Americans say that God created men strong and weak, and Samuel Colt leveled the playing field. I think it's the same with civilizations. Yes, the Aztecs and Incas did not invent the wheel, did not learn to work iron, and horses on their continent were extinct in the preglacial era. But that is not to say that their civilizations were weaker, although they had little chance against the Spanish, hardened in the battles of the Reconquista. However, Laurent Binet disagreed, and in his novel Civilisations he corrected this injustice. And leveled the playing field.
Son of an historian, Binet was born in Paris, graduated from University of Paris in literature, and taught literature in Parisian suburb and eventually at University. He was awarded the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman for his first novel, HHhH.
All that was needed was nothing: the Vikings, having first set foot on the American continent in the 11th century, did not stop in Vinland, on godforsaken Newfoundland, but moved lower along the coast and came into contact with the local population. And now the Indians already had horses and ironworking technology. And after a couple of epidemics, they had some immunity to smallpox and other European diseases. And now Columbus, who, as usual, arrives on the Caribbean islands in 1492, is not as welcome as we are accustomed to read in textbooks, and his days he ends up not as governor of Hispaniola, but a simple prisoner in the jail.
The most interesting thing begins to happen when, as a result of the civil war in the Inca Empire, Atahualpa (according to Laurent Binet - who lost the war to his brother) in an attempt to escape, builds ships and sails across the ocean. And so in 1531, during the Lisbon earthquake, when the poor Portuguese do not care about anything at all, the remnants of the Inca army manages to land on the European continent. This is where the real alternate history begins.
The author is not trying to put the whole familiar to us European history upside down, and it - great. Events go their way: Catholics and Huguenots slaughter each other, the rulers are at war, the Spanish Inquisition burns at the stake heretics and evicts the Jews. All the historical characters are there: Charles V and Francis I, Eleanor of Austria and Isabella of Portugal, German bankers and Saxon electors, French thinkers and Lutheran preachers, Spanish inquisitors and Atahualpa's commanders - Laurent Binet has not forgotten anyone and has put them into historical context. Thomas More continues to correspond with Erasmus of Rotterdam, Michelangelo and El Greco create masterpieces, architects build, rulers fight, and the famous 95 theses are posted on the gates of the Wittenberg church. Only now they are no longer called Luther's theses, but "Ninety-five Theses of the Divine Sun. All the same good old European history, even the well-known catchphrases like "Paris is worth a mass" are still there, albeit with slight modifications. But as the plot develops and the Incas come to power: tolerant to any religion, excellent administrators, economists, mathematicians and agronomists, everything changes imperceptibly, though in some places - even for the better...
The novel "Civilization" is, above all, the texts. Real, historical, we all know the original sources. And scrupulous, very careful work with these texts. The first part about the Vikings is written as a stylization of the Icelandic epic. The second is called The Diary of Christopher Columbus, and here the author does not deviate one bit from the true diaries of the admiral, only at the end, in gloomy and depressing tones, describes the changed reality. But as I remember, Columbus, who was disappointed in everything at the end of his life, was also quite depressing in his notes. The third part, The Chronicles of Atahualpa, which describes the conquest of Europe by the Incas, is a chic imitation of the conquistador chronicles of the 16th century. Even Camoense's Lusiades has been elegantly remade into the Inciades. And finally, "The Adventures of Cervantes". This is where everyone will recognize the famous text about the cunning hidalgo. And why, nothing changes, the battle of Lepanto - will still happen, although against the ships of the Ottoman Empire will not be the ships of the Holy League, but "the Spanish-Indian armada, led by the Inca Juan Maldonado, supported by the Franco-Mexican fleet. Cervantes would still be captured, become a writer and.... go to America, for "the great overseas nations, the Mexican Empire, under whose protectorate the kingdom of France is, and the Western Inca Empire, its faithful ally, friend of the Fifth Quarter, seek painters and writers, for painting and composing are two fields in which these great empires, for all their power, have not yet managed to surpass the Old World.
Reading the novel - one continuous pleasure. The author managed to turn the adventurous frivolous story into a witty ligature of real historical chronicles, works of world classics and funny adventures. In the novel amused and light trolling of non-standard architectural solutions, which to this day lead into a stupor travelers. For example, about the Mesquita, a strange symbiosis of a Catholic cathedral and a mosque: "The Temple of the Sun, designed by Michelangelo, wedged into the building of the Cathedral of Cordoba", or about how "improved" the Louvre: "Your new Mexican friends - the Aztecs ordered to build a pyramid in the Louvre yard". Well agree, few people, when they first saw the Pyramid of the Louvre, didn't wonder, "What was that?" Now we know - the Aztecs!
In short, fans of the historical novel - highly recommended. Fans of documentary chronicles - will enjoy seeing old, forgotten friends. The rest - will help the work of the translator of the novel, Anastasia Zakharevich. Thanks to the huge number of her notes all references to real historical figures - will be clear, and incomprehensible allusions - clarified. But in any case, both will be able to enjoy the incredible adventures of the Indians in Europe and think, what would have happened if they had discovered us first?
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