A strange country / Muriel Barbery ; translated from the French by Alison Anderson.

Title :

A strange country

Author:

Barbery, Muriel, 1969-

Format:

Books

Summary:

Alejandro de Yepes and Jesús Rocamora, young officers in the Spanish regular army, are stationed alone at Castillo when, out of nowhere, a friendly redhead appears to them in the cellar. There is something magnetic and deeply mysterious about this Petrus. Alejandro and Jesús are bewitched, and, in the middle of the sixth year of the longest war humankind has ever endured, they abandon their post to follow him across a bridge only he can see. Petrus brings them to a world of lingering fog, strange beings, poetry, music, natural wonders, harmony, and extraordinary beauty. This is where the fate of the world and all its living creatures is decided. Yet this world too is under threat. A long battle against the forces of disenchantment is drawing to a climactic close. Will poetry and beauty prevail over darkness and death? And what role will Alejandro and Jesús play? Muriel Barbery's new richly imagined novel, the sequel to The Life of Elves, will transport readers to a lost world exposed to the constant churn of civilizations and remind them of the power of poetry and imagination.

Language:

English

Language Note:

In English. Translated from the French.

ISBN - ISSN:

1609455851

9781609455859

Physical Description:

327 pages ; 21 cm

Subject:

Elves -- Fiction.

Soldiers -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Good and evil -- Fiction.

Imaginary wars and battles -- Fiction.

FICTION -- Fantasy -- Historical.

FICTION -- Visionary & Metaphysical.

Magic.

Imaginary wars and battles.

Magic realist fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Fiction.

First Title value, for Searching:

A strange country / Muriel Barbery ; translated from the French by Alison Anderson.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Audience	Home Location	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Looscan	Adult	Fiction	Book	BARBE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From the author of the New York Times international bestseller, THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG, comes an epic fantasy rich in poetry and imagination about the eternal conflict between good and evil.

Alejandro de Yepes and Jesús Rocamora, young officers in the Spanish regular army, are stationed alone at Castillo when, out of nowhere, a friendly redhead appears to them in the cellar. There is something magnetic and deeply mysterious about this Petrus. Alejandro and Jesús are bewitched, and, in the middle of the sixth year of the longest war humankind has ever endured, they abandon their post to follow him across a bridge only he can see.

Petrus brings them to a world of lingering fog, strange beings, poetry, music, natural wonders, harmony, and extraordinary beauty. This is where the fate of the world and all its living creatures is decided. Yet this world too is under threat. A long battle against the forces of disenchantment is drawing to a climactic close. Will poetry and beauty prevail over darkness and death? And what role will Alejandro and Jesús play? Muriel Barbery's new richly imagined novel, the sequel to The Life of Elves , will transport readers to a lost world exposed to the constant churn of civilizations and remind them of the power of poetry and imagination.

Summary

Qual è lo strano paese, quello degli umani o quello degli elfi? Entrambi e nessuno. In tutti e due ci sono i buoni e i cattivi, c'è il bello e il brutto. I due mondi sono paralleli e in sé meravigliosi, ma è la follia di alcuni suoi abitanti, da una parte e dall'altra, a renderli teatro d'odio e di violenza. Ecco quindi che si forma una compagnia mista di uomini ed elfi che si danno l'obiettivo di impedire la catastrofe finale. Ne fanno parte le due bambine magiche ormai ventenni, Clara e Maria, ne fa parte Petrus, l'elfo che trascorre la maggior parte del tempo fra gli uomini perché va pazzo per il vino, ne fa parte Alejandro de Yepes, valoroso quanto poverissimo nobile spagnolo che parla con i morti, ne fanno parte il Guardiano del Padiglione, che inizierà i membri della compagnia ai poteri del tè grigio, e il traghettatore lontra, che li inizierà a quelli del tè di mille anni. Questi ed altri personaggi compongono una galleria di esseri bizzarri che hanno lo scopo comune di salvare l'uomo da se stesso. E naturalmente l'elfo da se stesso. Riusciranno a fermare il disastro globale?

Author Notes

Muriel Barbery is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa, 2008), Gourmet Rhapsody (Europa, 2009), and The Life of Elves (Europa, 2016). She has lived in Kyoto, Amsterdam, and Paris, and now lives in the French countryside.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In the convoluted follow-up to The Lives of Elves, Barbery pits humans and elves against a common enemy bent on destruction. In an alternate history, it's 1938, a world war rages, and Spain is mired in civil war. Gen. Alejandro de Yepes and his right-hand man, Maj. Jesús Rocamora, are at de Yepes's ancestral home, Extremaduro, when a snowstorm begins and three strangers appear on the property without leaving footprints. The three--Petrus, Marcus, and Paulus--are elves, sent to Extremaduro to make an alliance in an attempt to stop Aelius, an elf who is responsible for the war ravaging both the human and the elven worlds. Petrus leads the way over a magical bridge into "the fog" of the elven world, which is disappearing for unclear reasons. Due to the recently discovered notebook of a 16th-century painter, the elves believe Alejandro may be the chosen person to save their world in a battle foretold for the next day. At its best, Barbery's imaginative tale reads as a mix of J.R.R. Tolkien and Hayao Miyazaki, epic in scope yet grounded by humor. However, the plot is often confusing and gets bogged down by Barbery's florid scene-setting. Meanwhile, the poetic prose (the elves are big fans of verse) regarding the allegorical nature of the elven fog and climactic finale hint at a deeper message--but what that message is remains frustratingly obscured. Series fans will want to take a look, but the uninitiated need not apply. (Apr.)

Kirkus Review

Elves and humans unite to try to save their respective realms.It's 1938, and Europe has been at war for six years. Gen. Alejandro de Yepes and Maj. Jess Rocamora are holed up inside Alejandro's Extremadura castillo when three strange men appear inside the grand hall. One of thema portly, affable redhead named Petrusleads the other two to the wine cellar, where they proceed to get drunk. When Alejandro and Jess follow, seeking answers, Petrus explains that he and his companions, Marcus and Paulus, are elves and that a fellow elf named Aelius is responsible for the conflicts plaguing both of their peoples. Petrus and company have a plan to defeat their mutual foe, whose goal is domination through mass annihilation, but it requires Alejandro and Jess to decamp to the elves' world of mists. French author Barbery's sequel to The Life of Elves (2016) is broken into three parts: "Alliances," which encompasses Jess' and Alejandro's origin stories; "Genesis," which provides Petrus' history; and "Ruin," which details their joint campaign. Barbery's fondness for her charactersthe bravely bumbling Petrus, in particularsuffuses the first two sections, lending them a fairy-tale air enhanced by the omniscient third-person narration. Shared bottles of wine and pots of tea facilitate philosophical conversation; at its best, "this is the story of a few souls who, in war, knew the peace of encounter." Regrettably, come the book's climax, Barbery abandons nearly all pretense of plot in favor of opaque imagery and florid prose.What starts as an elegiac meditation on fellowship devolves into an incoherent fever dream. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

In the sequel to The Life of Elves (2016), Barbery continues building the poetic, fantastical world begun in that book. Alejandro de Yepes has always been able to talk to the dead. As a Spanish soldier fighting in 1938 Castillo, he encounters ghosts everywhere he goes. The elf Petrus notices the young man's connection to the departed and realizes Alejandro is special. Petrus invites Alejandro and his comrade Jesus to drink a strange tea that opens their eyes to a bridge between the elf world and the human world. Now the soldiers must fight in an even more significant war, the one raging among the elves themselves. Readers who love meditative, dreamlike fiction will enjoy this translation, which rings with the music of the original French. While the novel is light on plot and relies heavily on the previous book, new readers will become absorbed in the descriptions of the elf cities and the mysterious mists surrounding them. A long diversion into Petrus' backstory is also intriguing. Recommended for fans of classic fantasy.