Status
Available
Publication
New York, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy [1957]
Description
Set in the Baltic provinces in the aftermath of World War I, "Coup de Grace" tells the story of an intimacy that grows between three young people hemmed in by civil war: Erick, a Prussian fighting with the White Russians against the Bolsheviks; Conrad, his best friend from childhood; and Sophie, whose unrequited love for Conrad becomes an unbearable burden.
User reviews
LibraryThing member richardderus
The Book Report: Told in the first person past perfect, this tale of three young people caught in a highly hormonal passage of their lives at the same moment as the Russian Revolution overthrows the privileged existences they'd led until that time purports to be the memory of Erick von Lhomond as
My Review: récit (French: “narrative” or “account”) a brief novel, usually with a simple narrative line; studiedly simple but deeply ironic tales in which the first-person narrator reveals the inherent moral ambiguities of life by means of seemingly innocuous reminiscences.
It's a very French narrative form, is the récit, the novella's Goth cousin, all chains and weird makeup effects and scary-looking hair. It's perfect for telling this sort of moralizing by a man with no morals tale, and there aren't that many English-language writers willing to do this without oodles of padding and the crutch of multiple characters. Yourcenar, whose Memoirs of Hadrian lives as one of my all-time favorite reads, tackled this difficult task in 1939, before WWII's official starting gun. She was quite clearly aware that war was inevitable and imminent, and wrote this tale as a protest against the further damage inevitable in a war.
The ending of the book, stark and violent and horrfying, sums up the expectations of this Belgian survivor of the First World War, and they were not in the least bit too dark or pessimistic.
I found the casual, unremarked-on anti-Semitism of the book jarring. I know it was a part of the culture Yourcenar lived in, but it hasn't aged well. I wasn't very impressed with the narrator's casual, caddish sexuality either...Conrad could certainly have done better, and Sophie's awakening has such tragic consequences that it makes one doubt the sanity of the child (she's sixteen to Conrad's and Erick's twenty during the brief span covered by this book).
Recommended? Well, on the whole, no. It's not a casual book, and it would offer too few thrills for most people in the modern audience. For me, I'm glad I read it, but I won't re-read it ever.
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he sits in a train station cafe, on his way to who knows where after his career as a soldier of fortune has led to a wounding in the Spanish Civil War then newly ended. Erick recalls his love for sibling aristos Conrad and Sophie, children of the Count of Reval, and his cousins. Sophie falls in love with him; he and Conrad are already involved. Triangle collapses, the two siblings die, and cowardly, contemptible Erick soldiers on. It's all in the hows, as life so often is when one is young; now, in the fullness of his wasted years, Erick is seeing the whys, and they're keeping him up nights. And not a moment too soon, ask me.My Review: récit (French: “narrative” or “account”) a brief novel, usually with a simple narrative line; studiedly simple but deeply ironic tales in which the first-person narrator reveals the inherent moral ambiguities of life by means of seemingly innocuous reminiscences.
It's a very French narrative form, is the récit, the novella's Goth cousin, all chains and weird makeup effects and scary-looking hair. It's perfect for telling this sort of moralizing by a man with no morals tale, and there aren't that many English-language writers willing to do this without oodles of padding and the crutch of multiple characters. Yourcenar, whose Memoirs of Hadrian lives as one of my all-time favorite reads, tackled this difficult task in 1939, before WWII's official starting gun. She was quite clearly aware that war was inevitable and imminent, and wrote this tale as a protest against the further damage inevitable in a war.
The ending of the book, stark and violent and horrfying, sums up the expectations of this Belgian survivor of the First World War, and they were not in the least bit too dark or pessimistic.
I found the casual, unremarked-on anti-Semitism of the book jarring. I know it was a part of the culture Yourcenar lived in, but it hasn't aged well. I wasn't very impressed with the narrator's casual, caddish sexuality either...Conrad could certainly have done better, and Sophie's awakening has such tragic consequences that it makes one doubt the sanity of the child (she's sixteen to Conrad's and Erick's twenty during the brief span covered by this book).
Recommended? Well, on the whole, no. It's not a casual book, and it would offer too few thrills for most people in the modern audience. For me, I'm glad I read it, but I won't re-read it ever.
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LibraryThing member goodmanbrown
(Big spoilers in the first, summary paragraph.)
Erick is a young soldier fighting against the Bolshevicks during a period of civil war in Lithuania. Conrad, his best friend since childhood, fights alongside him. Sophie, Conrad's sister, is in love with Erick. The three of them live together, along
The first two thirds of the book are dense, and deep in the narrator's mind. Erick spends pages analyzing his own reactions to small events that happen in their house, and the memories these events trigger. He looks at his relationships with Conrad and Sophie in a variety of lights, always worried that he's misunderstanding his own motives. This dense, almost solipsistic style makes for slow reading. But when the action starts, in the last third of the book, we realize that it's payed off, and we have a much deeper understanding of Erick's character than is typical of even much longer novels.
My edition (Noonday Press) includes prefatory comments by Yourcenar that are worth reading. Her writing is very deliberate, and her analysis of Erick's character, and how she went about developing it through his own voice, is fascinating. She is an extreme example of a control-the-smallest-detail writer, and it's neat to be able to see her discuss her own approach.
Erick is a young soldier fighting against the Bolshevicks during a period of civil war in Lithuania. Conrad, his best friend since childhood, fights alongside him. Sophie, Conrad's sister, is in love with Erick. The three of them live together, along
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with a bunch of other exhausted soldiers, in a bombed-out house in a war-torn town. Erick narrates a period during which the stress of the fighting, and of Sophie's unrequited love, and divided loyalties of various sorts, tear apart the trio of friends. Sophie flees to join the Bolshevics. Soon after, Conrad is wounded and dies in Erick's arms. In the final scene, almost too horrific to be effective, Erick's unit captures a group of Bolshevics, Sophie among them. The White Russians undertake to execute their prisoners (as was, apparently, the standard practice at the time). Sophie, out of love or revenge, asks that Erick be the one to shoot her, and he agrees.The first two thirds of the book are dense, and deep in the narrator's mind. Erick spends pages analyzing his own reactions to small events that happen in their house, and the memories these events trigger. He looks at his relationships with Conrad and Sophie in a variety of lights, always worried that he's misunderstanding his own motives. This dense, almost solipsistic style makes for slow reading. But when the action starts, in the last third of the book, we realize that it's payed off, and we have a much deeper understanding of Erick's character than is typical of even much longer novels.
My edition (Noonday Press) includes prefatory comments by Yourcenar that are worth reading. Her writing is very deliberate, and her analysis of Erick's character, and how she went about developing it through his own voice, is fascinating. She is an extreme example of a control-the-smallest-detail writer, and it's neat to be able to see her discuss her own approach.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
This short novel by Marguerite Yourcenar is a first-person narrative is constructed like a classical tragedy; thus it is severely limited in time, place, and action. Erick von Lhomond, an elegant soldier of fortune approaching forty as the story begins, recalls an episode connected with his youth.
In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Erick returns to Kratovitsy as a Prussian-trained officer fighting in the White Russian army and determined to stop the advance of Bolshevik forces in the Baltic states. He serves with his boyhood friend Conrad and eventually arranges to be billeted at Kratovitsy. Unfortunately war has brought a general neglect to the once excellently managed estate. He notices changes in his feelings for Sophie; her kiss makes him determined to view her as the sister he never had.
Erick does not love Sophie; rather, he views her as he sees himself, as a creature degraded by their circumstances. Sophie does not understand the complex workings of Erick’s mind, and he never is willing, perhaps is not even able, to describe his feelings for her. She is puzzled and embarrassed when Erick does not respond to her advances; even so, she realizes that he never rejects her, merely that he does not respond. She cannot understand why Erick misses no opportunity to belittle her and is puzzled by the oblique ways he chooses to do this, registering his disgust when she wears clothing he does not think appropriate, when she dances with officers stationed at Kratovitsy.
Their fates nevertheless remain hopelessly entwined, and Yourcenar mercilessly leads Erick to the story's inevitable, horrible conclusion. Each has, in a sense, the upper hand; each does what is necessary -- but the result is, of course, the complete destruction of both these human beings. There's little grace to the final, shattering coup de grâce.
This is very much an anti-romantic tale and with the war setting and has a determinedly dark atmosphere. However, Yourcenar's writing and the tight structure of the short novel combine to make this another great read from her pen.
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Though the story begins in Italy as Erick is waiting to return to Germany after having been wounded at Zaragoza (presumably in the Spanish Civil War), the entire focus of his story remains on his experience in the Baltic regions of Livonia and Kurland as the Bolshevik army approaches Kratovitsy, the estate of his cousin and boyhood friend, Conrad de Reval. Erick briefly recounts his first visit to Kratovitsy. He is innocent in every sense of the word, little more than a boy, and the place seems an Edenic paradise while he and Conrad become close friends. Sophie, on the other hand, is nothing more than a distraction.In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Erick returns to Kratovitsy as a Prussian-trained officer fighting in the White Russian army and determined to stop the advance of Bolshevik forces in the Baltic states. He serves with his boyhood friend Conrad and eventually arranges to be billeted at Kratovitsy. Unfortunately war has brought a general neglect to the once excellently managed estate. He notices changes in his feelings for Sophie; her kiss makes him determined to view her as the sister he never had.
Erick does not love Sophie; rather, he views her as he sees himself, as a creature degraded by their circumstances. Sophie does not understand the complex workings of Erick’s mind, and he never is willing, perhaps is not even able, to describe his feelings for her. She is puzzled and embarrassed when Erick does not respond to her advances; even so, she realizes that he never rejects her, merely that he does not respond. She cannot understand why Erick misses no opportunity to belittle her and is puzzled by the oblique ways he chooses to do this, registering his disgust when she wears clothing he does not think appropriate, when she dances with officers stationed at Kratovitsy.
Their fates nevertheless remain hopelessly entwined, and Yourcenar mercilessly leads Erick to the story's inevitable, horrible conclusion. Each has, in a sense, the upper hand; each does what is necessary -- but the result is, of course, the complete destruction of both these human beings. There's little grace to the final, shattering coup de grâce.
This is very much an anti-romantic tale and with the war setting and has a determinedly dark atmosphere. However, Yourcenar's writing and the tight structure of the short novel combine to make this another great read from her pen.
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LibraryThing member oparaxenos
I found this book very disappointing. I expected a story about the post-WWI chaos in what is now Latvia, and all I got was a rather convoluted love story that dominated the entire book. In effect, there are only two characters, and neither of them is very well developed in the course of the book.
Original publication date
1939
Physical description
151 p.; 21 cm
Local notes
fiction