'Zone' by Mathias Énard (Review)

Fitzcarraldo Editions is a new press in the UK, publishing quality books in plain, sleek designs.  Their first offering is a book which, while previously translated into English, had never been released in the UK.  A lengthy novel, it's a 520-page journey, one you're unlikely to forget - let's go and visit the Zone...

*****
Zone by Matthias Énard (translated by Charlotte Mandell, review copy courtesy of the publisher) begins at Milan's main train station.  Frenchman Francis Mirkovic, having missed his morning flight, is two-thirds of the way through an epic train journey from Paris to Rome.  As the wheels start moving once more, the tired, hungover Mirkovic starts thinking of the end of the journey.

With five-hundred-and-fifty kilometres to go, there's ample time for thoughts, and Francis is a man with a lot to think about.  He's leaving the world of the French intelligence service, in possession of a suitcase which is to be sold in Rome, the proceeds of which will help him start a new life.  Ignoring the passers-by at the station, he prepares for the hours ahead:

"...I have to be strong I can't linger over the faces of young women I have to be resolute so I can gather momentum for the kilometers ahead of me then for the void and the terror of the world I'm changing my life my profession better not think about it..."
p.15 (Fitzcarraldo Press, 2014)

As his experiences flash before his eyes on the long run to Rome, we wonder how he'll ever forget what he's been through...

Zone is an excellent book, a sweeping novel acting on several levels.  Ostensibly, it's a description of a train journey; in reality, it's an opportunity to delve into the bloody past of the Mediterranean region.  Yes, there's plenty of sun and relaxation on the beaches, but it's also a place of constant struggle and bloodshed.  This is the Zone of the title, and as the wheels roll smoothly over the tracks, lulling the tired passengers to sleep, the reader is confronted with a tangle of war memories, as Mirkovic reminisces about 'work' and his personal life.

We move from the first level of the exhausted, hungover agent on the train to the second level, his experiences as both a soldier and a spy.  He's a veteran of the Balkan wars, a volunteer fighter in the Croatian army fighting for his mother's homeland.  The time available for reflection allows flashbacks to surface, atrocities both witnessed and undertaken, and he remembers the fate of Andrija and Vlaho, his comrades in arms.

His subsequent career as a spy, a seller and buyer of information, may seem slightly less violent, but only on the surface.  The information still leads to death, only this time at arm's length, and it's this suitcase full of the dead which is being brought to new owners.  It may appear to be his ticket to freedom, but it could also be a container full of guilt, a burden weighing him down.  Énard cleverly uses Mirkovic's stories to gradually unveil more about the agent's personal life, his character being revealed over the course of the journey.  His war crimes, his personal relationships, his mental torment - the closer he gets to his destination, the more we see him unravel.  This is a man on the verge of falling apart completely...

The Zone itself, from Gibralta and Morocco to the Middle East, is a cradle of life, a region which has given birth to civilisations for millennia; however, it's also a setting for war and death.  The third level of the novel lifts us above Mirkovic's personal experiences, expanding upon the interconnections between the wars:

"...do we always know what the gods are reserving for us what we are reserving for ourselves, the plan we form, from Jerusalem to Rome, from one eternal city to the other, the apostle who three times denied his friend in the pale dawn after a stormy night perhaps guided my hand, who knows, there are so many coincidences, paths that cross in the great fractal seacoast where I've been floundering for ages without knowing it..." (p.76)

While the writing and structure are very different, there are shades of Cloud Atlas here in the way that the events of different eras overlap.

The book goes back and forth in time, looking at the history of war in the Mediterranean,
giving us a four-dimensional view of the Zone.  Énard skilfully weaves in stories of the Spanish Civil War, the Great War struggles and Holocaust massacres, along with older tales of Hannibal and his elephants and the siege of Troy.  This is a region soaked in blood, home to legions of bones:

"...on the beach of Megara you still find, washed up by the waves, tiles of mosaics torn from Punic palaces sleeping on the bottom of the sea, like the wrecks of the galleys of Lepanto, the breastplates sunk in the Dardanelles, the ashes thrown in bags of cement by the SS of La Risiera along Dock No. 7 in the port of Trieste..." (p.106)

We begin to understand that the procession of soldiers and corpses is never ending...

Zone is a wonderful work, one with a dizzying array of references and ideas.  One of its more noticeable features is its style - it's a book without sentences, for the most part reflecting the motion of the train.  The words push the reader smoothly onwards, just as the train surges powerfully on through the Italian countryside, and Mandell has done sterling work to recreate this fluid style in English.  The book starts mid-sentence, and although it ends with a full stop, in a sense it really doesn't finish here.  It's just a part of the one, big sentence that is life.

Énard has created a great novel, one that deserves to be read, and it'll probably be among my best few books of the year.  It's a work I could have written far more about, a novel to be both read and studied.  Above all, it's a reminder that the conflicts of today are shadows, echoes of those of yesterday and antiquity - the soldiers may change, but the Zone doesn't...

*****
Open Letter published the American edition of Zone, and they have just published another of Énard's books, Street of Thieves, again translated by Charlotte Mandell.  Anyone who enjoyed Zone may want to check that one out too...

'The Foundling Boy' by Michel Déon (Review)

While the idea of the recently-founded Folio Academy, electors of the Folio Prize, may sound impressive to some, when it comes to literary élites, there are groups with much stronger credentials, and one of those is the Académie Française, France's premier institution for the promotion (and protection) of language and literature.  Today's book is by one of the biggest of big cheeses, a man who has been a member of this esteemed group since 1978, so I was expecting a lot.  Luckily, it's a cracker ;)

*****
Michel Déon's The Foundling Boy (translated by Julian Evans, review copy courtesy of Gallic Books) takes us to Normandy, where Jeanne and Albert Arnaud, caretakers of the estate of the du Courseau family, are woken one morning in 1919 by cries.  On investigating, they discover a baby in a wicker basket abandoned on their doorstep, and they decide to take the child in as their own, despite the objections of Madame du Courseau (who would prefer the child to grow up in her own house).

The years pass, and Jean, as the child is named, grows into a strapping young man, blessed with good looks, a strong body and ample intelligence.  However, the mystery of his provenance is always at the back of his mind, and this refuses to allow him the peace required to settle down - he's a boy with itchy feet, and his wanderings will take him far and wide.  Meanwhile, just as Jean reaches maturity, the clouds of war begin to gather once more.  France prepares itself to send another generation of young men to the slaughter...

