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La terre invisible
En 1945, dans une ville d’Allemagne occupée par les alliés, un photographe de guerre anglais qui a suivi la défaite allemande ne parvient pas à rentrer chez lui en Angleterre. Il est sans mot devant les images de la libération d’un camp de concentration à laquelle il a assisté.
Il est logé dans le même hôtel que le colonel qui commandait le régiment qui a libéré le camp. Ayant vu les mêmes choses qui les ont marqués, ils sont devenus des sortes d’amis. Un soir, le photographe expose son idée de partir à travers l’Allemagne pour photographier les gens devant leur maison. Il espère ainsi peut-être découvrir qui sont ceux qui ont permis l’existence de ces camps. Le colonel met à sa disposition une voiture et un chauffeur de son régiment. C’est un très jeune soldat qui vient d’arriver et qui n’a rien vu de la guerre.
Le photographe et son jeune chauffeur partent au hasard sur les routes. Le premier est hanté par ce qu’il a vu, et le second est hanté par des évènements plus intimes survenus chez lui en Angleterre. Le roman est ce voyage.
Il est logé dans le même hôtel que le colonel qui commandait le régiment qui a libéré le camp. Ayant vu les mêmes choses qui les ont marqués, ils sont devenus des sortes d’amis. Un soir, le photographe expose son idée de partir à travers l’Allemagne pour photographier les gens devant leur maison. Il espère ainsi peut-être découvrir qui sont ceux qui ont permis l’existence de ces camps. Le colonel met à sa disposition une voiture et un chauffeur de son régiment. C’est un très jeune soldat qui vient d’arriver et qui n’a rien vu de la guerre.
Le photographe et son jeune chauffeur partent au hasard sur les routes. Le premier est hanté par ce qu’il a vu, et le second est hanté par des évènements plus intimes survenus chez lui en Angleterre. Le roman est ce voyage.
192 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
August 20, 2020
I'm talking about what we saw in the days that followed, which gave us just as much sorrow, and I'm also talking about what I couldn't photograph: the evening, the prayers, the smells and the wind blowing around the scrapheap that burned night and day.
This is a novella about obliqueness, opacity and the unsayable: it's vague and unpindownable in some ways but I see that as deliberate and it conveys very well the numbed incomprehension of a photographer recording the final days and aftermath of WW2 in Germany. After entering one of the extermination camps, he finds himself unable to document what he sees there, barely able to process not just the magnitude and scale of the Holocaust but what it tells us about humanity and what we are capable of.
So much of this book is, on the surface, a fleeing from this revelation: all those comforting Enlightenment narratives of progress are brought to a halt and this novel pinpoints the moment this happens for one man. It's quiet and generally undramatic which serves to make the emotions, buried deep, both more potent and serve themselves as a figuration of meaning. The photographer travels around, taking photos of 'ordinary' Germans though he can never articulate to himself precisely why - as he does this, all the complexities of response emerge: comfort, empathy, rage, a sublimated urge for some kind of revenge that it especially terrifying both for its submerged malice and for the way it aligns him with the acts from which he is fleeing.
This is a very subtle book which invites the reader to consider what is not said, to perceive what lies in the interstices of the words and beneath the surface of the text. A short novel but a resonant one.
Thanks to Granta for an ARC via NetGalley.
August 8, 2021
French novelist Hubert Mingarelli (1956-2020) wrote several books, of which two, both of them war novels, have been translated into English by Sam Taylor. Four Soldiers, which tells the story of four young comrades in the Russian Civil War, won the Prix Medici in 2003. The translation of A Meal in Winter, set in World War II, was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. They are now joined by another World War II novel(la), Mingarelli’s last. La Terre Invisible was originally published in 2019, and is now being issued by Granta Books, also in Sam Taylor’s translation, as The Invisible Land.
As war novels go, this is a strange one, being set not during but in in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Its narrator is an English photographer placed with a battalion of Allied soldiers. Following the liberation of a concentration camp, the battalion settles at Dinslaken, in North-West Germany. The photographer, who cannot shake off the memory of the dead bodies in the concentration camp, asks leave to go on a strange mission around the surrounding countryside, photographing ordinary people in their daily environment. He is assigned a car and a driver, soldier O’Leary, who has just volunteered to join the army right at the end of the war.
The point of the narrator’s project is not clear, not even to himself. Perhaps he hopes that the scenes of ordinary life will displace the terrible sight of corpses piled on top of each other. Possibly, he is seeking to understand, through his camera, how ordinary Germans could have allowed the Nazi atrocities to take place. Perhaps it could be his way of seeking revenge. Certainly, the innocent request for a photograph sometimes takes ominous overtones, as when he insists on taking a picture of a young bride and groom despite their protests – it feels uncomfortably like a violation.
O’Leary unsuccessfully tries to prise from the narrator the purpose behind their mission. But he also has his own secrets. Chief amongst them is the question why, back in his hometown of Lowestoft, he preferred to sleep amongst the dunes rather than in his bed at home. The final scene, besides providing a satisfying coda to the narrative, hints at the answer.
