Quatre Soldats

by Hubert Mingarelli

Voici une longue nouvelle comme aurait pu en rêver Hemingway, où les circonstances comptent moins que le désarroi moral, les tâtonnements, les dialogues de ces quatre soldats en perdition, issus de l'Armée rouge, qui sortent d'une forêt où ils viennent de passer un hiver terrible, pendant l'année 1919. Il y a la beauté des scènes muettes : réquisitions dans les villages, baignades dans un étang, embuscade. Il y a ce gamin, enrôlé volontaire, dont la présence irradie les quatre hommes car il est, semble-t-il, le seul à savoir écrire. Mais "le ciel est sans fin" et rien ne sera sauvé.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, France, War, Russia, Roman, Novella

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2003

Reviews

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 2 out of 5]

چهار سرباز کتابی است از هیوبرت مینگرلی نویسنده فرانسوی . او کوشیده تا با نگاهی ضد جنگ و انسانی به زندگی سربازان در دل جنگ بپردازد . نویسنده نه از زاویه‌ قهرمانی و پیروزی، بلکه از دلِ ترس، تنهایی و دوستی‌های شکننده‌ای که در میان آتش و گلوله شکل می‌گیرند به سربازان و جنگ نگریسته .
داستان نویسنده ، حکایت چهار سرباز جوان ارتش سرخ است که در زمستانی سخت، دور از جبهه‌ی اصلی و در پناهگاهی جنگلی روزگار می‌گذرانند. جنگی که در جریان است، چندان روشن نیست ، شاید نبردی میان شوروی و لهستان، اما آن‌چه روشن است، وضعیت تعلیق و بلاتکلیفی‌ست که سربازان در آن گرفتارند. آن‌ها بیشتر از آن‌که با دشمن بجنگند، با درون خود درگیرند: با ترس، خاطره، دلتنگی و امیدهای کوچکی که روشنایی اندکی در تاریکی اطراف‌شان می‌تاباند. انتظارِ جنگ، شاید همان‌قدر عذاب‌آور است که خود جنگ ،چرا که تنها خوبی آن، خروج از ایستایی و سکونِ سرد و سنگینِ روزهای پناهگاهی‌ست.
مینگرلی کوشیده تا کتاب ضد جنگ مهم و تاثیرگذاری بنویسد ، اما نتیجه کار او داستان رقیق و کم مایه ای شده که نه اثر گذار است و نه توان ایستادن در قامت یک رمان ضدجنگ را دارد. با این داستان ساده و شخصیت هایی سطحی ، چهار سرباز را نمی توان با دیگر کتاب های شاخص ضد جنگ مانند در غرب خبری نیست ، مقایسه کرد .

[Antonomasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2.5] I didn't like A Meal in Winter, another novella by Hubert Mingarelli about a small band of military men (in that case, WWII Nazis), so by rights I should not have read Four Soldiers (which is about Red Army volunteers in 1919). However, I signed up for a bloggers' project shadowing the 2019 International Booker longlist, and Four Soldiers is on that list...

I hoped to enjoy this book better than A Meal in Winter. There are things here that appeal to me. Eastern Europe. A wandering army living outdoors and doing simple activities much as people have been doing for centuries, if not millenia. And the last few months, I've been reading other books about Russia in the first half of the 20th century.

But I've got many of the same problems with this book as with the other one. It is written in a simple, polished style that seems suitable for secondary school set novels, language learning and adult literacy improvement. (Re. the last, it even has characters who are illiterate and who like bunking off, and stereotypically masculine subject matter - all often found in books for adult literacy and/or male 'reluctant readers'. However, unlike the action-filled books often suggested for this group, it is not very exciting.)

It is 'literary fiction' because not much happens for 90% of the book, rather than because of exceptional 'literary' qualities. The descriptions are mostly flat. No linguistic fireworks or breathtaking vividness here. The apparent lack of intertextuality (though I accept I may have missed something) is frustrating and boring. For instance, can this really be a literary novel if it's set in early 20th-century Russia, with a narrator called Benia, yet no similarity or allusion to Isaac Babel's Benya Krik?

Political and cultural history is too much absent here. Yes, historical references in fiction can sometimes feel forced, and yes, at many times, ordinary people would not necessarily have thought about politics a lot. But these are Red Army volunteers, and there's nothing here about why they signed up. No mention of Lenin nor Stalin (the latter was a general in this war). The absence of politics made sense in A Meal in Winter and tallied with the Nazi-soldiers-as-ordinary-men historical narrative. The same doesn't wash for Four Soldiers.

Perhaps the simple style can be seen as reflecting the first-person narrative of an ordinary man? But, mostly, Four Soldiers lacks the immediacy, the rawness, and haphazardly creative metaphor of real people, such as Svetlana Alexievich's interviewees for The Unwomanly Face of War (who fought in WWII). It's more writerly than gritty.

The soldiers' indifference to one another's identities seemed overly utopian. Benia was very much a Jewish name, there were many pogroms in Russia at this time, and Jewishness is never mentioned at all. Katya's review goes into more detail about the implications of the men's ethnicities at this time in Russian history. The narrative also hints that one of the soldiers is gay, but this never seems to consciously occur to the other men.

The improvement in writing at the dénouement evoked some genuine emotion, but not so much as to totally override my bored cynicism; through the earlier part of the book I'd been thinking "I bet it'll go a bit Blackadder at the end" (i.e. Goes Forth final episode). I had already sat through enough mild tedium and general lacklustreness, and enough marginally promising descriptions deflated by clumsy following sentences, that it couldn't change my feelings about the book as a whole.

Whilst the style and brevity of this novella is suitable for some situations, overall I feel it is a shame that so many people will spend time reading this instead of older Russian works by writers who were there, or at least whose fathers or grandfathers were. This sort of historical novel on a common topic seems like a new book for the mere sake of new books and the sales cycle.

The narrator's sensitivity - towards his mate Pavel's recurring nightmares- is intriguing. At first I took it to be a potentially anachronistic projection of contemporary Western attitudes, as men are becoming more emotionally open with their friends (though people of all eras vary). He was not much like the men described in Unwomanly Face of War. I asked a Russian friend about it; she explained that men brought up in late Imperial times are often thought to have been more sensitive, while masculine culture hardened later due to mass repression and imprisonment, and that has never really gone away ("a Russian man can only be sensitive if he is intoxicated" was her verdict on the current situation). Whether or not the author had researched Russian assumptions about men of the past, it was interesting to hear about this.

(Four Soldiers would - I figure a couple of weeks after writing the rest of this review - have been a more powerful work about war if it had a nameless setting, like J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians.)

Otherwise, I'm not sure I've learned anything useful here, and anyone rolling their eyes at this exercise - at someone reading and almost inevitably disliking a book by an author whose very similar previous work they didn't like either - has my full agreement.

[Paul Falk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author, Hubert Mingarelli, pulled me aside for a trip back in time to revisit the Russian Civil War; the year was 1919. It'd been the one clash between nations I knew so little about - until now. Exceptional credit is extended to Sam Taylor who did a fabulous job of translating this novel from French into English. I can't begin to imagine the effort that that took. Well done Sam.

The morose, panic-stricken scenes were an actual testament to the slow decay of the mind when subjected to the endless pitfalls of combat troops in war. Life as they had known it slowly dragged on one impossible day at a time.

Four soldiers met up and became best of friends while they were attached to the Red Army and fought on the Romanian front. Times were beyond difficult; they were unbearable. In order to survive, they were forced to eat their horses and scavenge whatever food and provisions they could gather from local homes they passed along the way. The days were bitter cold, the night's intolerably freezing. That was cause enough for the war to take a break and wait it out till spring. It would not go away.

With the rest of their company, the four comrades built a hut for themselves and made camp hidden away in the middle of a forest. They did whatever they could to occupy the endless days and nights. Mindless hours of shooting dice for cigarettes helped ease their troubled minds. Clear days were spent sitting by a pond concealed from the rest of their company within the reeds. They knew their time was running out. War would not let go.

As always, time had a way of marching on, and in their case, too fast. Spring had finally arrived and it was time for them to pull out, time for some to sacrifice their lives for a cause they could not begin to comprehend. All that waited ahead for them down the dirt road were bullets and bombs. If lucky, their demise would come quickly.

I extend my gratitude to NetGalley and The New Press for this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 10/13 from an increasingly disappointing 2019 Man Booker International shortlist

Four Soldiers has been translated by Sam Taylor (also translator of Lullaby) from the French original Quatre soldats by Hubert Mingarelli. The same author/translator combination was responsible for the IFFP longlisted, A Meal In Winter.

Four Soldiers tells (clue is in the name) the story of four soldiers fighting in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, but the focus in on their interpersonal relationships, and indeed there is no sense of place whatsoever: this might as well be set in any time or place, although perhaps that is Mingarelli's point, that the experience of soldiers in war, the bewilderment but also the fellowship, is universal.

