- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (1 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0753812843
- ISBN-13: 978-0753812846
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 649,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Book Description
A vivid prize-winning first novel from a new French writer: a French take on Birdsong or Pat Barker's trilogy.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
In the officers' ward of a hospital in Paris, three young men and a woman meet in the early days of the First World War. Each of them has suffered horrific injuries to the face: Adrien, the narrator, Penanster, a Breton aristocrat, Weil, a Jewish aviator, and Marguerite, a nurse, one of the few women in the hospital. The friendship that the four form sustains them through the months and years that follow. When the war ends they are released from hospital, to adapt as best they can to life outside. Based on the true war experiences of the author's grandfather, this is a moving, humorous and humane novel about war and survival. 'A powerful, haunting novel' Mail on Sunday
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First Sentence
I KNEW nothing of the Great War. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I KNEW nothing of the Great War. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a fantastic novel, the best I have read in years, and I found it impossible to put down. The author tells the story of a young French army officer injured in the first days of the First World War and his subsequent stay in a ward set aside for officers with facial injuries. The book is a short one, 130 pages, but the author tells more of the real horror and effects of war than many a longer novel. All of the characters are perfectly portrayed. But, the story is not a sad one. The "hero" and his fellow officers strive to overcome their injuries and the story of the bond that grows between them is moving and uplifting. There is not a wasted word is this unforgettable novel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This short story is simply yet beautifully told. I have not read the original French version but Howard Curtis' translation is excellent. The novel makes you reflect on the uselessness and futility of war but it never becomes morbid or depressing to an extent you don't want to continue. The message here is that, despite sufferering terrible injuries, qualities such as humour, friendship and love can prevail. One of the best books I have read in a long time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A book about friendship and hope. Adrien Fournier is seriously wounded in the first days of the Great War. It isn't the traditional tidy wound of fiction; it rips a large part of his face away and Fournier's war takes place a long way from the trenches, as doctors mend his broken face. It isn't all about pain and operations though, he has time to form deep friendships with two other officers - Penanster a Breton cavalry officer and Weil, a badly burned pilot who demands "I want a nose. Not a little nose, a proper Jewish nose." Later they add Marguerite, a badly wounded nurse to the circle.
Life in hospital is full of incident. They play cards, support the other wounded, avoid their families and try, with mixed success, to re-enter the world. In 1919 they leave hospital and the final fifth of the book deals with their normalisation. They find a life and come to terms with their disabilities and losses. The world, we see, finds it harder to come to terms with them.
In 1939 their lives change once more, particularly for Weil and his family, but when the war ends they find a new generation that needs their help.
Dugain has a deceptively simple style, saying much with few words and leaving a lingering impression. With a good eye for detail and the discipline to avoid cliché and mawkishness, he has produced a book of power, authority and beauty.
If you only want to read one modern novel about the Great War read this one.
Life in hospital is full of incident. They play cards, support the other wounded, avoid their families and try, with mixed success, to re-enter the world. In 1919 they leave hospital and the final fifth of the book deals with their normalisation. They find a life and come to terms with their disabilities and losses. The world, we see, finds it harder to come to terms with them.
In 1939 their lives change once more, particularly for Weil and his family, but when the war ends they find a new generation that needs their help.
Dugain has a deceptively simple style, saying much with few words and leaving a lingering impression. With a good eye for detail and the discipline to avoid cliché and mawkishness, he has produced a book of power, authority and beauty.
If you only want to read one modern novel about the Great War read this one.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Short but Effective
THE OFFICER'S WARD is a novel about French Lieutenant Adrien F. who is wounded in the opening days of the Great War and who finds himself in a ward for the terribly disfigured. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Hereward
The Officer's Ward
Exellent book on this particular subject matter. The delivery service was perfect and the condition of the book was exellent
Published on 13 April 2010 by Mrs. Michelle Morgan
A little gem
A simple story about a tragic subject told in so much minute detail in a sometimes humerous manner. How does he manage it?
Published on 28 Mar 2010 by Antony Davey
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