World More or Less

Le cycle romanesque familial et autobiographique #3

by Jean Rouaud, Barbara Wright (Translation)

Jean Rouaud's power to evoke the past is incandescent. His first two universally acclaimed novels, Fields of Glory ("Remarkable" -- New York Times; "Irresistible" -- Boston Globe) and Of illustrious Men ("Amazing" -- Philadelphia Inquirer; "A lovingly written book" -- New York Times), proved he was a worthy successor to the mantle of Proust. The first was an elegy to his grandfather and to the tragic ironies of World War I heroism; the second an elegy to his father, an ordinary man thrown into the extraordinary chaos of World War II. The World, More or Less is a portrait of the writer as a young man: myopic, dreamy, lonely, still grieving the deaths of his father and grandfather and seeking for a way to bring the confusions of adolescent life into focus. His nearsightedness gives him double vision: closing one eye brings clarity, closing the other blurs. Sharing this more-or-less world are Theo and Gyf, lover and friend, one far whom life is mystery, the other who wants to frame it in a camera lens. A crass between The Catcher in the Rye and Flaubert's Sentimental Education, The World, More or Less is a haunting story about growing up.

Genres: France, Fiction

999 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

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

[Ari · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I should write something positive on the back cover of this novel I wouldn't know what to write. Perhaps a quote by some critic who has liked this for one reason or another.
Or mention that the writer is famous because has written something good earlier... Both were used in the Finnish edition.

Probably it's safe to say that this is artistic, or modern. But interesting - I would not say that.

Obviously the novel is autobiographical. But if one has had a not-so-interesting youth in a boarding school it's difficult to write an interesting story about it. And if one doesn't have an interesting story why write it in the first place?

The beginning was a bit like "A Catcher on a Football Field" but quite uninspiringly; flat is flat even though you try to make it funny with nearsightedness. It wasn't funny enough.

I suspect Rouaud can write. But based on this I wasn't convinced.

Maailma, likimain
Tammi 1998

[Jazmin Pavetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

En la novela el autor narra su propia historia con un humor sutil, creativo y a la vez melancólico.Se asume como un joven solitario, soñador, tímido y miope. Amante del fútbol y de la escritura.
Relata su paso por un colegio internado estrictamente religioso y posteriormente parte de su vida universitaria. Sus vínculos más cercanos y sus primeros amores.
Es un libro divertido, para pasar el rato.

[Brulois Brigitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touchant, plein d'humour et d'autodérision. Roman sur les années de collège et d'université.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early on I was reminded of WG Sebald as I read Rouaud, probably first in Fields of Glory, though Rouaud is more "focused"/limited in scope (and funnier). I'm not sure exactly when the thought occurred to me--if it was during my reading of Of Illustrious Men, or only early in the this title, the third in the "trilogy"--Rouaud was reminding me not just of Sebald, a kind of high seriousness, but also of Gordon Lish, a kind of garrulousness that arced toward humor, but was more an affect of a sort of roundabout way of zeroing in on his topic. Strange "parents," Sebald and Lish, but I think the metaphor is valid. This is the most focused, in character, of Rouaud's trilogy--keyed in as it is to the narrator's adolescence and young adulthood--but in approach is more like Fields than Illustrious, jumping around in time and setting and daring the reader to get lost.

[Volker Rivinius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nachtrag 26/12/2020 - Was hängengeblieben ist: der letzte Band der Trilogie des Autors, der dessen eigene Jugend thematisiert. Gut, ich habe die ersten beiden Bände nicht gelesen, habe aber dennoch den Eindruck, dass dieser der schwächste ist, vielleicht auch einfach nur, weil es wie auch immer geartete Jugenderinnerungen wie Sand am Meer gibt. Stilistisch jedoch fand ich den Roman sehr ausgefeilt, und so werde ich bei Gelegenheit noch mehr von Rouaud lesen.