Composed simultaneously, Le Clézio's volume of essays, L'Inconnu sur la terre, and his volume of short stories [Mondo et autres histoires] are facets of the same wish to lead the reader through words, into a parallel, wordless, primitive universe of spontaneous perception. The essays delineate these themes with clarity, the short stories create worlds in which these themes are immediately perceptible. (pp. 153-54)

[In L'Inconnu, Le Clézio's] point of view is that of a child, perhaps the child within all of us, who sees the universe surrounding him directly, without the interference of previous prejudices, of human knowledge. The world into which he leads the reader is a primitive one, forgotten by civilized man, but still the province not only of the child but of the poor and the very old, the timeless representatives of a humanity that expects nothing, that is simply there, open to the universe.

This deliberate choice of point of view causes Le Clézio to glorify the perceptions linked to primitive man: the world is a series of cycles, of unending repetition of day and night, where simple gestures (the making of bread, for example) and animal ruse are glorified at the expense of more civilized perceptions. He sees the philosophy and logic of contemporary civilization as opaque screens which prevent man from being really present in the world. Language, too, becomes divided between the primitive and the civilized: musicality of language is linked to the child (Le Clézio quotes, approvingly, the Spanish song "Golondrinas," which consists of only one repeated word, the Spanish word for "swallows"), whereas he rejects as part of the encumbering civilization logical communication by words….

In his attempt to include language within the world of spontaneous perception while removing it from the world of adult civilization, Le Clézio makes words into animate entities. They become in several essays insects which burrow and hide, animals, and even children…. Non-verbal communication is glorified, the smile becomes a primeval means of contact, and the glance of another person (preferably that of a woman, child, or old man) conveys a wordless secret which surpasses any possible linguistic interaction.

Searching for the basic life source within the human being (most often symbolized by light or the sun), Le Clézio frequently reverts to the Romantic theme of évasion. Both essays and short stories reveal … a yearning for experience and communication on a non-rational level. Roads, busses, clouds, the sea with its cargo ships, all become suggestions of the urge to become united with the "azur" of the sky, the "bleu libre de la mer." At the end of this quest is the elemental silence, the ultimate unification with the universe…. (p. 154)

The volume of short stories, containing seven stories in addition to the title story, recreates this quest with, for the most part, children as central figures. Their names are deliberately nonrealistic—Mondo, Lullaby, Jon, Juba—and the location of the stories seems equally indeterminate. One has vaguely the feeling that some stories may be taking place in Africa, some in the south of France, and some seem clearly linked with Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America. Le Clézio's favorite locations for communication with the universe form the background for many of these nouvelles: abandoned houses and gardens, casemates returning to nature, rocks overlooking the sea, and the primitive world of desert and pastures. At one with this universe, his child-heroes (he calls them "enfants-fées") know spontaneously the secret of communication with the natural world, a secret lost to the world of adults.

Obviously, the use of words to communicate non-verbal feeling and non-logic, to glorify primitive life forces over civilization, creates a tension in both volumes, a tension which Le Clézio sometimes exploits to his advantage …, but which can lead to both repetition and wordiness. Each of the children in the short stories describes what he has just seen as the most beautiful thing he has ever seen; each natural element becomes in its turn the only god. The essays seem to circumvent this problem successfully, whereas one has the distinct feeling that one is reading the same short story over and over, with only incidental changes of names and scenery. What is most noticeably missing here is the humor of much of Le Clézio's early work. In these volumes, Le Clézio appears dead serious about his child-heroes; the reader may find it somewhat difficult to share this viewpoint. (pp. 154-55)