The Foundling Boy is wonderful, a really enjoyable novel.  It's a book you fly through, sepia-tinted, but with a razor-sharp drollness, a Bildungsroman of the best kind:

"I sense that the reader is eager, as I am, to reach the point where Jean Arnaud becomes a man.  But patience!  None of us turns into an adult overnight, and nothing would be properly clear (or properly fictional) if I failed to illustrate the stages of our hero's childhood in some carefully chosen anecdotes."
p.80 (Gallic Books, 2013)

With a sympathetic main character, and an excellent supporting cast, this is a book full of interesting people living through very interesting times.

The novel paints a picture of France, and elsewhere in Europe, during the interwar period.  The scars of 'The Great War' are still visible, whether psychological, as in the constant fear of another conflict, or physical, in the form of Albert's missing leg or the mutilated face of another old soldier, Léon Cece.  Throughout the novel, the tension gradually builds, and by the end of the story, the uneasy peace binding Europe together has finally broken down...

Despite the shadow of war in the background, though, the novel is really all about Jean.  He's a boy growing up with a mystery, a child of humble origins who will owe his rise in the world to a mysterious benefactor.  If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should, as there are numerous parallels here to Great Expectations.  The eerie start to the book has echoes of Dickens' novel, and the enigmatic figure of Constantin Palfy, Jean's own Herbert Pocket, helps Jean to understand the ways of the world (in London!).  There's even a beautiful, seemingly untouchable, love interest in the form of Chantal de Malemort.

If it's a Great Expectations tribute, though, it's certainly a very French one, from the images of the Norman hawthorns on the first page to its occasional mocking of the English and Germans.  One of the major themes of the novel is Jean's sexual awakening, and there's a fair bit of action between the sheets, and seduction of willing housewives.  As he says in his diary:

"I've bought myself a notebook where I've started making a few notes:
  a) Duplicity: absolutely necessary for a life without dramas.  You have to harden your heart.  I need to be capable, without blushing to my roots, of sleeping with a woman and then being a jolly decent chap to her lover or her husband.  This is essential.  Without it society would be impossible." (p.240)

Ah, the French...  Suffice it to say, this is one lesson Jean manages to take to heart ;)

Moving on to non-sexual matters, part of Jean's education is learning from the people he encounters, as each person teaches him something new, removing the scales from his innocent eyes.  His travels in Italy with the budding Nazi Ernst teach him that a helpful nature and racist rage are not incompatible, while his friendship with Palfy shows him that people with no morals can make the most enjoyable companions.  It takes time, but our hero eventually grasps that what we see on the outside rarely reflects the inside completely - people tend to have more than one face...

My enjoyment of the novel was enhanced by the idiosyncrasies of the narrator.  He's a constant intrusion, a self-important, witty, manipulative ghost, who leaves you in no doubt as to who is in control of the story:

"...Everyone came to watch: Adèle, Jeanne, Marie-Thérèse, Albert, Jean, Michel, Antoinette and two other servants, whose names I shan't bother with because they were only casual staff." (p.48)

Not everyone likes this kind of authorial presence, but I appreciated the skillful switches from a distanced narrative to a distinct involvement in the tale.  Occasionally, however, this intrusion has a darker side.  From time to time, the narrator takes us on little trips into the future, where we see the fate of minor characters who are no longer required for the story...

The Foundling Boy is a book I enjoyed immensely, gripping and very funny, with never a dull moment.  It's a novel with a wonderful style - Evans' translation is excellent, and the text never seemed clumsy or unnatural.  The best thing of all, though, is that the story doesn't end there.  With The Foundling Boy ending at the very start of the Second World War (revealing some secrets, but leaving others to uncover another day), the scene is set for a sequel - which you can get your hands on now too!  Gallic Books is bringing The Foundling's War out in a matter of days, and I, for one, can't wait to catch up with Jean and his friends for another trip down memory lane.

I'm sure it'll be another very French experience ;)

'Numéro Six' ('Number Six') by Véronique Olmi (Review)

Looking back at my reading list recently, I noticed that the last few months have been totally devoid of any foreign-language reading - by which I mean reading books in a language other than English (reading books originally written in another language is a different story altogether).  While Women In Translation Month is all about promoting books others might like to read, I also felt it was time to stretch myself a little and try a couple which aren't available in English yet.  Who know?  After reading my reviews, maybe someone will decide to bring them out in English at some point.

I wouldn't hold my breath, though...

*****
Many readers will be aware of Véronique Olmi's Beside the Sea (translated by Adriana Hunter), which was Peirene Press' debut offering, but virtually none of her other works have made it into English thus far.  However, my French-language edition of Bord de Mer actually came with a companion story, the enigmatically-named Numéro Six (Number Six).  It's no coincidence that the two works are bundled together.  As well as being Olmi's first two published works of fiction, the stories complement each other nicely as they both look at parent-child relationships - just from differing viewpoints.

The story begins with a family on the beach, nicely lined up for a family picture, but this peaceful scene soon turns sour:

"Le père leur demande de ne plus bouger, de sourire à l'objectif.  Il regarde dans son Leica.  Quleques secondes, puis il relève la tête, inquiet.  Il les regarde tous.  Il les compte.  Il les recompte.  Son cœur s'emballe.  La dernière, Fanny, n'est pas sur la photo.  N'est pas dans la groupe.  N'est pas sur la plage."
p.87 (J'ai Lu, 2010)

"The father tells them to keep still, to smile for the camera.  He looks into his Leica.  A few seconds, and then he raises his head again, troubled.  He looks at them all.  He counts them.  He counts them again.  His heart races.  The youngest, Fanny, isn't in the photo.  Isn't in the group.  Isn't on the beach." (***My Translation)

We then switch to the point of view of the missing child and wade into the ocean with her, waves breaking over us as we slowly make our way into deeper waters.  If only someone could come and save us...

Decades later, Fanny Delbast, the child in the water, picks up the tale of her life as she watches over her father.  She is now fifty years old, and her father, a former doctor and war hero, has just reached his century, an old man enjoying the quiet of his final years.  What seems like a perfect father-daughter relationship has a darker side, however.  Fanny, 'numéro six' in the Delbast family, is a woman who has craved her father's attention all her life, and this book is the story of how she tried to get it - starting with her journey into the water.

One of the main themes Olmi looks at in Numéro Six is the fragile bond between a daughter who idolises, and idealises, her father and a man who doesn't really notice her much at all.  Her decision to take on the responsibility for his care in his twilight years is anything but altruistic, even if her brothers and sisters see it this way.  With the mother who monopolised her father's affection finally gone, it's Fanny's turn to sit by her father's side:

"J'ai mis toute mon énergie à trouver cet endroit.  Je te voulais près de moi.  Dépendant de moi.  Quel soulagement pour le aînés, ils n'y croyaient pas, ils ont dit qu'ils pouvaient payer, que le prix ne devait pas être un obstacle, surtout que rien ne m'arrête dans mes recherches.
 Rien ne m'a arrêtée." (p.90)

"I put all my energy into finding this place.  I wanted you close to me.  Dependent on me.  What a relief for the others, they couldn't believe it, they said that they'd pay, that price was no object, just as long as nothing got in the way of my research.
 Nothing got in my way." ***

As we travel through her early life, we see why she longs for her father's affection so much.  An afterthought, a late, unexpected addition to a large Catholic family, she is less Fanny than numéro six, just a number, the last of the children.  Any trick she thinks of to draw her father's attention seems to backfire, her efforts ignored or repulsed.  She even goes to the extreme of faking a debilitating illness in her childhood - one which renders her virtually bed bound for an entire year.
 
In truth, though, the more the story develops, the less Numéro Six is about the daughter and the more it becomes the story of the father.  While the man of the now is a hundred-year-old child waiting for his life to end, the narrator gradually shows us more of his roles.  He was a respected doctor, a feared family head, a loving young son and, perhaps most importantly, a soldier during the Great War, one of the sons of France who responded to the call to arms in 1914.

Learning about the war years through her father's letters, the only things Fanny received from the carving up of her parents' estate, she gains an insight into the emotions behind the paternal mask.  Much of her father's behaviour in later years (his fierce love for his wife, his need for silence) can be explained by what happened during the war years, his dreams haunted by memories of life in the trenches and those who were left behind on Flanders' fields.

For me, the lasting memory of the book is of the father, a man who fought for his country but suffered from the effects of the conflict for his whole life (it's a book which is particularly poignant in the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War...).  Fanny is very clear about what she wants from life, needing her father close to her - there's no room for anyone else:

"L'homme de ma vie, c'est toi." (p.107)

"The man of my life is you." ***

Sadly, as much as she tries to claim her father for herself, she never quite gets there.  By the time her mother has left the scene, the man she has waited for her whole life is no longer really there any more...

Numéro Six is fairly short, even shorter than Bord de Mer, but it provides the reader with a lot to think about.  While I've focused more on the father, another review could easily concentrate on the daughter, looking at the dangers of her intense desire to appropriate her father's love.  It'd be nice to think that it'll make its way into English eventually (I actually preferred it to the earlier story), but I suspect that it's unlikely to happen.  It's an awkward length, too long for a short-story collection, and too short to be published as a stand-alone publication.  Still, if your French is up to it, it's well worth a read - and if there's any publisher out there who wants to prove me wrong... ;)

'A Meal in Winter' by Hubert Mingarelli (Review - IFFP 2014, Number 15)

After a long and arduous trek, stretching from Germany to Japan, with stops in countries such as Spain and Iraq in between, we've finally reached the last stop of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize journey.  We're in Poland today, but it's only a brief stay - it's rather cold outside...

*****
A Meal in Winter by Hugo Mingarelli - Portobello Books
(translated by Sam Taylor)
What's it all about?
We're in Poland during the Second World War, and three German soldiers are out bright and early on patrol in the countryside.  Sick of taking part in firing squads, the trio have volunteered to scour the surrounding area for Jews in hiding, mainly to avoid having to shoot the ones already captured:

"We went at dawn, before the first shootings.  That meant missing breakfast, but it also meant not having to face Graaf, who would be filled with hatred that we had gone over his head."
p.9 (Portobello Books, 2013)

While leaving early avoids a run-in with their superior, it also means that they don't have time to eat, a decision which will affect how their day unfolds.

After a few hours' walking in the freezing cold, they uncover a Jew hiding in a hole and start walking back towards their camp.  Hunger and cold, however, force them to stop off at an old abandoned house, where they decide to start a fire to cook the meagre rations they have brought with them.  The Jew obediently takes his place in a storage cupboard, and the soldiers get to work preparing the meal - when an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor upsets the equilibrium...

A Meal in Winter is a very short work, its 138 pages exaggerating its size; I actually finished this in well under an hour.  It can barely be called a novella, more an extended short story, and in its focus on a very limited area and group of protagonists, it's actually more akin to a play.  The book is divided into short sections, and the language is fairly simple, more plain than elegant, but very effective.

The writer is effectively basing a story on a moral dilemma, setting up a situation where the soldiers have to make a choice about what to do with the prisoner they wish they hadn't found in the first place.  Initially driven by a desire to justify their escape from the camp, the soldiers begin to regret their discovery once they have time to reflect on it in comfort.

Mingarelli is careful to humanise his creations, with all three soldiers drawn out as real people caught up in a horrible situation.  Bauer is a petty thief, quick to anger, while Emmerich is more withdrawn, preoccupied with the issue of how to raise his son in absentia.  The unnamed narrator is equally realistic, haunted (like the others) by the memories of his daily duties:

"Because if you want to know what it is that tormented me, and that torments me to this day, it's seeing that kind of thing on the clothes of the Jews we're going to kill: a piece of embroidery, coloured buttons, a ribbon in the hair.  I was always pierced by those thoughtful maternal displays of tenderness." (p.81)

Despite their orders, and the racism instilled in the soldiers from birth, it's not hard to see that it would be tempting for them to let it slide, just this one time...

The unexpected visitor, a Pole who turns up with some alcohol, hoping to share in the meal, acts as a catalyst to the situation, his obvious loathing of the Jew bringing the soldiers' better nature to the fore.  As the warmth of the hut brings everyone closer together, the story runs towards its inevitable end where two questions will be answered?  Will everyone get something to eat?  And what will happen to the prisoner...

*****
Did it deserve to make the longlist?
No, I don't think so.  A Meal in Winter is almost painfully slight, and while it's carefully constructed, with a lot to like, it's nothing more than an interesting short story.  The figure of the Pole is a weak point, a cartoonish character designed to raise sympathy for the Jewish captive, and the writing, while clear, has nothing which raises it above the crowd.  For this to really be worthy of a spot on the shortlist, the writing would have to be excellent, and in my opinion it's just good :)

Why did it make the shortlist?
Not sure really, unless there's a secret clause 324 c (ii) in the IFFP regulations which states that a WW2-themed book must be on the shortlist every year.  It's a good book, worthy of the longlist, and it has grown on me since I finished it, but when you consider the books that were left off the shortlist (The Sorrow of Angels, Brief Loves that Live Forever, The Infatuations), you can't help but wonder whether the Wehrmacht connection got it over the line.

And if it takes out the whole thing, then I'm done with the IFFP.  Seriously.

*****
So, that's your lot, then.  Fifteen works of translated fiction, rated, slated and ready to be judged by posterity.  The prize will be handed out in two weeks' time, and the Shadow Panel will be announcing their verdict shortly before that (I'm fairly sure that - for the third year running - we'll be choosing a very different champion!).  I'll be back next week with a review of the journey and my prediction for what the 'real' judges will opt for - see you next time :)

'Nagasaki' by Éric Faye (Review)

As you might know, I'm a big fan of J-Lit, but there must be many more over in France, where the number of works of Japanese literature in translation far outstrip those available in the Anglosphere (I've been very tempted on occasion to dip into this pool of books to see what I'm missing...).  Apparently, though, the fascination with Japan doesn't stop there - it seems that for some, the country also provides inspiration for novels written in the French language too...

*****
Éric Faye's Nagasaki (translated by Emily Boyce, review copy courtesy of Gallic Books) is a short work based on a real-life story, an event which happened in Japan in 2008.  It starts with a man in his fifties, Kobo Shimura, a worker at the bureau of meteorology who lives alone, never having found a lasting relationship.  Recently, though, he has begun to feel a little uneasy in his small house, and with good reason - a check on the level of juice in the bottle in his fridge shows that someone has been visiting while he's at work.

Shimura decides that he needs to investigate matters further, so he installs a camera in his house through which he can monitor his home from work.  Sure enough, he soon sees an intruder in his kitchen, drinking his juice and relaxing in the sun.  However, in pursuing the truth about these unusual intrusions, Shimura finds out that matters are much worse than he could ever imagine...

Nagasaki is a great little book, one which can be read in an hour or so, but which resonates for far longer.  Part of the charm is the voice of the main character, a man who... well, I'll let him tell you himself:

"Imagine a man in his fifties disappointed to have reached middle age so quickly and utterly, residing in his modest house in a suburb of Nagasaki with very steep streets.  Picture these snakes of soft asphalt slithering up the hillsides until they reach the point where all the urban scum of corrugated iron, tarpaulins, tiles and God knows what else peters out beside a wall of straggly, crooked bamboo.  That is where I live.  Who am I?  Without wishing to overstate matters, I don't amount to much.  As a single man, I cultivate certain habits which keep me out of trouble and allow me to tell myself I have at least some redeeming features."
p.11 (Gallic Books, 2014)

It's a wonderful start to the book, and typical of the first part, in which Faye introduces a man whom time has passed by, a bit of an oddity at work for not wanting to join everyone for drinks at the end of the day.

Shimura struggles through everyday life, forcing his way to work amid the noise of trams and cicadas, and life is gradually wearing him down.  He's becoming a fussy old man, dull and a little deluded, and the writer (and translator!) manages to show this perfectly, gently mocking his disdain of a centenarian on the television who has never drunk alcohol.  It doesn't occur to Shimura that he isn't exactly the life and soul of the party himself.

It's when we get to the discovery of the intruder that all this becomes relevant, as the discovery of the woman in his kitchen forces Shimura to take a good, hard look at his life; it's fair to say he doesn't exactly like what he sees.  In fact, Nagasaki is less about the crime itself than its causes and effects, with the woman's capture leading to a crisis of kinds for the innocent Shimura:

"And that wasn't all.  The woman's presence had somehow opened a tiny window on my consciousness, and through it I was able to see a little more clearly.  I understood that the year she and I had shared, even if she had avoided me and I had known nothing of her, was going to change me, and that already I was no longer the same.  How exactly, I couldn't have said.  But I knew I wouldn't escape unscathed." (pp.56/7)

In fact, the event is to affect him markedly.  Already obsessed with news of the increasing number of old people, and the robots being developed to look after them, Shimura realises that this is his fate - to die alone, in the care of a machine...

It's not all about Shimura, though.  Faye actually switches the point of view about two-thirds of the way through, and we get to hear the woman's side of the story and her reasons for the home invasions.  The writer is attempting to add another angle to the story, showing how easy it is to slip through the cracks without realising and end up with nowhere to go (it's no coincidence that this all happens around the time of the GFC).  However, for me, this final third is a little unnecessary, and I would have preferred the story to stick with Shimamura, leaving the woman's motives in the dark.  As the Japanese know full well, there's a lot to be said for leaving the reader to figure some things out for themselves...

Overall, this a lovely little book though, deftly written with sly humour everywhere in the first half.  I particularly enjoyed the focus on the grey Sanyo fridge, with its rather apt slogan of 'Always with You'...  There were also some nice Japanese touches, such as when Shimura starts to suspect that he might have to look beyond the purely natural to find answers:

"What deity would demand offerings of yogurt, a single pickled plum or some seaweed rice?  Never mind that I was raised a Catholic, I often go to feed our 'kami' at the local shrine, but it never occurred to me for one moment they would come into people's houses and help themselves." (p.31)

If only it had been the household gods stealing his food ;)

Despite my reservations about the final section, Nagasaki is an excellent read, a thought-provoking look at the loneliness of modern life.  It's a book which makes the reader think about their own social ties, wondering if they too might be looking forward to empty twilight years.  And, of course, the book has one other effect on the reader - you won't be forgetting to check your doors and windows in a hurry...

'Where Tigers are at Home' by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès (Review)

As you may have noticed, I've been rather occupied with translated fiction prizes recently, what with shadowing the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and casting occasional glances in the direction of the American Best Translated Book Award.  However, it's important to remember that (as I've mentioned on several occasions) the judges for these things are far from infallible - and today's book is one which, somehow or other seems to have fallen between the cracks on both sides of the Atlantic.

Which is quite a feat, seeing as it's a very big book ;)

*****
Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès' Where Tigers are at Home (translated by Mike Mitchell, review copy courtesy of Other Press) is a big book in every sense of the word.  Running to 817 pages in my beautiful hardback edition, the novel is a wonderful look at history, geography and many other sciences besides, all wrapped up in several related stories involving characters who manage to reach across time and space to have an effect on other people.

We start off with expatriate French correspondent, Eléazard von Wogau, a man living in the provinces of Brazil sending occasional reports back home about Brazilian news, most of which are simply ignored.  With his geologist wife, Elaine, having left him, and his daughter, Moéma, off having fun at university, von Wogau uses his time translating a document he has been sent, a biography of the life of famed seventeenth-century Jesuit and polymath Athanasius Kircher.  It's a fascinating story, and one which intrigues both von Wogau and the reader, but there's a lot more to Where the Tigers are at Home than that.

Eventually, the writer introduces several other strands to the tale: we follow Elaine von Wogau as she sets off on a perilous journey into the Brazilian interior in search of fossils; Moéma's story is played out on the beaches and in the shanty towns; Nelson, a young crippled beggar, gradually enters the story, destined to cross paths with several of the other characters; and Governor José Moreira, a corrupt politician with plans to transform the region, will eventually cast his shadow across all of the stories...

If one thing has come across from the few paragraphs I've written so far, it's that Where Tigers are at Home is a rather expansive and ambitious work.  It's one where the reader is compelled to take the writer's intentions on trust, as it takes a long time for the underlying framework of the novel to become clear.  With Caspar Schott's biography of his mentor Athanasius Kircher taking up a good third of the novel (these sections begin every chapter), an impatient reader may well give up before the story gets into second gear.  However, the book is well worth persisting with, and each of the strands is interesting in its own right.

As mentioned, the biography takes up the bulk of the novel, and on its own it's interesting to read.  It follows the (real-life) Kircher throughout his travels, as he wanders Europe in a quest for knowledge, hoping to unlock the secrets of the universe and link them all back to an all-powerful deity.  While he is undoubtedly a genius, the trouble is that he is working from a false premise - and almost everything he comes up with is completely lacking in facts...

Much of the humour from this part comes from the hapless Schott, the Doctor Watson to Kircher's Sherlock, and while his master braves evil to further the church's aims, it always seems to be the assistant who has to take one for the team.  A particularly memorable episode is when Caspar encounters a beautiful lady of high standing, who turns out to be more interested in worldly pleasures than in heavenly delights.  Poor Caspar, trapped by events, is forced to submit to her wishes:

"Lingua mea in nobilissimae os adacta, spiculum usque ad cor illi penetravit."
p.269 (Other Press, 2013)

It's a little too racy for me to put into English here, but if you are interested in Latin porn, there's always Google Translate ;)

The whole point of Kircher's story, though, is the way it reflects on events taking place in contemporary Brazil, as the actions described in Schott's biography mirror those elsewhere in the chapters.  The debauchery at the prince's house is contrasted both with an evening party at Governor Moreira's mansion and with a frenzied native ritual in the jungle.  When Kircher foils a charlatan who claims to have the secrets of alchemy at his fingertips, Nelson then tells us of a girl who was tempted with sweets, only to wake up with no eyes...

The title of the book comes from Goethe's Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften), from a passage that says:

"No one can walk beneath palm trees with impunity,
           and ideas are sure to change in a land where
                           elephants and tigers are at home."

However, as Eléazard argues with a friend, what this passage actually means is up for debate.  Are we obliged to travel the world and broaden our horizons, or does becoming aware of the wider world blind us to what is going on around us?  To paraphrase, is increasing globalisation a good thing?  As Eléazard remarks:

"What can one say of a population that is incapable of visualizing the world in which it lives except that it's on the road to ruin for lack of landmarks, of reference points?  For lack of reality... Is not the way the world has of henceforth resisting our efforts to represent it, the mischievous pleasure it takes in escaping us, a symptom of the fact that we have already lost it?  To lose sight of the world, is that not to begin to be happy with its disappearance?" (p.782)

A rather telling thought in the land of the rapidly disappearing rainforests.

It's here that the Brazilian side of the story comes into its own, as several of the protagonists have their own encounters with indigenous culture, all falling victim to the lure of the exotic.  Moéma's desire to atone for her privileged upbringing takes her to some rather dark places, while her lecturer, Roetgen, finds his own connection with the past on a fishing trip with some locals.  It's Elaine, though, who has the most confronting encounter - in pursuing knowledge from hundreds of millions of years ago, she is brought face to face with a slightly more recent past...

At which point, I have to simply give up on analysis and recommend you to the work instead.  There's far too much here to be covered in a single post, and in the end I'm reduced to offering tempting comparisons, hoping to entice you into giving Where Tigers are at Home a read.  One of those would undoubtedly be David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, for while the set-up is slightly different, both books share an overarching ambition and a desire to let people know that what we think we know is not always right - and that progress isn't always a good thing.  If you're the sort of person who was able to stay with Cloud Atlas, trusting that the writer was steering you in the right direction, then this might be a book for you :)

Sadly, as I said in my introduction, Where Tigers are at Home has been strangely overlooked.  The Dedalus Books UK edition pretty much sank without trace, and while Other Press' US version has received more praise, it was still, inexplicably overlooked for the BTBA longlist this year.  Why?  Well, it's a rather off-putting beast, and I suspect that many people simply couldn't bring themselves to give it a go.  A book centred on a Jesuit priest, a novel which you might struggle to lift if you haven't been eating your greens - I can see how that could be a bit of a hard sell.

However, while taking a leap of faith isn't always a good idea (and there are several examples of that in the book...), this is one time when it's definitely worth the risk.  Yes, there might be tigers out there, but if you don't venture out into the literary jungle from time to time, you're never going to stumble across the gold that's buried in its midst.  Deep breath, turn the page - and off you go ;)

'Le Grand Meaulnes' by Alain-Fournier (Review)

After working my way through a whole pile of review copies in an attempt to give myself some breathing space before my IFFP reading got underway, it was time for something a little different, a return to old comforts.  I was looking for something I hadn't read in a while, and I also wanted to practice my increasingly rusty and creaky French before I found it too difficult to bother with.  The answer?  Well, my shelves have something for every occasion ;)

*****
Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, published in 1913, has become a true French classic.  It's the story of François Seurel, a teenage student, whose life is turned upside-down one day by the arrival of another boarder at the Seurels' village school - Augustin Meaulnes.  Le grand Meaulnes, as he is soon dubbed by his classmates (both for his size and his charisma), becomes firm friends with the smaller, frailer François, taking over as the head of the class, the shining star of the establishment.

One day, however, Meaulnes skips school, having decided to take a horse and cart to pick up François' grandparents from a distant railway station.  Unfortunately, he fails to return that day, with the horse and cart being returned after dark by a traveller who found them abandoned in the middle of nowhere.  A few days later, just as François' father is on the verge of departing to tell Meaulnes' mother of his disappearance, the weary student makes a dramatic entrance into the schoolroom.  Once he has recovered, François persuades him to tell the story of his journey - and it's a very good one...

Le Grand Meaulnes is a wonderful story of the magic of youth, a time when all kinds of adventures seem possible.  François (along with the reader) lives vicariously through Meaulnes' hopes and dreams of finding his true love.  However, in the final part of the book, it becomes a more sombre adult affair, a tragedy of dashed hopes and expectations.

