Grey Souls in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 25, 2015 Tony rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, adapted-for-film, historical-fiction, setting-europe, war-ww1

I've always found the idea of crime in the midst of a war rather interesting, and so this French novel about a murder during World War I caught my eye. I suppose I expected some kind of literary thriller, and while there is indeed a strong murder mystery plot, the book is really an extended meditation on death.

Death is everywhere in this book, as the narrator reflects on the horrific murder of a young girl in the small village he lived in twenty years earlier, in 1917. He was a policeman, but fa I've always found the idea of crime in the midst of a war rather interesting, and so this French novel about a murder during World War I caught my eye. I suppose I expected some kind of literary thriller, and while there is indeed a strong murder mystery plot, the book is really an extended meditation on death.

Death is everywhere in this book, as the narrator reflects on the horrific murder of a young girl in the small village he lived in twenty years earlier, in 1917. He was a policeman, but far from being deeply involved in the investigation, was instead relegated to the sidelines by the imperious judge who takes over the case. This murder was soon followed by the apparent suicide of a newly arrived young woman who had taken the schoolteacher's post. In the wake of this comes a third tragic death -- one which forever changes the policeman. Even as the first World War grinds up men by the thousands just over the hill from the town and pollutes its streets with mangled wounded, it's this trio of dead females that haunts the policeman. (Nonetheless, there are plenty of echoes of the war in how the judge and his strange sidekick "investigate" the murder, and it's hard not to think of Renoir's great film, Grand Illusion, while reading.)

The book slowly (probably too slowly for some) and very lyrically meanders back and forth over the last twenty years, as the policeman recounts his attempt to unravel the mystery of the little girl's murder while also slowly revealing the secrets of the other two women's deaths. During the telling, the deaths of numerous supporting characters over the intervening two decades are also carefully noted. (I think there are something like 15-20 deaths mentioned in the story.) All of which makes for some beautifully written, but melancholy reading. (The translation is quite amazing, with a lovely turn of phrase or epigramatic expression on almost every page.) The secret of the third death, and why it damaged the policeman, is heavily foreshadowed early on, but only fully explained about 2/3 of the way in. The secret of the suicide is also explained well before the end. However, the bits and pieces of the little girl's murder are put together over time, as information is very carefully meted out in small tidbits at just the right moments. Then, at the very end, the author yanks the carpet out from under the story with a carefully constructed twist.

This only further reinforces the book's overall bleak tone, as one is left with sense that trying to make sense of death is a meaningless endeavor, bound to end in disappointment.

Note: The book's title in French translates roughly as Grey Souls, which is also the title it was published under in the UK and the title of the 2005 film made from it. ...more

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