As the novel opens, winter is setting in, and their division retreats from the front with the Polish army, to build huts and hunker down for the spring. Four soldiers come together to do so - the narrator Benia, Pavel already a close companion of his, an Uzbek giant Kyabine, naive but strong, and the rather introverted Sifta, the last to be chosen due to his reliability and lack of causing any issues.

When we’d finished building our hut, we proudly contemplated it in the light of the fire that burned at the center of the clearing. We walked all around it, congratulating one another, and then all four of us went inside and I thought to myself: That’s it. I’m not alone in the world any more. And I was right.

The next chapter begins:

We were out of the forest now. Winter was over and it is difficult to imagine how long and cold it had been. We could each and all meals and all horses, and many of our men had died in the forest.

'difficult to imagine' - but isn't it the writers' job to help us do that? Although that to be fair also perhaps isn't Mingarelli's purpose. The conflict takes place largely somewhere else altogether (only briefly intruding, predictably, in the final pages). Instead we have a (too?) simple tale of the brotherhood between the four men, and indeed the good times they share now it is no longer so cold as to threaten them with freezing. but they are yet to be redeployed to the front: they go for walks to a secret pond known only to the four of them, play cards and cadge cigarettes off one another and only occasionally have to arm themselves to requisition supplies from the people in the area, and generally bond. For example, an incident when they capture a horse - and Sifra, who has never ridden before and is nervous, is persuaded to ride it if Kyabine holds the reins:

i looked at the confident smile on Sifra's face, because Kyabine was leading the horse at the right speed. And I watched Kyabine's slow, reassuring gait, and Pavel was there too, walking next to me, and suddenly I was filled with emotion because each one of us was in his place and also because it seemed to me that in that instant that each of us was far away from the winter in the forest. And that each of us was also far away from the war that was going to start up again because the winter was over.

When they are joined by a fifth soldier, Evdokim, a young volunteer assigned to their tent, they initially resent his presence, and he is intimidated by them, until they notice him writing in a journal, which causes them to ask him to document all of their adventures. They each book in their particular requests - e.g. that he tells of Siafra's ability to re-assemble a rifle, or the fish that Kyabine caught at the pond, but as rumours spreads that they are about to be sent to the front, the narrator has a particular request:

'So listen,’ I said, carefully choosing my words. ‘When you’ve finished with the pond, there’s something else I would like you to write.’ I paused, to plan even more carefully what I had to say. ‘Listen, what I’d like you to write about … well, it’s Pavel. I’d like you to write that Pavel and me … that we were really lucky to find each other. It was lucky for Kyabine and Siafra, of course, but with Pavel, shit, you understand, don’t you. It was even luckier, you know?'

And the end of the novel is rather predictable although nicely done.

Ultimately a light and easy read, perhaps moving if one is in the mood, nicely but too simply written and with an odd lack of a sense of time and place.

2 stars (although closer to 3 than 1)

[zed · Rating 3 out of 5]

A first person narrative with short sharp chapters that are sparsely written in almost childlike delivery. The reason for this becomes very clear in the last few pages of the book. Unfortunately I was not that type of reader who recognised this subtly and with that I was not completely enamoured with this read. I do get why others are and maybe a 2nd read would be useful.

A story of Four Soldiers, obvious by the title, that enjoy each other’s company in the simple joys of friendship. All four are very different and the narrator is very kind to each and every one of his three comrades in the simplistic way he tells of that friendship in times of deep stress during the Russian Civil War in 1919. This is a human condition tale and aimed at trying to make sense of being safe from harm when that is all that some have.
Recommended as a short and fast read for anyone that prefers fiction on the human condition.

[Jerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the Man Booker International longlist for 2019. This was a short, sweet novel about a small group of soldiers in the Russian Civil War. This isn’t a war novel, though. It’s about the friendship between the four young men of the title, how their friendship grows, and how it quickly falls apart in the face of war. The writing is spare and direct to the point of feeling choppy, but that may have been intentional to reflect the manner of speaking of the young, illiterate narrator. It is also, unfortunately, spare of details of time and place, which would have made the story more impactful. Overall 3.5⭐️

[Agnese · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know that I'm not the only one who, after reading the description of Four Soldiers, thought that the premise sounded curiously similar to that of Minagarelli's previously published novella A Meal In Winter that tells the story of a group of German soldiers during WWII and which has received pretty mixed reviews from the book bloggers that I follow. I haven't read A Meal in Winter, but I was intrigued to read this novella since it's one of the contenders for the 2019 Man Booker International prize. 

