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الحب المدمر
An astonishing novel, Vandal Love follows generations of a unique French-Canadian family across North America, and through the twentieth century, as they struggle to find their place in the world.
A family curse – a genetic trick resulting from centuries of hardship – causes the Hervé children to be born either giants or runts. Book I of Vandal Love follows the giants’ line, exploring Jude Hervé’s career as a boxer in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1960s, his escape from that brutal life alone with his baby daughter Isa, and her eventual decision to enter into a strange, chaste marriage with a much older man.
Book II traces a different kind of life entirely, as the runts of the family discover that their power lies in a kind of unifying love. François searches for years for his missing father; his own son, Harvey, flees from modern society into spiritual quests. But none of the Hervés can abandon their longing for a place where they might find others like themselves.
In assured and almost mystically powerful prose, D.Y. Béchard tells a wide-ranging, spellbinding story of a family trying to create an identity in an unwelcoming North America. Political, poetic, and philosophically searching, and imbued throughout with a deep sensitivity to the physical world, Vandal Love is a breathtaking literary debut about the power of love to create and destroy – in our lives, and in our history.
From the Hardcover edition.
A family curse – a genetic trick resulting from centuries of hardship – causes the Hervé children to be born either giants or runts. Book I of Vandal Love follows the giants’ line, exploring Jude Hervé’s career as a boxer in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1960s, his escape from that brutal life alone with his baby daughter Isa, and her eventual decision to enter into a strange, chaste marriage with a much older man.
Book II traces a different kind of life entirely, as the runts of the family discover that their power lies in a kind of unifying love. François searches for years for his missing father; his own son, Harvey, flees from modern society into spiritual quests. But none of the Hervés can abandon their longing for a place where they might find others like themselves.
In assured and almost mystically powerful prose, D.Y. Béchard tells a wide-ranging, spellbinding story of a family trying to create an identity in an unwelcoming North America. Political, poetic, and philosophically searching, and imbued throughout with a deep sensitivity to the physical world, Vandal Love is a breathtaking literary debut about the power of love to create and destroy – in our lives, and in our history.
From the Hardcover edition.
436 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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782 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
July 10, 2015
لو كان لنا أن نشكر الهيئة المصرية المصرية للكتب على شئ وحيد ، لكان سلسة الجوائز ، فقد فتحت لن آفاق معرفة جديدة لم نكن لنعرفها إلا عبر مشروع قوي مثل تلك السلسلة .
أما عن هذا العمل فهو الفائز بجائزة الكومنولت وهي جائزة إنجليزية بامتياز.
الرواية مميزة للغاية ، فيها حس قوي ومشاعر صادقة وفياضة ، رحلة البحث عن جذور الإنسان ، أول لنقل رحلة الكشف عن أصل الإنسان ممثلة في عائلة كندية كان للطبيعة لمستها الخاصة على مواليد تلك العائلة ، فهم إما عمالقة ضخام ، أو أقزام ناقصي النمو.
وتستعرض الرواية تاريخ تلك العائلة عبر نموذجين اثنين ، الأول منهما ملاكم عملاق ، والآخر قزم ، وجمعت معظم القرن العشرين عبر حقبه المكثفة ، فنجد زمان الرواية يمتد من بدايته غلى نهايته ، في تركيز مجتمعي مميز على الواقع الأمريكي.
العمل متمكن للغاية ، محبوك باحترافية عالية جدًا، بسلاسة رائعة ووصف عميق للشخصيات وسرد ممتع للأحداث وتركيز في الوصف ، ولكن ظلت الرواية فاقدة لشئ ما ، لا ادري كنهه ، أهي الترجمة ، أم أن العمل كان من الصعب أن يخرج بكمال.
في المجمل : رواية جيدة ، وتستحق الإشادة.
July 23, 2016
التيه و البحث عن الجذور و الأصول موضوع دسم دائمًا ما يكون آ’سر للاهتمام ، لكن شيء من الوضوح و الترابط فضائل مهمة في الأدب ، ربما ليسا الفضيلتان الوحيدتان ، لكن دونهم لا يتبقي فضائل
February 25, 2016
الرواية ممله جدا استكملتها بطلوع الروح ...لاتوجد اى اثارة او متعه ..السبب الوحيد الذى جعلنى اكملها انها مراجعة مصطفى محمود فقط
March 12, 2013
Book: Vandal Love
Author: Deni Y. Béchard
Published: January 2006 by Milkweed Editions, 352 pages
First Line: ”Even when Jude was a boy, his arms and legs bulged, his neck corded, his muscled gut humped beneath his chest.”
