Product Description

During the First World War five French soldiers, accused of a cowardly attempt to evade duty, are bundled into no-man's land and certain death. Five bodies are later recovered, the families are notified that the men died in the line of duty and the whole, distasteful incident appears closed. After the war the fiance of one of the men receives a letter which hints at what might have happened. Mathilde Donnay determines to discover the fate of her beloved amid the carnage of battle. "A Very Long Engagement" turns into an unusual and engrossing thriller as she discovers an increasing number of people trying to put her off the scent. Japrisot's achievement is to have written a novel that is both a suspenseful thriller and one which transforms a single small incident into the epitome of all wartime atrocities. The denouement, when it finally happens, is moving and horribly convincing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45761 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Anita Brookner
'Diabolically clever… The reader is alternately impressed, beguiles, frightened, bewildered… A considerable achievement'

Independent
‘The narrative is brilliantly complex and beguiling, and the climax devastating’

Daily Telegraph
‘A classic of its kind, brewing up enormous pathos undiluted by sentimentality’

Customer Reviews

Magnifique!
Having read the book and seen the film, I can see how the detective story connection to previous novels by Sebastien Japrisot is made. This one is light years away from the others though in both style and subject matter. I would endorse everything I've read in other reviews about the way the story deals with such powerful issues as war, loss, betrayal, and redemption while at the same time charting an epic love story without the slightest hint of sentimentality. The film is a flawless adaptation of the book.

I think we sometimes underestimate the devastating impact of the Great War on the whole French nation for decades afterwards. We point to the Second World War and their so-called surrender, without understanding how the loss of almost a whole generation of young men only some 20 years or so before could still weigh so heavily on them. This book explores these themes in an accessible way through the medium of a love story.

I would also strongly recommend "Fields of Glory" by Jean Rouaud for a similar powerful evocation of this period in history. It may be getting on for a hundred years ago now, but we still see these same horrors of war in the 21st century.

Seeking a lost love amidst the wreckage of the Great War
War is not glorious. Especially if you're Manech, a 20-year old French soldier convicted by a military court, along with four others, of committing self-mutilation with the intent of escaping service in the front lines of World War I. The punishment is grotesque. Rather than death by a firing squad, the five are to be thrust, hands bound, over the wire fronting the most forward trench and into the No Man's Land between the French and German positions - there to die by whatever bullet, mortar shell, or bomb strikes them down. The subsequent deaths of all five are attested to. Letters are sent to surviving family members by the French authorities saying their boys "died in battle". This was in 1917.

Mathilde was Manech's fiancée when he marched off to battle. She's also confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk since she fell off a stepladder at age 3. In 1919, she's contacted by a dying survivor of the war, ex-Sergeant Esperanza, who'd been in charge of the provost detail assigned to escort the five condemned men to the front trench, as well as act as censor for the last letter each was permitted to write home. He tells Mathilde of their bizarre fate, and gives her copies of their last letters, transcribed by him personally. Using these copies and the veteran's story to provide clues, Mathilde embarks on a multi-year search for the truth behind Manech's death. Interviewing friends, family members, and lovers of Marech's four condemned companions, as well as other soldiers present in the trench, Mathilde needs to answer the question, "Is he truly dead?" She has doubts. The evidence is inconsistent.

A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is an odyssey of mystery, official cover-ups, lies, misperceptions, secrets, coincidence, tenuous clues, guilt, innocence, and honor. And, ultimately, love. Astute and sardonic Mathilde, perhaps because of her affliction, is a take-no-prisoners dynamo of perseverance. No obstacle is too great that it can't be overcome. In the end, she finds ... Truth.

This novel by Sébastien Japrisot is an unusual and unusually intelligent detective story, as well as a look at an almost-forgotten time and place strewn with the wreckage - physical, emotional and psychological - of the War to End All Wars. You'll put it down feeling ... satisfied. I recommend it unreservedly.

Fantastic
This novel is the best WWI book I've read, it beats Birdsong, All Quiet on the Western Front hands down. The characters are realistic and the story is dramatic