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A review by zefrog
L'ordre du jour by Éric Vuillard
4.0
(I read this book in the original French)
“Et ce qui étonne dans cette guerre, c'est la réussite inouïe du culot, dont on doit retenir une chose: le monde cède au bluff. Même le monde le plus sérieux, le plus rigide, même le vieil ordre, s'il ne cède jamais à l'exigence de justice, s'il ne plie jamais devant le peuple qui s'insurge, plie devant le bluff.”
"And the astonishing thing in this war is the incredible success of audacity, about which we must remember one thing: the world gives way to bluff. Even the most serious of worlds, the most rigid, even the old order, if it never gives in to the necessity of justice, if it never bows before a popular uprising, will bow before bluff." (p118 - my translation)
Although billed as "a tale", L'ordre du jour is in fact a satirical distillation of actual historical events. Using a 1933 fundraising meeting between industrialists and the then President of the Reichtag, Herman Goering, as bookends, most of the book focuses on the Anschluß of March 1938.
Using his emotional imagination and his obvious knowledge of what he describes, Vuillard, rather than providing us with yet another dry historical account of events and facts, zeros in on tiny details to build, seemingly inconsequential touch by seemingly inconsequential touch, a rich picture of a reality not as ineluctable as it generally appears.
With its pared-down, though sometimes poetic, language, the book is engrossing and highly readable. Although never mawkish or sentimental, one of Vuillard's aims is to make this personal; to flesh out the dry bones of history with relatability and emotions - something he manages beautifully.
There is also a palpable sense of indignation flowing just under the surface of Vuillard's narrative as he develops the themes of his thesis, which is that tiny oblivious compromises, deluded arrangements, and everyday cowardices can have disastrous consequences when responding to people not bound by expected rules of behaviour.
While he is clearly writing from the present, looking back, Vuillard doesn't make any explicit parallels with it. Yet his work has obvious resonances with the current rise of ethno-centric populism in various countries, and in particular with the UK, I think, where the accepted rules of political and moral life are being torn up by the charlatans in power and their friends in the press.
"The banality of evil" and "history written by the victors" have almost become clichés, these days, but the book provides a powerful illustration that they are indeed no such things.
“Et ce qui étonne dans cette guerre, c'est la réussite inouïe du culot, dont on doit retenir une chose: le monde cède au bluff. Même le monde le plus sérieux, le plus rigide, même le vieil ordre, s'il ne cède jamais à l'exigence de justice, s'il ne plie jamais devant le peuple qui s'insurge, plie devant le bluff.”
"And the astonishing thing in this war is the incredible success of audacity, about which we must remember one thing: the world gives way to bluff. Even the most serious of worlds, the most rigid, even the old order, if it never gives in to the necessity of justice, if it never bows before a popular uprising, will bow before bluff." (p118 - my translation)
Although billed as "a tale", L'ordre du jour is in fact a satirical distillation of actual historical events. Using a 1933 fundraising meeting between industrialists and the then President of the Reichtag, Herman Goering, as bookends, most of the book focuses on the Anschluß of March 1938.
Using his emotional imagination and his obvious knowledge of what he describes, Vuillard, rather than providing us with yet another dry historical account of events and facts, zeros in on tiny details to build, seemingly inconsequential touch by seemingly inconsequential touch, a rich picture of a reality not as ineluctable as it generally appears.
With its pared-down, though sometimes poetic, language, the book is engrossing and highly readable. Although never mawkish or sentimental, one of Vuillard's aims is to make this personal; to flesh out the dry bones of history with relatability and emotions - something he manages beautifully.
There is also a palpable sense of indignation flowing just under the surface of Vuillard's narrative as he develops the themes of his thesis, which is that tiny oblivious compromises, deluded arrangements, and everyday cowardices can have disastrous consequences when responding to people not bound by expected rules of behaviour.
While he is clearly writing from the present, looking back, Vuillard doesn't make any explicit parallels with it. Yet his work has obvious resonances with the current rise of ethno-centric populism in various countries, and in particular with the UK, I think, where the accepted rules of political and moral life are being torn up by the charlatans in power and their friends in the press.
"The banality of evil" and "history written by the victors" have almost become clichés, these days, but the book provides a powerful illustration that they are indeed no such things.