Written in concise, minimalist prose, Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, follows a group of Red Army soldiers who are stationed near the Romanian border during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922).

This emotionally subtle novella is narrated from the perspective of one of the soldiers, a young volunteer named Benia, whose detailed observations of his fellow army comrades - Pavel, Kyabine, and Sifra - provides us with a glimpse into the harsh realities of warfare. Not much happens in the book as it mainly focuses on their daily interactions and activities, while they are waiting for their new orders. Despite the complicated relationship dynamics between the four soldiers, they find solace, and even some joy, in their comradeship and the idyllic moments that they spend fishing, swimming, drinking tea, and playing dice for cigarettes.  All these routine activities help to ease their anxiety over what is to come since they're well aware that they can't escape the war.

The soldiers are later joined by another recruit, a young peasant boy named Kouzma, who they refer to as the "Evdokim kid". At first, they are reluctant to accept him into their tight little group, but they become intrigued by the kid once they discover that he spends a lot of time writing in his notebook. It soon becomes clear that he is the only one in the group who is literate and the other soldiers urge him to record in detail the brief,  peaceful moments that they have shared together before they are thrust into the horrors of the battlefield.

"Listen", said Pavel, not looking at the kid but lying motionless and staring at the surface of the water, "if there's one thing that you ought to write, it's that we're all sad because we have to leave and we won't be able to come back here."
The kid opened his mouth but no sound came out.
"Did you hear me?" Pavel asked him. The kid nodded and Pavel went on: "Yeah, say that we're all sad because we had some good moments here, some really great moments, and we know that we won't have any more, and where we're going there won't be any good moments, because all that is behind us now."
It's a moving examination of the psychological effects that the uncertainties of war have on the minds of these young men. The language is simple, but it seems to fit the narrative very well.

So, why the 3-star rating?

Well, my main issue with the book lies in the lack of a strong sense of place. The Russian setting never came to life for me, since there are no distinct cultural, political or historical details that would ground the story in that turbulent time period of early 20th-century Russia. Also, considering that the author chose to give these characters such unusual names, I was surprised and puzzled by the fact that he completely avoided exploring the men's identities and ethnic backgrounds. If that was deliberate, I'm not quite sure what point the author was trying to make. In my opinion, that would have made the book much more interesting.

Overall, this novella kind of felt like the Stalingrad sections in Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, but if they were written by Hemingway. I leave you to decide whether that sounds appealing to you or not... ;)

[Masih Reyhani · Rating 4 out of 5]

مترجم اثر «ابوالفضل الله‌دادی» مقدمه‌اش را با چنین جمله‌ای آغاز می‌کند:
«چهارسرباز قصه‌ی دوستی و هم‌بستگی و برادری است. قصه‌ی رفاقت بِنیا، پاول، کیابین و شیفرا، چهار سربازِ ارتش سرخ که در سال ۱۹۱۹، شکست‌خورده و درمانده، با سرما و گرسنگی و شبیخونِ دشمن دست‌وپنجه نرم می‌کنند.»
همین نوشته در معرفی کتاب و جذب کردن مخاطب به نظرم کافی است.

📚 از متن کتاب:
«در آن لحظه به نظر می‌رسید که از زمستان جنگل بسیار دور شده‌ایم و همه بسیار دور بودیم از جنگ که به زودی با پایان زمستان از سر گرفته می‌شد.»

«چهار سرباز» اثری است ضدجنگ و روایت‌گر قصه‌ی دوستانی است که در دل آشوب جنگ و برای فرار از ترس‌های‌شان به رفاقت پناه برده‌اند. این اثر، کوتاه و جذاب اما به شدت تاثیرگذار است. نویسنده آن‌قدر دقیق و با ظرافت شخصیت‌پردازی کرده است که بعید می‌دانم خواننده‌ای جذب کتاب نشود و رابطه‌ی دوستانه‌ای را از گذشته‌ی خویش به یاد نیاورد و غرق در خاطراتش نشود!

روایت مینیمال و تاثیرگذار نویسنده باعث می‌شود که خواننده احساسی عمیق از تنهایی، دوستی و تهی بودن جنگ از هر نوع معنایی را تجربه کند. همچنین کتاب به جای تمرکز بر خشونت جنگ، بر لحظات هر چند کوتاه و کمیاب انسانی و پیوندهای عاطفی میان شخصیت‌ها متمرکز است. شخصیت‌هایی که هر یک پیشینه‌ی متفاوتی با یکدیگر دارند و ای‌بسا که در شرایطی عادی تن به رفاقت با هم نمی‌دانند اما در شرایطی که زندگی‌شان هر لحظه ممکن است به پایان برسد، رفیقِ شفیق همدیگر شده‌اند.

[Tommi · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2.5] Hubert Mingarelli’s Four Soldiers, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, is a small-scale homosocial drama set during the Russian Civil War in 1919. What could be a savage war novel turns into a rather gentle depiction of soldiers having a moment of respite. As the first chapter ends, the present-day narrator reminisces about a day during the war when they built a hut for rest: “We walked all around [the hut], congratulating one another, and then all four of us went inside and I thought to myself: That’s it, I’m not alone in the world any more. And I was right.”

I like this premise, and I’m much more keen to read a war novel that deals with the human relationships rather than one focusing on the brutality of war. A slight tangent, but I find myself zoning out whenever there are scenes of shooting, chasing, dueling or whatever in movies, so in that respect I was in safe hands with Mingarelli’s short novel.

But in terms of characters, it feels to me that Mingarelli is relying a little too heavily on stereotypes. The Uzbeki soldier is obviously the strongest of the four, and of course there has to be an annoying yet confused young officer who shoots a mule right in the beginning: “He was a young sub-lieutenant and he looked on the verge of tears.” The problem here is that I automatically visualize it all in terms of some big-budget movie I would rather not watch.

In total, I find Four Soldiers a little lacking in substance and nuance, and I’m afraid I won’t remember it for long. I enjoyed the reading process for the most part, but there wasn’t much to take away in the end.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Klein en teer verhaal over vriendschap en klein geluk in oorlogstijd.

[Martina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trots att den här boken inte var mer än 150 sidor så kändes den mycket längre. Vacker och sorglig, med starka karaktärer och stunder i krig som jag inte har tänkt på tidigare.

Mer kommer att läsas av Hubert Mingarelli, så mycket kan jag säga!
4⭐️

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another superb short novel about men at war by this excellent French novelist. This time Mingerelli tackles the Russian Revolution, following four soldiers from the Red Army as they battle winter, boredom and the looming dread of what is to come. They form tight friendships as they while away the hours playing dominoes, talking or just sitting by a secluded pond.

Mingerelli does such a superb job of depicting the base daily events of soldier life. He strips away the politics, refuses to take sides and has such empathy for his characters. Wonderful stuff.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A haunting story of four soldiers during the Russian Civil War 1919. There is a lull in fighting and the men find time to rest and enjoy the simple things - eating, smoking, drinking tea, being together, having shelter, washing and not thinking of the dangers of the war they were in. They share a pendant, which has a photo of a woman in it, and each night one of them get to sleep with "her". Another soldier carves hands and sells them to men looking for some solace.
Mateship is a strong theme. What affected me the most was when a new recruit joined the unit. He writes in a notebook and the men want him to record their every achievement. After he is killed the narrator finds the boy could not write. And this is what makes the book so powerful - these men can't read, are mostly farm labourers, have little experience with women or life - and they keep marching to the enemy, running from battles and watching out for each other.

[Steve Middendorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m thinking about the construction of a poem. How the poet starts with an idea, a head full of thoughts and emotions, descriptions and metaphors. All this is got down onto paper. It is revised. All that is excess is removed. It is stripped down and stripped down. The pellets in the scattergun are removed one by one until there are only a few. These are melted down into a single, rifled, bullet.

