Brodeck

Brodeck
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2009-06-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385530099

A powerful and moving novel about the ravages war and the need to tell the truth, even in the face of adversity. After the close of a great war, a mysterious stranger arrives in a small European village. He is an artist and he begins sketching the villagers, showing the painful reality of the crimes and betrayals the war left in its wake. Consumed by distrust, the villagers conspire and murder him. The authorities commission Brodeck, a timid, low-level bureaucrat, to write a report that essentially whitewashes the incident. Brodeck agrees to write the official account, but he simultaneously sets down his version of the incident in a parallel narrative, which interweaves his own horrific experiences as a prisoner of war, the truth about the stranger’s disappearance, and the dark secrets the villagers have fought fiercely to keep hidden.

Brodeck's Report

Brodeck's Report
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Maclehose Press Quercus
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2010
Genre: Detective and mystery stories
ISBN: 9781906694685

Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2010 A murder investigation in post-war France becomes an exploration of the legacy of German occupation. From his village in post-war France, Brodeck makes his solitary journeys into the mountains to collect data on the natural environment. Day by day he also reconstructs his own life, all but lost in the years he spent in a camp during the war. No-one had expected to see him again. One day, a flamboyant stranger rides into the village, upsetting the fragile balance of everyday life. Soon he is named the Anderer, "the other", and tensions rise until, one night, the newcomer is murdered. Brodeck is instructed to write an account of the events leading to his death, but his report delivers much more than the bare facts: it becomes the story of a community coming to terms with the legacy of enemy occupation. In a powerful narrative of exceptional fascination, Brodeck's Report explores the very limits of humanity.

Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel (Book Analysis)

Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel (Book Analysis)
Author: Bright Summaries
Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
Total Pages: 23
Release: 2017-05-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 280629861X

Unlock the more straightforward side of Brodeck's Report with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel, a deeply disturbing story about the depths humans will stoop to in order to erase difference. Brodeck, a concentration camp survivor, is tasked with writing a report to justify the murder of a strange man known as the Anderer. The man had only recently arrived in the village, but was feared for being too different. Claudel expertly interweaves the present-day investigation and Brodeck’s past experiences in a prison camp to highlight the importance of the past and, above all, of memory. Philippe Claudel is a writer and a professor of literature. He has also taught in prisons, and he says that it is this experience which has had the greatest impact on his writing. Brodeck’s Report is his fifth book, and was showered with awards in both his native France and in the English-speaking world; John Cullen received particular praise for his English translation of the novel. Find out everything you need to know about Brodeck's Report in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

Monsieur Linh and His Child

Monsieur Linh and His Child
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2011-03-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857385712

Traumatized by memories of his war-ravaged country, his son and daughter-in-law dead, Monsieur Linh travels to a foreign land to bring the child in his arms to safety. To begin with, he is too afraid to leave the refugee centre, but the first time he braves the freezing cold to walk the streets of this strange, fast-moving town, he encounters Monsieur Bark, a widower whose dignified sorrow mirrors his own. Though they have no shared language, an instinctive friendship is forged; but Monsieur Linh's stay in the dormitory is only temporary. Sooner or later he and his child must find a permanent home. Delicate and restrained, but with an extraordinary twist, Monsieur Linh and His Child is an immensely moving novel of perfect simplicity, by the author of Brodeck's Report.

Rewriting Wrongs

Rewriting Wrongs
Author: Angela Kimyongür
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-10-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1443868639

Rewriting Wrongs: French Crime Fiction and the Palimpsest furthers scholarly research into French crime fiction and, within that broad context, examines the nature, functions and specificity of the palimpsest. Originally a palaeographic phenomenon, the palimpsest has evolved into a figurative notion used to define any cultural artefact which has been reused but still bears traces of its earlier form. In her 2007 study The Palimpsest, Sarah Dillon refers to “the persistent fascination with palimpsests in the popular imagination, embodying as they do the mystery of the secret, the miracle of resurrection and the thrill of detective discovery”. In the context of crime fiction, the palimpsest is a particularly fertile metaphor. Because the practice of rewriting is so central to popular fiction as a whole, crime fiction is replete with hypertextual transformations. The palimpsest also has tremendous extra-diegetic resonance, in that crime fiction frequently involves the rewriting of criminal or historical events and scandals. This collection of essays therefore exemplifies and interrogates the various manifestations and implications of the palimpsest in French crime fiction.

