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During the German advance through Belgium into France in 1940, Captain de Reixach is shot dead by a sniper. Three witnesses, involved with him during his lifetime in different capacities - a distant relative, an orderly and a jockey who had an affair with his wife - remember him and help the reader piece together the realities behind the man and his death. A groundbreaking work, for which Claude Simon devised a prose technique mimicking the mind's flexible thought processes, "The Flanders Road" is not only a masterpiece of stylistic innovation, but also a haunting portrayal - based on a real-life incident - of the chaos and savagery of war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The best book about war I've ever read.
This novel is a bit as if the Virginia Woolf of "Mrs Dalloway" had written a book about wartime France. (Of course this is a ludirous comparison, but it might give you an idea what the book is like). Its sentences have neither beginning nor end, just like the nightmarish ride ofdisoriented soldiers in the spring of 1940. They keep riding through thecold, the dark and the rain for days and nights on end - only to beattacked and wiped out within a matter of seconds. - Of course war is notall there is about this book, but its depiction was what I could neverforget since I first read it.

A phenomenal experience
With the possible exception of The Georgics, this is Simon's greatest work.It is hard to describe the experience of reading this book.It's difficult going, and exhausting to read more than 15-20 pages at a time,but the effect is like going into a deep trance.There are only three orfour episodes, repeated over and over in different ways, throughout thebook, but the true subject matter, sex and death (really), is presentedthrough these events so as to make the reader feel these situations in adifferent way.This is the essence of the nouveau roman style for Simon -less formally structured than Robbe-Grillet, and more emotional.

If you are not a sharp reader stay away...
I would never say this is for everyone, but if you have come this far not by mistake (as in you have some idea who Claude Simon is, an interest in french literature or the new novel in particular) I advise you to go thenext mile and actually read it. I find Simon to be one of the moreaccessible artists of the new novel era in France( no matter whether you orthe author wish to quibble over whether he belongs to this group). Thereworking that Simon gives to the concepts of narrative structure are notso avant-garde as say Robbe-Grillet and I believe the style of The FlandersRoad can easily be appreciated even by those who disdain so-called highbrow writing. The reason for this could be that in its plots,situations andcharacters Simon is anything but high brow. The roaming eye style of hisnarrative is not just a purely theoretical or philosophising device(although it is this subtly) it is also an aesthetic device that isenriching of what might be classified as a thin plot - if you were onlydrawn to reading by plots. No what Simon does here is take a narrativeabout a young man in war (the Second world war) serving (albeit only fow afew days or weeks) in a cavalry unit that is drawn into the chaotic retreatof the fiasco that was Frances defense against the blitzkrieg. Simon drawsyou into the atmosphere of this experience and does not leave you outsidethe construction of order but requires you to piece together the words intoeach readers own interpretation.I advise you to linger on this work,appreciate it for what it is not what you expect of a war novel. Let yourmind wander with the words which is just what Simon intends. I myselflovingly returned to it day after day taking a page or twenty at a timeover a cup of tea in the sunshine or under overcast skies. ... Read more

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novel, tr Helen R Lane ... Read more

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Rare detail of the horror of War.
This book takes you from a battlefield search for a father. The trenches of World War 1 France,to the same battlefield with the son now in the same trenches. Written thru the eyes of the young man as he sees it: and how his mind processes the horror it sees. This is a masterpiece,for its brutal truth of the simple horrors of war. The blood, the barren waste,the lost dog,and the lost and angry men. Why are the politicians not here,he asks.And even now thru war one still wonders. This book cuts no slake and does not make war noble or great..It is horror written from the minds eye of the Hero. ... Read more

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Claude Simon: Adventures in Words is designed to introduce Simon, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985, to new readers by setting his novels in the context of literary critical debate in France over the last 50 years. Most emphasis is given to peaks in Simon's achievement: The Flanders Road' (1960), The Georgics (1981) and The Acacia (1989). This expanded edition also includes a new chapter on Simon's most recent works, The Jardin des Plantes (1997), and The Tramway (2001).
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Minor stuff from Simon
A very late novel from "New Novel" hero and Nobel Prize-winner Claude Simon (b. 1913), this is a barely fictionalized account of his trip to Russia in the final days of the Soviet empire.Despite some pointed criticisms of Communism--the author is far from being a "fellow traveler"--this is definitely second-tier Simon; it lacks the scale of his earlier masterpieces and the prose is less fluid (though here I may simply be missing the able hand of long-time Simon translator Richard Howard).The subject matter is also unfortunate; the novel already feels a little dated, and that certainly cannot be said for "The Wind," which made Simon's reputation back in the late '50s and stands as one of the best French novels of the past fifty years.I can recommend "The Invitation" only to interested readers who may want to try out Claude Simon without plunging into his longer (and better) books--this novel is, at least, too short to overstay its welcome.

mesmerizing
Claude Simon's style can be described most briefly as mostly commas.While this hints at the challenge, it fails to reveal the rewards.Wend your way through this field of phrases and you'll soon notice that eachcontains a pearl of beautifully crafted thought.Let the images patterpast you like a rain of notes from Phillip Glass and the vision of ahorribly broken, flawed, terrifying system of lies, lies, lies, formsbefore you.As the limousine-load of dignitaries is dragged blearilythrough a series of limping staged functions by a crowd of strenuouslyposturing diplomats who have never heard of their guests but seem vaguelyaware of their importance, behind the droning, endless speeches you canhear the mechanism of evil chattering insanely to itself.Behind thesoftly turning leaves you can see bland, vainglorious promenades blithelyslathered across the bleak, silent steppes.It is the literary counterpartof Shostakovich's fifth symphony. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Paragraph breaks are good
Claude Simon, Conducting Bodies (Grove, 1971)
availability: out of print, listed at Amazon, a number of copies available at bookfinder.com

Have you ever read a 191-page paragraph?

