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trve_zach's review against another edition
We all know someone who is a great storyteller. Someone who can spin a yarn with the perfect amount of detail and humor and sexiness to keep your full attention, someone who has the natural gift. They’re letting it all flow through. That’s what it feels like to read this book. It’s like sitting with that friend who is damned good at telling stories, drinking a bunch of beers or wine, and talking shit about your hometown while ultimately loving it (and including enough nostalgia to make it resonate).
On the surface, this is the story of a bumbling graduate student, David Mazon, who is working on an anthropology thesis that centers around the dynamics of small towns. He has recently moved to a village in western France and sets out to meet the locals to collect information. His naivety and arrogance make him a somewhat charming buffoon despite his best efforts to annoy the hell out of everyone: “Come, ye gods of anthropology, ye little gods of Savage peoples, come to my aid and bear me to Perfect Thesis,” (11)
As he interviews people, we come to know them and the village and its history (initially as filtered through David’s diary entries). There is a full cast of characters, including a new love interest for David, and we learn each character’s story (of both their current and past lives). See, this book also centers around the idea of Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.
About 80 pages in, the narrative shifts from David’s first person journal entries to an omniscient third-person perspective wherein the focus also shifts from person to person, between various timelines for these souls, some of whom have been born into completely separate beings (the priest’s soul is next transmigrated to that of a boar, for example, and in this case, we get the perspective of the boar as it roots into trouble). Quickly the narrative moves from one place and time to a wide swath of history centered on this area of France. Some will bounce off this shift, but I think it is a great hook and allows Énard to flood us with detail and history and absurdity.
Which is another thing that I did not expect: there are entire sections of completely ridiculous/hilarious Rabelaisian action and word play, most notably the titular chapter/section. I haven’t run into this kind of thing in a long time, and it immediately pushed me over from liking to loving this book, though, again, I suspect this will be something that most will find annoying. Put it like this, if you read “Rabelaisian action” and that phrase either a) meant anything to you or b) got you excited then stop reading this review and start reading Énard.
Ultimately, though, it’s the fact that the writing is so strong in all various modes that makes The Annual Banquet…worth your time. Here’s an example of nice writing/description/of how Énard is able to evoke much more than what is on the page: “Thereafter, she was forbidden from playing in the small, steep copse, forbidden from hoarding schoolyard chestnuts that might be used as instruments of vengeance, and, in the end, the chestnut trees were felled, having been found guilty of providing ammunition for generations of dunces, and replaced with maple trees, whose keys would flutter onto the playground pavement like downed helicopters.” (144) His descriptions get at images that suggest more, so that our minds do the work of filling in equivocal (or relating) similar experiences.
There is a particularly moving and brutal scene told from the perspective of a wolf infected with rabies, whose soul later comes to inhabit the innkeeper: “She does not know that she is doomed; the virus slowly incubated in her body has reached her brain and eaten away at her nerves; she has bitten one of her cubs on the neck, not realizing that she was passing the disease on to him; for days, she has wandered aimless, plagued by a thirst so intense she would drink the very stones – but the pain triggered as soon as she ingests a drop of water is so intense, so excruciating, that the she-wolf even fears the dew that forms on blades of grass and the trail left by slugs on the leaves, everything serves to aggravate the disease, everything pushes her toward exhaustion.” (291) This passage alone makes the book worth reading. I want you to read this section in the context of all that has come before.
That the book covers so much ground is also, at times, where it falters. There is a side plot that focuses around environmental activists, a group that protest the fucked up things that large corporations and governments do to accelerate the heat-death of humanity (“In the twenty-first century, the utterly delusional idea that human activity exists without consequence is astounding.” (382)) Énard talks about these things head on and also by showing their effects via the passage and changes of time/scenery/ character. The book doesn’t quite explore this enough, doesn’t quite bring it into fullness. Still, we are left with a story of how small communities have to support one another for humanity to survive (and how this is difficult because there will always be conflict).
Random events stack upon one another. People try to put meaning to it, to construct a narrative, but there is no real throughline other than the fact that all souls yield to the Wheel (at least in this world), until there’s nowhere left for them to return to (“He seeks to bear witness to his times – to these brutish times, to the lies, the massacres, the peaceful endeavors doomed to fail, just as man is doomed to suffer.” (182)). It’s about the way things are lost to time and history simply by not asking questions, by not listening to people before they are dead. In this way, we learn nothing and forever miss important lessons. It’s about small town life and small lives in general, how they all contribute in their own way and also mean nothing, an endless recycling of inertia (“The true question was: Does Death exist? Might we not forget it, as we do for the three days of the Banquet? Can we not believe in the perpetuity of existence?” (244)). It’s about lives in transition, those moments that mark a shift from one reality to another, a change in trajectory.
