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alisonannk's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Religious bigotry, Violence, War, Racism, Gun violence, and Genocide
selkelite's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
erictlee's review
4.0
Hubert Mingarelli was a brilliant writer of short fiction and this is the third novel of his I read this year. His previous books, set during the Russian Civil War and the Second World War, tell simple stories of small groups of men, with the horror and violence of conflict mostly in the background. This book, set in Germany in the weeks following the Allied victory in 1945, is quite similar. It tells the story of a photographer who decides to take a road trip with a British army soldier. He has decided to take pictures of German families, posed in front of their homes. He never explains to his driver or to us why he is doing this; it is not clear if he knows himself. Though a very short book, it moves slowly as nothing much happens. The two men drive around, they eat their rations, they sleep in their car, they experience the weather, they meet a few Germans. It is the least interesting of the three Mingarelli books, but probably still worth reading as he’s always a thoughtful writer, full of compassion for his characters.
joecam79's review
5.0
French novelist Hubert Mingarelli (1956-2020) wrote several books, of which two, both of them war novels, have been translated into English by Sam Taylor. Four Soldiers, which tells the story of four young comrades in the Russian Civil War, won the Prix Medici in 2003. The translation of A Meal in Winter, set in World War II, was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. They are now joined by another World War II novel(la), Mingarelli’s last. La Terre Invisible was originally published in 2019, and is now being issued by Granta Books, also in Sam Taylor’s translation, as The Invisible Land.
As war novels go, this is a strange one, being set not during but in in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Its narrator is an English photographer placed with a battalion of Allied soldiers. Following the liberation of a concentration camp, the battalion settles at Dinslaken, in North-West Germany. The photographer, who cannot shake off the memory of the dead bodies in the concentration camp, asks leave to go on a strange mission around the surrounding countryside, photographing ordinary people in their daily environment. He is assigned a car and a driver, soldier O’Leary, who has just volunteered to join the army right at the end of the war.
The point of the narrator’s project is not clear, not even to himself. Perhaps he hopes that the scenes of ordinary life will displace the terrible sight of corpses piled on top of each other. Possibly, he is seeking to understand, through his camera, how ordinary Germans could have allowed the Nazi atrocities to take place. Perhaps it could be his way of seeking revenge. Certainly, the innocent request for a photograph sometimes takes ominous overtones, as when he insists on taking a picture of a young bride and groom despite their protests – it feels uncomfortably like a violation.
O’Leary unsuccessfully tries to prise from the narrator the purpose behind their mission. But he also has his own secrets. Chief amongst them is the question why, back in his hometown of Lowestoft, he preferred to sleep amongst the dunes rather than in his bed at home. The final scene, besides providing a satisfying coda to the narrative, hints at the answer.
I had a look at the reviews of the original French version and I was surprised at the low ratings given to this novel. It seems that readers’ reservations chiefly refer to the story’s vagueness. But that it is precisely what I liked about it. The Invisible Land is a poetic book, and like most poetry, it does not divulge its meanings easily. But there’s no denying the power of the novel’s images, which will haunt me for a long time: the narrator’s recurring dream of corpses under tarpaulins; a repast in an abandoned church with clouds scurrying across the window behind the altar; the car snaking its way along the river. In understated and elegant prose, brilliantly conveyed by translator Sam Taylor, The Invisible Land portrays a land of ravishing beauty, tainted by unspeakable crimes.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/07/The-Invisible-Land-by-Hubert-Mingarelli.html
As war novels go, this is a strange one, being set not during but in in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Its narrator is an English photographer placed with a battalion of Allied soldiers. Following the liberation of a concentration camp, the battalion settles at Dinslaken, in North-West Germany. The photographer, who cannot shake off the memory of the dead bodies in the concentration camp, asks leave to go on a strange mission around the surrounding countryside, photographing ordinary people in their daily environment. He is assigned a car and a driver, soldier O’Leary, who has just volunteered to join the army right at the end of the war.
The point of the narrator’s project is not clear, not even to himself. Perhaps he hopes that the scenes of ordinary life will displace the terrible sight of corpses piled on top of each other. Possibly, he is seeking to understand, through his camera, how ordinary Germans could have allowed the Nazi atrocities to take place. Perhaps it could be his way of seeking revenge. Certainly, the innocent request for a photograph sometimes takes ominous overtones, as when he insists on taking a picture of a young bride and groom despite their protests – it feels uncomfortably like a violation.
O’Leary unsuccessfully tries to prise from the narrator the purpose behind their mission. But he also has his own secrets. Chief amongst them is the question why, back in his hometown of Lowestoft, he preferred to sleep amongst the dunes rather than in his bed at home. The final scene, besides providing a satisfying coda to the narrative, hints at the answer.
I had a look at the reviews of the original French version and I was surprised at the low ratings given to this novel. It seems that readers’ reservations chiefly refer to the story’s vagueness. But that it is precisely what I liked about it. The Invisible Land is a poetic book, and like most poetry, it does not divulge its meanings easily. But there’s no denying the power of the novel’s images, which will haunt me for a long time: the narrator’s recurring dream of corpses under tarpaulins; a repast in an abandoned church with clouds scurrying across the window behind the altar; the car snaking its way along the river. In understated and elegant prose, brilliantly conveyed by translator Sam Taylor, The Invisible Land portrays a land of ravishing beauty, tainted by unspeakable crimes.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/07/The-Invisible-Land-by-Hubert-Mingarelli.html
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