Imatge de l'autor

Robert Merle (1908–2004)

Autor/a de Malevil

56+ obres 3,939 Membres 65 Ressenyes 10 preferits

Sobre l'autor

Crèdit de la imatge: Robert Merle on June 28, 1962 Won The Prix De La Fraternite For His Book L'Ile

Sèrie

Obres de Robert Merle

Malevil (1973) 564 exemplars
Death Is My Trade (1952) 416 exemplars
The Day of the Dolphin (1967) 394 exemplars
Fortune de France (1977) 328 exemplars
City of Wisdom and Blood (1979) 192 exemplars
The Island (1962) 192 exemplars
The Virility Factor (1974) 185 exemplars
Heretic Dawn (1980) 173 exemplars
Fi de setmana a Dunkerque (1950) 123 exemplars
Madrapour (1976) 90 exemplars
Vittoria (1987) 78 exemplars
Behind the Glass (1970) 65 exemplars
Le Propre de l'homme (1989) 34 exemplars
Moncada (1953) 16 exemplars
Oscar Wilde (1983) 9 exemplars
Ahmed Ben Bella (1966) 7 exemplars
Malevil 2 5 exemplars
Malevil 1 5 exemplars
Dernier été à Primerol (2013) 5 exemplars
Pièces pies et impies... (1996) 3 exemplars
AVENTURA FRANCESA 2 exemplars
2. Malevil 1 exemplars
Malevil. Regňy 1 exemplars
1. Malevil 1 exemplars
The Idol (1989) 1 exemplars
La volte des Vertugadins (1993) 1 exemplars

Obres associades

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Nom oficial
Merle, Robert Jean Georges
Data de naixement
1908-08-28
Data de defunció
2004-03-27
Lloc d'enterrament
Cimetière d'Aiguillon, Aiguillon, Departement du Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine, France
Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
France
País (per posar en el mapa)
France
Lloc de naixement
Tébessa, Constantine, French Algeria
Lloc de defunció
Grosrouvre, Yvelines, France
Causa de la mort
officially an accident but his son implied his last wife killed him (see book 'Robert Merle, une vie de passion')
Llocs de residència
Tébessa, Constantine, French Algeria
Grosrouvre, Yvelines, France
Paris, France
Educació
Sorbonne, Paris, France
Louis Le-Grand, Paris
Professions
novelist
English teacher
historical novelist
memoirist
essayist
scholar (mostra-les totes 7)
translator
Relacions
Merle, Pierre (son)
Sartre, Jean-Paul (coworker)
Merle, Olivier (son)
Organitzacions
French Army (WWII)
Premis i honors
Officier des Palmes académiques
Croix du combattant
Grand prix Jean-Giono (Pour l'ensemble de son œuvre , 2003)
Prix Sola-Cabiati (Pour l'ensemble de son œuvre, 2003)
Campbell Award, Etats-Unis
Biografia breu
Robert Merle was born in Tébessa, Algeria, then a French colony. After his father, an interpreter, was killed in World War I, his mother moved with him to Paris. There he attended lycée and the Sorbonne, where he earned a doctorate in English literature with a dissertation on Oscar Wilde. He passed the agrégation (civil service exam for teachers) and taught English literature at lycées in Bordeaux, Marseille, and Paris, where he became a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1939, at the start of World War II, he was conscripted in the French army and worked as an interpreter during the evacuation of British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. He was captured by the Germans and sent to a POW camp at Dortmund. In 1943, he was repatriated to France. He later used his experiences at Dunkirk in his first novel Week-end à Zuydcoote (Weekend at Zuydcoote, 1949), which was a major success and won the Prix Goncourt. It was adapted into a 1964 film called Weekend at Dunkirk. He went on to write numerous other acclaimed novels including La Mort est mon Métier (Death Is My Trade, 1953), Maleville (1972), and Un Animal doué de raison (A Sentient Animal, 1967), adapted into the 1973 film The Day of the Dolphin. He also wrote a play, Flamineo (1950), based on John Webster's The White Devil; a biography Oscar Wilde (1948); and translations of English works including Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. His series of 13 historical novels known collectively as Fortune de France (1977–2003), set during the religious civil wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, used many of the French speech rhythms and idioms of the period and is considered his masterpiece. The series, which he began at about age 70, made him a household name in France, and led to his being called "the Alexandre Dumas of the 20th century." He married three times, and had six children.

Membres

Converses

Group Read, September 2018: The Day of the Dolphin a 1001 Books to read before you die (setembre 2018)
SF Post Apoc. Small Groups Fight with Bows a Name that Book (juliol 2013)

Ressenyes

Eine verheerende Epidemie rafft in den USA die männliche Bevölkerung im zeugungsfähigen Alter dahin. In panischer Angst vor dem Virus lassen viele Männer sich kastrieren. Eine kontrasexuelle Gesellschaft etabliert sich gegen die alte, phallokratische, und fanatisierte Frauenrechtlerinnen reißen die politische wie die ökonomische Macht an sich. Fernab dieser aus den Fugen geratenen Welt, in den Wäldern des Vermont, wird eine kleine Gruppe von Wissenschaftlern als "protected men" in strenger Isolation gehalten, unter ihnen der Neurologe Ralph Martinelli mit seinem elfjährigen Sohn. Im Auftrag der Konzernherrin Hilda Helsingforth arbeitet er an der Erforschung eines Serums gegen die tödliche Enzephalitis - rechtlos, als "Phallokrat" verachtet, von Milizionärinnen, Laborantinnen, Kastraten bespitzelt und mit Abhörgeräten rund um die Uhr überwacht. Bis er eines Tages erfährt, daß sein Tod programmiert ist und das rettende Serum vernichtet werden soll. Aber auch unter seinen eiskalten Bewacherinnen ist entgegen allem Anschein die Liebe nicht tot. Burage, seine ärgste Kontrahentin, erliegt Martinellis italienischem Charme und versucht ihn zu retten. In souveränem Umgang mit allen Registern des Genres, dazu seiner unnachahmlichen Ironie, hat Robert Merle hier einen seiner geistvollsten und spannendsten Romane geschrieben.(lovelybooks.de)… (més)
 
