This extraordinary story came my way via a mention of it in Caroline Moorehead's A Train in Winter. The Silence of the Sea is a novel of the French Resistance, written and published underground during the German Occupation. I read it in French in a bilingual edition that came with additional features:

• Preface and Acknowledgements, by James W Brown


• Historical Introduction, by Lawrence D Stokes


• Literary Introduction, by James W Brown


• La Silence de la mer (30 pages, including footnotes)


• The Silence of the Sea (27 pages), translation by Cyril Connolly


• Select bibliography

The Introductions make the significance of this short story clear. "Vercors" chose to characterise the German officer billeted in a French home as a handsome, aristocratic, sophisticated and genial man, respectful of French culture and traditions. The point was to show Occupied France that no matter how congenial the occupiers might seem in the early stages, they were invaders who did not share the same culture and values. It was easy to detest hateful, violent, brutish Germans, but the gentlemanly types represent an insidious threat that must also be resisted. The story shows a non-violent form in which even the weakest can express that resistance.

There are just three characters, and only one of them speaks. There is the unnamed narrator, his unnamed niece, and the German officer, Werner von Ebrennac. Ebrennac's arrival is marked by courtesy: he introduces himself and apologises for his presence. He hopes his presence will not inconvenience them. But he is met with total silence, a silence that is maintained throughout his sojourn of over a year. They do not respond to his knocks on the door, and they sit in dignified silence when in the evening he comes into the room where the narrator reads and the niece does her handiwork. The entire story consists of the narrator's observations and Ebrennac's attempts at conversation, with which he persists in good humour even after he has learned the rules by which this silence is maintained.

Vercors makes a point of making explicit the differences between Germany and France. They do not share the same culture and values. When Ebrennac discovers the shelves of French literature he goes into raptures about how many eminent authors there are. If I hadn't read German Literature, a Very Short Introduction, I might have thought that this was just French hubris, but it's true that there's only one great name in German literature that springs to mind, and that's Goethe. As the VSI explains, political and economic aspects of German history were not conducive to the emergence of literary fiction that took place in the 18th, 19th centuries and early 20th century in England, Russia and France. Ebrennac attributes it, however, to the climate. The winter in France, he says, as he warms himself by the fire, is nothing compared to winter in Germany. There, people have to be strong. In France, it is possible to be subtle and poetic.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/02/27/le-silence-de-la-mer-the-silence-of-the-sea-... ( )

I'd read the title story at university; re-reading it now I'm less sympathetic to the niece randomly falling in love with this random German angst-boy, but still approve her protest (though I also hope she's secretly doing something else for the Resistance!)

And all these stories I'd never read, especially L'imprimerie de Verdun which so eerily conveys the "But I didn't realise voting for a tiger would mean people would get eaten!" plaints we see repeating themselves today... ( )

Here unfolds an unbelievable alternative reaction to the horror of Nazi occupation in France. The words are like bells tolling toward an inexorable yet still unknown and possibly devastating ending. ( )

Short novella notable more for the circumstances of its publication than for its literary merit. Initially an invocation of passive resistance, it seques into a warning against the inherent viciousness of Nazism. Stokes' historical introduction is far more informative than Brown's literary introduction but the real interest of their 1991 version is the publication of Connelly's translation alongside Bruller's original French. ( )

This book holds a special place in my heart because it was the first "real" book I read in French.