We Monks & Soldiers

by Bassmann, Lutz; Stump, Jordan

• ISBN13: 9780803239913
• ISBN10: 0803239912
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

From one of the most original French writers of our day comes a mysterious, prismatic, and at times profoundly sad reflection on humanity in its darker momentsone of which may very well be our own. In a collection of fictions that blur distinctions between dreaming and waking reality, Lutz Bassmann sets off a series of echoesthe "entrevoutes" that conduct us from one world to another in a journey as viscerally powerful as it is intellectually heady. While humanity seems to be fading around them, the members of a shadowy organization are doing their inadequate best to accompany those experiencing their last moments. From a soldier-monk exorcising what seem to be spirits (but are they?) from an abandoned house, to a spy executing a mission whose meaning eludes him, to characters exploring cells, wandering through ruins, confronting political dissent and persecution, encounteringperhapsthe spirits once exorcised, these stories conduct us through a world at once ambiguous and sharply observed. This remarkable work, in Jordan Stump's superb translation, offers readers a thrilling entry into Bassmann's numinous world.