L'Homme truqué (The Doctored Man)
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L'Homme truqué is a short novel by Maurice Renard, initially published in March 1921 in the magazine Je sais tout. Regularly republished in France during the 20th and 21st centuries, it also benefits from numerous publications abroad.
Author | Maurice Renard |
---|---|
Original title | L'Homme truqué |
Country | France |
Genre | Science-fiction Scientific-marvel |
Publisher | Je sais tout |
Publication date | March 1921 |
Maurice Renard tells the story of Jean Lebris, a soldier who lost his sight during the trench war, returning to his home town. Having acquired superhuman vision following a medical experiment aimed at restoring his sight, he tries to hide his cumbersome secret from those around him.
Written in the aftermath of the First World War, the novel features a war cripple. It appears as a pessimistic work, both by its theme - the difficult rehabilitation of a disabled soldier - and by its tragic ending. As such, it bears witness to the trauma suffered by the French population in the aftermath of the war.
At the same time, Maurice Renard, leader of the scientific-marvel literary genre, seeks with this tale of scientific imagination to give the reader food for thought. He pushes the latter to question the scientific progress on which he occasionally offers a nuanced look, notably through the question of the superhuman, but also on the existence of the invisible worlds that surround us.
In 2013, writer Serge Lehman and cartoonist Gess revisited this classic of the scientific-marvel genre in a homonymous comic book, transposing the character created by Maurice Renard into a superheroic context.