A review by marc129
La Guerre des pauvres by Éric Vuillard

2.0

This story (for the English translation see [b:The War of the Poor|54765614|The War of the Poor|Éric Vuillard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1596192583l/54765614._SY75_.jpg|67580285]) seems like a light snack of barely 60 pages, but looks can be deceiving. To begin with, Vuillard has turned it into a well thought-out historical treatise on one of the most severe peasant revolts in what now is Germany, in the early 16th century. The protagonist is Thomas Müntzer (1489-1525), who evolved from Protestant theologian to virulent rebel against the authority of the church and the nobility. Vuillard writes in a very elegant style (I read the French original), but the short, condensed sentences and the theological reasoning makes reading this novelette a bit tougher than you might expect. It's not obvious what you can get out of this, and that's a good sign, because I don't like ostentatious moralistic messages. But the link with today's 'gilets jaunes' movement is inescapable. And then it seems to me that the author wants to warn us against underestimating apparently irrational popular protests, and at the same time indicate that brute power by authorities always wins. This is a short and powerful book, but I wouldn't call it a full-blown story. So, yes, I have rather mixed feelings about this one.