be put to such a test; no mob of beggars would threaten it. [cite journal | first=Samuel Jared | last=Taylor | year=1995 | month=June | title=Fairest Things Have Fleetest Endings| journal=American Renaissance | volume=6 | issue=6 | url=http://www.amren.com/956issue/956issue.html#article2 | accessdate=2007-01-11]

References

External links

* [http://es.geocities.com/sucellus23/797.htm "Parable or Reality - Thirty Years after "The Camp of the Saints"] by Jean-Paul Gourevitch in The Social Contract Press (Winter 2003).