In the Absence of Men

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Sem saber do que se tratava, fiquei positivamente surpreso quando percebi que o Marcel que aparecia como personagem era ninguém menos que Proust - e quando a ficha caiu, o livro ganhou mais e mais camadas de significado. It certainly provided an interesting, and I think legitimate, portrait of Proust - and I am a sucker for epistolary novels, so the second section of just that was probably my favorite. To escape, the slaughter, we drag ourselves into the holes and try to huddle into the dirt waiting for the moment when the firing stops. This novel will undoubtedly become one of the books that will never leave me and stay on my shelf until the day I die. Frustré par ce dénouement qui, pour moi, n'ajoute rien à la tristesse ressentie par les événements de la deuxième partie du livre, mais qui plutôt retire de la crédibilité à cette histoire pourtant si plausible et émouvante.

Not with this writing, not with these characters, not with the predictable and rather embarrassing twist in the end. O amor - e as cenas de sexo - entre um adolescente - filho da alta burguesia -, de 16 anos e um professor de 21 anos (soldado na frente de batalha da I Guerra Mundial e filho da empregada da casa) está construído de uma forma pouco realista para o quotidiano da burguesia parisiense do início do século. His perception of human communication, with all its flaws, awkwardness and often inadequacies, is perfect. Un Marie à bord duquel nous naviguons, sur des mers calmes ou déchainées, à la recherche de rivages paisibles ou accidentés. Part 1 of this book has lots of intimate talk, as these friendships and love develop while Arthur is home for a week from The Great War.The novel is a Platonic discourse on love, which never really reaches any great depths because Vincent is such a superficial young lover. The inclusion of Marcel Proust in the novel is fascinating, adding literary cameos to the scenes already steeped in decadence. I realize that Besson's newest novel, Lie With Me, is getting all the press at the moment (partly due to Andre Aciman's correct praise, and Molly Ringwald's translation). As I'm doing some reading summaries of 2018, I have decided that In the Absence of Men is the greatest disappointment of the year for me. Dur de lire ce livre sans être bouleversé, touché, remué, dur de ne pas laisser couler des larmes devant une telle intensité, une si magnifique pureté.

In part one, during the summer of 1916, a French teenager named Vincent de l'Etoile experiences an intense love with a soldier named Arthur Vales who is on leave from the French front of World War I. The first part focuses on the main character's burgeoning relationships, one physical and intensely passionate, the other intellectual. They enjoy their first-time clumsy exploration but quickly take maximum advantage of Arthur's limited time home.

I do not know, I cannot know, if all men are that same, but I have an inkling of the universal softness of the male sex. You find that you could send whole fragments of text to relevant people in your life because those fragments tell them precisely the things that you dare not tell them or wish to tell them.

This allows for an epistolary section in which the three characters, via a trialogue, speculate on love and war. This is one of those books that makes me amazed and wonder why I decided to pick up in the first place. I felt that this use of the second-person narrative actually made the reader (me) more involved, because the prose felt like Vincent was writing or telling the story to me, and I would fill in the role of Arthur or Marcel, depending on the chapter. The second part of the novel is a series of letters between Vincent and Arthur and Vincent and the unnamed author.Occasionally, you pick up a book not quite knowing why you chose to read it in the first place, but then gradually, page by page, you start to realize that almost every chapter tells you a little about yourself, about your life. I don't regret the fact that I strolled into the library looking for some piece of modern French literature (which is why I grabbed a book from the PQ shelves), since I was able to pick up this one. I know that this is pleasure, that there is no guilt, no sense of wrong-doing, not in this moment in which we offer ourselves.

Marcel greatly loved his mother while she lived; Vincent is indifferent to his mother; Arthur is the only child with a strong mother/son love. O livro é triste, o sentimento que o anima é exaltante, mas a morte ronda todos de uma forma muito próxima. I do not want to reveal what the climax was about, but once everything fits into place, one would just be swept away. Because you know we have to advance at all costs, win back inches of ground from the enemy, reach the barbed wire hundred meters ahead. It is also the story of 16 yr old Vincent’s coming of age and loss of innocence under the most devastating of circumstances.par les récits de cette guerre que je n'ai pas connu, par l'intimité des lettres échangées, par le discours de Vincent.