Parametri
- 464pagine
- 17 ore di lettura
Maggiori informazioni sul libro
The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines. When another of D'Aulnay-Pradelle's soldiers, Albert Maillard, reaches the bodies and discovers how they died, the lieutenant shoves him into a shell hole to silence him. Albert is rescued by fellow soldier, the artist Edouard Péricourt, who takes a bullet in the face. The war ends and both men recover, but Edouard is permanently disfigured, and fakes his death to prevent his family from seeing him as a cripple. In gratitude for Edouard's rescue, Albert becomes the injured man's companion and caregiver. Finding that the postwar gratitude for the soldiers' service is nothing more than lip-service to an empty idea, the two men scramble to survive, ultimately devising a scam to take money for never-to-be-built war memorials from small towns. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Pradelle has married Edouard's sister Madeline and is running a scam of his own that involves the exhumation of war victims. In this sorrowful, heart-searching novel, the interwoven lives of these three men create a tapestry of the human condition as seen through the lens of war, revealing brutality and compassion, heroism and cowardice, in equal measure
Acquisto del libro
The Great Swindle, Pierre Lemaitre
- Lingua
- Pubblicato
- 2016
- product-detail.submit-box.info.binding
- (In brossura)
Metodi di pagamento
Qui potrebbe esserci la tua recensione.
- Titolo
- The Great Swindle
- Lingua
- Inglese
- Autori
- Pierre Lemaitre
- Editore
- Quercus
- Pubblicato
- 2016
- Formato
- In brossura
- Pagine
- 464
- ISBN10
- 1848665792
- ISBN13
- 9781848665798
- Serie
- I Figli del Disastro
- Tag
- Narrativa, Prosa storica, Narrativa contemporanea, Amicizia, Francia, Prosa di guerra, Guerre, Morte, Romanzi sociali, Letteratura francese, Adattato in un film, Vendetta, Prima guerra mondiale (1914–1918), Romanzi psicologici, Soldati, Avidità, Premio Goncourt
- Prima pubblicazione
- 2013
- Titolo originale
- Au revoir là-haut
- Valutazione
- 4,3 su 5
- Descrizione
- The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines. When another of D'Aulnay-Pradelle's soldiers, Albert Maillard, reaches the bodies and discovers how they died, the lieutenant shoves him into a shell hole to silence him. Albert is rescued by fellow soldier, the artist Edouard Péricourt, who takes a bullet in the face. The war ends and both men recover, but Edouard is permanently disfigured, and fakes his death to prevent his family from seeing him as a cripple. In gratitude for Edouard's rescue, Albert becomes the injured man's companion and caregiver. Finding that the postwar gratitude for the soldiers' service is nothing more than lip-service to an empty idea, the two men scramble to survive, ultimately devising a scam to take money for never-to-be-built war memorials from small towns. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Pradelle has married Edouard's sister Madeline and is running a scam of his own that involves the exhumation of war victims. In this sorrowful, heart-searching novel, the interwoven lives of these three men create a tapestry of the human condition as seen through the lens of war, revealing brutality and compassion, heroism and cowardice, in equal measure