Quicksand

Author:   Emmanuel Bove ,  Dominic Di Bernardi
Publisher:   Marlboro Press,The,U.S.
ISBN:  

9780910395700


Pages:   196
Publication Date:   30 December 1993
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Awaiting stock   Availability explained
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.

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Quicksand


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Overview

After the fall of France, colorless Joseph Bridet determines to go to Vichy and ingratiate himself with the regime there as a first step towards escaping to England, only to discover that he agrees with the suspicious and pitiless world of the Petainists.

Full Product Details

Author:   Emmanuel Bove ,  Dominic Di Bernardi
Publisher:   Marlboro Press,The,U.S.
Imprint:   Marlboro Press,The,U.S.
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 22.00cm
Weight:   0.260kg
ISBN:  

9780910395700


ISBN 10:   0910395705
Pages:   196
Publication Date:   30 December 1993
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock   Availability explained
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.

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Reviews

A small masterpiece. --Kirkus Reviews Admirably translated by Dominic Di Bernardi, Quicksand is both a quintessentially Bovian character study and a penetrating memoir of Vichy France. --Julia Just, New York Times Book Review This novel, an important element of the Bove canon, will be a major discovery even to readers who know French literature well. --John Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle


"""A small masterpiece."" --Kirkus Reviews ""Admirably translated by Dominic Di Bernardi, Quicksand is both a quintessentially Bovian character study and a penetrating memoir of Vichy France."" --Julia Just, New York Times Book Review ""This novel, an important element of the Bove canon, will be a major discovery even to readers who know French literature well."" --John Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle"


A first appearance in English by the late French writer and early minimalist Bove (Armand, 1987; My Friends, 1986) of a novel published in France in 1945, a few months after his death, that stunningly delineates the eventual heroism of an Everyman. In terse but subtle prose, which only heightens the tension as Bove's luckless hero Joseph Bridet, a journalist, sinks deeper into the quicksand, Bove describes an ordinary man trying to survive in extraordinary times. When the Germans invade France in 1940, Bridet flees with his wife, Yolande, to Vichy France. There, he hopes to pass himself off as a devoted citizen of the collaborationist regime so that he might get a passport to go to Africa, where he can join the Gaullists and fight for France's liberation. But he is unable to sound convincing enough, and his contacts soon suspect his motives. Meanwhile, his own unease grows, and in a series of chilling bureaucratic encounters he decides that he is under suspicion and should return to Occupied France. But Bridet is not safe there either: no one can be trusted; the Germans become suspicious; and he is interned. When German soldiers are killed by the local resistance, Bridet is made one of the hostages. Nervous - and cowardly all his life - Bridet then has one of those simple ideas that, depending on how much of ourselves we put into them, seem either inspired or insignificant. It suddenly restored strength to him. The idea was that, whatever he might do, he could no longer escape death, and that, since he must, he might as well die bravely. And this is what he did. The Kafkaesque dealings with the bureaucracy, all laconically detailed, and the hero's inevitable death with its stunning but almost offhand epitaph make this a book of quiet but tremendous presence. A small masterpiece. (Kirkus Reviews)


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