Sermon on the Fall of Rome - Rilegato

Ferrari, Jérôme

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 085705290X ISBN 13: 9780857052902

Casa editrice: Quercus Publishing Plc, 2014

Riassunto

The mysterious disappearance of Hayet, the manageress of the village bar, presents a conundrum for its owner, who cannot face a return to the days of late nights, lewd customers and greasy dishwater.

A succession of would-be hosts and hostesses descend, with disastrous results, before Matthieu and Libero, childhood friends disillusioned with their philosophical studies, return to take up the reins. Initially they are successful, but as lustful, avaricious reality rudely intrudes on their idyll, they too are forced to concede, their senses befuddled by easy women and plentiful liquor, that all empires must inevitably crumble.

Meanwhile, Matthieu's grandfather Marcel, who funded their enterprise, perhaps out of spite, still lingers on the island, his memories of the collapse of France's colonial empire still as fresh and bitter as the cancerous ulcers that must one day claim his life.

By turns wise, comic, dramatic, tragic and absurd, Ferrari's Goncourt-winning masterpiece reads like a Corsican One Hundred Years of Solitude, covering a century of intimate history with a dazzling, skewering precision even Flaubert would be proud to applaud.

Su questo libro

Recensione

Astute, cunning, brilliant . . . Prepare for wonders . . . Blackly playful and serious, this is an earthy, philosophical tract drawing on history and human experience; the tiny hopes, the immense failures and, above all, the ambivalence. Ferrari pursues his story with the delicacy and skill of a musician reaching the final note (Eileen Battersby Irish Times)

A novelist whose concern with how we should live and what we can believe puts him in the tradition of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus (Allan Massie Scotsman)

Ferrari writes with power and perceptive humour (David Platzer Tablet)

Focusing on Corsica, but taking in Paris, Algeria and French colonies in Africa, its portrayal of the many accommodations we make with "circumstance" is both humorous and poignant (Catriona Graham Guardian)

More admirable even than his previous works . . . The best novel of the year (Le Monde Raphaëlle Leyris)

'Extraordinarily compelling' Daily Mail. (Daily Mail)

Descrizione del libro

A wise and sprightly epic of ruin and renewal in rural Corsica - winner of the Prix Goncourt.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Quercus Publishing Plc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 085705290X
• ISBN 13: 9780857052902
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 240
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile