A vigorous and pacily written appeal for social justice, using the various Peasants' Revolt type struggles of the Middle Ages, sometimes rooted in religious fanaticism to make its points. His focus is the life and times of Thomas Müntzer, German preacher and theologian, for whom even the likes of Martin Luther were too Establishment. In a mere 60 pages, he conjures the atmosphere of discontent of the peasantry with the oppression and poverty which was their lot. This, rather than any real religious fanaticism was behind the revolt he championed. It was a fight that could not be won, and in vigorous, emotionally wrought poetic language, Vuillard tells the tale of what he sees as one of history's great injustices. ( )

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, which describes itself as for "the finest fiction from around the world, translated into English." Leaving aside "finest", is this fiction? We have a very well known model for this sort of thing, it's been around since 430 B.C. - Herodotus' "Histories". Herodotus blended fact, myth, and narrative, he related facts and told stories, and gave us a fantastic picture of the worlds he described. Despite controversy over the nature and veracity of his work from the very beginning, he has still earned the name "father of history". Should we give him a Nobel Prize for Fiction in recognition of his fine work? Probably not. (Ok, he’s dead, for one, which violates a Nobel guideline, and technically it’s a Literature not Fiction prize, but bear with.) Herodotus wouldn't have considered what he was doing as writing fiction, and similarly I don't think what Vuillard is doing here is writing fiction either. I'm against this attempt to poach it from historiography.

Going back to "finest", now. Well, it's very short, half the size of what I'd consider a novella. So that's a strike. In terms of plot and character development, well, how much can you do in such a short space. It's necessarily impressionistic, but I will say that it makes a strong impression. It gets across a history of peasant uprisings and the resulting slaughter of said peasants forcefully, and it leaves a forceful impression of its central character of Thomas Müntzer, all thanks in large part to the impassioned and colloquial language the translator (and I assume Vuillard himself) use. This passage, for instance, impresses me:

Something terrible inhabits him, agitates him. He is enraged. He wants the rulers' skins, he wants to sweep away the church, he wants to gut all those bastards. But maybe he doesn't know this yet, and for the moment he is choking it down. He wants to put an end to all that pomp and miserable circumstance. Vice and wealth devastate him; their conjunction devastates him. He wants to inspire fear. The difference between Müntzer and Hus is that Müntzer is thirsty, hungry and thirsty, terribly hungry and thirsty, and nothing can sate him, nothing can slake his thirst. He'll devour old bones, branches, stones, mud, milk, blood, fire. Everything.

Language like that will keep me turning pages, for sure. Literary language that shakes its closed fist, that spits with zeal and menace and urgency, something like a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song from back in the day. In fact, yeah, I love that analogy. "I'm your Loverman," Müntzer threatens. And he's waiting outside your door, you German princes, and he's bucking and braying and pawing at the floor, and he's howling with pain, and he's shouting your name and asking for more. Insert crunching guitar noise here. ( )

Éric Vuillard - [La Guerre des Pauvres]
This is an essay published in book form, covering 68 pages of text. Vuillard studied under the influence of the french philosopher Jacques Derrida which may account for this history of Thomas Müntzer staying close to known facts. He for the most part leaves it for the reader to make his/her own interpretations.

Thomas Müntzer 1489-1525 was a German preacher and theologian who became the leader of a popular uprising now known as the German Peasants' war. He was captured after the battle of Frankenhausen 1525 tortured and executed. Vuillard links this with earlier peasants revolts in England: Wat Tyler led the revolt in 1381 with his associate John Ball. There are similarities in that the revolt of the poor and oppressed took the nobility by surprise. However once the powerful men at arms realised that their very existence was under threat they reorganised and easily thwarted the revolt and showed little mercy to the defeated peasants. Another similarity was that John Ball was a fiery orator, a preacher in the mould of Müntzer who stirred up religious zeal which was a factor in leading the revolt. Jack Cade's revolt in 1450 which was again perceived as a reflection of social, political and economic issues is also described.

Vuillard tells of Müntzer's early life as a radical theologian and his allegiance with Martin Luther. His vehement preaching from the pulpit, which found favour locally, but led to a series of enforced moves. His break from the influence of Luther who he claimed had lost his way and become complaisant with the powerful magnates, led him to forge his own path. Müntzer's zeal was based on his idea that God about to overturn the natural order of things and when he preached this to the nobility he found little favour. There is no direct evidence that Müntzer was the leader at the battle of Frankenhausen, but Vuillard describes the battle as though he was there.

Vuillard matter of factly tells of Müntzers imprisonment and final beheading. He wonders what the local tradesmen saw who attended the execution. They saw the little man (Münzer was small in stature) who carried the burdens of the world on his shoulder, whose head became separated from his body. Vuillard does not ask himself what they thought only tells us what they saw. He concludes his essay with:

"Martyrdom is a trap for those who are oppressed, only victory is desirable. I will tell it."

Vuillard links events to a certain extent to re-emphasise the issues raised in his essay, but leaves the reader to do the thinking. 3 stars. ( )

This book tells the story of Thomas Müntzer and his role in Germany's Peasant War of 1525. It connects his story to a number of other peasant uprisings in the decades leading up to the Reformation.

This very short book was a disappointment since it told little more than one would find in an ordinary encyclopedia article on the Peasant War or on Thomas Müntzner. ( )

very short piece, sentences clipped the one arresting bit is near the end describing corporate donors to nazi party: "But to truly understand the meeting of February 20, 1933, to grasp its everlasting import, we must now call these men by their real names. It was not Günther Quandt, Wilhelm von Opel, Gustav Krupp, and August von Finck who were present that late afternoon, in the palace of the President of the Reichstag. We must use other designations. For 'Günther Quandt' is a cryptonym; it masks something very different from the corpulent gentleman slicking down his mustache and sitting quietly in his seat around the table of honor. Close behind him is a rather more imposing silhouette, a tutelary shadow, as cold and impervious as a stone statue. Yes, hovering in all its fierce, anonymous power above Quandt and making him look stiff as a mask (but a mask that fits his face more closely than his own skin), we can see Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG, later called Varta—for as we know, legal entities have their avatars, just as ancient divinities took various forms and occasionally absorbed other divinities."