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Elisabeth
Witty banter, lust, ennui, and an undercurrent of violence underlie a seemingly paradisiacal summer on the eve of World War II, in this landmark translation of the first and only novel by Éric Rohmer, the French New Wave’s most prolific and beloved filmmaker.
Fifteen years before completing his first feature film—and ten before beginning a transformative editorial stint at Cahiers du cinéma that would usher the journal, and French cinema, into a new era—the man who would become known worldwide as Éric Rohmer published a single novel. Released by Éditions Gallimard alongside the early works of Claude Simon and Marguérite Duras, Élisabeth was part of the first flowering of what would come to be known as the nouveau roman—and was also the “matrix,” as Rohmer himself later put it, of the images, ideas, and formal concerns of his first sequence of films, Six Moral Tales.
Set in the sunstruck countryside east of Paris during the summer of 1939, a year ahead of the German invasion, where the upper-middle-class Roby family and its eponymous matriarch are spending a listless summer, Élisabeth is a war-novel awaiting a war. While the teenage Roby children and their friends swim, flirt, and lie to one another among the baking fields and icy meanders of the Marne, the novel becomes the scene of an anticipatory haunting. The simmering paranoia, calculated blankness, and potential violence of the coming Occupation are already present—as it were, in mufti. With a cool, kaleidoscopic eye, Rohmer lays out his protagonists and their precarious peace—their restlessness, their desperate boredom, their petty romantic agonies—with the unsettling chilliness and the sinister exactitude of details on a tactical map.
Fifteen years before completing his first feature film—and ten before beginning a transformative editorial stint at Cahiers du cinéma that would usher the journal, and French cinema, into a new era—the man who would become known worldwide as Éric Rohmer published a single novel. Released by Éditions Gallimard alongside the early works of Claude Simon and Marguérite Duras, Élisabeth was part of the first flowering of what would come to be known as the nouveau roman—and was also the “matrix,” as Rohmer himself later put it, of the images, ideas, and formal concerns of his first sequence of films, Six Moral Tales.
Set in the sunstruck countryside east of Paris during the summer of 1939, a year ahead of the German invasion, where the upper-middle-class Roby family and its eponymous matriarch are spending a listless summer, Élisabeth is a war-novel awaiting a war. While the teenage Roby children and their friends swim, flirt, and lie to one another among the baking fields and icy meanders of the Marne, the novel becomes the scene of an anticipatory haunting. The simmering paranoia, calculated blankness, and potential violence of the coming Occupation are already present—as it were, in mufti. With a cool, kaleidoscopic eye, Rohmer lays out his protagonists and their precarious peace—their restlessness, their desperate boredom, their petty romantic agonies—with the unsettling chilliness and the sinister exactitude of details on a tactical map.
223 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1946
About the author
Éric Rohmer
45 books60 followersÉric Rohmer (born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer) was a French film director and screenwriter. He is regarded as a key figure in the post-war New Wave cinema and is a former editor of influential French film journal Cahiers du cinéma. He was also the brother of philosopher and pedagogist René Schérer.
Scherer fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: actor and director Erich von Stroheim and writer Sax Rohmer, author of the Fu Manchu series.
Rohmer was the last of the French New Wave directors to become established. He worked as the editor of the Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his Cahiers colleagues, among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, were making their names in international cinema.
Scherer fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: actor and director Erich von Stroheim and writer Sax Rohmer, author of the Fu Manchu series.
