Hadrians Villa in unserem Garten.

Le cycle romanesque familial et autobiographique #2

by Jean Rouaud, Carina von Enzenberg (Translator), Hartmut Zahn (Translator)

Hailed as a masterpiece, Jean Rouaud's first novel was awarded France's most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, and sold over a million copies worldwide. Rouaud rocketed to literary fame and was proclaimed the finest writer to come out of France in a generation. Of Illustrious Men establishes as fact what the first novel promised - that Rouaud is a writer of remarkable power, subtlety, and originality. Lovingly set in the same region as Fields of Glory, the novel is about the author's father, Joseph, a traveling salesman who died at forty-one and left a family in shock behind him. In the mind of the grieving eleven-year-old son - too young to have really known him - his dead father's exploits in the Resistance during World War II were the stuff of daydreams. His father was more than just a traveling salesman, a quiet family man - he was a hero, a warrior, a legend. But the narrator is no longer that eleven-year-old boy; he is a mature and gifted writer. And though he may still ache for the loss of his father, he also knows that Joseph's illustriousness can be found not only in the heady days of wartime glory...but also in the moments of domestic peace. Of Illustrious Men evokes scenes of both war and peace with exquisite beauty and understated and poignant tenderness.

Genres: Fiction, France, Historical, Literature

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Jean Rouaud (born December 13, 1952) is a French author, who was born in Campbon, Loire-Atlantique. In 1990 his novel Fields of Glory (French: Les Champs d'honneur) won the Prix Goncourt. First believed to be the first book in a trilogy, Fields of Glory turned out to be the first book in a series of five books on the family history of the author. In 2009 he published the novel La femme promise.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

مردان نامی کتابی است از ژان روئو ، نویسنده فرانسوی . کتاب روئو را که باید در ستایش پدر و مقام او دانست ، شرح بخش هایی از زندگی کوتاه پدر نویسنده است . روئو کوشیده تا تصویری از روابط انسانی و نقش پدر در بنیاد خانواده ترسیم کند .
مردان نامی را به دو قسمت می توان تقسیم کرد ، بخش اول داستان سالهای پایانی پدر است ، سالهایی که با کار زیاد و سخت او به عنوان یک بازاریاب گذشت . رئو هم از تلاشهای طاقت فرسای پدر برای تامین معیشت خانواده و فراهم کردن رفاه نسبی گفته و هم به نقش شگرف او در خانواده و جامعه پرداخته . مردی که با وجود خستگی زیاد ناشی از کار ، از خانواده و فرزندان خود غافل نبوده و در مقیاسی بزرگتر در جامعه روستای خود هم ، نقشی فعال داشت . پدر این گونه در لحظات اندک حضور خود ، به زندگی سخت فرزندان خود رنگ و بویی دیگر بخشیده و کوشیده تا زندگی بهتری از هر جهت برای آنان بسازد .
در بخش دوم ،روئو به بیست سال قبل ، دوران جوانی پدر باز می گردد ، جوانی پدر و یتیمی او ، با جنگ جهانی دوم ، اشغال فرانسه و مهاجرت اجباری جوانان فرانسوی به آلمان جهت کار اجباری در کارخانه ها همراه شده . این گونه پدر جوان سختی مضاعفی را تحمل می کند . سختی که گویا هیچ وقت پایانی ندارد .
سرتاسر زندگی پدر در کار و فعالیت و حرکت می گذشته ، در جا به جایی بارهای سنگین ، در رانندگی های طولانی ، در پوچی و روزمرگی کارهای تکراری ، گفت و گو و چانه زدن سخت با مشتری و تلاش برای قانع کردن او به خرید ، پدر به عنوان نمادی از نسل فرانسوی که روزگار خود را بین جنگ دوم و زمان سخت پس از آن گذرانده ، به نظر زندگی بسیار سختی داشته .
روئو این گونه نسلی از مردان و زنان را نشان می دهد که به سبب جنگ و فاجعه زندگی پس از آن ، گویی مجبور شده اند که از آرزوها و امیال خود بگذرند و زندگی خود را آن گونه که زمانه بی رحم به آنان دیکته کرده بگذرانند نه آن گونه که خود می خواهند . این گونه هنر و تئاتر فراموش شده و جای خود را به حرفه هایی مانند بازار یابی می دهد .
در پایان ، مردان نامی حکایت یک سرباز یا یک فرد نظامی قهرمان نیست ، روئو بخشهایی از داستان قهرمان زندگی خود ، یعنی پدرش را بیان کرده و او را به نمایندگی از دیگر پدران ، نامدار و قهرمان دانسته است .

[Brulois Brigitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livre passionnant, autobiographique à travers la figure d'un père mort trop jeune. On revit grâce au regard d'un enfant les années 1940 à 1960. Bombardement de Nantes, remembrement dramatique de la Bretagne. Style alerte, disnarratif avec de l'humour. Je continue la série

[Ritesh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is a corn maze. You stand in line with your free entry ticket, get in, get lost, never want to admit you are lost and somehow manage to find your exit and sigh "phew, we are saved!". That phrase, incidentally, is the most apt ending for the book.

The effort of a son to commemorate his father is touching, but by the end of the book you really begin to wonder who is who. None of the characters make any impact, even the story seems so haphazard that you cannot relate to it.

I would recommend this when you have nothing better to do and are prepared to leave a book unfinished.

[Calzean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some lovely words which convey the life and times of Joseph, a travelling salesman, who dies at 41 after WWII. But it was a wandering, rambling tale that really did not go anywhere or offer a plot, a message or a reason to recommend this book.

[Mazen Alloujami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avec une simplicité éblouissante, l'auteur nous décrit son père et nous raconte sa vie. Le vie d'un grand homme dans un tout petit village breton.
C'est un roman beau et touchant.

[Gemma W · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai fini l'après-midi sur Wikipedia a rechercher le remembrement en Bretagne.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps a little less impressive (if only because the feeling of greeting a new author is gone?) than Fields of Glory, but rather more linear and easier to "get into" as well. Joseph, the father who died at age 41 in Fields of Glory, is the central subject of this second novel by Rouaud, and we see both his life as a father and provider, as well as insight into him as a son and as a member of the French Resistance during World War II. Neither as funny nor quite as "serious" as Fields, but still a fine piece of fiction.

[Marie-pierre Stien · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece of French literature, the first of Rouaud memoir trilogy. The language is delightful. Rouaud is a master at circular story-telling, taking the reader further and further into expanding circles of narrative only to magically tie back to the beginning. Rouaud is slightly self-deprecative but also very kind and sensitive, describing the kind of middle class French live that is not the usual literary setting. A classic.