The story revolves around Meaulnes' brief stay at 'le domaine perdu', a lost estate in the middle of nowhere.  Eight days before Christmas, the daring young student finds himself in a run-down, semi-deserted castle, in the middle of his very own fairy tale.  On a walk through the grounds, he glances into a stream and barely recognises himself:

"Il s'aperçut lui-même reflété dans l'eau, comme incliné sur le ciel, dans son costume d'étudiant romantique.  Et il crut voir un autre Meaulnes ; non plus l'écolier qui s'était évadé dans une carriole de paysan, mais un être charmant et romanesque, au milieu d'un beau livre de prix..."
p.78 (Fayard - le Livre de Poche, 1983)

"He noticed himself reflected in the water, as if angled towards the sky, in his disguise of a romantic student.  And he saw another Meaulnes; no longer the student who had made off in a farmer's cart, but another being, charming and novelesque, in the middle of a fine romance..."
(my translation)

The strange lights and laughing children he then encounters are heralds of preparations for the arrival of Frantz de Galais and his new bride - you see, he's gatecrashed a wedding...

It's here that he encounters the sister of the prospective groom, Yvonne de Galais, a beautiful, unreachable fairytale princess, and he falls hopelessly in love.  However, having left in the dark, with no idea of the direction his carriage has taken, Meaulnes is unable to find out exactly where he has been.  On returning to the drab everyday life of his studies, he vows to spend his youth searching for the scene of the wedding, hoping desperately to find the young woman who has stolen his heart.

Finally, through François, he uncovers the secret of the lost estate - and the two young lovers meet again:

"Puis le group entoura Mlle de Galais.  On lui présenta les jeunes filles et les jeunes gens qu'elles ne connaissait pas...  Le tour allait venir de mon compagnon ; et je me sentais aussi anxieux qu'il pouvait l'être.  Je me disposais à faire moi-même cette présentation.
  Mais avant que j'eusse pu rien dire, la jeune fille s'avançait vers lui avec une décision et une gravité surprenantes :
  "Je reconnais Augustin Meaulnes", dit-elle.
  Et elle lui tendit la main." (p.204)

"Then the group gathered around Madamoiselle de Galais.  They introduced the young girls and the young folk she didn't know...  It was almost the turn of my companion; and I felt every bit as nervous as he must have been himself.  I readied myself to make the introduction.
  But before I could say a word, the young woman moved towards him with surprising decisiveness and gravity:
  "I recognise Augustin Meaulnes", she said.
  And she offered him her hand."

So everything ends up happily ever after?  Not quite - unfortunately, life doesn't always run like a fairytale...

While the the book is entitled Le Grand Meaulnes, in fact, it is just as much about Seurel, and the longer the story goes on, the more he comes to demand our attention.  François grows up and matures, gaining a position as a village teacher and having to take care of his friends.  As Meaulnes dashes off on his fairytale adventures, Seurel is the one left behind in the real world.  The poor young man also has to deal with his unspoken love for Yvonne, which is subordinated to his platonic love for Meaulnes; in the end, he is left with sadness, and crushed hopes...

Le Grand Meaulnes is a wonderful novel with some beautiful writing.  In addition to a compelling, fascinating story, the book is full of elegant description, especially of the country surrounding the villages.  It's a story about fairytales and what comes afterwards, and the writer explores what happens after the end of the conventional myth.  When the two lovers find each other, and the reader closes the book happily, it's really just the start of the story.

My edition came with an introduction and a detailed afterword (the French are very big on supplementing their classics...), allowing me to discover that the novel was based on actual events.  The setting is the fictionalised scene of Alain-Fournier's childhood, and the romance with Madamoiselle de Galais is based on the writer's own unrequited love for a young woman named Yvonne de Quiévrecourt.  Allowing his creation to find his true love was, perhaps, the writer's way of dealing with his sadness.

Sadly, Le Grand Meaulnes was Alain-Fournier's only novel.  The First World war broke out the year after its publication, and towards the end of 1914, the writer was killed in battle - his body was never found.  With a life, and career, cut tragically short, all that remains as his legacy is a wonderful novel of shattered dreams...

IFFP Guest Post by Jacqui Patience - 'A Meal in Winter' by Hubert Mingarelli

After last week's look at A Man in Love, it's once again time to welcome Jacqui to the blog for one of her guest reviews on this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize contenders.  Today's choice is a book I haven't managed to read yet, so I'm very keen to hear what she has to say - take it away, Jacqui ;) 

***** 

Hubert Mingarelli's A Meal in Winter (from Portobello Books, translated by Sam Taylor) is a slim novella, yet it punches well above its weight. The setting is the heart of the Polish countryside at the time of the Second World War. The novella opens in a military camp as three German soldiers - Bauer, Emmerich and the unnamed narrator of the narrative - appeal to their camp commander by volunteering to look for any Jews who might be hiding in the surrounding area. By so doing, the soldiers hope to avoid the more harrowing task of executing captives, as they would ‘rather do the huntings than the shootings’. The commander grants the soldiers’ request, and they leave at the crack of dawn the following morning before the first shootings begin. This means missing breakfast, too, but it’s a price they’re willing to pay to avoid their immediate supervisor, the heartless Lieutenant Graaf.

As the soldiers spend a gruelling day combing the countryside in search of a Jew (‘one of them’), the bitter chill of winter and lack of nourishment begin to take their toll:

We came down from the hill where we had smoked. Bauer whined like a dog that he should never have sat down in the snow, that he felt cold all over now. Emmerich told him to stop, though he said it lightly, not really meaning it. Bauer yelled at us that he’d decided to whine until dark. We found another road and stayed on it for a while. It was a relief not to sink into snow at every step. On the whole, we preferred the frozen potholes, even if they were dangerous.

p.32 (Portobello Books, 2013)

I was beginning to feel hungry, but I didn’t dare bring the subject up yet. None of us had dared mention it since we left that morning. My stomach ached. Sometimes, when I turned my head too quickly, I felt dizzy. It must have been the same for Emmerich and Bauer. (p 32-33)

They find a young Jewish boy cleverly concealed in a hole in the forest, only given away by the heat and snow-melt surrounding the ground-level chimney of his dug-out. Relieved at having captured a prisoner, the soldiers head back to camp. Chilled to the bone, tired and ravenous, they chance upon a deserted hovel and decide to shelter awhile. In desperate need of warmth, the soldiers build a fire and begin to prepare a simple soup from a few meagre ingredients; meanwhile their captive sits quietly in the storeroom.

