Face of a Hero

by Pierre Boulle

Autopsie d'une erreur judiciaire.






Le procureur de la République, Jean Berthier, demeure inerte alors qu'il est le seul témoin de la noyade accidentelle d'une jeune fille dans le Rhône. Le parquet est saisi de l'affaire qui prend bientôt l'apparence d'un crime dont l'instruction est confiée au procureur.


Comment ce magistrat vertueux, sincère et d'une scrupuleuse intégrité, a-t-il pu agir ainsi ?


Voulant à tout prix " sauver la face ", il n'ose pas, par l'aveu de sa lâcheté, perdre le prestige qu'il a conquis aux yeux de tous et parvient, de bonne foi, à l'oubli progressif de la scène dont il a été témoin. Dès lors, il est pris dans un inexorable engrenage qui le conduira jusqu'au bout de l'ivresse du pouvoir judiciaire, mettant ainsi à nu l'effroyable contradiction que tout homme porte en lui.


Un roman haletant et fascinant jusqu'à la dernière page.

Genres: Fiction, France

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Pierre Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French novelist best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963) that were both made into award-winning films.

Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour. He used these experiences in The Bridge over the River Kwai, about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film by David Lean won many Oscars, and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two genuine authors had been blacklisted.

His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes, where intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, was adapted into a series of five award-winning films that spawned magazine versions and popular themed toys.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot conceive of this book ever having been written in the United States. Picture a young public prosecutor resting on the banks of the Rhone with his girlfriend, who sleeps with her head on his chest. Across the river, a young woman who appears to have had an accident stumbles, falls into the river, and drowns. Our hero does ... nothing.

It transpired that the wastrel son of an influential businessman is blamed by the entire community for murdering the girl, even though the prosecutor knows it is not true. But when seemingly unbearable pressure is brought to bear on him, coming from the attorney general and the prosecutor's own patron -- the prosecutor puts on the mask of his office and demands the death penalty.

This is the country that made a movie called Twelve Angry Men, in which a single juror changes the minds of his eleven co-jurors on behalf of acquittal. For most Americans, the prosecutor, Jean Berthier, is much too squirrely and cowardly to be an object of admiration -- unless by the "hero" of the title, the author, Pierre Boulle is dripping with irony. (Yet Berthier does openly resist the pressures being brought to bear on him.)

Face of a Hero is basically an interesting book, but I wonder how I could ever really trust its hero.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this novel back in high school, and for some reason the story stayed with me when other titles faded. This book is structured as a four-part morality play. The protagonist, a public prosecutor for a rural French Provence, is also a cowardly villain. The story, which follows the public prosecutor Jean Berthier’s unlikely knowledge of an accidental death of a young girl which becomes a politicized homicide case, is Boulle’s satirical exploration of failed justice, political corruption, and human’s hubris-fueled hypocrisy. The initiating incident borders on the preposterous requiring the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief; nevertheless the didacticism of the story is no less effective than say Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book way back in a high school English class. It had enough of an impact where I still remember, unlike some of the other books I've read.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great character study of a proud young government prosecutor who cannot acknowledge his weaknesses. A bit too long and repetitive in parts. The author also wrote Bridge Over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent example of how politics can dictate morality in a disastrous way. Very well done.