Author Adrien Bosc does not consider his debut novel CONSTELLATION to be a prosopopoeia, a figure of speech in which an abstract thing is personified, or a figure of speech in which an imagined, absent, or dead person or thing is represented as speaking. As the author has it: ‘the description of the flight, the arrangement of the characters within the whole as represented by the plane is the only viewpoint, the only theatricality.’
In 1949, there was still no way to make the dead speak. The black box was not yet in general use and so an exact re-enactment was made, or one that is an exact approximation. CONSTELLATION approaches such an exact approximation, a re-enactment of approximate exactness; a celestial piece of writing about humanity, history, aviation and the discreet power of chance.
CONSTELLATION begins on the night of October 27, 1949, on the tarmac at Orly airport, where Air France flight F-BAZN is waiting to receive thirty-seven passengers departing for the United States.
The plane is a Constellation, ‘the plane of the stars’, the brainchild of Howard Hughes, who drew the plans freehand, his sketches by a taste for elegance and eroticism, leaving the engineers the task of adapting the to the laws of aeronautics. During the same period, he designed a cantilevered bra with steel undercup rods that turned Jane Russell’s breasts into missiles aimed at the screen and at the leagues of public decency.
On October 27, 1949 ‘the aeroplane of the stars’ was living up to its name. It’s passenger list included Marcel Cerdan, the ‘Casablanca Clouter’, world boxing champion and squeeze of The Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf, and violin virtuoso, Ginette Neveu. It was a last minute thing for the boxer and his entourage on their way to America for a bout with the raging bull, Jake La Motta. Three people were bumped when the pugilist received priority seating. They survived due to the discreet power of chance.
Among the passengers of privilege, there were six working class travellers; five Basque shepherds with contracts to work in the US, and Amelie Ringler, a spool operator from Mulhouse. The full manifest is honoured in the book. For Ginette Neveau and Amelie Ringler, the tragedy was magnified. To the families’ grief over their deaths is added the torment of uncertainty. Incorrect identification meant that bodies were buried, exhumed, and reburied.
The results of the investigation failed to provide an explanation for the tragedy. It remains one of the great mysteries of 20th Century aviation.
Beautifully designed by Peter Dyer and bound with a dust jacket creating a port-hole to the stars, CONSTELLATION is a constellation of imagination, craftsmanship, invention and invigoration.
CONSTELLATION by Adrien Bosc, translated from the French by Willard Wood, is published by Serpents Tail.