| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in By a Slow River for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A bestseller in France and winner of the Prix Renaudot, By a Slow River is a mesmerizing and atmospheric tale of three mysterious deaths in an oddly isolated French village during World War I.The placid daily life of a small town near the front seems impervious to the nearby pounding of artillery fire and the parade of wounded strangers passing through its streets. But the illusion of calm is soon shattered by the deaths of three innocents–the charming new schoolmistress who captures every male heart only to kill herself; an angelic ten-year-old girl who is found strangled; and a local policeman’s cherished wife, who dies alone in labor while her husband is hunting the murderer. Twenty years later, the policeman still struggles to make sense of these tragedies, a struggle that both torments and sustains him. But excavating the town's secret history will bring neither peace to him nor justice to the wicked.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This has also been published as "Grey Souls", so see the reviews under that title, and the following review relates to Grey Souls which was translated by Adrien Hunter:
Intriguing, well written and really captures the local political/social setting of small town WW1 France in the unravelling of the circumstances surrounding the murder of a 10 year old girl and the death of a young woman teacher during the war. If you liked Brodeck's Report, you'll enjoy this, though not as allegorical as Brodeck's Report.
I'm not fond of the Hoyt translation under the 'By A Slow River' title.
Intriguing, well written and really captures the local political/social setting of small town WW1 France in the unravelling of the circumstances surrounding the murder of a 10 year old girl and the death of a young woman teacher during the war. If you liked Brodeck's Report, you'll enjoy this, though not as allegorical as Brodeck's Report.
I'm not fond of the Hoyt translation under the 'By A Slow River' title.
Format:Paperback
Within earshot of the WWI front lines of northern France, three deaths occur in a small village--one is clearly a murder. All of the deaths have connections to the passing of the wife of a prominent local citizen some years before. Author Paul Claudel's novel "By a Slow River" is the exploration of these four deaths and the slow revealing of the cause and effect of each. A parallel theme is the neighboring slaughter of millions in the trench warfare that continued unrelentingly for four years, with its direct impact on lives in the village.
This is a beautiful, if very dark, story told in rich language and understanding of how commonplace and relentless human tragedy can be. The author is eloquent on the pervasiveness of human cruelty and tendency to folly as well. There is no effort made here to justify any of the story's tragedies, but all of them are well-explained in the end.
An engrossing, intelligent read. Recommended.
This is a beautiful, if very dark, story told in rich language and understanding of how commonplace and relentless human tragedy can be. The author is eloquent on the pervasiveness of human cruelty and tendency to folly as well. There is no effort made here to justify any of the story's tragedies, but all of them are well-explained in the end.
An engrossing, intelligent read. Recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
14 reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Like discovering a classic
17 Jun 2006
Format:Hardcover
I was especially fascinated by Claudel's handling of the theme of murder during a time of war (WWI): on a gut level it's a perfectly crafted who-dunnit, with an amazing twist. The policeman who narrates the story thinks he's a pretty sharp judge of human nature, but he learns a thing or two not just about his neighbors but ultimately about himself, as he tries to solve the murder of little girl while the sons of the nation are being slaughtered at the front near his town. Ultimately he finds you can't completely uncover anyone's nature, not even your own. This is such an interesting book and such a beatifully told story--like discovering a classic--I want all my friends to read it so we can discuss. You'll be thinking about these characters long after you put the book down. Held me from start to finish. Bravo!
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Heartbreakingly beautiful
1 July 2006
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the most beautifully written novels I've read in a long time. I can only imagine what it must have been like in its original French. At the same time, it is an existential story of cold, lost men, the grey souls alluded to in the book's original title.
The stark juxtaposition of life-as-usual in a small town and the bombs of a world war bursting only a few kilometers away defines the novel. Its non-chronological construction gives readers snapshots in time and then backs up to show the confluence of events that conspired to create the gritty reality contained in those images.
Profoundly touching, and full of observations that make me as a reader nod in agreement.
The stark juxtaposition of life-as-usual in a small town and the bombs of a world war bursting only a few kilometers away defines the novel. Its non-chronological construction gives readers snapshots in time and then backs up to show the confluence of events that conspired to create the gritty reality contained in those images.
Profoundly touching, and full of observations that make me as a reader nod in agreement.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
terrific psychological historical thriller
17 Jun 2006
Format:Hardcover
Former Police officer Dadais reflects back two decades to December 1917, the French villagers are shocked when the strangled corpse of ten years old girl Belle "Morning Glory" Bourrache is found by the banks BY A SLOW RIVER that slices through a small, unnamed French village. The townsfolk find the crime hideous as the murder of a child could only have been done by an animal. On the other hand he wonders how everyone including him takes for granted that the nearby battles against Germans will leave both sides filled with uncountable numbers of dead.
Dadais remembers how he struggled to uncover the identity of the repulsive killer. Clues are not readily available but the stubborn Dadais insists that two suspects stick out, egotistical retired sexagenarian "Mr. Prosecutor" Pierre-Ange Destinat and that shadowy Breton war deserter, who admits he committed the murder, but Dadais knows he would have confessed to anything under the torture used to extract his admittance. Others wonder if Dadais wonders if others are as determined to hide the identity of the real culprit as he is to find him..
This is a terrific psychological historical thriller masked somewhat as a police procedural. Dadais is wonderful protagonist looking back at the case that obsessed him and his townsfolk when at the same time they understood the absurdity of caring about one death when millions were "legally" dying nearby. Philippe Claudel cleverly echoes Joseph Stalin's alleged comment that "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." Readers will appreciate this off beat suspense thriller as they wonder just who murdered that little girl.
Harriet Klausner
Dadais remembers how he struggled to uncover the identity of the repulsive killer. Clues are not readily available but the stubborn Dadais insists that two suspects stick out, egotistical retired sexagenarian "Mr. Prosecutor" Pierre-Ange Destinat and that shadowy Breton war deserter, who admits he committed the murder, but Dadais knows he would have confessed to anything under the torture used to extract his admittance. Others wonder if Dadais wonders if others are as determined to hide the identity of the real culprit as he is to find him..
This is a terrific psychological historical thriller masked somewhat as a police procedural. Dadais is wonderful protagonist looking back at the case that obsessed him and his townsfolk when at the same time they understood the absurdity of caring about one death when millions were "legally" dying nearby. Philippe Claudel cleverly echoes Joseph Stalin's alleged comment that "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." Readers will appreciate this off beat suspense thriller as they wonder just who murdered that little girl.
Harriet Klausner
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