Rohmer was the last of the French New Wave directors to become established. He worked as the editor of the Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his Cahiers colleagues, among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, were making their names in international cinema.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
July 28, 2026
Fascinating experiment of slow, boring everyday against a creeping historical trauma about to erupt. No one knows what will hit them (the book is set during one summer month, August 1939, before Hitler’s invasion of Poland on the first of September; all the horny teens in this book are looking forward to the rentrée; Rohmer wrote this during the Liberation of Paris, 1944, as bullets flew past his window), and so the kids innocently latch on to the institution they will always know: manic desire. Rohmer was never this way off the deep end into the terrain of pungent superbanality— even in his most talky films. McNally Jacksoners will wander into Prince St and abscond with it to Greece or the subway thinking they’ve snagged a hot summer read—when they’re getting basically a brutal, tangily dry Akerman film on page. The waiting, the waiting…and we are directly implicated Cortázar-style (“The Continuity of Parks”) in the final awesome paragraph. Certain patches of dialogue (notably the flirtation between the hot cousins on pg 178-9) are clearly rehearsals for Rohmer’s future movies: he would have excelled at modernist literature, but Rohmer was convinced that film was the more immediate art reflective of the times. He was right. Vivid sense-intense evocation of what 1939 was.
July 5, 2026
many strengths to be admired here, but even still as I tried my best to imbue the image in my minds eye with the atmosphere of his films, it's clear film was Rohmers perfect medium. It didn't bring everything together despite some of the great dialogue and descriptions. He is no less of a master in my heart ♥️
August 27, 2026
Nothing happens in this book, but it really made me want to go for a swim
August 4, 2021
Única novela de Rohmer, escrita en la década de 1940 y publicada bajo un pseudónimo mientras trabajaba como profe. Me ha gustado mucho leerla porque Rohmer me encanta como director, creo que de no ser así es difícil que guste tanto.
En su escritura se reconocen muchísimos elementos de su cine y apreciarlos me ha entretenido un montón. Empezando por lo más evidente, los tiempos que los personajes dedican a transportarse son inmensos, e igual que en sus películas, muy detallados; recorremos fachadas, calles y carreteras que vuelven a actuar como una crónica de los escenarios de la época, con descripciones precisas que para mí no funcionan tan bien como en pantalla. Sin embargo, los espacios —aunque no hay tantos— que dedica a las descripciones me han parecido muy bonitos; son descripciones tan sensibles que he visto las escenas con la suavidad y delicadeza con que él las filmaría. Los diálogos, por supuesto, son también tan fuertes como en sus pelis, pero se me han hecho más pesados porque en las partes más insustanciales no hay escenarios bonitos que apreciar. Otros elementos comunes son también los colores (blanco, azul), las flores, los libros (aunque la cultura no emerge de manera tan explícita) y las rodillas, que hacen de símbolo erótico en varias escenas ("La rodilla de Claire formaba un pequeño triángulo oscuro y brillante que sobrepasaba la línea nítida del vestido"). Es curiosa esta frase, "La rodilla de Claire" se estrena 25 años después. Supongo que habrá muchos más elementos presentes en sus películas que he pasado por alto.
Por último, la traducción es horrorosa; el mismo personaje se llama por su nombre en castellano o francés indistintamente y se necesitan aclaraciones de traducción para varios pasajes que no se entienden sin éstas.
Igualmente, qué regalo de sant Jordi tan bonito.
En su escritura se reconocen muchísimos elementos de su cine y apreciarlos me ha entretenido un montón. Empezando por lo más evidente, los tiempos que los personajes dedican a transportarse son inmensos, e igual que en sus películas, muy detallados; recorremos fachadas, calles y carreteras que vuelven a actuar como una crónica de los escenarios de la época, con descripciones precisas que para mí no funcionan tan bien como en pantalla. Sin embargo, los espacios —aunque no hay tantos— que dedica a las descripciones me han parecido muy bonitos; son descripciones tan sensibles que he visto las escenas con la suavidad y delicadeza con que él las filmaría. Los diálogos, por supuesto, son también tan fuertes como en sus pelis, pero se me han hecho más pesados porque en las partes más insustanciales no hay escenarios bonitos que apreciar. Otros elementos comunes son también los colores (blanco, azul), las flores, los libros (aunque la cultura no emerge de manera tan explícita) y las rodillas, que hacen de símbolo erótico en varias escenas ("La rodilla de Claire formaba un pequeño triángulo oscuro y brillante que sobrepasaba la línea nítida del vestido"). Es curiosa esta frase, "La rodilla de Claire" se estrena 25 años después. Supongo que habrá muchos más elementos presentes en sus películas que he pasado por alto.