I had a look at the reviews of the original French version and I was surprised at the low ratings given to this novel. It seems that readers’ reservations chiefly refer to the story’s vagueness. But that it is precisely what I liked about it. The Invisible Land is a poetic book, and like most poetry, it does not divulge its meanings easily. But there’s no denying the power of the novel’s images, which will haunt me for a long time: the narrator’s recurring dream of corpses under tarpaulins; a repast in an abandoned church with clouds scurrying across the window behind the altar; the car snaking its way along the river. In understated and elegant prose, brilliantly conveyed by translator Sam Taylor, The Invisible Land portrays a land of ravishing beauty, tainted by unspeakable crimes.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
As war novels go, this is a strange one, being set not during but in in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Its narrator is an English photographer placed with a battalion of Allied soldiers. Following the liberation of a concentration camp, the battalion settles at Dinslaken, in North-West Germany. The photographer, who cannot shake off the memory of the dead bodies in the concentration camp, asks leave to go on a strange mission around the surrounding countryside, photographing ordinary people in their daily environment. He is assigned a car and a driver, soldier O’Leary, who has just volunteered to join the army right at the end of the war.
The point of the narrator’s project is not clear, not even to himself. Perhaps he hopes that the scenes of ordinary life will displace the terrible sight of corpses piled on top of each other. Possibly, he is seeking to understand, through his camera, how ordinary Germans could have allowed the Nazi atrocities to take place. Perhaps it could be his way of seeking revenge. Certainly, the innocent request for a photograph sometimes takes ominous overtones, as when he insists on taking a picture of a young bride and groom despite their protests – it feels uncomfortably like a violation.
O’Leary unsuccessfully tries to prise from the narrator the purpose behind their mission. But he also has his own secrets. Chief amongst them is the question why, back in his hometown of Lowestoft, he preferred to sleep amongst the dunes rather than in his bed at home. The final scene, besides providing a satisfying coda to the narrative, hints at the answer.
I had a look at the reviews of the original French version and I was surprised at the low ratings given to this novel. It seems that readers’ reservations chiefly refer to the story’s vagueness. But that it is precisely what I liked about it. The Invisible Land is a poetic book, and like most poetry, it does not divulge its meanings easily. But there’s no denying the power of the novel’s images, which will haunt me for a long time: the narrator’s recurring dream of corpses under tarpaulins; a repast in an abandoned church with clouds scurrying across the window behind the altar; the car snaking its way along the river. In understated and elegant prose, brilliantly conveyed by translator Sam Taylor, The Invisible Land portrays a land of ravishing beauty, tainted by unspeakable crimes.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
January 1, 2021
I struggled to finish this small book. At the end of the 2nd ww a photographer and a young driver try to make some sense of the aimless bloody struggle by driving around Germany and meeting and photographing ordinary German people....that's it I could find no real deep meaning and found the storytelling somewhat bland.
August 30, 2020
The Horror! The Horror!
Here is another short novel by Hubert Mingarelli immaculately translated into English for the first time. Set immediately at the end of WW2 the protagonist is an English war photographer who has lately witnessed the Jewish death camps in defeated Germany. Perhaps as a means of reconciling himself to the horror he embarks on a car journey randomly through the countryside pausing only to photograph German families outside their homes. Can these seemingly normal, unaffected people be the same as those who perpetrated such cruelty and slaughter? If so, what does that say about the human condition?
Linked to the journey is the photographer’s young driver, a soldier who has arrived too late for action in the war and who cannot understand the point of the quest. The relationship between the two men is tense and equivocal. Of course it all ends with a violent act, as inevitable as the threatening storm evident throughout.
Here is another short novel by Hubert Mingarelli immaculately translated into English for the first time. Set immediately at the end of WW2 the protagonist is an English war photographer who has lately witnessed the Jewish death camps in defeated Germany. Perhaps as a means of reconciling himself to the horror he embarks on a car journey randomly through the countryside pausing only to photograph German families outside their homes. Can these seemingly normal, unaffected people be the same as those who perpetrated such cruelty and slaughter? If so, what does that say about the human condition?
Linked to the journey is the photographer’s young driver, a soldier who has arrived too late for action in the war and who cannot understand the point of the quest. The relationship between the two men is tense and equivocal. Of course it all ends with a violent act, as inevitable as the threatening storm evident throughout.
March 5, 2021
A matter of diminishing returns. A Meal in Winter five stars, Four Soldiers four stars, and then The Invisible Land one star -- a massive disappointment. In this novel, Mingarelli is just going through the motions. WWII again. A journey again. A lot of set pieces again. The group dynamics in novels one and two are slimmed down to a pair; and that is the start of the problem. Mingarelli cannot characterise in depth. An oblique style becomes blunt. I kept waiting for some terrible secret to emerge or some powerful denouement. Neither happened. All in all an invisible novella.
January 22, 2021
Es más un relato y carece de la fuerza necesaria
March 17, 2021
Si el libro El amargo sabor de la victoria de la escritora Lara Feigel nos muestra la visión de los escritores y artistas, quienes tras finalizar la guerra hicieron presencia en la devastada Alemania, donde ciudades fueron reducidas a polvo y donde las palabras ante el asombro el vocabulario se hacia repetitivo, monótono, porque ya el asombro topaba techo, en esta ocasión el libro a tratar nos cuenta los días posteriores a la guerra pero bajo la visión de un fotógrafo y quien se hacia acompañar de un soldado que se ofreció como voluntario para unirse al ejercito justo al final de la guerra.
La tierra invisible del novelista francés Hubert Mingarelly, quien recientemente nos dejo, ya en su haber había escrito varios libros con la temática ambientada en la guerra, y como es de suponer este libro no se queda atrás. Una novela corta, sencilla sin muchos enredos narrativos, nos cuenta como antes bien dije, la narración de un fotógrafo ingles y un soldado que estaban bajo el mando de un batallón de soldados aliados, los cuales estaban instalado en Dinslaken, en el noroeste de Alemania. Si de cosas que quedan en lo oculto del lenguaje, algo oculto hay en el fotógrafo, el cansancio que lo sacudía por las escenas de cadáveres en el campo de concentración, pide que se le asigne una misión, ir a fotografiar los campos circundantes, ver el campamiento de los alemanes tras terminar la guerra, y es aquí que se le asigna un vehículo y al soldado O’Leary. Entablan un lazo de compañerismo y compasión ante todo lo que ven y escucha de la gente a las cuales ellos abordan.
Ha sido un escritor, al cual algunos lectores no le ha gustado, porque que lo narrado al parecer no va a ninguna parte, y notan historias muy flojas, pero caber decir, que más allá de qué quiere hacer el narrador, esta lo lúgubre, el trauma y la complejidad que acarrea toda guerra, quien a través de la sutileza de las palabras, nos pone a reflexionar, que detrás hay muchas cosas que el narrador no quiso contar, sino que nos dejo la tarea descubrir las sobrias imágenes que no puede negar el poder detrás de esas imágenes de la novela. Un libro que se lee de un asentada donde cada palabra pesa, y no pesa porque la grandiosidad de la narrativa, sino por lo que hay detrás que no se quiere contar.
La tierra invisible del novelista francés Hubert Mingarelly, quien recientemente nos dejo, ya en su haber había escrito varios libros con la temática ambientada en la guerra, y como es de suponer este libro no se queda atrás. Una novela corta, sencilla sin muchos enredos narrativos, nos cuenta como antes bien dije, la narración de un fotógrafo ingles y un soldado que estaban bajo el mando de un batallón de soldados aliados, los cuales estaban instalado en Dinslaken, en el noroeste de Alemania. Si de cosas que quedan en lo oculto del lenguaje, algo oculto hay en el fotógrafo, el cansancio que lo sacudía por las escenas de cadáveres en el campo de concentración, pide que se le asigne una misión, ir a fotografiar los campos circundantes, ver el campamiento de los alemanes tras terminar la guerra, y es aquí que se le asigna un vehículo y al soldado O’Leary. Entablan un lazo de compañerismo y compasión ante todo lo que ven y escucha de la gente a las cuales ellos abordan.
Ha sido un escritor, al cual algunos lectores no le ha gustado, porque que lo narrado al parecer no va a ninguna parte, y notan historias muy flojas, pero caber decir, que más allá de qué quiere hacer el narrador, esta lo lúgubre, el trauma y la complejidad que acarrea toda guerra, quien a través de la sutileza de las palabras, nos pone a reflexionar, que detrás hay muchas cosas que el narrador no quiso contar, sino que nos dejo la tarea descubrir las sobrias imágenes que no puede negar el poder detrás de esas imágenes de la novela. Un libro que se lee de un asentada donde cada palabra pesa, y no pesa porque la grandiosidad de la narrativa, sino por lo que hay detrás que no se quiere contar.
July 23, 2021
Las distintas imágenes que plasma, como las fotografías que pretende captar el protagonista, no me han conmovido lo suficiente. Ni el retrato delos personajes, ni el reflejo de un momento convulso, ha llegado a mi del mismo modo que lo han conseguido otros que lo han conseguido otros autores.
Una pena, cuando lo vi en eBiblio me hizo mucha ilusión. Estas cosas pasan, supongo.
Una pena, cuando lo vi en eBiblio me hizo mucha ilusión. Estas cosas pasan, supongo.
February 11, 2021
Set in Dinslaken, Germany. July 1945. WW2 is over, and the allied forces are beginning to assess the situation and among them, is a war photographer who is reluctant to leave. In the company of a driver, he sets out to photograph ordinary German people in front of their homes.
Overall I was extremely disappointed with the story. It was a rather odd, quite short and I'm not sure it really portrayed the lives of those who were left behind after the war nor the photographer himself - at first I wasn't even sure the photographer was a man especially the way the colonel came into the room at night. Plus the story doesn't really go anywhere, it meanders along like the river they are following and occasionally stops to take a photograph of a family outside their home. We are given tit bits of why the driver doesn't want to return home but there is no real conclusion to it. Even the reason for wanting to take the photographs in the first place is not really explained.
The writing left a lot to be desired. There was one sentence (over 23 lines on my kindle version) that went on and on and on, and literally had eight ANDs and 3 BUTs in this single sentence! I don't know if this was the way it was translated or written but it was bad, such lack of full stops! There are also other places where it feels like the author is trying to throw in bits of description to make it a literary masterpiece, but they didn't add anything to the atmosphere or situation.
I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.
Overall I was extremely disappointed with the story. It was a rather odd, quite short and I'm not sure it really portrayed the lives of those who were left behind after the war nor the photographer himself - at first I wasn't even sure the photographer was a man especially the way the colonel came into the room at night. Plus the story doesn't really go anywhere, it meanders along like the river they are following and occasionally stops to take a photograph of a family outside their home. We are given tit bits of why the driver doesn't want to return home but there is no real conclusion to it. Even the reason for wanting to take the photographs in the first place is not really explained.
The writing left a lot to be desired. There was one sentence (over 23 lines on my kindle version) that went on and on and on, and literally had eight ANDs and 3 BUTs in this single sentence! I don't know if this was the way it was translated or written but it was bad, such lack of full stops! There are also other places where it feels like the author is trying to throw in bits of description to make it a literary masterpiece, but they didn't add anything to the atmosphere or situation.
I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.
May 4, 2021
A slight, impressionistic novella set in Germany at the end of the Second World War. Its power relies heavily on the impact of what is not said. A simple book which alludes to the many complex emotions and themes which would have been prevalent in those days. Possibly too oblique to make a lasting impression but certainly made me consider the stories of the characters, that were barely given shape (purposefully), while I was reading it.
August 2, 2022
Really not clear why this was short-listed for a prize! There is nothing exceptional about the writing, and the two main characters are far from pleasant, and spend the whole story wandering aimlessly around post-war Germany, sniping and grumbling at each other, without any real explanation of why.
Not a lot happens, then something happens (again, not clear why), then it ends, with no idea what happens to them.
Not a lot happens, then something happens (again, not clear why), then it ends, with no idea what happens to them.
April 17, 2024
this is really beautiful. slow, subtle, and does its job perfectly. this book really catches an idea i’ve always agreed with: that a people are not the same as their government. the people that the war photographer meets in this book are just that: people. they’re not these irrevocably evil caricatures. they’re just people who lived through an unbelievably difficult time and are trying to make it out the other side, often dealing with the trauma they’ve gathered along the way. our narrator, the war photographer, is dealing with his own similar traumas by fleeing from them through his work - which ultimately only leads him back to said trauma. at times, this book is almost painfully slow. it holds you in a moment with the photographer, and forces you to sit in it with him. even though it’s just shy of 150 pages, this is NOT an easy read - and it’s all the better for it.
April 8, 2021
‘I didn’t know why I stayed on.’
The voice belongs to our unnamed narrator, a war photographer. He is in Dinslaken, Germany, in 1945, and reluctant to return home. While the damage around him is being assessed, he sets out to photograph ordinary German people in front of their homes. He is assigned a driver, a young soldier named O’Leary, a car with some fuel and other provisions.
As they drive, seemingly aimlessly, from place to place, we learn that O’Leary, who came to late too do any fighting, is also reluctant to return home. The fighting may have finished, but the aftermath is all around them. German people, ordinary German people, trying to pick up their lives. Our narrator, who has no language in common with them (and often seems insensitive to their needs and feelings) directs them (through gestures). Not everyone agrees to be photographed.
I read on, wondering what it is that our narrator is looking for, what purpose will his photographs serve? I wonder too about O’Leary, about his reluctance to return home.
And then, just as I think their travels are about to conclude, with a family who have offered hospitality, I am jerked out of my complacency by a violent act. I had been lulled into a false sense of safety, with non-combatants at the end of a dreadful war. I am reminded, yet again, that violence exists outside war. I observe the ‘how’ but have no answer for the ‘why’, just sadness and regret for the fact and impact. I am left thinking.
‘We walked into the forest amid almost total darkness and when we came out again the stars, more numerous than above the clearing, guided us towards the road.’
I was sad, too, to learn that Hubert Mingarelli died earlier this year. I have read ‘A Meal in winter’ and ‘Four Soldiers’ and hope to read his other work as it is translated into English.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
The voice belongs to our unnamed narrator, a war photographer. He is in Dinslaken, Germany, in 1945, and reluctant to return home. While the damage around him is being assessed, he sets out to photograph ordinary German people in front of their homes. He is assigned a driver, a young soldier named O’Leary, a car with some fuel and other provisions.
As they drive, seemingly aimlessly, from place to place, we learn that O’Leary, who came to late too do any fighting, is also reluctant to return home. The fighting may have finished, but the aftermath is all around them. German people, ordinary German people, trying to pick up their lives. Our narrator, who has no language in common with them (and often seems insensitive to their needs and feelings) directs them (through gestures). Not everyone agrees to be photographed.
I read on, wondering what it is that our narrator is looking for, what purpose will his photographs serve? I wonder too about O’Leary, about his reluctance to return home.
And then, just as I think their travels are about to conclude, with a family who have offered hospitality, I am jerked out of my complacency by a violent act. I had been lulled into a false sense of safety, with non-combatants at the end of a dreadful war. I am reminded, yet again, that violence exists outside war. I observe the ‘how’ but have no answer for the ‘why’, just sadness and regret for the fact and impact. I am left thinking.
‘We walked into the forest amid almost total darkness and when we came out again the stars, more numerous than above the clearing, guided us towards the road.’
I was sad, too, to learn that Hubert Mingarelli died earlier this year. I have read ‘A Meal in winter’ and ‘Four Soldiers’ and hope to read his other work as it is translated into English.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 14, 2020
I requested this book after reading and enjoying A Meal in Winter. It follows an English photographer and his driver, O’Leary, in Germany at the end of the Second World War.
The photographer decides to take photos of ordinary German people outside their homes, though the reasons for this are unclear. After seeing the liberation of a concentration camp, it’s impossible not to wonder if it’s an attempt by the photographer to understand how people could allow such appalling war atrocities to take place. His anger seeps through during his requests for people to pose for his photos which are not always politely done.
The driver O’Leary has problems of his own. Only recently arrived in Germany, he isn’t well regarded by the rest of his regiment as he hasn’t seen action at the front. He also hints at issues at home that have deeply affected him and resulted in him sleeping rough in sand dunes.
It gives voice to the complexity of people’s experiences during the war and the effects it has on them. What I particularly enjoy about Mingarelli’s writing is the sparse and spare sentences, it’s like every word is weighed for it’s worth. He is also excellent at conveying a strong sense of landscape and setting. It’s a thought-provoking short novel and the reader is left with much to ponder about from what is said and what is left unsaid.
The photographer decides to take photos of ordinary German people outside their homes, though the reasons for this are unclear. After seeing the liberation of a concentration camp, it’s impossible not to wonder if it’s an attempt by the photographer to understand how people could allow such appalling war atrocities to take place. His anger seeps through during his requests for people to pose for his photos which are not always politely done.
The driver O’Leary has problems of his own. Only recently arrived in Germany, he isn’t well regarded by the rest of his regiment as he hasn’t seen action at the front. He also hints at issues at home that have deeply affected him and resulted in him sleeping rough in sand dunes.
It gives voice to the complexity of people’s experiences during the war and the effects it has on them. What I particularly enjoy about Mingarelli’s writing is the sparse and spare sentences, it’s like every word is weighed for it’s worth. He is also excellent at conveying a strong sense of landscape and setting. It’s a thought-provoking short novel and the reader is left with much to ponder about from what is said and what is left unsaid.
June 22, 2024
Țara invizibilă de Hubert Mingarelli (2019)
Aceasta este o carte ce a fost nominalizată în Franța la Prix Goncourt și, din păcate, ultimul roman al lui Mingarelli, care a murit un an mai târziu.
Romanul ne duce în iulie 1945 în Dinslaken, un mic oraș german la 50 de kilometri de granița cu Olanda. Armatele aliaților se pregătesc să se retragă, după ce au eliberat supraviețuitorii din lagăre și au executat o parte dintre naziști.
Cititorul descoperă lumea amorțită după război din perspectiva unui fotograf. Acesta, la fel ca majoritatea celor care descoperă grozăviile din lagăre, este profund afectat. Într-un lagăr rămâne incapabil să facă o singură fotografie, însă mintea sa înregistrează tot, deși nu poate procesa cele întâmplate. Fără să știe exact de ce, în loc să se pregătească de plecare alături de britanici, fotograful cere un șofer și o mașină pentru a pleca să vadă Germania și, mai ales, germanii obișnuiți, cei care locuiau și trăiau o viață normală în apropierea lagărelor.
„ -Nu înțeleg, ce vrei să spui?
- Oamenii din țara asta blestemată, Collins. Vreau să-i fotografiez în fața caselor lor.
- De ce?
- Încă nu știu. [...]
- Vrei să-i fotografiezi și nu știi de ce.
A zâmbit imperceptibil. Eu tăceam. A luat prosopul și și-a șters iar fruntea.
- Să știi că nu ai să vezi nimic. Sunt absolut convins. Ei sunt ce sunt, iar eu vreau să îi uit. ”
Cartea urmărește apoi această călătorie pe la ferme sau case din sate diverse unde fotograful ajunge pentru fotografiile sale formale. Comunicarea cu familiile este limitată, căci cei doi nu știu germana, iar localnicii devin prudenți în fața uniformelor călătorilor. Totul se reduce la interacțiuni primitive, natura este descrisă și observată cu perplexitate de călători, indiferentă la dramele umane, neinteresată de moralitate sau de coșmarurile cu cadavrele de sub prelate care îi invadează nopțile fotografului traumatizat.
Mingarelli scrie lapidar, explică puțin, lasă cititorul suspendat, pentru că de fapt, nu ai ce explica, nu ai cum face dreptate. Unele răni nu fac altceva decât să rănească mai departe. Dar, ceea ce reușește strălucit scriitorul este să redea o tensiune surdă și inexprimabilă, continuă și nevindecabilă, care nu poate fi depășită prin această călătorie în doi.
Aceasta este o carte ce a fost nominalizată în Franța la Prix Goncourt și, din păcate, ultimul roman al lui Mingarelli, care a murit un an mai târziu.
Romanul ne duce în iulie 1945 în Dinslaken, un mic oraș german la 50 de kilometri de granița cu Olanda. Armatele aliaților se pregătesc să se retragă, după ce au eliberat supraviețuitorii din lagăre și au executat o parte dintre naziști.
Cititorul descoperă lumea amorțită după război din perspectiva unui fotograf. Acesta, la fel ca majoritatea celor care descoperă grozăviile din lagăre, este profund afectat. Într-un lagăr rămâne incapabil să facă o singură fotografie, însă mintea sa înregistrează tot, deși nu poate procesa cele întâmplate. Fără să știe exact de ce, în loc să se pregătească de plecare alături de britanici, fotograful cere un șofer și o mașină pentru a pleca să vadă Germania și, mai ales, germanii obișnuiți, cei care locuiau și trăiau o viață normală în apropierea lagărelor.
„ -Nu înțeleg, ce vrei să spui?
- Oamenii din țara asta blestemată, Collins. Vreau să-i fotografiez în fața caselor lor.
- De ce?
- Încă nu știu. [...]
- Vrei să-i fotografiezi și nu știi de ce.
A zâmbit imperceptibil. Eu tăceam. A luat prosopul și și-a șters iar fruntea.
- Să știi că nu ai să vezi nimic. Sunt absolut convins. Ei sunt ce sunt, iar eu vreau să îi uit. ”
Cartea urmărește apoi această călătorie pe la ferme sau case din sate diverse unde fotograful ajunge pentru fotografiile sale formale. Comunicarea cu familiile este limitată, căci cei doi nu știu germana, iar localnicii devin prudenți în fața uniformelor călătorilor. Totul se reduce la interacțiuni primitive, natura este descrisă și observată cu perplexitate de călători, indiferentă la dramele umane, neinteresată de moralitate sau de coșmarurile cu cadavrele de sub prelate care îi invadează nopțile fotografului traumatizat.
Mingarelli scrie lapidar, explică puțin, lasă cititorul suspendat, pentru că de fapt, nu ai ce explica, nu ai cum face dreptate. Unele răni nu fac altceva decât să rănească mai departe. Dar, ceea ce reușește strălucit scriitorul este să redea o tensiune surdă și inexprimabilă, continuă și nevindecabilă, care nu poate fi depășită prin această călătorie în doi.
July 14, 2021
This book felt so similar to another of Mingarelli's books that I had read, Four Soldiers (see my review here) that I had to go back to check to see if it was a sequel, or whether indeed I was inadvertently re-reading a book I had read earlier. But no, this is a different book, dealing with soldiers from a different country, who have fought in a different war. The sameness of Mingarelli's probing of the effects of war on the men who fight is, in itself, a commentary on the universality and tragedy of war.
Once again, this is only a small book of 139 pages. It is set in the days of July 1945 in Germany, after the fighting has stopped. We know nothing of the war that the unnamed narrator, a British soldier, has had. But now, after being present after the liberation of a Nazi labour camp, he decides that he wants to photograph German families outside their homes.
...
I don't think that our narrator knows why he wants to take these photographs, and neither does O'Leary, who has been assigned as his driver. O'Leary is a young soldier, originally with the Signals Corps, who arrived to fight just as the war finished. He has his secrets too, but is unwilling to divulge them with the narrator. There is a dreamlike quality to their journey, but it's more like waking from a nightmare. Neither man pushes the other for any explanation, and so we as readers are none the wiser either. I'm not quite sure that I took the meaning from the ending, but it works well enough for me.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/07/14/...
Once again, this is only a small book of 139 pages. It is set in the days of July 1945 in Germany, after the fighting has stopped. We know nothing of the war that the unnamed narrator, a British soldier, has had. But now, after being present after the liberation of a Nazi labour camp, he decides that he wants to photograph German families outside their homes.
...
I don't think that our narrator knows why he wants to take these photographs, and neither does O'Leary, who has been assigned as his driver. O'Leary is a young soldier, originally with the Signals Corps, who arrived to fight just as the war finished. He has his secrets too, but is unwilling to divulge them with the narrator. There is a dreamlike quality to their journey, but it's more like waking from a nightmare. Neither man pushes the other for any explanation, and so we as readers are none the wiser either. I'm not quite sure that I took the meaning from the ending, but it works well enough for me.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/07/14/...
September 19, 2021
«fingiendo divertirse, creyendo que me ocultaba el odio ardiente que sentía hacia los alemanes, un odio mayor que el de sus hombres, que por su parte habían conseguido aliviarlo un poco matando a gran número de ellos, aun cuando se rendían.»
La Segunda Guerra Mundial ha terminado y en Dinslaken, una ciudad alemana ocupada por los aliados, un fotógrafo de guerra inglés se resiste a regresar a casa. Fue testigo de la liberación de uno de los campos de exterminio y las imágenes de la Guerra lo atormentan por las noches.
Ahora recorre aldeas fotografiando a la gente frente a sus hogares, tratando así de comprender, de individualizar al pueblo que consintió la barbarie nazi. El coronel al mando del regimiento, le proporciona un vehículo y un conductor, O’Leary, un joven recluta recién aterrizado en el continente que no vivió la sangrienta guerra. Ambos se adentran en un viaje de soledad y el silencio en una detallada geografía del infierno en la tierra.
Quizá sin ser tan brillante como su magistral ‘Una comida en inverno’, el escritor francés Hubert Mingarelli tiene la capacidad de plasmar paisajes como si fueran una fotografía y de abordar los estragos de la guerra sin ningún tipo de carga moral.
«”La guerra ha terminado”. Me entró un extraño escalofrío y, turbado, me dio la impresión de que él había dejado a su madre y las dunas de Lowestoft y atravesado el canal de la Mancha para decirme aquello allí, ante el riachuelo que corría mudo a nuestros pies.»
La Segunda Guerra Mundial ha terminado y en Dinslaken, una ciudad alemana ocupada por los aliados, un fotógrafo de guerra inglés se resiste a regresar a casa. Fue testigo de la liberación de uno de los campos de exterminio y las imágenes de la Guerra lo atormentan por las noches.
Ahora recorre aldeas fotografiando a la gente frente a sus hogares, tratando así de comprender, de individualizar al pueblo que consintió la barbarie nazi. El coronel al mando del regimiento, le proporciona un vehículo y un conductor, O’Leary, un joven recluta recién aterrizado en el continente que no vivió la sangrienta guerra. Ambos se adentran en un viaje de soledad y el silencio en una detallada geografía del infierno en la tierra.
Quizá sin ser tan brillante como su magistral ‘Una comida en inverno’, el escritor francés Hubert Mingarelli tiene la capacidad de plasmar paisajes como si fueran una fotografía y de abordar los estragos de la guerra sin ningún tipo de carga moral.
«”La guerra ha terminado”. Me entró un extraño escalofrío y, turbado, me dio la impresión de que él había dejado a su madre y las dunas de Lowestoft y atravesado el canal de la Mancha para decirme aquello allí, ante el riachuelo que corría mudo a nuestros pies.»
December 19, 2021
Nos encontramos al final de la II GM, en una alemania vencida y supervisada por los aliados británicos. La obra narra la historia de un fotógrafo que junto con un batallón militar liberan un campo de concentración. La guerra y el campo dejan huella en ellos y tratan de afrontar el conflicto como pueden.
El autor pretende dar profundidad al relato, a mi parecer y por desgracia, sin mucho éxito. El fotógrafo siente una necesidad de continuar en Alemania acabada la guerra, pero no sabe el porqué, por lo que un impulso interior lo lleva a fotografiar a aquellos que con su silencio complice han permitido la barbarie. Junto al protagonista hay otros personajes en el que la guerra ha dejado su huella aunque de forma diferente. A unos la guerra les ha traumatizado y ya no serán los mismos, mintras que a otros, es la ausencia de guerra la que les persigue, son los apestados que no comparten el relato y llegan cuando todo ha terminado.
Personalmente y como ya he dicho, la historia es un intento que se queda en eso, en intento. Si al menos fuese real tendría algún valor como testimonio, pero siendo una ficción, la historia no llega a conmover ni crear una sensación de vacio que invite a la reflexión, tampoco profundiza en las historias de aquellos en los que se van encontrando. Es una lectura amena y sirve para desconectar en un momento dado, pero no esperen mucho más de ella.
El autor pretende dar profundidad al relato, a mi parecer y por desgracia, sin mucho éxito. El fotógrafo siente una necesidad de continuar en Alemania acabada la guerra, pero no sabe el porqué, por lo que un impulso interior lo lleva a fotografiar a aquellos que con su silencio complice han permitido la barbarie. Junto al protagonista hay otros personajes en el que la guerra ha dejado su huella aunque de forma diferente. A unos la guerra les ha traumatizado y ya no serán los mismos, mintras que a otros, es la ausencia de guerra la que les persigue, son los apestados que no comparten el relato y llegan cuando todo ha terminado.
Personalmente y como ya he dicho, la historia es un intento que se queda en eso, en intento. Si al menos fuese real tendría algún valor como testimonio, pero siendo una ficción, la historia no llega a conmover ni crear una sensación de vacio que invite a la reflexión, tampoco profundiza en las historias de aquellos en los que se van encontrando. Es una lectura amena y sirve para desconectar en un momento dado, pero no esperen mucho más de ella.
October 23, 2020
A sparse and haunting novella set in Germany in the immediate aftermath of WW2. An unnamed British war photographer witnesses the horror of concentration camps and is unable to document what he sees or sleep at night. As British troops are leaving the area, he asks to stay on, driven by an almost obsessive need to photograph ordinary German families in front of their homes. He is given a car and a driver, O’Leary, a recent arrival from Sussex, also troubled by not actually seeing any fighting. The pair embark on an unsettling journey across an empty landscape, taking pictures of often unwilling Germans, avoiding storms, trying to comprehend what they have seen.
So much is left unsaid. With the protagonists barely able to process, let alone express what they have seen, Mingarelli uses landscape and the weather to signal the trauma and the complexity of the war. This is a subtle and thoughtful novella and also highly effective in what it omits. Excellent translation by Sam Taylor too.
Many thanks to Granta and Netgalley for the ARC.
So much is left unsaid. With the protagonists barely able to process, let alone express what they have seen, Mingarelli uses landscape and the weather to signal the trauma and the complexity of the war. This is a subtle and thoughtful novella and also highly effective in what it omits. Excellent translation by Sam Taylor too.
Many thanks to Granta and Netgalley for the ARC.
September 2, 2021
Hubert Mingarelli was a brilliant writer of short fiction and this is the third novel of his I read this year. His previous books, set during the Russian Civil War and the Second World War, tell simple stories of small groups of men, with the horror and violence of conflict mostly in the background. This book, set in Germany in the weeks following the Allied victory in 1945, is quite similar. It tells the story of a photographer who decides to take a road trip with a British army soldier. He has decided to take pictures of German families, posed in front of their homes. He never explains to his driver or to us why he is doing this; it is not clear if he knows himself. Though a very short book, it moves slowly as nothing much happens. The two men drive around, they eat their rations, they sleep in their car, they experience the weather, they meet a few Germans. It is the least interesting of the three Mingarelli books, but probably still worth reading as he’s always a thoughtful writer, full of compassion for his characters.
April 8, 2023
I was almost afraid to admit my failure to be moved by this very short novel, one review quoted on the back cover of my copy said:
"Mingarelli writes beautifully about companionship and compassion, his absorbing gentleness shot through with cruelty and trauma haunting this exquisite novel."
While I am not going to question Mingarelli's writerly qualities I must admit I found nothing exquisite here, no compassion, no comradeship. Maybe alienation but overall I just felt 'so what'? I don't know what he was trying to say or convey - I may be to dim but I remained totally unengaged, politely unengaged and also aware that it was hardly of a length to be abandoned and still comment on. I had read Marcel Beyer's 'The Karnau Tapes' immediately before reading 'The Invisible Land'. That is a book I would happily recommend to anyone and a book I would reread. Perhaps this choice of liking and disliking says something revealing about my failure to appreciate this works power and importance.
"Mingarelli writes beautifully about companionship and compassion, his absorbing gentleness shot through with cruelty and trauma haunting this exquisite novel."