This story about relationships between men in war is like that; stripped down to a rifle, a coat, a blanket, a tin cup and a bowl. What remains are men, caring for each other.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple story about men at their most vulnerable and where friendships are forged amid common fears and shared enemies.
The Red Army were a mixed bag of illiterate peasants and working class men who were mobilised to secure the rewards of the people’s revolution. The story takes place during the Russian Civil War in 1919. The troops are close to the Romanian front in retreat and seek sanctuary in local forests to see out the harsh winter. Those that had survived skirmishes with the enemy now died from the freezing temperatures or from hut fires trying to keep warm.
Food was short and the land not plentiful nor the isolated farms abundant to share their produce.
The book is the memories of one soldier many years later about his experiences. Fundamental to his survival appears to have been the relationships forged between his fellow combatants.
He is drawn to Pavel and they were joined by a giant of a man, Kyabine and a quiet soul Sifra.
During this hiatus from fighting and having endured the worst of the winter these four spend their time together. It isn’t free from bad dreams or the fears rejoining the slaughter but in the basic things they do a certain poetic harmony is created.
I enjoyed Hubert Mingarelli’s brilliant ‘A meal in winter.’ So I was pleased to have the opportunity to read this book.
The simplicity of the men’s conversations, their daily routine and chores were engaging and completely engrossing. The author says more by what is unsaid and much is inferred in quiet moments and the men’s need for special places like a local pond they strive to keep as a secret location just for them.
The relationships are later initially strained, when a young child volunteer is assigned to their care. In the end his presence is enjoyed in that he records their antics in his notebook. The thoughts that these days are recorded in writing seems to make them more alive and validate their current situation.
The dialogue is basic but borne out of conflict and confinement. It rings true and pierces the heart of the reader. You realise their lives are on hold and their future is not within their own making. It makes their simple happiness almost childlike, their superstitions real and their desire to remain by the pond understandable.
I think it speaks loudly to all who would hear that war bears a deeper cost than just simple statistics. That lives that are lost are not the building blocks of a better future but real people as deserving of life as anyone. A lost son, father and brother are unfulfilled lives and the cost is best seen in the futility of war.
Four Soldiers is one such book and a literary masterpiece from a creative, thoughtful writer.

[Hester · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not much war in this short stripped back novella about four young men fighting for the Red Army in 1919 . Instead we get a sense of furlough as the company bivouacs in makeshift shelters in the winter , then tents as spring arrives . The forest gives up it's quiet treasures as they share their days , their boredoms and their unspoken passions .

A young teenager with no equipment is given into their care and they gradually take him into their fold . But we all know the war will come ....

The prose , like the limited conversation between them , is spare and , stripped if its angst and flourish, carries more heft. I read slowly as I dreaded leaving them , the harm promised to them , the inarticulate silence of death . How many of these men have we all forgotten ?

[Christina Nielsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mingarelli manages to create such an impact with so few words. Im honestly kind of at a loss for words. A beautiful, but sad read.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Je croyais entendre la chanson "Les copains d'abord" quand je lisais cette nouvelle qui est une belle panégyrique de la jeunesse et des joies éphémères de la vie. "Quatre soldats" est un très bon roman comme il y en a beaucoup. Je le donnerais plus que deux étoiles s'il y avait la moindre chose de nouveau.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you @grantabooks for my copy of Four Soldiers from the International Man Booker longlist! This one was translated from French by Sam Taylor who translates a lot of contemporary French novels (including the truth about the harry quebert affair, arguably one of my least favourite novels ever) and tbh I wasn’t blown away.
.
The story was simple and tinged with sadness throughout, as we watch four soldiers go about their daily life in camp, trying to glean as much joy out of the little things as they can before the inevitable happens. The writing was a little too simple for my liking, making an odd juxtaposition between it sounding like a children’s book and the fate of these men - possibly Mingarelli’s intention, I don’t know. Overall, it was just an okay read for me.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those of my readers who have been following my adventures in reading books in French rather than in translation may be interested to learn that I reached an important milestone during my reading of Hubert Mingarelli's Quatre Soldats (Four Soldiers). This is the first time I've read in French something that didn't feel like a compromised version of the book.  Previously, either I've spent so much time looking things up in the dictionary that it disrupted the flow of reading, or I felt that I was missing the big picture because I was only making sense at the sentence level.  This time, however, the sparse simplicity of Mingerelli's prose made it possible for me enjoy reading the story much as I would have if I'd read the translation.

Quatre Soldats is the story of the bonds between a small company of Red Army soldiers near the Romanian border during the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Baria, who narrates the story, recounts the way he met the others.  Alone and dispirited, he meets Pavel when Pavel asks for some tea. Pavel is full of initiative, and always seems confident, but he suffers nightmares that derive from traumatic experiences  during the winter.  Because he is occasionally insubordinate, he's a bit of a loose cannon.  Nevertheless he becomes the de facto leader of the group to whom the others mostly defer.

Jyabine, an Uzbek, is not very bright but he's solid and reliable and he provides muscle power: he has the strength to carry more than his fair share and he will do almost anything he's asked provided he can cadge a cigarette. They are all young and adrift from whatever families they had, but Sifra is the youngest, quiet and reserved, like a shadow in the background.  Baria is the one who is most sensitive to the ebb and flow of suppressed emotion and it is he who invests time in trying to help Pavel. He ends Chapter One by recognising that his circumstances have changed: with these companions, he is no longer alone in the world.

