Of Illustrious Men [Paperback]

Jean Rouaud (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 1995

A grieving son explores his father's identity as a quiet family man, traveling salesman, and World War II hero, and forms an understanding about human greatness in both war and peace times. By the Goncourt prize-winning author of Fields of Glory.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The withered, pious Aunt Marie is still in the little house in the garden. French cars are still a problematic breed. And Rouaud is still one of the most capable chroniclers of French bourgeois life. Like Annie Ernaux, Rouaud excavates the history of one family from the lower Loire valley, but he does so with infinite tenderness. While the Prix Goncourt-winning Fields of Glory portrayed the maternal grandparents he knew and the paternal family destroyed by WWI, this volume depicts the narrator's father, Joseph. A responsible, capable and loving man, Joseph criss-crossed Brittany selling porcelain and glassware six days a week. On the seventh, he often packed his family into the car and indulged in his avocation-collecting rocks, mostly large, all meant for a fountain that was never built. Years of moving heavy boxes of samples-and stones-destroyed Joseph's invertebral discs and undermined his health. Again, Rouaud delves farther into Joseph's history, one as sharply determined by WWII as the earlier generation's was by the Great War. This story is, if anything, even more poignant than its predecessor, relieved by fewer lovingly recorded absurdities. Rouaud's images are always beautiful, and even the most banal scene has the warm luminescence of an autumn afternoon. "When Monsieur So-and-So, who progressed with metronomic regularity from one bistro to the next, came staggering up to his last port of call, everyone knew that it was two in the afternoon... and that Madame So-and-So, his wife, had been waiting stoically since the end of High Mass, her handbag on her knees in the last remaining car parked in the square."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Rouaud's first novel, Fields of Glory (LJ 3/15/92), won the Prix Goncourt. His second is a quiet, affectionate portrait of a father's life and death as viewed by his 11-year-old son. Joseph is portrayed first as a traveling salesman from Brittany who smokes too much but who is well received wherever he goes. He seems indefatigable but becomes ill and dies early, at age 41. The novel then goes back in time to his young manhood. During that period he escapes being sent to a Nazi work camp and works for the French Resistance. The sly humor of the French peasants is deftly revealed, the pastoral scenes are beautifully drawn, and the war scene is riveting. The chronological reversal of two parts of the story is slightly confusing, as is the shift in narrative voice, but overall this book is delightful. Recommended for literary collections.
Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (November 11, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559703199
• ISBN-13: 978-1559703192
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,125,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.