- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: Abacus Bookshop, Pittsford, NY, U.S.A.Abacus Bookshop
AbeBooks seller since January 15, 1997
Condition: Used - Fine
US$ 12.50
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
8vo, 152 pp., Translated from the French by Barbara Wright., First printing of the first American edition.
Seller Inventory # 104499
- Title
- Of Illustrious Men
- Author
- Rouaud, Jean
- Publisher
- Arcade Publishing, New York
- Publication year
- 1994
- Condition
- Fine copy in fine dust jacket
- Dust jacket
- Dust Jacket Included
- Binding
- hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 155970165X
- ISBN 13
- 9781559701655
- Edition
- 1st.
- Seller catalogs
- Fiction
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Reviews
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Rouaud's novel won the Prix Goncourt in 1990, a prize remarkable for the fact that Rouaud was no career writer but a very humble newsstand vendor who'd never before published a word. The book is not quite a novel, more a rich memoir, but on the grounds of prose style alone (which comes over quite convincingly in Ralph Manheim's fine English version), its prize-worthiness is clear. One of the children of a modest family living in the rainy Loire valley narrates, drawn back to the family's aged, especially a grandfather and spinster aunt--who throw off eccentricity and force of character like catherine-wheels: the grandfather's driving habits in his hilariously inadequate 2CV; the aunt's pious familiarity with every conceivable saint; the horror of WW I's carnage that lives undiminishable in the hearts of the elders. Here, Rouaud's great gift, not unlike the film master Jean Renoir's, is for specificity and high relief: there are emotional lineages and comic dimensions to things as well as people: ``If we needed a screw, a nut, a tube of paste, a razor blade, a watch spring, a marble, a pin, a pencil, a paper clip, a coin with a hole in it (for use as a washer), or the tiny watchmaker's screwdriver that we used to tighten the hinges of our glasses, we had only to plunge into the biotrope between the china cupboard and the top of the sideboard and locate the glass hors d'oeuvres dish that has served as a bath for the little white garnet-billed mandarin birds which, we never found out why, had one after another been found dead in their cage.'' A lovely, savory book. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
This book represents a dialog between two generations seemingly far apart: three elderly veterans of the post-World War I era from the French lower Loire Valley and their grandchildren. Set in the 1950s, the novel is mainly a journey through the memories of grandfather, grandmother, and Aunt Marie, which reach as far back as battlefields near Ypres and Verdun--the "fields of glory." The memories are narrated from the perspectives of the grandchildren, whose initial boredom and impatience with the nostalgic stories from another era progressively become affection and understanding for the psychological urge to remember and be remembered. Rouaud was unknown even in France until he won the Prix Goncourt 1990, France's highest fiction honor, for this novel. Recommended for all libraries.
- Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Abacus Bookshop
Pittsford, NY, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since January 15, 1997
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A general shop with books in all fields. Established 1987.
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Art, Photography, Architecture, Poetry, History, Philosophy, Literary Fiction, Sciences, etc.Seller's business information
Abacus Bookshop
NY, U.S.A.
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For EU customers: Abacus Bookshop, sole proprietorship, abacus@rochester.rr.com.
3800 Monroe Avenue, Suite 14T, Pittsford, NY 14534. John Tribone, owner. Payment by check, money order, credit card, Paypal, Venmo, etc..
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