Genre/Rating: Short stories; 3/5 babies born cradling their twin sisters to protect them from the dangers of the world
(Copy provided by the publisher)
Review: The press release for this book piqued my interest – it hinted at children born with genetic aberrations, a sweeping, multi-generational saga, some magic, some mystery. All things that I love. I was eager to dig in and find out what was going on in the Hervé family.
The press release didn’t lie – all of what was promised was there – but it just seemed flat, unfortunately. And isn’t that the worst? When there’s an amazing book there, and you can see it, but it just wasn’t brought to life as fully as it could have been?
The children of the Hervé family are born either giants or runts – sometimes alternating, one giant, one runt; sometimes twins, one of each born at the same time. The runts are very small, if they grow up at all (they tend to be very fragile and very ill); the giants are abnormally large and strong. The family all seem to have wanderlust and head out for what they think are greener pastures as soon as they get the opportunity. The book goes from Canada to Georgia and Louisiana and Maine, back to Canada, then to New Mexico, as it follows the line of the giants (in Book One, which is about 3/4 of the book) and then the line of the runts (in Book Two, the remainder of the book.)
I have no fault with Béchard’s writing. He writes well and has a very strong voice. I just am not sure if he knew quite where he was going with the book or the characters. Just when you thought you had a handle on a character, when you were getting to know them – that character would be dropped, and another character would be picked up. You had to learn not to get too invested in anyone, because the minute you did, they’d be swept away from you.
I also am not sure that splitting the book into two sections was the best solution. I think it might have served him better to make it two novels – that way, he could spend more time on each character, and flesh out each section more. (I also had a major confusion with the runts section – this might have been me, or might have been the writing, but I feel as if it was hinted at that the characters in the second section weren’t actually related to the Hervé family. If that’s the case, it makes no sense to have them there at all, since the book is ostensibly about the descendants of the Hervé family. I may have misread, but I did read and re-read that section a number of times trying to get a handle on it. If something you’ve written is that convoluted, it might not be the reader’s fault.)
Do I recommend the book? Well, I don’t not recommend it. I know, that’s vague. It’s not badly written. It’s got a touch of Marquez to it, to the generational saga. (He’s no Marquez, but there’s some similarity.) It’s not bad, but it’s not the best thing I’ve read lately. It wasn’t a waste of my time, but there were times I just wanted him to push it a little more, take it a little farther, see where else it could go…and he didn’t do that. So, I don’t not recommend it. But I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, either. It’s a toss-up. If it sounds interesting to you, give it a go. It won’t be the worst thing you’ve read this year. But I think you might finish it feeling like it’s missing something that could have made it great.
(Originally published at Insatiable Booksluts)
Author: Deni Y. Béchard
Published: January 2006 by Milkweed Editions, 352 pages
First Line: ”Even when Jude was a boy, his arms and legs bulged, his neck corded, his muscled gut humped beneath his chest.”
Genre/Rating: Short stories; 3/5 babies born cradling their twin sisters to protect them from the dangers of the world
(Copy provided by the publisher)
Review: The press release for this book piqued my interest – it hinted at children born with genetic aberrations, a sweeping, multi-generational saga, some magic, some mystery. All things that I love. I was eager to dig in and find out what was going on in the Hervé family.
The press release didn’t lie – all of what was promised was there – but it just seemed flat, unfortunately. And isn’t that the worst? When there’s an amazing book there, and you can see it, but it just wasn’t brought to life as fully as it could have been?
The children of the Hervé family are born either giants or runts – sometimes alternating, one giant, one runt; sometimes twins, one of each born at the same time. The runts are very small, if they grow up at all (they tend to be very fragile and very ill); the giants are abnormally large and strong. The family all seem to have wanderlust and head out for what they think are greener pastures as soon as they get the opportunity. The book goes from Canada to Georgia and Louisiana and Maine, back to Canada, then to New Mexico, as it follows the line of the giants (in Book One, which is about 3/4 of the book) and then the line of the runts (in Book Two, the remainder of the book.)
I have no fault with Béchard’s writing. He writes well and has a very strong voice. I just am not sure if he knew quite where he was going with the book or the characters. Just when you thought you had a handle on a character, when you were getting to know them – that character would be dropped, and another character would be picked up. You had to learn not to get too invested in anyone, because the minute you did, they’d be swept away from you.
I also am not sure that splitting the book into two sections was the best solution. I think it might have served him better to make it two novels – that way, he could spend more time on each character, and flesh out each section more. (I also had a major confusion with the runts section – this might have been me, or might have been the writing, but I feel as if it was hinted at that the characters in the second section weren’t actually related to the Hervé family. If that’s the case, it makes no sense to have them there at all, since the book is ostensibly about the descendants of the Hervé family. I may have misread, but I did read and re-read that section a number of times trying to get a handle on it. If something you’ve written is that convoluted, it might not be the reader’s fault.)
Do I recommend the book? Well, I don’t not recommend it. I know, that’s vague. It’s not badly written. It’s got a touch of Marquez to it, to the generational saga. (He’s no Marquez, but there’s some similarity.) It’s not bad, but it’s not the best thing I’ve read lately. It wasn’t a waste of my time, but there were times I just wanted him to push it a little more, take it a little farther, see where else it could go…and he didn’t do that. So, I don’t not recommend it. But I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, either. It’s a toss-up. If it sounds interesting to you, give it a go. It won’t be the worst thing you’ve read this year. But I think you might finish it feeling like it’s missing something that could have made it great.
(Originally published at Insatiable Booksluts)
November 6, 2024
اكتفيت بقراءة الكتاب الاول ولم اقرأ الثاني .. لم تعجبني الرواية ولا الترجمة
October 7, 2018
لم أستطع إكمالها.. عجيبة.
July 31, 2013
We think that we are individuals with free thought and free will but in many cases we are still slaves to the beliefs, ideals and genetics of our ancestors. D.Y. Bechard does a great job in exploring those concepts in his novel Vandal Love.
Page 4-7
Though half his children were runts as if by biblical curse, Herve Herve remained proud. Strong beyond his years, he brought up even the last of his sons to fish and work the fields at a time when cod stocks were failing and farmland returning to forest. He'd grown up during the worst years of the emigration south and had seen too much change to trust it, the poverty, the wealth of war and again the poverty until he'd become as hard as the country that had been fled by hundreds of thousands so that it was him his children now fled. In fights, men broke knuckles on his face, his wide, almost Indian features expressionless, his weather-browned skin ignoring whatever bruise. He took his sons hunting hours through the drifts. He never used a compass, and once, when geologists and surveyors send inland by the province disappeared, he retrieved them. In 1904, walking a dark road, he heard a shot from the woods and a bullet grazed his eye. No one believed it was an accident. If anything his remaining eye became more intent, imprinted in memories and imaginations. Some claimed he measured the distance to the sea by tasting snow.
In his first marriage he fathered three boys and three girls. Of those sons, two were keepers - he spoke of his children, if at all, in the language of a fisherman. He bred his wife hard, and when she foundered in childbed, he replaced her with Georgianne, a studier woman of no small religious bent who gave him eleven more. Jude was the illegitimate son of a brutish Scots-American tourist and Agnes, Georgianne's fourteen-year-old daughter, who, intent on not giving birth, pummelled her belly, threw herself down hills and stairs, plunged into icy water and hurtled against low branches so that to the villagers she looked like a sideshow tough training for a bareknuckle fight. The pregnancy held and Jude was born with a flat nose and the glassy gaze of a punch drunk fighter. But he wasn't born alone. He came into the world with a tiny twin sister, in his arms, it was told, as though he expected further violence.
Bechard has written an excellent family epic with this book. His language while dealing with situations that are brutal is frank yet sophisticated.
to my complete review
Page 4-7
Though half his children were runts as if by biblical curse, Herve Herve remained proud. Strong beyond his years, he brought up even the last of his sons to fish and work the fields at a time when cod stocks were failing and farmland returning to forest. He'd grown up during the worst years of the emigration south and had seen too much change to trust it, the poverty, the wealth of war and again the poverty until he'd become as hard as the country that had been fled by hundreds of thousands so that it was him his children now fled. In fights, men broke knuckles on his face, his wide, almost Indian features expressionless, his weather-browned skin ignoring whatever bruise. He took his sons hunting hours through the drifts. He never used a compass, and once, when geologists and surveyors send inland by the province disappeared, he retrieved them. In 1904, walking a dark road, he heard a shot from the woods and a bullet grazed his eye. No one believed it was an accident. If anything his remaining eye became more intent, imprinted in memories and imaginations. Some claimed he measured the distance to the sea by tasting snow.
In his first marriage he fathered three boys and three girls. Of those sons, two were keepers - he spoke of his children, if at all, in the language of a fisherman. He bred his wife hard, and when she foundered in childbed, he replaced her with Georgianne, a studier woman of no small religious bent who gave him eleven more. Jude was the illegitimate son of a brutish Scots-American tourist and Agnes, Georgianne's fourteen-year-old daughter, who, intent on not giving birth, pummelled her belly, threw herself down hills and stairs, plunged into icy water and hurtled against low branches so that to the villagers she looked like a sideshow tough training for a bareknuckle fight. The pregnancy held and Jude was born with a flat nose and the glassy gaze of a punch drunk fighter. But he wasn't born alone. He came into the world with a tiny twin sister, in his arms, it was told, as though he expected further violence.
Bechard has written an excellent family epic with this book. His language while dealing with situations that are brutal is frank yet sophisticated.
to my complete review
March 22, 2016
مملة الى أقصى درجة !
مش عارفة الحقيقة ده راجع للترجمة غير الاحترافية ولا ايه ؟!
مش عارفة الحقيقة ده راجع للترجمة غير الاحترافية ولا ايه ؟!
June 23, 2015
The language is beautiful, just stunning at times. though the plot seems to struggle to find any kind of direction. I was originally going to give this just 3 stars. The tone is just so monochrome. There is nothing particularly good that ever happens and you so hoping for it after a while. It leads to the book feeling like a bit of a slog, gray depressing and unchanging. And yet, the more you look at it, at the themes and the symbols, the more you see. And that's why I gave it 4 stars: because it holds up to close reading and that's worth reading.
Want to read
February 21, 2008I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet, but I'm hoping to soon. The novel follows a French Canadian family in the Gaspesie, a part of the country I love. I heard the author interviewed on CBC radio, and it sounds like a breakthrough novel for French Canadian literature. Oddly, it was published in English and then translated into French (the author's father was French Canadian, his mother American, so English was the language spoken at home).
January 1, 2018
Beautifully written novel about French-Canadians who leave the homeland and never really make or find a 'home' again. I'd give him a sixth star just for this sentence, "She mentioned the first years that the French schools were closed, and the places her cousins and brothers had gone to work, Manchester and Woonsocket and Fall River."
August 20, 2012
I dunno. I liked the writing, I liked some of the characters, and I valiantly endeavored to follow the story for those reasons. Ultimately, I basically tripped over the ending and am still trying to figure out what happened.
Read
February 28, 2015التيه و البحث عن الجذور و الأصول موضوع دسم دائمًا ما يكون آ’سر للاهتمام ، لكن شيء من الوضوح و الترابط فضائل مهمة في الأدب ، ربما ليسا الفضيلتان الوحيدتان ، لكن دونهم لا يتبقي فضائل
August 1, 2020
Ce livre raconte l’errance de la lignée de Hervé Hervé, une dynastie de nains et de géants. Les nains sont d’habiles négociants portés sur la spiritualité, les géants de bons ouvriers capables de s’attaquer à n’importe quelle épreuve physique; deux archétypes du capitalisme, non pas un capitalisme axé sur la réussite et le succès, mais plutôt orientée vers le nomadisme et la fuite par en avant. C’est un roman singulier qui m’a profondément dérangée. Une histoire qui, comme son titre l’indique, parle de perte de de repères et d’identité. Je le recommande vivement.
April 8, 2020
رواية من أسوأ ما قرأت، ربما الترجمة كانت سببًا في هذا التقييم السيئ نظرًا لانفصال الجمل وغرابة التراكيب، لم أحب فيها أي شيء سوى فكرة البحث عن الجذور لا أكثر، والتي كان من الممكن أن يصورها الكاتب بشكل أفضل من هذا التيه وعدم الترابط. سيئة ولا أتذكر كم مرة شعرت أثناء القراءة بشيء غير الملل.
February 9, 2019
من اسوأ ما قرأت
August 1, 2022
رغم الترجمة السيئة الا اني قدرت اتواصل مع جمال هذه الكتابة
October 17, 2013
This is story of a family of French Canadian Herve Herve whose children are either born giants or runts. Many of the runts do not thrive or are given away. This is not a gentle book. The book is divided into Book One - the tale of the generations of the giants, and Book Two, the runts. In Book One Jude, one of Herve's sons, is taught to fight. His father places bets on how much pain he can withstand. At home Jude tries to protect his frail sister. At a certain point Jude flees the family home and heads south, following many French Canadians to the USA in search of jobs and luxuries. There his saga continues.