They have survived a long and brutal winter, but now there is a lull before the spring offensive begins.

With patient, absorbing detail, Mingarelli builds up his portrait of these four men.  Baria is proud of their accomplishments.  Pavel's practical ideas mean that they have a oil lamp to brighten their evenings in their shelter so that they can play cards.  He's rigged up their tent so that their rifles hang up high out of the way and don't get wet. They make off with some railway sleepers and set them up in front of the tent to block out the cold, and these serve as a congenial place to sit and smoke and play cards when there is nothing to do.  They rib each other from time to time, but it is Kyabine who is mostly the butt of their teasing.

Their most treasured possession is a watch which opens up to show a portrait of a woman. They take it in turns to 'enjoy her company' at bedtime under the covers, but Sifra doesn't take a turn and is too naïve to understand what they are doing. (Baria thinks that Pavel is the only one who has ever actually slept with a woman). Mingarelli withholds a lot of information: he does not explain how they came to have this watch...

But we can guess.  They go on foraging expeditions which involve looting from the local peasant farmers, escalating both in audacity and the effects on the victims, the very people for whose cause they are fighting.  A farmer's offer of some elderly leeks triggers a demand for potatoes too.  The next time they steal a pig, and then it's a horse that they don't have the skills to handle. But they're not entirely heartless...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/06/20/q...

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very simple story of Red Army soldiers retreating from the Romanian front in the winter of 1919. Previously unknown to each other, four young soldiers become close as they wait for a lull in the fighting, carrying out mundane tasks, building shelters, preparing food, smoking, finding comfort in simple tasks. But the tension builds as spring approaches, and the inevitable resumption of violence. This, the build up of tension, is what Mingarelli did so well in A Meal In Winter and if anything, it’s even more evident here. His earlier book had more action throughout, whereas this is intentionally tranquil for its large part and enables an understanding of the uneasy hiatus in fighting, and how the four soldiers become inextricably bound together by circumstance.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this 3.5 stars. FOUR SOLDIERS is a very simplistic story of four young men in the red army during the Russian Revolution. The novel tells about their friendship and their fears. A short but powerful book!

[Troy Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good novella. Try and read it in one sitting.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

In deze roman van Mingarelli volgen wij de gangen van Benja, de ik-figuur, soldaat in het Russische leger tijdens de Russische Burgeroorlog (1919). Hij is in het leger terecht gekomen bij gebrek aan beter. In het leger sluit hij vriendschap met Pavel. Later, tijdens de vlucht van het Rode Leger voor de Roemenen, volgen de Oezbeek Kjabin en Sifra, allemaal kerels met hun eigen karakter en eigenaardigheden.

En het gaat in hun leven niet om grote veldslagen, morele discussies of onderlinge vijandigheid of jaloezie. Nee, het gaat (nu de oorlog ook even in de pauzestand staat) om het leven van alledag, het bij elkaar scharrelen van thee en tabak, het droog en warm houden van de tent, het per dag bepalen wie er "het horloge" voor die nacht mag hebben, het stiekem er met elkaar op uit trekken om bij een meertje te kunnen ontspannen en te vissen.

Door de manier van schrijven onderstreept Mingarelli op meesterlijke wijze hoe klein de wereld per persoon is. Het verleden is ver weg, de toekomst reikt niet verder dan de dag van morgen. Alles draait om het hier en nu. Nu, vandaag, heden, moet er voldoende te eten zijn, moet er tijdig gezorgd worden voor brandstof voor het kacheltje in de tent, moet er geplaagd worden en moeten de mannen er voor elkaar zijn. Niet te opvallend, natuurlijk, want het zijn wel soldaten.

Er wordt een jonge nieuweling aan het groepje toegewezen. Hij schrijft elke dag met een potloodje in een grijs schriftje. De vier kunnen zelf niet of nauwelijks lezen en schrijven, dus in plaats daarvan geven zij de jongen steeds instructies wat hij moet noteren.

Uiteindelijk, of de mannen het nu willen of niet, komt er een moment dat de strijd en het geweld wordt hervat. Het kamp moet worden verplaatst. En dan blijkt dat oorlog toch nog steeds echt oorlog is.

Ik vond het een ontroerend boek om te lezen.

Een uitgebreidere leeservaring vind je op mijn lees- & leefblog: Kameraden.

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful captured moments between a group of soldiers who are waiting for the next battle. While the story is plotless, chapters and sentences are short, written in simple prose, the final effect is the opposite of this modesty. Rich in emotions, but without sentimentality, and while this story is set in wartime it is (almost) without battlefield. Elegant and absorbing.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was gentle, slow, on the point and therefore more striking than I expected.

how do you take someone on a journey so mundane and so personal?
there is a magic in Mingarelli's words which is hard to describe, I guess it starts to work on the first page of this book, lifts you up into the air, lets you float and fly and levitate just to smash you to the cold, hard ground on the last one.

[Bart · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️

[Max Coggan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insight into to the feelings and companionship of soldiers waiting and waiting to be ordered to march and to fight. Well written, flowing style making enjoyable read.

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foraging Minutiae or Four Characters in Search of a Diarist
Review of the Audible Audio audiobook edition narrated by Stefan Rudnicki of the 2018 English translation by Sam Taylor of the 2003 French language original
[2 star "It was OK" bumped to 3 star "Liked it" for the audio narration]

There were definitely some idyllic and lyrical passages in this tale of four soldiers who reluctantly accept a young recruit into their tent. They become more attached and obsessive when they decide that the youngster may be able to document their occasional moments of respite in their often grim life in his habit of daily diary entries.

There is only the briefest of introductions about the Russian home towns of the four soldiers and their young charge and there is only the occasional use of firearms throughout the plot. This sets a stage that is almost timeless, where the soldiers could be in any army in any place at any time.

Before the child soldier is introduced there is an over-wintering period in a temporary hut which the soldiers build themselves. Although the squad is subject to occasional orders about foraging and eats collectively at an army kitchen, they often seem to be acting without any supervision or command. Brief references are made to this being the Third Army on the side of the Reds in the Russian Civil War (1917-22) and that they are fighting on the Romanian Front, but there is little actual military action involved except for a retreat at the front end and an engagement at the back end.

My expectations may have been at a bit too high for this novella, based on its previous French literary award Prix Medici (2003) and its current long-listed nomination for the 2019 International Booker Prize. With that knowledge and the synopsis I started to imagine something along the lines of Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. I had to come down to earth a bit on that and just accept it as a tale of four everymen trying to establish their own microcosm of peaceful existence within a grim war-torn world with the desire to have someone who would document it to prove that it ever existed.

The vocal performance by veteran narrator Stefan Rudnicki was excellent throughout and would give this another star for a 3 rating. There was an Eastern European/Russian accent added for effect but which was not overdone. The slower-witted giant Uzbek named Kyabine was given a deeper bass voice but I didn't detect any unique personalisations for the other soldiers.

[George1st · Rating 5 out of 5]

The is the second translation of the French author’s work into English the first came out only five years ago with A Meal in Winter which is also a powerful and haunting novella dealing with the cruelty, brutality and sheer senselessness of war. Four Soldiers was infact written a decade earlier but its translation into English has been delayed until now. Although the story is set on the Romanian front during the Russian Civil War of 1919 it has a universality and timelessness about it that can be applied to armed conflict throughout the ages. The story centres around four illiterate soldiers of the Red Army, Pavel, Sifra, Kyabine and the narrator, Benia. They have taken up a position with their army unit in the forest during the freezing winter awaiting for the weather to improve before they must move away to face the inevitable fighting.

The four have isolated themselves from the rest of the soldiers and here hiding out in the forest they keep themselves occupied by playing dice in an abandoned railway station and scavenging. Rituals are undertaken including taking turns to sleep with a watch that contains a photograph of a woman that has been looted from a soldier. A pond is discovered by them which they keep secret from the other soldiers and which becomes an integral part of their daily existence. All the time the four soldiers bond while passing the tedium that is an inherent part of warfare, the endless waiting around knowing that ahead lies death and destruction and the psychological effect that this has on the fighting men involved.

The four soldiers are joined by a new young recruit and when they discover that he appears to be literate they ask him to write about their experiences with their pond and the meaning it has to them. They require above all a record for posterity. With the passing of winter the soldiers must leave the forest and say goodbye to the pond for ever and it is not long before they encounter the enemy. Not all will survive and there is a revelation that will haunt the reader for a long time to come.

This book is ultimately about the human condition and comradeship that develops during the adversity of war. This deserves to join the list of acclaimed literature and poetry that seeks to show the true nature of what war really is.