The silence of the sea

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The Silence of the Sea (French: Le silence de la mer ) is a novella by the French author Jean Marcel Bruller from 1942, which he had printed in Geneva and secretly published under the pseudonym Vercors in the German-occupied Paris .

History of origin

The Silence of the Sea was written in the summer of 1941 and was ready for printing in February 1942. It contained a dedication to Saint-Pol-Roux , who died in a hospital in Brest in late 1940 after a drunken German soldier broke into his home and injured his daughter. The book was secretly published in 1942 as the very first title of the underground publisher Éditions de Minuit . In 1945 it was published by Edition des Trois Collines . The manuscript came to London, where General de Gaulle ordered a large edition. One copy came into the hands of Jean-Pierre Melville , who filmed it in 1947 .

Summary

At the beginning of the war in occupied France, a master carpenter, who only lives with his niece in a beautiful house in the provinces, tells how he experienced the presence of a German officer at home, imposed by the occupation troops.

The novella takes place from November 1940 to summer 1941. In such circumstances, the young officer is decent . He never misses the opportunity to greet his hosts in the evening and tell them about the Franco-German friendship. He hoped that their two homes could get married. But his long, cultivated monologues encounter the unchanging silence of his lodgers.

After returning from a vacation in Paris, he stops visiting her. When he said goodbye to them to report to the front in the east, he denounced Germany's supremacy over France.

The narrative feeds on actual events. Vercors had taken in a German officer who was playing tennis to help move his stiff leg. Although there had been no contact between the two, Vercors had noticed a certain interest in French culture in this officer, which was expressed in the possession of numerous French books and a bust of Blaise Pascal . When Vercors wrote the story, he made his wife his niece to add a little more drama to the scene.

content

The book tells the story of the German officer Werner von Ebrennac , who is quartered in a French family during the German occupation of France . His French hostels are an elderly gentleman and his niece, who, however, do not speak to him as a sign of rejection of the German occupation.

Apparently this does not bother the officer very much and so he tells them every evening about his wishes and his enthusiasm for French culture. His ideal envisions a fraternization between France and Germany. However, after a visit to Paris, where he met several other German officers, his hopes waned. He realizes that he is the only one who longs for a happy ending. The other officers want to destroy French culture and dominate the country. Back at the hostel family, he reports on his visit to Paris and illustrates his hopelessness. He decides to "commit suicide" by being transferred to Russia for combat duty. At the end there is a word from the niece's lips. She whispers an "Adieu" to Ebrennac as she leaves.

Interpretative approaches

This book achieved cult status in France , more for patriotic than literary reasons. The historical context has led to numerous erroneous assumptions. Ilja Ehrenburg , for example, took the view that it was a "work on provocation, which was definitely written by a Nazi in order to manipulate public opinion under the leadership of the Gestapo ." Many members of the Resistance in exile in London who had read the book believed it was a work by André Gide . Arthur Koestler disapproved of the figure of the German officer in a newspaper article published in London in November 1943 and wondered how anyone could ignore his country's intentions for so long.

This story illustrates the attitude of many French towards the German occupation. The model of resistance is not shown here, but rather the distance-minded attitude of "mute France" ("la France muette"), who nevertheless renounces active defense. Above all, the story is directed against the illusion of fraternization with regard to the conditions of rule that Nazi Germany intended to impose on its neighbors, as the afterword by Y. Beigbeder makes clear.

One possible interpretation of the title “Le silence de la mer” is that French hostels are good at hiding their feelings and emotions. On the outside they look calm like the sea, but inside there is a lot more going on than you can see.

The work is considered Vercors' best-known text and a standard work of the French Resistance in World War II. Vercors had read Ernst Jünger's diary entries about his stay in France, which were published in a French translation under the title Jardins et routes ("Gardens and Streets") in 1942 , and draws certain parallels between Jünger and the German officer in his book.

Film adaptations

In 1947 was the silence of the sea under the direction and from a screenplay by Jean-Pierre Melville with the actors Howard Vernon , Jean-Marie Robain, Nicole Stéphane, Ami Aroe, Denis Sadier, Georges Patrix, Henri Cavalier and Dietrich Kandler filmed .

A remake took place in 2004, directed by Pierre Boutron and starring Julie Delarme , Thomas Jouannet and Michel Galabru . The film won the awards for the best film, for the best actress and for the best music at the St. Tropez TV film festival.

Expenses (selection)

  • The silence of the sea: narrative . From the Franz. By Karin Krieger . With an essay by Ludwig Harig and a follow-up by Yves Beigbeder . Zurich: Diogenes, 1999 ISBN 3-257-06225-7
  • The silence of the sea . Translated into German by Kurt Stern . Berlin: construction publ. 1948
  • The silence . From d. Franz. By Josef Ziwutschka. Innsbruck; Vienna: Rohrer 1947
  • The silence (Le silence de la mer) . Authorized translation from French. Zurich; New York: Oprecht 1945

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vercors: "Le Silence de la Mer", Éditions des trois Collines, 1945, Genève - Paris