Product Description

Jean Blomart, privileged bourgeois turned patriot leader against the Nazi Occupation, waits through the endless night for his lover Helene to die. Flashbacks interweave the stories of both their lives until, with dawn approaching, Jean faces a monumental decision.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #344070 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-28
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

It's like she was reading my mind and writing it down...
I can't even remember what first made me pick up this book now... I just know that I was drawn into a story with characters as real as anyone you could meet. I read the first half incredibly quickly, but found after this that I was so reluctant to finish it I started slowing down my reading. Th story focuses on Jean Blomart, and his progression from rich man's son to leader of the french revolutionary during WW2, but the themes it discusses are timeless - as Jean struggles with the problems of whether war can ever be noble, whether he has the authority to command others to die, and what love really means, you will find yourself irresistibly drawing parallels with modern conflicts and dilemnas.

A truly hypnotising, beautiful book that will introduce you to existentialism from a fresh viewpoint.

The best entry-point to existentialism
Written in 1945, and set during the German occupation a few years earlier, the world was in a bleak predicament, and the French existentialist movement was in full force - with their general belief that it is us as individuals who have the power to bring essence and meaning to our own lives, not Gods or people in positions of authority. For those people interested in this area, but who prefer a good read to philosophical dogma, you should read De Beauvoir instead of Sartre. This book seeks out to touch upon some of the key ideas in existentialism - including the mundane (this isn't how it sounds!) alienation, freedom and commitment. It does this through the awakening of the French resistance movement seen through the eyes of two lovers (Helene and Jean). In some ways, I feel like it deals with some of the conflicts within existentialism and within Beauvoir herself. Unlike other existentialist novels, this book weaves dogma and story effectively, and is the closest any book in the genre gets to a love story.