The Marriage of Loti (Rarahu)

Every love story has the plot that two people want each other but for some reason they can't have each other. In addition to that plot there must be another story and a background landscape that is interesting. In The Marriage of Loti the central love story concerns Loti and his 14 year old native wife, Rahahu. Loti is in the Navy and has to leave paradise. Rahahu has to stay. Hence the reason they can't have each other forever. It's sad, but it's true. It's true because the story is taken from Julien Viaud's (the real Pierre Loti) autobiographical notes. The landscape is also true including the portrayal of the court of Pomare IV, the last Queen of Tahiti. True even to the details of how the Queen is attended when she must answer the call of nature. The other story, and the one of little real interest, concerns Loti's search for the children of his brother, a quest that has a tacked on unreal quality. That story deserves little praise. But the book as a whole deserves great praise. In its day this book sold well, over 300,000 copies. Because of it, Loti was made a memeber of the French Academy and he was much praised as "a new Chateaubriand" and the "most original, the most delicate, and yet the most popular of contemporary French novelists." Loti's reputation has dwindled, but with the renewed interest in other cultures, especially the exotic cultures of the South Pacific, it may be due for a revival. I read this novel in three hours (185 pages plus several beautiful pictures drawn by Loti). When I had finished I was left with the feeling that I had read one of the great love stories of that time, one of the most sensitive descriptions of Polynesia, and the most sympathetic approach to the understanding of Tahiti ever done in the analogical matrix that we call fiction.