I really enjoyed Book One. Bechard writes beautifully and there is an element of mysticism that I enjoyed. Book Two follows the runts - I think. I say I think because I found Book two very disjointed and hard to follow. I would be reading a passage and then it would end, I would reread the last few phrases, still be confused, move on and the same thing would happen over and over again. Aside from that I just did not like the characters in Book Two and did not always find their connections clear. At the very end the two branches of the family sort of come together, but personally I would have been happy to have stayed with the characters in Book One for a longer period of time and never have bothered with the runts! Five stars for Book One, zero stars for Book Two!
I really enjoyed Book One. Bechard writes beautifully and there is an element of mysticism that I enjoyed. Book Two follows the runts - I think. I say I think because I found Book two very disjointed and hard to follow. I would be reading a passage and then it would end, I would reread the last few phrases, still be confused, move on and the same thing would happen over and over again. Aside from that I just did not like the characters in Book Two and did not always find their connections clear. At the very end the two branches of the family sort of come together, but personally I would have been happy to have stayed with the characters in Book One for a longer period of time and never have bothered with the runts! Five stars for Book One, zero stars for Book Two!
July 26, 2013
This book is split up into two parts, each part pretty much its own book although they are intertwined in a small way.
What I liked about this book is that the author has a writing style that is very original so it adds a very interesting element to the novel. However, there are several cases in which people speak in french to which there is no translation so not knowing french puts a dent in understanding some parts of the story.
The first half of the book has a good story line and I really enjoyed reading it. The second half however, was quite the opposite. The story dragged on with its constant insignificant details that lead nowhere. The ending was such a dissapointment and I couldnt wait to be done reading it.
I recomend reading the first half of the book (labeled book 1 on the pages) and then the epiloge. Dont waste several hours of your life on trying to get through book 2.
What I liked about this book is that the author has a writing style that is very original so it adds a very interesting element to the novel. However, there are several cases in which people speak in french to which there is no translation so not knowing french puts a dent in understanding some parts of the story.
The first half of the book has a good story line and I really enjoyed reading it. The second half however, was quite the opposite. The story dragged on with its constant insignificant details that lead nowhere. The ending was such a dissapointment and I couldnt wait to be done reading it.
I recomend reading the first half of the book (labeled book 1 on the pages) and then the epiloge. Dont waste several hours of your life on trying to get through book 2.
September 3, 2008
This is one piece of Canadian literature I love reading. D.Y. Bechard creates interesting characters and lives. It follows to lines of people: the giants and the runts descended from Herve Herve of Quebec over the 20th century and North America. Similar themes play from the lives of runts who birth runts and giants who birth giants. Each has a desire to find what he or she is meant for and comes from. Lovely language.
May 8, 2010
Mixed feelings. Some great writing and compelling story-building, but a few too many chapter endings with a character ending up in the middle of nowhere wondering what it all means -- it went somewhat beyond a musical theme and turned into a relentless repetition. The poverty and hopelessness was very well-rendered.
March 1, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. It pulled me in to this extended family's history in Canada & the US. Well developed characters and plot. I was a little confused between the transition of Book 1 & Book 2 and needed to reread to figure out how it all fit together.
It was well worth the effort, however.
It was well worth the effort, however.
March 19, 2012
This one was not for me. If you're a fan of sweeping, multi-generational family sagas, it may be for you. Unfortunately, I never really felt that I connected with the characters because it kept switching.
August 18, 2012
I received this book as a Goodreads Firstreads giveaway and I'm excited to start it! I am about 1/5 of the way through this book and it has been interesting but maybe not a book I would have normally read.
November 29, 2007
I had a class with this guy once.
December 21, 2007
Beautiful tragedy. See my amazon review.
Currently reading
March 4, 2008early pages but so far so good.
February 11, 2009
A great mix between John Irving's quirkiness and Annie Proulx's heart felt story telling.
August 4, 2011
Quelle belle histoire de quête de soi, de spiritualité, de famille, de désir de vivre. Plume extraordinaire. Déjà hâte à son deuxième roman.
June 23, 2012
I received this book through Goodreads giveaways.
This just wasn't my cup of tea. It was very well written, I just couldn't get into it.
This just wasn't my cup of tea. It was very well written, I just couldn't get into it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews