Customer Reviews

Malevil

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are a fan of the post apocolypse genre, then you will appreciate this gem of a book. It is difficult to find, but it is well worth perservering with a search.

The title of the book refers to an old castle in rural France, and which is owned by our hero, the narrator of the story. By a happy coincidence of ancient stone and being sheltered by a cliff, a small community survives the aftermath of a "clean" bomb by sheltering within its walls.

At first the community is obsessed with the everyday challenges of life - what to eat, drink, will there be fallout? But as the novel progresses, and we learn of other survivors, it begins to look at the very nature of human behaviour when stripped of the facade of civilisation.

This is a very "believable book", as much as such a horror tale can be, and it is interspersed with some very astute observations of human behaviour, with both acts of kindness portrayed as well as the abuses of power. The detail of how nature as well as the characters recover from the loss and shock of it all is well portrayed and keeps you turning the pages.

This is a treat if you are a fan of the genre. If you are interested in tales of human survival in horrendous times, this is also for you. As I said, hard to find, but well worth looking for!

This book was surprisingly good. The title put me off, since I inferred that it attributed the collapse of civilization to some silly supernatural struggle, like "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon, which I bought and barely began reading before I dropped it in disappointment. (Not that all supernaturally inspired apocalypses are bad stories: I really liked "The Stand" by Stephen King.) In fact, Malevil is simply the name of the little French community where the story occurs. It is a pretty good story about a subsistence economy arising after a nuclear holocaust. Unfortunately, you never find out what is happening in the world outside that little community, but it is pretty good nevertheless: there is no backstory about the disintegration or reconstitution of the national government, which is the part that I usually enjoy the most in post-apocalyptic fiction, but there is an amusing thread about the basis for the local ecclesiastical jurisdiction where the protagonist relies on some medieval warrants in order to trump the religious charlatan who has established himself as the ruler in the next town over.

I first read this book in the 1970's, and have spent the last several years looking for it again. Probably the first Post atomic conflict book I had ever read and it still reads well after 30 years. For anyone ordering this as a used copy, be aware that of the two photos provided for this on Amazon, the white cover is actually the hardback edition, while the red cover with the mushroom cloud and a line of people in the foreground is the mass market paperback

I love everything Robert Merle has ever written ...
I find it a great pity that only "Un animal doué de raison" and "Malevil" has been translated to English (honestly not his two best, and the movie "The day of the dolphin" butchered "Un animal doué de raison" sufficiently that few people seem to be interested in the books).

Still, take what You can get, read Malevil.

The prose style is very direct, much like Merle's historical novels, and the plot is very believable and human.
The only comparable post-apocalyptic novel (with a very different outcome) for me has been Shute's On the Beach.

I've read the other reviews. My first reading of this book was in the mid-70s, about the same time I was reading books like Shogun, and also other post-Apocalyptic novels like Brain Wave by Poul Anderson and Rebirth by John Harris and of course On the Beach... as well as a string of books by Clifford Simak. Malevil really GOT ME. The translation seemed to me to be nearly perfect in that while in English, the sense of it was French (without being too forceful or stereotypical.)

I've read this book maybe ten times in the last 35 years and owned about 4 copies of the paperback version (none within my grasp now, two in an LA storage locker) but since it has not been reprinted in the last 30 years or so, the price of used copies is through the roof. One Minnesota library has the same copy I read in 1975, so even that aspect makes re-reading Malevil here a treat.

As far as I'm concerned, Merle wrote the perfect book of this genre and I learned a great deal from it. The guy who suffered through weeks of reading and didn't like it at all must have time displacement problems.

One other thing: this novel would make a GREAT film! I realize that the apocalyptic films are a standard now, but if I could toss one book in the direction of aspiring screenwriters or directors, it would be this one.

I would like also to point out that in the limited nuclear holocaust world drawn by Merle, he caught the essence of what probably would happen long before Carl Sagan and others were describing 'nuclear winter.'

My husband made me read this book. It is totally not what I normally read but I liked this one.

It is very realistic, although a bit dated (written in the 50s or 60s it seems?). The characters are all very believable and interesting.

If you like post apocalyptic stories I would start with this one.

I have just re-read this old favorite after over a decade, and I found it better even than I recalled. It is a wonderful portrait of a group of people that find themselves left after the majority of their world has been annihilated. It deals honestly and believably with the array of emotions that would affect different types of people in this sort of circumstance - the depressions and the temptations, and the behavior of the megalomaniacs, the opportunists, the hard workers, and the generous-hearted.
As a female reader, I found the gender attitudes a bit grating. However, for the seventies, when this was written, this is not surprising. What did surprise me, and made me do some hard thinking, were the attitudes and conclusions about religious belief. It becomes obvious that all forms of community, from the family, to the neighborhood, to the town, to the religion, are part of a network that supports productive social life.
The book appeals to the survivalist and the practicalist within me. Only by returning to a functioning farm community can the survivors exist, and only by also learning simple tactics of guerrilla warfare can they deal with the roaming bands of marauders that inevitably spring up in the aftermath of the apocalypse. It is the sort of tale that makes you want to make sure you have a few basic tools around, and provides impetus to learn a bit about gardening!
It is a great read; the episodes keep you turning the pages at a brisk pace as you go from adventure to adventure. However, it is thoughtful and thought-provoking as well.

I've had my copy of Malevil since the 70's & it is now bound in duct tape & the page corners are crumbling. I've read it maybe a dozen times & imagine I'll do so again every few years till death us do part. The post-apocalyptic nature of the story seems primarily a device to showcase the varieties of human thought & behavior under the ultimate challenge of survival. In a way, it reminds me of Shogun, because it fascinates with unusual (to me) characters, relationships, a sudden change in norms, leadership, and little details of daily life. The story has a smidge of sex (not crude) and it also has the sexism of the era it was written in. I agree with a previous reviewer's suggestion that this could make a great movie. It's a "virile" adventure story, a page-turner, but deeper than that. This is my first review, done because I'm almost finished with another re-reading & was thinking about buying a used hardcover if I could find one.

I read this book years ago and passed it along to others, who enjoyed it as much as I did. I recently decided to buy it for my Kindle so I could read it again and was very, very disappointed to find that it is not available in that format. My son says he's re-read it about 15 times and finds it fascinating every time. I appreciated the detailed consideration of the author for every little thing that might have come up in the situation presented, and then the solutions found.

I really enjoyed the character interactions in this book since they weren't black and white. The characters progressed and changed as their circumstances changed. At a few points in the book one of the characters would jump into the narrative to correct or amend something the first person author was describing. I found that interesting.