"Écume" by Véronique Bergen. From Oceanic Ecocide to a New Alliance with all Living Beings

Abstract

Écume (2023), a novel by Belgian author Véronique Bergen, revisits one of the major narratives that has shaped our oceanic imagination and contributed to our separation from the sensuous world: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. One of the most original aspects of the book is its unexpected, surging prose, which we will highlight for its affinities with aqueous and oceanic matter. We will also show that the oceanic imaginary and humanity’s relationship to the sea, as portrayed in this novel of the Anthropocene, are grounded in predation, technicism, and the sublime – features characteristic of the “Atlantic perspective” (Artaud). Écume, a testament to the oceanic turn that emerged forcefully two decades ago, denounces the extreme degradation of seas and oceans and brings to visibility the nonhuman beings that inhabit them. Finally, we will examine the alliances, the (re)connections to the marine world and to life, and the more-than-human “becomings” (Deleuze) enacted in the novel, particularly through its main female character – a “body of water” (Neimanis).