Customer Reviews

Fields of Glory

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This gentle book floats you through the life of a French family between the wars, as seen through the eyes of children. Human foibles are observed with a naive humour, and events are often described without the full understanding of the narrator. Much of the subject matter could be overpowering, but the depiction in this book is beautiful.

Fields of glory is the most beautifully written book I have read in more than a decade--maybe ever. Virtually every page, every paragraph, is wonderfully crafted. How I wish I could read it in French, although I can't imagine that it could be any better. Mr. Rouaud is a genious.

By the end of this book I felt that I knew the family members intimately. This is beautifully done. The story unravels the lives of family members through the memories of a child, tracing their tragedy back to the ultimate tragedy of war. In some ways this book is very French but the feelings are universal and I strongly recommend it.

In what begins as reminisces by the narrator of a seemingly eccentric family the author slowly unravels the reasons behind each of the characters' actions. This masterpiece of writing develops into a powerful study of aging and childhood memories, and of the long lasting impact of World War I from one generation to another, even when the succeeding generations aren't aware of it.

Fields of Glory is great little book. The detail takes you into another time and makes you very familiar with the people who popultae it, much like your own family or neighbors. For me this is what literature and story telling are all about. It is funny, sad, moving and very entertaining. The essence of life shines through easily.

World Wars I and II underlay this novel that lulls you into believing that it is a piquant story of childhood in a rural French village of the 1950's. There are a lot of quirky relatives and fondly-remembered scenes of a grandpa driving the family's old Renault off on weekends to visit relatives and to go on picnics. Most of the quirky relatives are widowed aunts and grandmothers. The wars are a distant oddity symbolized by a dusty box of old letters, medals, a diary and other mementos from the wars. These wonderful childhood memories, with a lot of local color, are set in a small rural village in France in the 1950's. The children grow up experiencing the death of relatives as a sad inconvenience.

But the author has set us up. Near the end of the novel, the now-adult children explore the box of mementos and the horror of war hits them and us full in the face. We now understand how the lives of these aunts and grandparents were changed forever by the carnage of the wars. The novel is translated from the French and the book won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, in 1990. The book was an immediate best-seller in France and a sensation because the first-time author was a newsstand vendor.

This book revolves around the importance dead and loved ones can have in a life, the story of a family in western France, the sufferings of French soldiers during the First World War and the impact the slaughter had on several generations afterwards. Its written in a very sober style, yet carries a tremendous emotional force.

I can add little to the other positive reviews here but that I was deeply touched by the beauty and sensitivity of this short novel. It is simply something I will always remember and I envy the reader who discovers it.