While I am not going to question Mingarelli's writerly qualities I must admit I found nothing exquisite here, no compassion, no comradeship. Maybe alienation but overall I just felt 'so what'? I don't know what he was trying to say or convey - I may be to dim but I remained totally unengaged, politely unengaged and also aware that it was hardly of a length to be abandoned and still comment on. I had read Marcel Beyer's 'The Karnau Tapes' immediately before reading 'The Invisible Land'. That is a book I would happily recommend to anyone and a book I would reread. Perhaps this choice of liking and disliking says something revealing about my failure to appreciate this works power and importance.
July 23, 2023
This is a very strange book and I can’t say yet that I either fully understood or enjoyed it. In some ways it reminds me of what Elena Ferrante’s book was doing, but while that gave a very detailed look of a person’s inner life, this book is written with a more detached and vague perspective. However, what I think it does well is give a sense of the desolation and hopelessness that followed the end of WWII and the discovery of what people were capable of in the concentration camps. The author is haunted by what he has seen, but it’s frustrating that he never fully gets to grips with why he has gone on this strange journey. O’Leary is similarly haunted both by having arrived too late to help win the war, and what he has left behind at home, but I wanted a clearer sense of what was driving him. I also found it occasionally difficult to distinguish between the time leaps and dream sequences, and what was really happening.
But I do think this is deliberate - the book is meant to create an atmosphere and pose questions than give straight answers.
But I do think this is deliberate - the book is meant to create an atmosphere and pose questions than give straight answers.
July 29, 2022
I absolutely adored A Meal in Winter by this author, when I read it a few years ago, and this book was as wonderfully written as that was.
While not as focused on moral "dilemmas" as A Meal in Winter, it still addressed the nature of the human condition in times of war. Both the unnamed war photographer narrator and his driver, O'Leary, are in a kind of post-war limbo. They have their own demons to work through as they travel through Germany almost aimlessly - but under the guise of taking photographs of ordinary people rebuilding their lives.
Ordinarily I need lots of plot points and lots of "things" happening but this book is about the journey, the characters and the observations made by the author. And I loved it.
While not as focused on moral "dilemmas" as A Meal in Winter, it still addressed the nature of the human condition in times of war. Both the unnamed war photographer narrator and his driver, O'Leary, are in a kind of post-war limbo. They have their own demons to work through as they travel through Germany almost aimlessly - but under the guise of taking photographs of ordinary people rebuilding their lives.
Ordinarily I need lots of plot points and lots of "things" happening but this book is about the journey, the characters and the observations made by the author. And I loved it.
July 4, 2021
I have never read anything like this before. It's about a photographer who travels around in rural Germany just after WW2 taking photos of the ordinary people who live there. He is accompanied by a new recruit who is sensitive to cruelty due to his own upbringing. Ì didn't quite know what to make of it. It seemed to be about the photographer coming to terms with the horror of the war and the Holocaust.
I honestly think that this is a book that loses a lot in translation. It seems to be about deep feelings and emotions, but this doesn't come across very well.
I will read it again sometime to see if I can get more out of it. I did enjoy the setting and the descriptions.
I honestly think that this is a book that loses a lot in translation. It seems to be about deep feelings and emotions, but this doesn't come across very well.
I will read it again sometime to see if I can get more out of it. I did enjoy the setting and the descriptions.
May 21, 2022
Inside the hearts and minds of two soldiers - a moving story of the raw honesty they think and feel.
Yet here we are again in reality with so many wars continuing through out the world.
What have we truly learnt from history - nothing really for we repeat history continually but justify everything with such emotional Coercive control to few notice the behaviour played out in front of them
Wonderfully translated into English by Sam Taylor
So sad to read Hubert Mingarell has passed away in 2020
Yet here we are again in reality with so many wars continuing through out the world.
What have we truly learnt from history - nothing really for we repeat history continually but justify everything with such emotional Coercive control to few notice the behaviour played out in front of them
Wonderfully translated into English by Sam Taylor
So sad to read Hubert Mingarell has passed away in 2020
November 8, 2022
Another grim and devastating novel by the writer of a Meal in Winter. As the allies liberate Germany and in the days after the narrator, a photographer embarks on a mission of his own with a young, recently arrived soldier who drives him through rural defeated Germany. The impact of his recent experiences and images is at the core of this book and provides meaning to what at times feels meaningless
July 26, 2021
I love the late, great Hubert Mingarelli's prose style. It is so beautiful, so tender. Yet the Invisible Land, while just as mesmerisingly haunting as its predecessors, lacks a discernable plot. Perhaps it was on purpose - I suspect it was - but, for me, it failed to hook, failed to attach the reader to its characters, and failed to draw to a close an otherwise remarkable writing legacy.
December 17, 2020
By far the most meditative (or, less generously, uneventful) of Mingarelli's books to be translated into English, The Invisible Land is still a beautiful read from a true master of the short form. Was sad to see he died this year. But, hey, 2020... right?
June 7, 2021
A quiet, beautifully written novel in which nothing much happens. Two men drive around the German countryside immediately after the war, one a soldier, the other a photographer taking pictures of people outside their homes. A seamless translation from French by Sam Taylor
July 18, 2021
A quiet and interesting book. Not much happens, but there is a lot of emotion captured and I think it portrays the feelings at the end of a war very well. I didn't really understand the relationship between the men at all and some of the dialogue between them threw me off.
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