A Very Long Engagement

Rating:
Summary: The German Boots
Review: This was one of the most compelling books I ever read. It is hard and demanding, but worht it. The details you need to remember are legion (in fact, after 100 pages, I started over -- this time with a notebook and pen). But the plot is very well done, intricate and fascinating. The characters are equally compelling [I really enjoy books in which the lead characters are likable and complex]. The protrayal of war is eye opening (and I think the new movie version does an excellent - if gorey - job of doing that). The movie is also very good -- but focuses on images that movies do well. The book is its own reward and I as many would say is better than the movie (only because it can be more detailed and longer). OK, so I really enjoyed both.

Buy it. I'm recommending it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful, Heroic Story
Review: In 1917 five French soldiers are sentenced to death for desertion. Instead of being normally executed, they are taken to the French front to be shot dead by the Germans.

Mathilde Donnay, the seventeen-year-old fiancee of one of the five, is told her lover died bravely in combat. But two years later she's contacted a dying officer who tells her otherwise. Some facts are missing from his story. There's a slim chance one or two of the men survived, and so, Mathilde undertakes a heroic search for the truth.

A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is the story of Mathilde's search, told in a collage of scenes, letters, and narrating voices of those who knew the five men. What emerges is a gripping, sometimes thrilling mystery as Mathilde uncovers one piece of a very complex puzzle after another. Along the way we get to know not only the man Mathilde loves but also the other four (a carpenter, a welder, a pimp and a farmer) and their loved ones.

Mathilde is a wonderful heroine. A fall off a ladder at age three left her bound to a wheelchair, but she's completely free of self pity. She is above all stubborn, someone who will not give up no matter what. Many people try to tell her that her search is futile, but she persists with doggedness that is at times a little selfish, but also a measure of her loyalty and love for her fiance.

Most of the characters in A VERY LONG ENGAGMENT are very likeable. While their circumstances are sometimes sad, and we see how the war has affected their lives, the book is also uplifting because so many of them go out of their way to help others.

The first chapter is a bit slow, but after that, the book takes off like a roller coaster. Clue after clue falls into place, and Japrisot keeps the reader guessing. The setting, France 1919-1924, is beautifully and authentically rendered.

I enjoyed A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT tremendously. It is a story about devotion and dedication, as well as a story about the tragedy of war, and the beauty of life.

Rating:
Summary: "Very Long" engaging
Review: What would you do, and how far would you go, to bring back the love of your life? That question is at the heart of Sebastien Japrisot's "A Very Long Engagement," a quiet little story about love and war. While the story drags a little at times, the exquisite story of Matti and the love for a man whom she won't believe is dead.

Wheelchair-bound Mathilde grew up with Manech, and as teenagers they fell in love and became engaged. But Manech is killed in action, leaving Matti to dwell on her imaginary adventures. But one day she is contacted by a dying veteran, Daniel Esperanza, who tells her a terrible story -- Manech was one of five men who shot themselves in the hand to avoid fighting. Because of that, they were condemned to death: sent to the front lines with their hands bound.

But Matti doesn't accept it -- she believes that there is chance, even a small one, that Manech survived somehow. She has her friends assist her in searching through mounds of paperwork, and she herself writes to anyone who might be able to help her -- ex-officers, widows, and lovers. And slowly Matti begins to piece together what happened that day -- and why Manech might still be alive.

"A Very Long Engagement" is complex and a bit confusing, but it's also worth the effort. Japrisot takes a simple plot and gives it some extra twists, a few lessons about war and misery -- but at its heart, "Engagement" is just about love and determination. It's difficult not to be stirred by Matti's long quest to find her lover.

Japrisot's complex paper trail is a bit hard to follow, and the novel tends to drag in the middle, which is mostly Matti reading and writing letters. Japrisot seems uncertain where to go at that point. But the novel is also a jigsaw puzzle -- the German boots, the color of a young man's eyes, a lost hand, and a packet of old letters are all pieces. And many scenes in it are exceptionally tender and beautifully written. Matti's flashbacks and fantasies are dreamy, and even the real world seems to be a bit hazy. The climactic scene is without a doubt the most beautiful, understated and yet deeply romantic.

Japrisot created a wonderful character in Matti. Despite being stuck in a wheelchair, she doesn't let this hold her back; she lets her mind fly in all sorts of fantasies. Perhaps it's that childlike belief in the unbelievable that lets her hold on to the belief that Manech is alive. And though Manech only appears for a few pages over the whole book, he becomes as strong as presence as Matti is. Japrisot avoids the cliches of young lovers, while convincing readers that what Matti and Manech share is stronger than anything that comes between them.