Dog Island

Dog Island
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 031670525X

When three bodies wash up on the beach of a remote island, the locals must decide whether they should uncover the truth or let the mystery die with the victims. Nestled in an overlooked part of the Mediterranean, Dog Island is home to a quiet and untouched community that has long lived off its fishing, its vines, and its olive trees, far away from the turmoil its neighbors. But when the bodies of three unidentified men wash up on the beach, the witnesses are faced with an impossible decision: report the discovery and open up the island to grisly inquiries, or conceal the terrible truth? Resolving to preserve their way of life, the mayor and a small group of conspirators resolve on a cover-up. But after they dispose of the evidence, their act of deception continues to haunt them, bringing waves of suspicion and misfortune to the island. A detective arrives from the mainland, making their secret even harder to keep and threatening to destroy the very community they tried so hard to protect. With the blend of suspense, keep observation, and wit that has made Philippe Claudel’s books international bestsellers, Dog Island challenges our deepest assumptions about ourselves and offers a fierce and tragic fable for our times.

By a Slow River

By a Slow River
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307425134

A bestseller in France and winner of the Prix Renaudot, By a Slow River is a mesmerizing and atmospheric tale of three mysterious deaths in an oddly isolated French village during World War I.The placid daily life of a small town near the front seems impervious to the nearby pounding of artillery fire and the parade of wounded strangers passing through its streets. But the illusion of calm is soon shattered by the deaths of three innocents–the charming new schoolmistress who captures every male heart only to kill herself; an angelic ten-year-old girl who is found strangled; and a local policeman’s cherished wife, who dies alone in labor while her husband is hunting the murderer. Twenty years later, the policeman still struggles to make sense of these tragedies, a struggle that both torments and sustains him. But excavating the town's secret history will bring neither peace to him nor justice to the wicked. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Mill Town

Mill Town
Author: Norman H. Clark
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2011-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 029580002X

�The Pacific Northwest�s classic confrontation between militants demanding ambiguous change and an establishment intransigently defending the status quo occurred on Sunday, November 5, 1916. To this day no one knows who shot first, nor even how many died, but thanks to Mill Town, we have at last a charting of the forces, economic and personal, that led to the tragedy.��Murray Morgan

The Investigation

The Investigation
Author: Philippe Claudel
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2012-12-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857051563

The Investigator is despatched to a provincial town to find out the truth behind a disturbing spate of suicides amongst employees of The Firm. But from the moment he steps off the train, he finds himself in a world that is alien, unrecognisable, and diabolically complex. From the hostile weather and the fickle hospitality at Hotel Hope to the town's bewildering inhabitants, everything seems to be against him to the point where he wonders whether he is trapped in a recurring nightmare, or has passed into the realm of death itself. Cold, hungry and humiliated, and always one step behind, he nevertheless remains determined to find the only man he can hold to account - The Firm's legendary but elusive founder. The Investigation is an enthralling fable in which our own world is turned on its head, and where the only answers are more questions. Philippe Claudel - author of Brodeck's Report and Monsieur Linh and His Child - is one of Europe's most daring and versatile novelists.

Schrödinger's Dog

Schrödinger's Dog
Author: Martin Dumont
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1892746298

A striking debut novel about the power of a father’s love for his son and the heart-wrenching choices he has to make in the face of death. Yanis’s world is Pierre, the son he raised as a single parent. For nearly twenty years, Yanis spent his nights as a cabdriver with Pierre always at his side, so as not to miss a moment in each other’s company. Yanis and Pierre also share a love of diving—in pursuit of that magical moment when they lose themselves in the deep sea. When enveloped by the natural world, father and son relish an escape from life’s pressures. But for some time, Pierre has been tired. Too tired. Despite how attentively Yanis watched him, Yanis missed the early signs of illness. Faced with the harsh reality of his son’s numbered days, Yanis struggles to invent a life his son won’t have the time to live.