Marcat
Hoppetosse1 | Oct 16, 2023 |
I just wasn’t a fan of this one. I was always expecting it to get more action packed, and when it did it was over. Also, it was very odd stylistically and very overly verbose for no reason. I ended up skimming a lot more than I was reading. Definitely going back to the used book store.
 
Marcat
MrMet | Hi ha 9 ressenyes més | Apr 28, 2023 |
I've read some of the 8 other comments, I am sorry that you didn't all appreciate what I think was a brilliant book.

It portrays four dolphins, eight sympathetic humans, around 4 exploitive humans and the rest of the human race at risk of "accidentally strangling the entire human race".

It is a work of science fiction there is no doubt, but it is very relevant today as it proposes another form of AI (Alternative Intelligence).

The dialogues of the humans with the dolphins, first in English then in whistling Dolphinese, expose the fundamental flaws in human intelligence - that being it is driven by self interest, and a massive sense of self-righteousness.

The predominant dialogue style (long, concatenated paragraphs where dialogue, thoughts, mixed speakers, flashback) illustrates the capricious and irrational nature of most of human thought. Even the sympathetic delphinologists display various degrees of personality weaknesses.

In contrast the AI in this book uses concise, to the point sentences - with abundant emotional tagging of the factual content.

I'd recommend you read it - you can understand why humans are still very much at each others throats now as they were 50 years ago.
… (més)
 
Marcat
Nick-Myra | Hi ha 9 ressenyes més | Mar 20, 2023 |
Well, that was a short one. 36 pages in, and I'm out. Why?

The writing.

Let me tell you about the writing...

First, for the initial 4 1/2 pages, the author does not use quotation marks whatsoever, then, about halfway down the fifth page, for no reason, he starts. He then uses them reasonably consistently for 20-ish pages, then drops and then uses them again. So...yeah, it's gonna be like that.

The second is the habit of writing a paragraph full of useless, stream-of-conscious thoughts that not only don't add anything to the plot, but they actually detract from the pacing.

And then there's the run-on sentences.

I'll just give you the first two sentences that open chapter two...that should give you enough to go on...

The room was hygienically empty, not a magazine, not a scrap of paper, just three armchairs, a small table with an ashtray, and on the painted walls three engravings of full-rigged ships in foul weather, C looked at the ships wearily, he felt a twinge in the vicinity of his stomach, the pain was not sharp but constant, it did not seem to come from the inside of the organs but from their walls, it was more like a painful contraction of the muscles, it radiated downward to the abdomen and upward under the ribs, at times it reached the vertebrae, C felt that if he could just lie down, flex his legs, and relax his muscles his painful organs would return to normal but this was not true, the pain never went away, actually it wasn't a real pain, more of a pressure, vague, diffuse, insistent, unbearable, he could forget it for over an hour at a time if his attention was concentrated, but it returned with disturbing regularity, even at night he could not sleep, everything was breaking down, his nerves were shot, he tired more easily, recovery was slower, C sank into a chair and closed his eyes.

As he did so the blond head of Johnnie rolled against his arm, there was a brief spasm, his lips sucked the air with a convulsive shudder, there was a sudden slackening of the legs and it was all over, they were lying in a rice paddy surrounded by a cloud of mauve mosquitoes, bullets, and mortar fire, behind me a GI said, "He's had it," we had to wait for night so the helicopters could land, the orderly in the copter removed the dog tags from the dead, his eyes met mine, he looked sad and bitter, he shuffled the dog tags in the palm of his hand and said, "They don't take up much space: a dozen Americans."


There's so much wrong with those two sentences. They skip around various topics. They switch point of view. And they're deplorable to read.

Now, having said all that, this book was originally published in 1967 in French language, and then translated and released in English two years later.

I picked this book up, because I read it when I was roughly 13 or so, so, ballpark, around 1975 or so. I remember enjoying enough that I picked up the only other Robert Merle book I ever found, Malevil, and I remember enjoying that one too.

Here we are, not quite fifty years later, and I can only think, damn, I was a lot more patient with crap writing back then.

Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of wading through another 282 pages of this dreck, no matter if there is a good story buried in there somewhere.

And, because it's a DNF, no rating.
… (més)
 
Marcat
TobinElliott | Hi ha 9 ressenyes més | Jan 24, 2023 |

Llistes

Premis

Potser també t'agrada

Autors associats

Paul Bacon Cover artist
Michael Schumann Cover artist
Eduard Zak Translator

Estadístiques

Obres
56
També de
8
Membres
3,939
Popularitat
#6,420
Valoració
4.0
Ressenyes
65
ISBN
410
Llengües
8
Preferit
10
Pedres de toc
61

Gràfics i taules