Three books that affected me II
I stayed on into the Seventh Form at school for two reasons: I needed to re-sit A Level Latin (this may be irony or it may be a real help because in recent decades I have had to read a great deal of Latin, including Boethius' "De Arithmetica") and I was sitting the Oxford Entrance Exam. There were three or four of us, so to keep us out of mischief the headmistress organised some tutorial-style classes for us. The one that had most impact on us was going further into French literature; we read three books.
One was Madame Bovary, which I hated. I did manage to get all the way through it, but I've never re-read it and if a novel is described as being at all like it, I avoid it.
Another was Voltaire's "Candide", which I frankly enjoyed. I was very happy when I located a copy in French in a charity shop*.
The third, the one that has affected me ever since, was Vercors' "Le Silence de la Mer".**
You could call it a "Beauty and the Beast" variant. It is narrated by an elderly man who has had a German officer billeted on him and his niece. Much of it is monologues by the officer - monologues because neither of them ever speak to him, and he takes care never to say anything that expects an answer, because he respects their silence. When at the end of the evening he leaves, he always says "I wish you a good night" and leaves without even time to answer.
Because the thing is, he is a good man. He comes into the kitchen with them because that is the only warm room in the house, but after the first day always takes care to change into civilian clothes first. He is a musician - a pianist - whose career was disrupted by the war; he has a great love for France and French culture - but had been told by his father that the only way he could honourably enter France was in an armoured car. Which is what had been the case. The narrator registers his name: von Ebrennac, and speculates on whether his ancestors were Huguenots whose ancestors had fled from horrific persecution.
He refers to "Beauty and the Beast" (a little confusing to English speakers because "Bête" is feminine so the Beast is always referred to as "elle"), casting Germany as the Beast and France as Beauty, but admitting that he has always had sympathy for the Beast. What he wants is a coming together of Germany and France, with the best features of both - symbolised by France's strength in literature and Germany's strength in music.
But then he goes to Paris and meets his comrades and discovers how naive he has been: the idea is for Germany to crush and exploit France, not, so to speak, to marry her. Utterly destroyed, he returns and comes down to tell them this, and that as a consequence of his disillusion he is volunteering to be posted to the Eastern Front (effectively, suicide by Russian).
This time, this only time, when he says "I wish you a good night" for the last time, the niece whispers "Good night"
Now, what I find astounding is that this book was written by a hero of the Resistance, who has not only portrayed a thoroughly sympathetic German, but also admitted that, historically, France's hands were not clean.
As for impact: I am a magpie when it comes to my novel. I have used a drunk haranguing a bus driver, I have picked up Salvian of Marseille's list of stereotypes, and I have used the basic theme for the love story that never was between a Roman woman and a Visigoth. Because one trigger for the whole book was "Evetually France was liberated. When the Germans came into Gaul in Late Antiquity, they never left". And when the book is finished, it will be dedicated to Werner von Ebrennav
*At the time it was diabolically difficult to get books in any language other than English, and wickedly expensive.
** I cannot recommend any translations. I have found several that translate "le valet de l'établi" as "the valet of the establishment" instead of "the vice from the workbench".
ETA fixed peculiar things that had happened to the text
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