Por último, la traducción es horrorosa; el mismo personaje se llama por su nombre en castellano o francés indistintamente y se necesitan aclaraciones de traducción para varios pasajes que no se entienden sin éstas.
Igualmente, qué regalo de sant Jordi tan bonito.
August 21, 2026
malheureusement ennuyeux… thank god il réalisait des films par la suite et non pas plus de ces romans qui veulent clairement être des films
rohmer malgré tout ça t’es toujours mon homme conservative catholique préféré
rohmer malgré tout ça t’es toujours mon homme conservative catholique préféré
August 14, 2026
Unfortunately I don’t think Rohmer’s moral tales function very well as a novel. He is a genius and an amazing director and a fantastic screenwriter, but this didn’t have many remnants of that genius. It leaned towards his meandering style too much without the complexities his film’s characters have. Still though, Rohmer can describe beauty like few others. The best passages of this novel were describing characters and painting pictures.
August 26, 2026
Elliptical—had to write down the character names like I was reading a russian novel. An ominous violence at the heart of it that I’m not sure Rohmer is even conscious of. I like his films better.
June 1, 2026
Rohmer is an aesthete through and through. Very French, very languid. The book is vaguely foreboding but neither leans into that mood fully or keeps a firm perspective on what is causing it (being on the cusp of WWII.) I wanted to love it but tolerated it instead.
Read
August 8, 2026Mmmmmm
August 15, 2026
“The garden still smells of the rain: an odor of damp sand, of leaves in the first flush of rot—a small foretaste of autumn. The wet earth exhales an enveloping chill that the sun is unable to pierce. Even the sounds of the surrounding world seem sapped and flattened to a distant, undecidable rumble, here—one that waxes and wanes, or appears to, in time to the tree shadows' twisting and fickering.”
July 1, 2026
amateur hour ! plutôt un cinéaste qu’un écrivain
July 9, 2026
an unembellished chain of events without significance or reflection
July 23, 2026
Novela escrita por el director francés Éric Rohmer, quien la escribió durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial como un intento que la población francesa pudiera olvidar durante unos instantes la guerra. Rohmer no la publicó con su nombre sino bajo el seudónimo de Gilbert Cordier.
La historia transcurre durante un día del verano de 1939, pocas semanas antes del inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. La protagonista de la historia es una familia burguesa, que vive en Francia. La historia arranca con Roby disfrutando de las vacaciones en la casa de campo familiar. Elisabeth Roby es la madre de la familia, que representa la estabilidad familiar, y es el personaje que funciona como bisagra o como vehículo para conectar al resto de personajes entre sí. Otro de los personajes de la novela es Michel, un joven ingeniero, el cual mantiene una relación con Irene, pero cuyo conflicto gira en torno si ama realmente a su pareja, si debe comprometerse o esperar más. El autor explora a través de sus dudas si lo que siente es deseo o simplemente se ha acostumbrado a estar con su pareja, y ve en ella la estabilidad y por ende no se atreve a romper con ella para que no reine el caos en su vida. Irene, la pareja de Michel, es una mujer viuda, mayor que Michel, y representa el amor no idealizado. La relación de Irene y Michel se caracteriza por los silencios, sin grandes crisis y tensiones dramáticas. Bernard es el hijo impulsivo de Elisabeth, que presenta la energía de la juventud previa al estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, un ser que vive de forma despreocupada, y que contrasta con los anteriores, que representan la edad adulta, ya que él representa la adolescencia. El último gran personaje es Claire, que representa la inocencia, y es prima de los muchachos.
El objetivo de la novela es describir cómo era Francia antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una Francia viva, alegre, un país que vive en paz sin saber que le quedaba poco tiempo para padecer la guerra en sus propias carnes. Rohmer traslada al lector a una etapa sin grandes conflictos, ni grandes dramas, donde predomina la tranquilidad, la paz y las pequeñas preocupaciones cotidianas. No es una novela de grandes tensiones, ni de grandes dramas, simplemente es una novela de vida cotidiana, que sirve de retrato de una Francia antes de la guerra. Una guerra, que aunque no se menciona, y es invisible, se siente latente ya que acabará alterando los planes de futuro de los personajes.
En mi opinión es una obra cotidiana, alegre, un retrato de lo que era la vida de Francia antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
La historia transcurre durante un día del verano de 1939, pocas semanas antes del inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. La protagonista de la historia es una familia burguesa, que vive en Francia. La historia arranca con Roby disfrutando de las vacaciones en la casa de campo familiar. Elisabeth Roby es la madre de la familia, que representa la estabilidad familiar, y es el personaje que funciona como bisagra o como vehículo para conectar al resto de personajes entre sí. Otro de los personajes de la novela es Michel, un joven ingeniero, el cual mantiene una relación con Irene, pero cuyo conflicto gira en torno si ama realmente a su pareja, si debe comprometerse o esperar más. El autor explora a través de sus dudas si lo que siente es deseo o simplemente se ha acostumbrado a estar con su pareja, y ve en ella la estabilidad y por ende no se atreve a romper con ella para que no reine el caos en su vida. Irene, la pareja de Michel, es una mujer viuda, mayor que Michel, y representa el amor no idealizado. La relación de Irene y Michel se caracteriza por los silencios, sin grandes crisis y tensiones dramáticas. Bernard es el hijo impulsivo de Elisabeth, que presenta la energía de la juventud previa al estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, un ser que vive de forma despreocupada, y que contrasta con los anteriores, que representan la edad adulta, ya que él representa la adolescencia. El último gran personaje es Claire, que representa la inocencia, y es prima de los muchachos.
El objetivo de la novela es describir cómo era Francia antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una Francia viva, alegre, un país que vive en paz sin saber que le quedaba poco tiempo para padecer la guerra en sus propias carnes. Rohmer traslada al lector a una etapa sin grandes conflictos, ni grandes dramas, donde predomina la tranquilidad, la paz y las pequeñas preocupaciones cotidianas. No es una novela de grandes tensiones, ni de grandes dramas, simplemente es una novela de vida cotidiana, que sirve de retrato de una Francia antes de la guerra. Una guerra, que aunque no se menciona, y es invisible, se siente latente ya que acabará alterando los planes de futuro de los personajes.
En mi opinión es una obra cotidiana, alegre, un retrato de lo que era la vida de Francia antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
August 4, 2026
Although there aren't very many reviews I think most people will interpret this novel(la) incorrectly. With no plot and the insignificance of everyday life Rohmer (Schérer) entirely captures you beginning to end. The nuance of the characters and their simultaneous experience of phenomena such as the rain, the heat, the subtlety of the impending WWII mentioned in the newspapers makes for a remarkable read.
Again no plot, nothing crazy occurring just the emotional subtleties and complexities of everyday life and it's utterly enrapturing. A masterclass in writing for its own sake. Rohmer mentions in a featured interview in the afterword that he couldn't adapt this to the screen (Although he takes inspiration in the characters' moral choices and there are scenes in the book that will stick out if you've watched his movies such as the character looking at younger girls' knees and something such as the rain forcing two characters into an impromptu tryst) due to the inherently complex nature and feature of being able to show each character's experience with these events. That is the beauty of words. In a move you can (mostly) only show the general experience not the nuance of what is going on inside each character's mind.
That being said another aspect of his movies that is present in this novel is how he uses events to mold the characters' relationships with each other. His environments are malleable to cause the characters to have to choose, to experience what they are trying to keep buried, to make a choice that will change how we and they view themselves.
Again no plot, nothing crazy occurring just the emotional subtleties and complexities of everyday life and it's utterly enrapturing. A masterclass in writing for its own sake. Rohmer mentions in a featured interview in the afterword that he couldn't adapt this to the screen (Although he takes inspiration in the characters' moral choices and there are scenes in the book that will stick out if you've watched his movies such as the character looking at younger girls' knees and something such as the rain forcing two characters into an impromptu tryst) due to the inherently complex nature and feature of being able to show each character's experience with these events. That is the beauty of words. In a move you can (mostly) only show the general experience not the nuance of what is going on inside each character's mind.
That being said another aspect of his movies that is present in this novel is how he uses events to mold the characters' relationships with each other. His environments are malleable to cause the characters to have to choose, to experience what they are trying to keep buried, to make a choice that will change how we and they view themselves.
August 21, 2026
Since Rohmer is one of my favorite French directors, my expectations were trop élevées, I fear!
Published when he was 26, his debut novel is topheavy with dialogue while the characters mostly feel muddled and interchangeable. To me, Élisabeth reads more like a screenplay and falls flat without the support of Rohmer's characteristic Edenic visuals of the French countryside.
The plot is escapist. Rohmer wrote the book in 1944, when bullets were flying past his window during the Liberation of Paris. In an interview, Rohmer shares, "I asked myself: 'Is it even possible to write about what's unfolding at present? [...] No, it's not—you need to take a step back'" (214). Having just read Katherine Mansfield, her critique rang freshly in my mind—when she tears apart Virginia Woolf for omitting World War I completely from Night and Day. Mansfield called it a lie for bearing no scars of conflict. Élisabeth masquerades in this same frivolity, a desperate hedonism.
In the Afterword, the author discusses how he reached a point of lack of belief in literature, choosing cinema. His Six Moral Tales began as short stories and then morphed into some of his most famous films. I believe this text serves as a peek into Rohmer's psyche, a kind of first draft. You can already feel the emergence of Claire's Knee (1970)—yeah, Rohmer has a thing for knees, which serve as an unattainable erotic symbol—and Pauline at the Beach (1983).
Alas, very of its era: men blatantly hating women and harassing teenagers for physical affection. I wish I could shout about this one from the rooftops, but please go (re)watch The Green Ray (1986) instead of wasting your time here (unless you are a hardcore Rohmer fan).
Published when he was 26, his debut novel is topheavy with dialogue while the characters mostly feel muddled and interchangeable. To me, Élisabeth reads more like a screenplay and falls flat without the support of Rohmer's characteristic Edenic visuals of the French countryside.
The plot is escapist. Rohmer wrote the book in 1944, when bullets were flying past his window during the Liberation of Paris. In an interview, Rohmer shares, "I asked myself: 'Is it even possible to write about what's unfolding at present? [...] No, it's not—you need to take a step back'" (214). Having just read Katherine Mansfield, her critique rang freshly in my mind—when she tears apart Virginia Woolf for omitting World War I completely from Night and Day. Mansfield called it a lie for bearing no scars of conflict. Élisabeth masquerades in this same frivolity, a desperate hedonism.
In the Afterword, the author discusses how he reached a point of lack of belief in literature, choosing cinema. His Six Moral Tales began as short stories and then morphed into some of his most famous films. I believe this text serves as a peek into Rohmer's psyche, a kind of first draft. You can already feel the emergence of Claire's Knee (1970)—yeah, Rohmer has a thing for knees, which serve as an unattainable erotic symbol—and Pauline at the Beach (1983).
Alas, very of its era: men blatantly hating women and harassing teenagers for physical affection. I wish I could shout about this one from the rooftops, but please go (re)watch The Green Ray (1986) instead of wasting your time here (unless you are a hardcore Rohmer fan).
July 11, 2026
This was a perfect summer read - set in the French countryside during the summer of 1939, just before the onslaught of WWII, we follow unsteady glimpses into the lives of the bourgeois Roby family and their acquaintances. This book is the definition of summer with its oppressive heat, languid days cast in ennui while oblivious to the signs of an approaching war
The novel is clearly written by a screenwriter and director; it felt cinematic in the gestures, the use of light and shadow, the subtle suspense. Thank you, McNally Jackson, for unearthing this work and putting it back into circulation.
The novel is clearly written by a screenwriter and director; it felt cinematic in the gestures, the use of light and shadow, the subtle suspense. Thank you, McNally Jackson, for unearthing this work and putting it back into circulation.
August 2, 2026
I think the very reason I love Rohmer as a director is why I couldn't enjoy him as a writer... The movies are slow and emphasize this idea of fluidity through a plot with no clear trajectory. When you sit and take that in through a screen for two hours, the romance of his worldbuilding is enchanting, but in a book I found it frankly a little annoying. I lost focus, didn't care for the characters, and really couldn't tell 'what' they were doing. Great for a beach read while rolling in the sand, but not much else :/
September 4, 2026
This was awful. There is a lot of hype around this book but it’s unwarranted.
It’s clear that it was written by a 25 year old. Mr Rohmer may have been a successful filmmaker ( French New Wave) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that his first novel was worth the paper it was printed on.
The book has been available in France for years but was recently translated into English. I had to read an English copy because I couldn’t find a French version.
True, it would have been slightly more interesting in French but not really. Don’t waste your time on this book. It’s vapid.
It’s clear that it was written by a 25 year old. Mr Rohmer may have been a successful filmmaker ( French New Wave) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that his first novel was worth the paper it was printed on.
The book has been available in France for years but was recently translated into English. I had to read an English copy because I couldn’t find a French version.
True, it would have been slightly more interesting in French but not really. Don’t waste your time on this book. It’s vapid.
July 21, 2026
incredibly slight, almost imperceptible, really! folks that probably need psychoanalysis crossing paths, flirting, beginning and ending relationships and teetering on the edge of either side of the precipice on the eve of fascist invasion. idyllic pre-wwii france treated as a backyard, a playground with nazis knocking at the door, much to the ignorance of these spoiled, flawed people.
rohmerian through and through, to the utmost rohmerist degree (rohmer wrote this!)
rohmerian through and through, to the utmost rohmerist degree (rohmer wrote this!)
July 25, 2026
Set design, mostly, in the form of a novel. Rohmer's characters waft through 'les vacances' on the eve of WW1, always on the edge of doing something or going somewhere meaningful (maybe?), before pulling back. Together, these lightly interwoven stories carry real foreboding, but offer little in the way of a narrative. I admire the exercise once, but, phew, good thing he found film.
August 28, 2026
I really liked the writing style, especially how Rohmer creates a summer backdrop of a heavy suffocating heat and a rainstorm experienced differently by different characters. Did not enjoy how annoying the men were :/. But I know Rohmer is best known for his cinematography so definitely want to watch some of his films to understand his style better!
July 19, 2026
If you're a fan of Rohmer's films you will probably enjoy this brief novel he wrote before he started making movies. Like his films it's dialog-driven, and finely observed. At times it reads like a treatment for a film he never made.
August 5, 2026
Glimpses of Rohmer the filmmaker in this novel, both in structure, setting, and imagery. For me, however, it never quite achieves the tension masked by seemingly placid surfaces that his films do so well.
August 12, 2026
This really defines the difference between literature and film. Its descriptions of rain and heat are more vivid when left to the imagination than the tactile images of rain and heat on celluloid. More of this nouveau roman please.
Review of advance copy
exceedingly french
June 27, 2026
Thank you to McNalley Editions for this Advanced Readers Copy. I really wanted to like this more but unfortunately, this lacked luster; the characters, the story, the ambiance. Just meh.
July 22, 2026
éric rohmer is so good at writing characters that are not meant to be liked but understood
July 23, 2026
review to come
July 26, 2026
Stick to movies!
July 30, 2026
It’s like watching an Eric Rohmer film dubbed
Weird yet familiar
Weird yet familiar
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews