Malevil

I must admit I only ever read Malevil in French, so I cannot vouch for the translation, especially since there are dialogues in "patois", local southwestern language. Malevil has been a favorite of mine since I was 13. I re-read it a couple of months ago (I am now 31) and I was surprised to see that my perception of the book was no different... The book is set in rural France in the 70s, as a group of childhood friends gather to chat about the local elections, the upcoming harvest...etc. Suddenly, while they're bottling the wine in the somewhat cooler cellar, something happens - an atrocious sound, vicious heat, and hours, maybe days of unconsciousness and physical pain. When they manage to come to their senses and leave the cellar, the whole countryside around them has been incinerated. Now what? Now what, indeed. I would never have picked the book based on such a premise (I wasn't a disaster movie kind of teenager.) But what is fascinating about Malevil is what happens after the "catastrophe", the nature of which will remain a mystrey and one that no character is interested in solving anyway. The book becomes a kind of emotional and psychological "thriller" as one wonders how the survivors will organize to live, whether they actually decide to put some effort into it, how it can be done, how to deal with the absence of women...etc. It is a very human book in that sense. The appeal of the book also resides in the voice of the narrator, Emmanuel, who is everything but an observer. Emmanuel is the "lord of the castle" as his friends teasingly nicknamed him, and has always held a great psychological sway over them. This is further supported by the fact that Emmanuel loses no family to the disaster, which allows him to be somewhat more composed and rational than his friends. We follow his thought processes as he plans and even manipulates people to allow their community to survive. I loved watching hope, problems and solutions unfold at a steady pace. I recommend Malevil to anyone who loves great, outside the box fiction.

If you are a fan of the post apocolypse genre, then you will appreciate this gem of a book. It is difficult to find, but it is well worth perservering with a search. The title of the book refers to an old castle in rural France, and which is owned by our hero, the narrator of the story. By a happy coincidence of ancient stone and being sheltered by a cliff, a small community survives the aftermath of a "clean" bomb by sheltering within its walls. At first the community is obsessed with the everyday challenges of life - what to eat, drink, will there be fallout? But as the novel progresses, and we learn of other survivors, it begins to look at the very nature of human behaviour when stripped of the facade of civilisation. This is a very "believable book", as much as such a horror tale can be, and it is interspersed with some very astute observations of human behaviour, with both acts of kindness portrayed as well as the abuses of power. The detail of how nature as well as the characters recover from the loss and shock of it all is well portrayed and keeps you turning the pages. This is a treat if you are a fan of the genre. If you are interested in tales of human survival in horrendous times, this is also for you. As I said, hard to find, but well worth looking for!

I first read this in English in the early seventies, as a teenage SF junkie. I went on to earn a PhD in French, and took a class with the author at the U de Nanterre. This is THE book to get into Merle, but you should read every word he wrote. And read it in French if you can. There was a fairly mediocre film made of it in 1981, which is virtually impossible to find (I am searching - any help appreciated!). This book rates up there with The Stand, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Logan's Run, Ravage... Great intense vision of the rebuilding of society after "it all falls down"... Almost makes you wish for a global catastrophy...

This book was surprisingly good. The title put me off, since I inferred that it attributed the collapse of civilization to some silly supernatural struggle, like "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon, which I bought and barely began reading before I dropped it in disappointment. (Not that all supernaturally inspired apocalypses are bad stories: I really liked "The Stand" by Stephen King.) In fact, Malevil is simply the name of the little French community where the story occurs. It is a pretty good story about a subsistence economy arising after a nuclear holocaust. Unfortunately, you never find out what is happening in the world outside that little community, but it is pretty good nevertheless: there is no backstory about the disintegration or reconstitution of the national government, which is the part that I usually enjoy the most in post-apocalyptic fiction, but there is an amusing thread about the basis for the local ecclesiastical jurisdiction where the protagonist relies on some medieval warrants in order to trump the religious charlatan who has established himself as the ruler in the next town over.

I first read Malevil 20 odd years ago. I reread it every few years and still find it an exciting read, always finding some detail or plot point that I missed before. This is THE end of the world, what would you do book. The beginning may seem a little slow, but afterwards it is a rollercoaster ride, you never know what will happen next. The characters seem real, the heros are heros, and the evil characters are truly evil. When this comes back into print, buy it!