Énard (via Wynne) has created what is at times a very subtle book with a lot of moving parts and themes, letting you sink into its vast historical backdrop and lush detail, while also being incredibly direct and absurd. There’s some kind of magic in this combination, something about this world and these people’s stories that makes me want to return to them, something comforting despite how also disturbing and sad a lot of it is: “...he would later…eternally himself, according to the merits his blind soul managed to accrue, as do all of us who shimmer for a time in the boundless night, before being hurled back into the Wheel, thrust over and over into suffering and pain, which is here on Earth and nowhere else.” (344)
On the surface, this is the story of a bumbling graduate student, David Mazon, who is working on an anthropology thesis that centers around the dynamics of small towns. He has recently moved to a village in western France and sets out to meet the locals to collect information. His naivety and arrogance make him a somewhat charming buffoon despite his best efforts to annoy the hell out of everyone: “Come, ye gods of anthropology, ye little gods of Savage peoples, come to my aid and bear me to Perfect Thesis,” (11)
As he interviews people, we come to know them and the village and its history (initially as filtered through David’s diary entries). There is a full cast of characters, including a new love interest for David, and we learn each character’s story (of both their current and past lives). See, this book also centers around the idea of Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.
About 80 pages in, the narrative shifts from David’s first person journal entries to an omniscient third-person perspective wherein the focus also shifts from person to person, between various timelines for these souls, some of whom have been born into completely separate beings (the priest’s soul is next transmigrated to that of a boar, for example, and in this case, we get the perspective of the boar as it roots into trouble). Quickly the narrative moves from one place and time to a wide swath of history centered on this area of France. Some will bounce off this shift, but I think it is a great hook and allows Énard to flood us with detail and history and absurdity.
Which is another thing that I did not expect: there are entire sections of completely ridiculous/hilarious Rabelaisian action and word play, most notably the titular chapter/section. I haven’t run into this kind of thing in a long time, and it immediately pushed me over from liking to loving this book, though, again, I suspect this will be something that most will find annoying. Put it like this, if you read “Rabelaisian action” and that phrase either a) meant anything to you or b) got you excited then stop reading this review and start reading Énard.
Ultimately, though, it’s the fact that the writing is so strong in all various modes that makes The Annual Banquet…worth your time. Here’s an example of nice writing/description/of how Énard is able to evoke much more than what is on the page: “Thereafter, she was forbidden from playing in the small, steep copse, forbidden from hoarding schoolyard chestnuts that might be used as instruments of vengeance, and, in the end, the chestnut trees were felled, having been found guilty of providing ammunition for generations of dunces, and replaced with maple trees, whose keys would flutter onto the playground pavement like downed helicopters.” (144) His descriptions get at images that suggest more, so that our minds do the work of filling in equivocal (or relating) similar experiences.
There is a particularly moving and brutal scene told from the perspective of a wolf infected with rabies, whose soul later comes to inhabit the innkeeper: “She does not know that she is doomed; the virus slowly incubated in her body has reached her brain and eaten away at her nerves; she has bitten one of her cubs on the neck, not realizing that she was passing the disease on to him; for days, she has wandered aimless, plagued by a thirst so intense she would drink the very stones – but the pain triggered as soon as she ingests a drop of water is so intense, so excruciating, that the she-wolf even fears the dew that forms on blades of grass and the trail left by slugs on the leaves, everything serves to aggravate the disease, everything pushes her toward exhaustion.” (291) This passage alone makes the book worth reading. I want you to read this section in the context of all that has come before.
That the book covers so much ground is also, at times, where it falters. There is a side plot that focuses around environmental activists, a group that protest the fucked up things that large corporations and governments do to accelerate the heat-death of humanity (“In the twenty-first century, the utterly delusional idea that human activity exists without consequence is astounding.” (382)) Énard talks about these things head on and also by showing their effects via the passage and changes of time/scenery/ character. The book doesn’t quite explore this enough, doesn’t quite bring it into fullness. Still, we are left with a story of how small communities have to support one another for humanity to survive (and how this is difficult because there will always be conflict).
Random events stack upon one another. People try to put meaning to it, to construct a narrative, but there is no real throughline other than the fact that all souls yield to the Wheel (at least in this world), until there’s nowhere left for them to return to (“He seeks to bear witness to his times – to these brutish times, to the lies, the massacres, the peaceful endeavors doomed to fail, just as man is doomed to suffer.” (182)). It’s about the way things are lost to time and history simply by not asking questions, by not listening to people before they are dead. In this way, we learn nothing and forever miss important lessons. It’s about small town life and small lives in general, how they all contribute in their own way and also mean nothing, an endless recycling of inertia (“The true question was: Does Death exist? Might we not forget it, as we do for the three days of the Banquet? Can we not believe in the perpetuity of existence?” (244)). It’s about lives in transition, those moments that mark a shift from one reality to another, a change in trajectory.
Énard (via Wynne) has created what is at times a very subtle book with a lot of moving parts and themes, letting you sink into its vast historical backdrop and lush detail, while also being incredibly direct and absurd. There’s some kind of magic in this combination, something about this world and these people’s stories that makes me want to return to them, something comforting despite how also disturbing and sad a lot of it is: “...he would later…eternally himself, according to the merits his blind soul managed to accrue, as do all of us who shimmer for a time in the boundless night, before being hurled back into the Wheel, thrust over and over into suffering and pain, which is here on Earth and nowhere else.” (344)
demonslayer5000's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jecarp's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
leahknaprapp's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
damong's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
bibliotecabecca's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
keliseb's review against another edition
can't do it. i tried so had cause the premise seemed so interesting but i am not interested in the topics this book cares about and so i found myself deeply and terribly bored.
kingofblades113's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0