Gosh, hmm.. 3.5 stars. Of course SF abounds with novels about the nature of man. And this one is a little weak, in some ways, because there's lots of talk and not much action - the reader doesn't even meet the tropis. But I really liked the talk, the ideas, the conflicts of philosophical and political and zoological considerations.

Is man defined by his sense of spirituality? If a species has taboos, rituals, or ju-jus, is it human? Or is he defined by his relationship to nature? If he's one with it, and does not question or fear it, is he beast? If he's four-handed, is he beast? If he walks upright, is he man? Shall we define him as beast so we can have him work in our mills, or as man because that would be slavery?

There are a few women in the story that are very interesting. All are intelligent and individual, but also (like the men) representative of 'types' that the author wanted to explore with the reader. Not stereotypes, mind you, but each with her own pov. I found them, actually, to be more interesting than the men.

Reads, in tone and British pov, as if decades older than 1953. Many of the concepts and debates are relevant today. Recommended if you like SF for the Ideas, for the Sense of Wonder. ( )

Narrativa in lingua originale francese

En Nouvelle-Guinée, une équipe de savants auxquels s'est joint le journaliste Douglas Templemore cherche le fameux «chaînon manquant » dans l'évolution du singe à l'homme. En fait de fossile, ils trouvent une colonie bien vivante. Une colonie de quadrumanes, donc de singes. Mais a-t-on jamais vu des singes troglodytes ? Enterrant leurs morts ? Tandis que les hommes de science s'interrogent sur la nature de leurs « tropis », un homme d'affaires voit en eux une potentielle main-d’œuvre à bon marché. La seule parade aux noirs desseins du sieur Vancruysen est de prouver l'humanité des tropis. Raisonner en zoologues plutôt qu'en paléontologues ne résout qu'à demi le problème mais offre à Doug Templemore un moyen d'obtenir la preuve nécessaire. Ce qui l'amène à risquer sa tête pour notre plus vif divertissement, et notre édification, car sous le rire de cette satire allègre se pose la grave question de ce que nous sommes, nous les «personnes humaines », animaux dénaturés. ( )

An unusual book about the 'missing link' creature and what its discovery-- as a living species-- could do to soceity. Raises interesting questions about the meaning of life/us/etc, like it was intended to-- but sometimes these questions overwhelm the rest of the story. No one is very fully characterised, characters are sort of slapped around and treated as tools to introduce important questions (there's no closure for any of them but the main two), and the translation is very spotty.

Also: while being very critical of 'racialism' and the mistreatment of 'backwards races,' this book is simultaneously very condescendingly racist itself. If you feel like that would bother you, just don't read it. The author specifically states several times that the pinnacle of mankind's evolution is the white European male.

This book would make a good source for some kind of African-American Studies/Biology/History of Science thing, an interdisciplinary college student project, perhaps. Anyway, it's less valuable as a casual read and more significant as some kind of primary source, I think, for examining what some people in the mid-20th-century thought of Darwinian evolution. ( )

Dans ce conte philosophique, Vercors essaye de définir la notion d'humanité, et tente de prouver que cette notion ne se suffit pas d'une approche scientifique ou technique.
L'homme ne serait en définitive que l'espèce animale qui cherche à sortir de son état de nature ( )