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The Dial Press (1971) [a]
I.
The other day, I came across the above novel by the Italian writer Virgilio Martini (1903-1986); a work which, when originally published in Fascist Italy in 1936, was soon banned on the grounds of blasphemy and obscenity.
It tells the story of the last woman of childbearing age on earth, after a homosexual plot to exterminate the fairer sex with a deadly virus almost succeeds.
I don't know if the author was genuinely plagued by fears of a gay planet, or if he just thought this would make an amusing piece of satirical science fiction, but, either way it's a curious work that even many ardent fans of the SF genre haven't read (or even heard of).
However, one person who was familiar with Martini's novel was Jean Baudrillard, who references the work in Le
crime parfait (1995) [b] ...
II.
For Baudrillard, the perfect crime is the murder of reality and the vital illusion of the world.
But Baudrillard is not simply interested in solving this crime (in finding clues, for example, that might reveal the identity of the perpetrator); he's a philosopher, not a private detective and, ultimately, he's more concerned with what happens after the event (i.e., on the other side of the crime) than in lamenting the disappearance of the Real.
It's man's entrance into the era of the Virtual that really excites his interest; an era born of the liquidation of the Real (and the referential), but which is characterised by the extermination of the Other and all forms of otherness - including the feminine principle.
Describing the novel's central idea as a terrifying allegory for what we ourselves are now experiencing, Baudrillard predicts that, as in Martini's novel, "no science will be able to protect us" [111] from the fate that awaits us:
"Though, for the moment, this virus does not affect the biological reproduction of the species, it affects an even more fundamental function, that of the symbolic reproduction of the other, favouring, rather, a cloned, asexual reproduction of the species-less individual. For to be deprived of the other is to be deprived of sex, and to be deprived of sex is to be deprived of symbolic belonging to any species whatsoever." [112]
It's this idea of "a world given over entirely to the selfsame" [112] that is truly terrifying.
It might mark the end of alienation, but, whereas in the past many saw this as an ideal goal, today "we can see that alienation protected us from something worse: from the
definitive loss of the other, from the expropriation of the other by the
same" [112].
Why's that so dreadful?
Well, because to be dispossessed of the other results in an irrevocable and fatal destabilisation of the self.
Think of what happens, for example, when the lamb lies down with the wolf; Christians might believe that to neutralise predators will bring about a future of universal peace and safety, in which even natural adversaries live in harmony (see Isaiah 11:6-9), but Baudrillard recognises that this results only in a tragic destiny for both animals.
"The best strategy for bringing about someone's ruin is to eliminate everything which threatens him, thus causing him to lose all his defences, and it is this strategy we are applying to ourselves. By eliminating the other in all its forms (illness, death, negativity, violence, strangeness), not to mention racial and [sexual] differences, by eliminating all singularities in order to radiate total positivity, we are eliminating ourselves." [113]
Notes
[a] This first English edition was translated by Emile Capouya; dustjacket by Paul Bacon. The original Italian edition of Martini's novel - Il mondo senza donne - was published in 1936.
[b] See Jean Baudrillard, 'The Laying Off of Desire', in The Perfect Crime, trans. Chris Turner (Verso, 1996), pp. 111-114. Page references to this work will be given directly in the post.
