Customer Reviews

The Pledge

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is difficult to review this novel, written by a Swiss author and set outside Zurich in 1957. At first, it appears to be a standard police-officer-chases-child-killer crime novel. But unlike American novels, there is little character development, sparse detail, and no subplots to "flesh out" the rather bleak storyline. The prose plods along methodically, almost mimicking its stubborn protagonist, and the dialogue is at times awkward.

But I hesitate to attribute any of this to bad writing because everything else about the story is so carefully constructed and obviously planned from the beginning. About half-way through the book, I became so engrossed I could not put it down. The final resolution, which relies heavily on coincidence, perfectly reinforces themes of randomness and absurd cruelty that run through the novel. Any other ending would seem contrived. You get the feeling that European audiences have different expectations about how stories are supposed to flow, and I strongly suspect a lot of metaphor and imagery has been lost in the translation to English.

A movie based on this novel, and starring Jack Nicholson, should be coming out soon.

I sought out this short but sweet novel after catching the last half of the Sean Penn-directed film (yeah, I snuck in at my local multiplex, what of it?) which it inspired. The film definitely drew me in, despite the fact that I had little idea of what was going on.

As is often the case, the book is more profound than the film (which is not a knock against the screen version; after reading Durrenmatt's fine novel, I went back to see the entire movie). Told in the sparest language, "The Pledge" is the story of one man's quest to set right a wrong, taking his responsibility (and its consequences) so far as to threaten his very existence.

As other reviewers have noted, this is not a typical thriller, replete with hard-boiled narrative and the requisite twists. I found "The Pledge" to more closely echo the writings of Camus, in its examination of one man's conscience as he faces a challenge he simply can't walk away from.

A complex story simply told, "The Pledge" asks the reader to look inward and ask: "How far would you go to keep your word?"

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Pledge (Berkeley, 1957)

While Durrenmatt is a well-known and well-respected author, it took making a film of one of his books to get most people in the States actually reading him. This new film tie-in translation of The Pledge is a great way to start, and will hopefully lead a lot more Americans to a lot more Durrenmatt.

The Pledge is the tale of Matthai, a Swiss police inspector who becomes convinced during the investigation of a child's murder that the cops have got the wrong man. He promises the victim's mother that he will find the killer, and that promise eventually leads to complete and total obsession. The novel, told by Matthai's former superior over a long auto journey and dinner, leads exactly where you think it will, and then throws in a twist so nasty it's almost painful to read. Agee's translation was completed with an eye firmly on the readability factor, and this one goes relatively quickly (especially for a modern European novel); the payoff is well worth the time spent on the setup. Absolutely fantastic, and will cause me to have to revise my Best-of-2001 list. Very highly recommended. **** 1/2

Stunning novel of obsession set in Switzerland from the 1940's to the 1950's. The character of Matthias was so well drawn I felt like he was someone I knew. Forget everything you ever knew about crime novels. This is a book that many of today's top criminal thriller novelists could learn from. I read it in 2 days, even getting to work late one day for having stayed up so late reading it. I couldn't put it down.

The film is equally dark and chilling, with only a handful of changes to the plot mechanisms that made the story more cinematic.

'the Pledge' is subtitled 'A Requeim for the Detective Novel', and can be seen as part of the project of dismantling the classic detective story begun by Borges in the early 1940s: the undermining of its affirmations of law, order and reason - the very idea that mysteries can be solved and normality restored.

'The Pledge' is an ironical story in the truest, Greek sense; introduced as the story of a brilliant, loner detective made mad by obsessional dedication to a hopeless case - his belief that the wrong man was found guilty of a child murder, and his insane attempts to catch the 'true' killer, despite the mockery of his superiors and peers. The central scene takes place in a delapidated mental institute; the narrative is structured in a repetitive circle, one the hero Matthai sacrifices his mind trying to break. His obsession puts another little girl in horrible danger; and the complacent, socially-conscious police are driven to abominable acts, the forces of law and order replicating the mania of a murderous defective.

'The Pledge' is a detective story about writing detective stories: the narrator is a crime writer giving a lecture about his field: a former police Commissioner tells him the tale of Matthai's downfall, with its atrocious ironies and blind accidents, as a corrective to genre writers' neat and reassuring tidying up of messy life. The frame increases the story's ambiguity; it also allows for a number of psychological studies - Matthai himself; the character of the good-food-loving, cigar-chomping, smugly philosophical Commissioner; and, perhaps most importantly, behind the narrative screen, the narrator/author himself, with his mania for 're-ordering' and improving, and his fondness for alcohol.

Those of us for whom knowledge of Swiss culture extends to Harry Lime's 'cuckoo clock' speech in 'The third man' will find in the novel an extraordinary insight into why such an enviably ordered, rational society as Switzerland, with such a high standard of living, could, with its infernal boredom and waiting, produce such horrors. The idea of a casual promise seizing an emotionally lifeless man, like some kind of curse, adds a supernatural frisson to a supposedly rational genre.

Despite splices of terrifying, modernist tableaux, such as the near-lynching of a suspect, or the disturbing cries and phantoms of the mental institute, 'The Pledge' can be enjoyed as a straight, gripping crime story, unlike most 'anti-detective' or post-modernist crime works. I read this in the old Penguin Crime green jacket edition, a series including other noted European modernists such as Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner.

