Brodeck – Philippe Claudel

 Brodeck – Philippe Claudel

Original French name: La Rapport de Brodeck

Brodeck came back to his little village after the war. He spent the war in a terrible camp, surrounded by cruelty and death, and hardly survived, gaining strength from thinking of coming back to his wife, Emilia, who stayed in the village.

Though he misses his village and sees it as his home, he wasn’t born there. He escaped death as a child in a faraway place, saved by an old woman, and arrived to the village with her. He is different, forever the stranger.

Brodeck is given an assignment from the village people. He has to write a report about a terrible thing that happened to a mysterious man who appeared in the village after the war. Brodecks writes the report, but he also talks about the nightmare he went through, going back and forth in time between the story of the stranger in the village and his own story.

There are no names to the places and events in the book, but it is clear it takes place in a border area between French and Germany, the war is the Second World War, and that Brodeck is a Jew.

This anonymity is not accidental. It is a big part of the message in the book. The evil can be found within anyone. Anyone can find himself as the murderer and the torturer. And anyone can find himself as the outsider, the victim, the other that is to blame for everything.

I found this book very important in a time when there is a tendency to treat these terrible times as a unique event, caused by non-human creatures, and targeted toward only one group. The lesson should be universal, and everyone should be very careful from being the victim or the torturer at the same time.

The book is not easy to read. It has some very disturbing descriptions, and very sad parts. Yet I find it worth reading. It’s interesting and thought provoking.

If you buy the book from the link at the top, I may get a small fee.