Okay, ifthat doesn't put you off, how about a 191-page paragraph that switches backand forth from scene to scene with no warning? Okay, with a littlewarning.

Claude Simon's Conducting Bodies is an experiment in memory,I think. Simon uses a number of catchphrases (the "conductingbodies" of the title) to alert the reader to upcoming scnee changes.Often, a scene changes in the middle fo the action and will be picked upagain later; sometimes a hundred pages or so later. There are no divisionsof any sort; no chapters, no paragraphs, no nothing. If there weren'tsentence breaks I'd have had to try and read the whole thing at onesitting.

It's possible that this is actually a work of genius. Afterall, Simon did win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1985, and I assume thecommittee had a reason for giving it to him. And maybe I just wasn't payingclose enough attention. And, to be fair, as things weaved in and out, Ifound I was able to keep track of the threads without actually expendingtime on doing do; Simon would pick up a thread again he'd left off ten orfifteen pages before and I had no problem remembering what had been goingon at the time. But this is a very tiring book, not only because of theattention it commands but also because of the simple visual conceit ofhaving no breaks anywhere on the page, line after line after full line ofunbroken text. And it's headache-inducing after a while. I kept going tosee if anything would tie all these different threads in in the end, and Iguess that's something, too. But without anything to seize upon, theever-falling rain of images gets to be too much. Things CAN be too sweet. *

Simon's literary canvas
How can you write a story that doesn't have a plot? Well, many readers might say that it wouldn't be a story, but an observation. The author would be showing instances in life at random; meaning wouldn't be implicit, butimplied. This type of experimental writing is sometimes boring anddifficult. Occasionally, though, a good writer is able to make a difficultwork accessible. Claude Simon's Conducting Bodies, for example, is adifficult work, but its structureand overall technique give the readersomething that many so-called conventional novels lack. This type of novelwould be a challenge to write, considering that you don't have the luxuryof a well-defined plot to fall back on; the words and images must becompelling enough to capture the reader's attention without the aid oftraditional narrative devices. What is the work about? That's hard to say,since there isn't a story like those we are accustomed to seeing. Thenovel's appeal, however, is in its fragments pieced together without theaid of chapters or paragraphs. The most difficult aspect of getting into awork like this is that the reader has to suspend his reliance onconventional storytelling devices. Moving from image to image, the novelpresents more of a canvas than a "story."Conducting Bodies is somethingof a literary painting. Changing from one scene or image to the next, itpresents a literary collage, showing how art can transcend from one levelto the next. Conducting Bodies is well worth the reader's effort. ClaudeSimon didn't win the Nobel Prize just because he is a good guy. his writingis strong and meaningful. If anyone is willing to take a chance to explorenew directions in literature, this is a good place to start. ... Read more

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novel, tr Beryl & Jo ... Read more

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Unforgettable descriptions of war in a barely-read masterpiece
To me, this is Simon's greatest novel alongside "The Flanders Road." It's been almost twenty years since I read it, but I still remember the powerful way in which he describes war. The other aspect that stands out is the way he spans across generations, including even a character obviously inspired by George Orwell, during his years fighting in the Spanish Civil war. But the part I loved the most was the general's letters to his servant Batti. They provided the perfect emotional counterpoint to the war scenes. Simon's style is challenging, as always, and it may take you more than one attempt to get "into" the book. It usually does for me when I read Simon, but I almost always feel deeply gratified by the end. The implications of his endings can leave you reeling.

He's never really caught on with literate English-language readers the way he should. It's a shame, because he was one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.

excellent, but...
Simon's style takes some getting used to and a great deal of patience and concentration by the reader. Persistence pays off with insights into the waste and uselessness of war, not a book for those interested in a just agood read. ... Read more

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Obscure masterpiece
This is the sort of experimental novel that you can recommend to others only at your own peril. By way of illustrating my point, I will now quote one of the shorter sentences from "The Wind" (tr. Richard Howard): "I remember how the wind blew almost continuously for three months, so that when it did stop (a few hours or a few days--but never more than two or three) you thought you could still hear it, wild and wailing, not outdoors but somehow inside your own head: voices emptied of meaning, nothing but noise and, so it seemed, dust--the dust that penetrated everywhere, insinuated itself under your burning eyelids, in your mouth, communicating its taste to the things you ate, interposing between the skin of your fingertips and what they took hold of (papers left on the desk the day before, plates, napkins) that haunting, imperceptible, granular film." Still with me? "The Wind" is a lovely 254 page prose-poem, a long, sad sigh of a book. There is a story here--it deals with the pitful, tragic life of one Antoine Montes--but narrative is secondary to Simon's lyrical stream-of-consciousness prose, which at its best achieves an elemental beauty you seldom find in fiction. The appeal of this book is sensuous, not intellectual; you need not even have to follow the serpentine storyline to appreciate this novel. Parts of it can be frustratingly mystifying, but it isn't terribly difficult to read once you have become accustomed to Simon's lush prose. It really is a beautiful book. For those who keep track of these things, Claude Simon won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Literature. ... Read more