Ants and the Humans Who Love Them: Bernard Werber's Les Fourmis Trilogy
Journal
American Entomologist
Journal Volume
59
Journal Issue
4
Pages
208--213
Date Issued
2013
Author(s)
Abstract
So read the first words of French science fiction writer Bernard Werber’s 1991 novel Les Fourmis [The Ants], available in an English translation as Empire of the Ants (not to be confused with the 1977 B-movie of the same name). It is the first of a series of increasingly longer and more involved novels commonly known as the Les Fourmis trilogy (Fig. 1). The second and third books, Le Jour des fourmis [The Day of the Ants; 1992] (Fig. 2), and La Revolution des fourmis [The Revolution of the Ants; 1996] (Fig. 3) have not been translated into English at this time, making them inaccessible to myrmecophiles who cannot read French or the other foreign language versions of them that do exist. That’s a pity, because Werber’s Ants trilogy is a remarkable work that fancifully blends the human and formicidine worlds, using the latter as a lens to critically analyze the former, and is a delight for any entomologist. Deviating from common science fiction tropes, the Ants trilogy doesn’t demonize ants or use them solely as monsters of the week, nor does it overly anthropomorphize them. On the contrary, the ants are appreciated for what they are, as the reader is invited to think as they do and see the world through their ocelli: a case of species relativism that comes surprisingly naturally through the pages. If you ever wondered how ants perceive humans, or what religion or rebellion or romance could look like in an ant colony, this is your chance for an imaginative yet oddly plausible interpretation. Here I will focus on how Werber depicts both insects and entomologists throughout the trilogy, and try to condense his conclusions and the lessons to be learned from his novels (particularly the latter two) for those of you unable to read them. For those of you who can, spoilers will be at a minimum and come with warning.
Type
journal article