"A Very Long Engagement" (now a movie starring Audrey Tautou) is an exquisite love story, heartbreaking and uplifting at once. And it will leave readers with a question -- how long would you look for your one true love?

Rating:
Summary: A great story, one I will read again
Review: I've just finished Sebastien Japrisot's "A Very Long Engagement", and I loved it. The story is beautifully realized, and the characters very lifelike and human. I was a little disappointed at the publishers reviews as well as the blurb on the bac kon the book - I felt as though it gave away a bit too much of the story. Japrisot, however, leaves the reader in complete suspense until the end of the novel. There were parts where the story dragged a bit - about forty percent is told in the form of letters to the main character, and some of these letters should hae been two or three pages shorter. I also had a bit of trouble keeping all of the minor characters straight. In the end I gave this book a five out of five stars for its originality and the strangth of the characters.

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Summary: The way of the world
Review: Talk about inter-genre. Sébastien Japrisot's novel "A Very Long Engagement" hardly fits one single genre. The book is at first --and most of it a war drama--, but at some point --still early in the beginning-- the narrative is also a love story. As the pages move, the novel becomes a thriller. But, above all, it is a fable. Just check the first sentence, the classic "Once upon a time..." The result may generate mixed feelings among the readers, but not by chance.

As the story goes, "once upon a time, there were five French soldiers, who had gone off to war because that's the way of the world". From the beginning we meet the five soldiers. Japrisot describes with details who these soldiers are, and where and why -- actually not much of the `why', after all, this is the quest of the book. Then we're introduced to Mathilde, a young girl, whose fiancé was one of the five soldiers -- or so the thinks.

Years later, she receives a letter from a dying man, claiming to have information on her boyfriend. This is the beginning of Mathilde's journey, which will take many years until its heartbreaking conclusion. Throughout her quest, she'll come across the most different kind of people, some will be helpful and others not. Because that's the way of the world.

The non-linear narrative is enhanced by the many devices used by Japrisot. From digressions to flashbacks, and many letters, the readers discoveries events before Mathilde. However, one will be able to fully understand some pieces of information only later -- when the girl can place the piece on her giant war jigsaw.

The gallery of supporting characters is as colorful and the main ones. Mathilde is a strange girl. Confined to a wheelchair since her childhood, she has created many different lives inside her mind. At some point, one wonders if this fiancé really exists. There are many small plots surrounding Mathilde's secondary lives -- but it will all converge in the end.

The five soldiers also have a special place in the narrative. Alongside with their friends, wives, children, they become a portray of the human condition, affected by the WWI. Letters from both sides are the perfect device to give dimension of their dramas.

As the narrative advances, it becomes stranger, until its surprising climax. With this novel Japrisot (1931-2003) proved to be a great storyteller, whose talent will be largely missed.


Rating:
Summary: Just great
Review: I just wanted to add my voice to the fray and say that I loved this book. While complex both in structure (tricky time-jumping) and because of the French proper names and their colloquial variants (I sometimes got confused between place names and people names, as well as variant names for individual characters) this is a book for language lovers -- beautifully written, excellently translated, stirring, heartbreaking and funny as hell. Japrisot's deceptively simplistic narrative style only enhances the underlying horror and outrage. I'm even looking forward to the upcoming film version by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (of "Delicatessen" fame). Comparisons to Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY are apt but where that film sharpened its satirical edge to an almost unrecognizable razor finish, this novel's quiet, plaintive voice draws you in, and then you're in over your head. Wonderful.

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: A Very Long Engagement is a magical book, one which weaves a tale and catches you in its spell--it will haunt you long after you put it down. The novel begins as five condemned French soldiers walk to their doom during World War I. They have all shot themselves, trying to get out of fighting and as punishment, will be thrown into the no-man's-land between the French trenches and the German trenches. Their families know nothing of this and after they die, are told them men died honorably. A few years later, Mathilde, the fiance of one of the men discovers some of the truth about what happened and she becomes convinced that her fiance has did not die--or at least did not die as she was told. She tries, doggedly, to uncover the truth. Along the way, she discovers many atrocities of that war. The novel pulls you along to its rather unexpected, yet still deeply satisfying ending, pulls you so much you won't be able to put this one down. The power of love, the strength of friendship, the failure of memory--all these come into play in this outstanding novel. I highly recommend this novel to all devoted readers. It's a bit of a challenge, following all the little clues Matilde gets, putting the truth together and tossing out the lies, but it's worth it. Enjoy.