| Penguan Iland | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Anatole France |
| Original title | 'L'Île des Pingouins' |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre(s) | Satire |
| Publisher | Modern Library |
| Publication date | 1908 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 9781587155482 |
Penguin Island (1908; French: L'Île des Pingouins) is a satirical fictional history by Nobel Prize winning French author Anatole France.
Penguin Island is written in the style of a sprawling 18th and 19th century history book, concerned with grand metanarratives, mythologizing heroes, hagiography and romantic nationalism. It is about a fictitious island of great auks that exists off the northern coast of Europe. The history begins when a wayward Christian missionary monk accidentally lands on the island and sees the great auks as a sort of Greek pre-Christian pagan society. Partly blind, he mistakes the animals for people and baptizes them. This mistake causes a problem for The Lord who normally only allows people to be baptized, so he resolves it by converting the great auks to people and giving them a soul. Thus begins the great auk history and from there forward the history mirrors that of France (and largely Western Europe including Britain). From the Migration Period ("Dark Ages") when the Germanic tribes incessantly fought among one another for territory; to the heroic Early Middle Ages with the rise of Charlemagne ("Draco the Great") and conflicts with Viking raiders ("porpoises"); to the Renaissance (Erasmus); and up to the modern era with motor cars, and even a future time in which a thriving high-tech civilization is destroyed by a campaign of terrorist bombings, and everything starts again in an endless cycle.
The longest chapter and probably most well known is a satire of the Dreyfus affair.
Scattered throughout are allusions to real historical people such as Columba and Saint Augustine, as well as fictitious characters who represent historical people.
Penguin Island is a critique of human nature from a socialist standpoint in which morals, customs and laws are satirized. For example, the origin of the aristocracy is presented as starting with the brutal and shameless murder of a peasant and the robbing of his land.