Deft turns pepper Napoleon's final lap

16 October 2006

The Death of Napoleon, by Simon Leys, translated by Patricia Clancy and the author. Published by Black Inc., 2006. ISBN 1 86395 334 5. RRP $19.95. First published in 1991, Belgian-born Australian-resident Simon Leys’ novella has enjoyed the dual distinction of being set as a senior secondary school English text, as well as being made into an almost forgotten, unsuccessful film with the eponymous hero played by everyone’s favourite Bilbo, Ian Holm. In this re-issue, the author has provided an afterword at the request of his publisher: two brief pages that emphatically avoid explaining anything about the book or its processes, but which engage you through their common sense and a sharp, vitriolic dig at those responsible for that unfortunate film. The concept around which Leys builds his flimsy plot involves an imaginative flight for author and reader. Napoleon escapes from St. Helena, his place taken by "a humble and loyal sergeant" while the emperor works his anonymous passage on a ship sailing back to Europe. The conspiracy to restore his monarchy falls to pieces when the ship misses its landing at Bordeaux and sails on to Antwerp. Napoleon finally arrives in Paris to find his linkman dead, the conspirators aged and useless, and his occupation gone completely when the news breaks that the false Napoleon has died. What comes across as the most impressively wielded element in this plot’s improbable, if not impossible progress, is its circling around the topic of death. Of course, the expected conclusion comes with Napoleon’s obscure and ludicrously commonplace fatal illness. But the initial drive behind the emperor’s escape comes from an unknown mathematician who sets in train a vast conspiracy in which, according to best underground movement practice, nobody knows anybody else. This prime mover has actually died two years before Napoleon takes up his supernumerary status on the Bordeaux-bound Hermann-Augustus Stoeffer. Although the escapee eventually (and again, improbably) returns to his capital, the almost-resuscitated restoration plan founders on the death of Napoleon’s contact. Then, the final nail is pounded into the coffin of his ambitions with the apparent death of the faux-emperor. What leaps out from The Death of Napoleon is the author’s humour, illustrated by the deft turns that pepper this final lap of Napoleon’s life, which lurches from one unfortunate hurdle to a final, insurmountable impasse. Marooned in Paris as the live-in lover of a greengrocer’s widow, Napoleon is taken

ARTS AND CULTURE

Deft turns pepper Napoleon's final lap

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