A Polish man arrives at the hovel; at first his intentions are unclear, but his actions soon show his vehemently anti-Semitic nature:

The pole took a step forward, almost touching us, then looked inside the storeroom, through the half-opened doorway. Because, up to this point, the Jew, though very close, had been invisible to him. The Pole stayed there now, motionless in front of us, staring with his black eyes at the squatting Jew, who stared sadly back. After a moment, the Pole turned his gaze on us, and the distinguished handsomeness of his face vanished. He opened his mouth and bared his gums in a kind of monstrous smile, like a dead fish without teeth. (p. 94)

As preparations for the meal unfold, questions arise: should the soldiers share their meal with the Pole in return for a slug of his potato alcohol? Can he be trusted? Will tensions flare and erupt? The mood oscillates, and small shifts in the dynamics unfold across the group as each soldier starts to question his choices and the moral implications of his mission… and shadows cast by earlier events are ever-present.

This is a stealthily gripping novella with a real sense of foreboding. The small cast of five key characters, coupled with the confined setting of the hovel, give the drama a theatrical feel, and I could almost see it working as a play. I love the way it quickly whips up an atmosphere and tangible sense of place from the first page. The prose style is fairly sparse and to the point (and hats off to Sam Taylor for some sterling work on the translation). There’s not a spare word on the page, and yet it manages to pack a great deal into 135 pages.

I read this novel on a relatively mild spring evening, yet Mingarelli’s vivid depiction of the frozen landscape and biting conditions left me craving the warmth of a bowl of Ribollita, my favourite soup.  And this feeling was only heightened by the soldiers’ anticipation of their meal:

The soup looked good and smelled good. The slices of salami floated on the surface, carried there by the cornmeal, now cooked. The melted lard was still boiling.

We turned away from the stove, and the heat caressed our backs. We watched steam rise from the soup. My head was spinning. We looked at the slices of bread. The soup was continuing to simmer. The edges of the bread were toasted, reminding us of things past. (p.115)

Dare I say this is another book I’d love to see on the IFFP shortlist? While Mingarelli has written many novels and short stories, this is his first to appear in English; I sincerely hope we’ll be able to read more of his novels and short stories in years to come.

'Brief Loves that Live Forever' by Andreï Makine (Review)

This year I've been lucky enough to receive lots of books for review from the wonderful MacLehose Press, many of which I've managed to get to, and some of which I... well, haven't :(  The one book I repeatedly thought about trying (and never did) came highly recommended, both by those who had tried work by the author (Andreï Makine) before and those who started with this book.  Well, as you may have guessed, I did finally get around to trying it, and you know, the old saying really is true - all good things come to he who waits ;)

*****
Brief Loves that Live Forever (translated by Geoffrey Strachan) is a beautiful little book which looks at love in a cold climate (Russia...), in particular the way that we tend to overlook our shorter moments of happiness.  Makine, through his narrator, argues that in our quest for permanent, everlasting love, we ignore the fact that a single moment of happiness can actually provide us with a lifetime of warmth, and his book takes us through several of these moments in the narrator's life.

We begin with memories of a walk through a bleak, provincial Russian city, where the narrator accompanies an acquaintance, a chronically-ill dissident, on a stroll through the windy streets.  As they stop, unexpectedly, outside a block of luxury flats, they see a beautiful, wealthy woman hurry out of an official car and into the building.  As the old man stops and stares at the woman, the narrator thinks:

"With an intensity I had never before experienced, I sensed the atrocious injustice of life, or History, or perhaps God, at all events the cruelty of this world's indifference towards a man spitting out his blood into a silk handkerchief.  A man who had never had the time to be in love."
p.21 (MacLehose Press, 2013)

The look on the elder man's face comes back to the narrator decades on and causes his mind to turn towards the past, and his own brief loves...

What follows are half-a-dozen episodes from the narrator's life, in chronological order, each describing a short moment of happiness from the past.  From the image of a beautiful crying woman encountered in his childhood, a moment which first taught him of the existence of real women, to a platonic friendship with a young woman in a drab town; from a brief, passionate summer affair by the sea (and under a political hoarding...) to a stroll through an orchard with an old friend.  Each of the moments marks an important landmark in the narrator's life, and while none of them lasted for long, all of them have made a deep impression.

It's all about now, being happy in the moment.  Striving for lasting happiness is futile, and working towards a kind of utopia (as the young narrator naively does) is foolish.  When he clumsily attempts to explain his views to one of his loves, she replies, bewildered:

"I don't understand.  All these people you want to bring happiness to in the future.  What's to stop them being happy now?  Not hating other people, not being greedy, like you said.  Not punching other people in the face, at any rate..." (p.83)

Carpe diem, indeed.  It's a very good question, and not one I can answer in a few words.  If anyone has any ideas...

What makes Brief Loves that Live Forever more than a simple tale of lost loves though is the fact that there is a parallel story running through the novel.  Makine may be telling the reader about his character's lovelife, but it's about more than that - a lot more.  Each of the stories is set against the backdrop of the political events of the time, giving us several snapshots of the Soviet society and regime.

In the first story, the young narrator sees the beautiful woman (a widow mourning her lost husband) after escaping from the 'cages' of a dismantled grandstand used for official ceremonies.  Later, forced outside by the Soviet attitude towards illicit trysts, he shelters from a storm with his summer lover - under a giant hoarding showing the frowning face of Brezhnev.  His final tale takes place in a gigantic orchard, a symbol of Communist might and planning, a mass of trees which takes four hours to walk through...

However, the regime which was meant to last forever is shown to be sluggish and unmoving, doomed to disappear.  Near the beginning of the novel, the writer talks of the symbolism of propaganda:

"Yes, existential tranquillisers, meta-physical antidepressants." (p.27)

However, as shown by the brief stay in cardboard Brezhnev's shadow, it doesn't always work.  The gigantic message across the roof of a factory complex, a symbol of eternal socialism, has crumbled into dust by the time the narrator returns to visit his friend, vanished into oblivion.  And the apple orchard?  Useless, sterile.  No bee will fly five miles to pollinate a tree...

Wait - there's more...  What really makes the book worth reading is the writing, a beautiful prose style wonderfully rendered into English by Strachan, which flows effortlessly along.  It's simple, but elegant, a joy to read, and it all makes for a book to enjoy in pieces - slowly, if possible:

"Even more than the bittersweet interrupted continuity of our brief separation, however, what intoxicates me is the floating lightness of it, the weightlessness of a misty May morning, the softly tinted transparency of the first still pale foliage." (p.118)

It's the kind of writing I enjoy, and there's a lot more of this in the novel.