The fact is I was interested in this book because of the film of the same name starring Jack Nicholson and masterfully directed by Sean Penn. I?d never heard of the author before, and am not a novel reader. Were it not for the film, I?d have never read it. But I regret neither the film nor the novel, which would perhaps be better labeled as a novella.

For those with my intent of comparing media, the book takes place in the 1940s or 50s, the film is contemporary. And the story in the book took place in Switzerland and in the film in the Western U.S. But they translate well into each other. The murder of a young woman takes place. Someone, in the book?s case a traveling salesman, is accused of the murder. After a grueling interrogation, he seems to have confessed and, shortly after, kills himself. To his inquisitors, that is conviction of his guilt. But to one particular officer, in the book about to undertake an overseas assignment, there was something wrong with the whole affair. He pursues it relentlessly?-looking more in the eyes of the bureaucrats and his former colleagues like an obsessive crackpot.

To make a long story short, in both the film and the book, he WAS right. But no one really knows it. The cop who was to have settled into his overseas assignment and retired from it is now stuck in his former community, a burned out lunatic. Only the narrator knows he was right. But now it?s too late.

The only difference I felt between the book and the film was that, in the movie, the cop endeared the woman whose daughter was to be bait for the man the cop felt was the real killer. In the book, he just lived with her because her daughter could be bait, a far more insidious motive.

Aside from that, as I?ve said about the film, it?s a real life situation. How many of us know of a situation that we know is wrong, despite the popular view of it? Someone, for example, is seen by one?s peers as a hero, while the ?one? knows the ?hero? is a self-indulgent phony, or countless other examples.

And the author?s eye for details is commendable. One can nearly smell the environment he describes. It certainly makes the reading worthwhile and easy!

I recommend the book and the film. I think I?ll read more of Durrenmatt. May his other stories become films too!

The original 1958 edition of this novella was subtitled "A Requiem for the Detective Novel" -- a nugget of context unfortunately missing from this attractive new edition. This absent subtitle is rather important, because it very clearly identifies the taut little tale as one that challenges the traditional arc (crime, investigation, solution) of detective fiction. While the story does follow this arc, the "solution" subverts the qualities of reason, logic, heroism, and determination that are so often extolled in crime fiction -- and by doing so it acts as a critique of the modern era.

The plot is very simple, a little girl is found murdered in some woods on the outskirts of a small Swiss town. A master police detective on his last week of work before leaving on a plumb foreign contract takes the case, and, per the title, promises the mother of the slain girl that her daughter's killer will be brought to justice. A suspect is brought in and confesses, but the detective isn't satisfied, and pursues his pledge to the edge of madness.

The framework for the story is a little clunky, as it's related by the detective's former boss to an anonymous mystery writer. Some of the details also aren't crystal clear, for example, the murder is referred to as a "sex" crime, but it's also clearly established that there was no sexual element. However, these are minor points that should not obscure the power of the novella's grip, which, as others have pointed out, has echoes of Camus.

Note: The book has been adapted for film and television no less than six times! In reverse order, The Pledge (2001, USA), Es Geschah am Hellichten Tag (1997, Germany), The Cold Light of Day (1996, UK/Netherlands), Posledneye delo komissara Berlakha (1988, USSR) , La Promessa (1979, Italy), Es Geschah am Hellichten Tag (1958, Germany).

This is a novel that Durrenmatt wrote specially as the scheme of an old Spanish- Swiss film from 1959 entitled "El cebo" (The Lure). Apparently the book is as another police novel although by then the morbid plot was less common than today: a little child is found slaughtered in a Swiss canton. This crime has the pattern of another tree previous sepaparated by several years. Inspector Mattei, the policeman in charge of the case gets deeply impressed and when he has to say the notice to the parents, the mother demands to him the promise to capture the murderer, but Mattei as attained the age of retirement. In fact he has an employement as police adviser in Jordania and his flight is for the next day. But Mattei develops an obsession in order to get the murderer and he rejects the work in Jordania and begins to work in a petrol station because he thinks the criminal lives near here. I think Mattei in some sense fulfils his pledge but that costs him his health and perhaps more. Durrenmatt is a pessimist writer and this novel ins't for these readers that expects a happy end but a cruel and strange one.

WOW What a book! Small but packs a punch! I couldn't put it down. The story is a story within a story cleverly woven into the suspense. The characters are revealed slowly. There is no real character development, the story develops the characters so at the end you see how so many lives were shattered by the murder of a child. This book was written more than 50 years ago but it is timeless. The story reminds me of Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raphaele. A rush to arrest and convict so everyone including the victim's family can sleep at night. Really? Is this justice? This book is fiction, Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher story is not. With this book the crime is solved at the end, but with so many other crimes, the perpitrator may go to the grave with these secrets, while others are falsely accused and many lives left in ruins. The story is a fascinating one but I am furious how people rationalized and justify the secrets they keep. How reason can overtake objectivity in solving a crime, and coercion is real. A MUST read!

Normally I do not pick up books with movie scenes on the cover - this is a minor snobbery thing of mine, I admit - but when I found this at the used book sale for 25¢ and read the back-cover synopsis, I figured it was worth trying. And I'm very glad I did. The Pledge is the tale of a horrible series of crimes, a promise to a grieving mother, and the lengths that one man will go to in order to fulfill that promise. It is also an extraordinary story about obsession - both good and bad - and the lengths to which people will go to convince themselves that the world is the way they need it to be. It grips you tightly and forces you to ride the craziness out all the way through until the end. It is a dark ride, but well worth it. And I might even see the movie.