I've already seen a couple of mentions of Makine's book in the various end-of-year lists, and it's very possible that it might appear on mine (although I am having a good December...).  Watch out for this one when IFFP time rolls around next year as there's a fair chance that it could make the longlist (always presuming that it's been submitted...).  The moral of the story?  Nothing lasts forever, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - enjoy the moments while you can...

...oh, and (of course) check your shelves for old books which you keep meaning to read ;)

'Le Colonel Chabert' by Honoré de Balzac (Review)

When I decided to take part in the Christmas Humbook event, organised by Emma and Guy, it seemed a fairly easy thing to commit to.  Reading three books over the following year, two chosen by a fellow blogger, one by the host - no worries, right?  Except that nine months on, I had yet to try one...

Time to get cracking then, and today sees me review one of those three books, the one Emma and Guy chose for me.  Unfortunately though, even this isn't quite as straightforward as it should be.  You see, they chose a classic by Honoré de Balzac, Eugenie Grandet - but I decided to go for something else instead (I had my reasons...)

*****
Le Colonel Chabert (Colonel Chabert) is a novella which takes place in and around Paris, just after the Napoleonic wars.  The story starts with banter in a lawyer's office where some clerks are making fun of an old man waiting to see their employer.  Once they deign to talk to the man, the fun continues - until they happen to ask his name:

"Monsieur, lui dit Boucard, voulez-vous avoir la complaisance de nous donner votre nom, afin que le patron sache si...
- Chabert.
-Est-ce le colonel mort à Eylau? demanda Hulé qui n'yant encore rien dit était jaloux d'ajouter une raillerie à toutes les autres.
- Lui-même, monsieur," répondit le bonhomme avec une simplicité antique.  Et il se retira.

"Sir,"  said Boucard, "would you be so kind as to give us your name, so that our employer might know whether..."
"Chabert."
"Isn't that the colonel who died at Eylau?" asked Hulé who, not having said anything to that point, was keen to add a barb to all the others.
"The very same, sir," the old man replied with old-fashioned simplicity.  And he left.***

As surprised as the clerks are by the mysterious stranger's answer to their question, that is nothing compared to what their boss, Monsieur Derville, feels when he hears the full story.  The truth of the matter is that somehow, miraculously, the famous colonel, long thought dead in battle, has managed to survive and has returned to reclaim his life, his riches and his wife.  Now, if only his wife can be made to comply...

I decided to try Le Colonel Chabert after seeing it mentioned in some books I read this year.  It comes up a couple of times in Sebald's Austerlitz, but it actually forms a vital component of Javier Marías' most recent novel, The Infatuations, another story about secrets from beyond the grave.  In his novel, Marías poses the question as to whether a woman who has lost her husband would really want him to return from the grave after a long absence, and this question forms the whole basis of Balzac's story.

The physical description of Chabert at his first meeting with his lawyer is a telling one.  He literally looks like a corpse - and it's little wonder considering the ordeals he's gone through.  He's a man who has been buried alive, only to escape from the earth as naked as the day he was born.  It's a twisted kind of rebirth:

"Mais, avec une rage que vous devez concevoir, je me mis à travailler les cadavres qui me séparaient de la couche de terre sans doute jetée sur nous, je dis nous, comme s'il y eut eu des vivants!  J'y allais ferme, monsieur, car moi aussi!  Mais je ne sais pas aujourd'hui comment j'ai pu parvenir à percer la couverture de chair qui mettait une barrière entre la vie et moi."

"But, with a rage that you can imagine, I set to work on the cadavers which separated me from the layer of earth which had undoubtedly been thrown upon us, I say us, as if there was anyone alive down there!  I put my back into it, sir, for I was alive too!  But today I couldn't tell you how I managed to break through the covering of flesh which formed a barrier between life and me."

It's a tall tale though - who could ever believe him?

Certainly not his wife...  She has benefited financially from his death and is now married once more, with two young children at home.  Having risen in the world thanks to her new husband, she is terrified of losing him (and her station) - which is actually quite possible, as he suspects that her humble origins are beginning to hold him back.  In short, she is willing to do anything to stop the poor war hero from being recognised as a living, breathing soul.

There are also political complications to Chabert's quest to have his existence recognised.  While the colonel was a favourite of the Emperor, times have changed, and far from being welcome, his return from the grave would probably be little more than an inconvenience.  He is a throw-back to the old Napoleonic era, with its ethics and old-fashioned honour code, and the writer makes it clear that very different values rule now.  The restoration has brought about an age of commercialism, where getting ahead at any cost is more important than moral niceties.

A further problem is the financial reality of the old soldier's predicament.  To regain his position and fortune, he will need to go through the courts - but how can you prove a point in law without status or money?  In short, Chabert is a man in a void, a creature that others would rather see vanish:

"J'ai été enterré sous des morts, mais maintenant je suis enterré sous des vivants, sous des actes, sous des faits, sous la société tout entière, qui veut me faire rentrer sous terre!"

"I was buried beneath the dead, but now I am buried beneath the living, beneath files, beneath facts, beneath all of society, which would have me six feet under again!"

I challenge the reader not to feel sympathy with his plight...

Le Colonel Chabert is more like a play than a novella; its long, conversation-dominated scenes seem perfect for the stage, and with the exception of the final part, the story mostly keeps to the unities of time, place and plot (well, loosely, anyway!).  Occasionally, though, Balzac does escape into prose and waxes lyrical, particularly in describing certain aspects of the novel.  Chief among these are the spectral appearance Chabert makes at Derville's chambers, the vivid escape the colonel makes from the grave, and a detailed look at the rundown house where he lodges (a passage which brings back memories of the minutely-detailed start to Le Père Goriot).

It's not giving too much away to hint that things don't end as the reader would like them to, but Le Colonel Chabert is much more than a sad story of a poor soul betrayed by an ungrateful loved one (it's no coincidence that Derville also represented Old Goriot in the previous novel).  A horror story, then?  Yes, but as Derville himself points out, no novelistic creation could ever match up to the terrors of reality.  Poor Chabert is doomed to unhappiness from the moment he claws his way through the soil separating the land of the living from the realm of the dead:

- Les morts ont donc bien tort de revenir?

"So the dead are wrong to want to come back to life?"

Unfortunately, the answer Balzac (and Marías) would reluctantly give is yes...

*****
*** All translations into English are my own, misguided, attempts (with one kind correction, courtesy of Richard McCarthy, AKA @Barsacq)