Narrative
The Silence of the Sea
Le Silence de la mer
Vercors · 1942
Synopsis
During the Occupation, a German officer, Werner von Ebrennac, is billeted with an old man and his niece. A former composer, cultured and courteous, he comes every evening to speak to them of France, which he admires, and of the union he hopes for between the two countries. His hosts have promised each other to remain silent: to his monologues they oppose an obstinate silence, which is their only way of resisting.
Context
Written in 1941, the narrative was printed, with the printing completed on 20 February 1942, in three hundred and fifty copies by a small Parisian printer, Oudeville. It was the first book of the Éditions de Minuit, published clandestinely in occupied Paris. It has become one of the symbols of the resistance of the mind to the occupier. In English, Cyril Connolly translated it as early as 1944, under the titles Put Out the Light and The Silence of the Sea.
Who it is for
A very short narrative, almost without dialogue since only one character speaks in it; the silence of the other two gives it its meaning.
Prizes and reception
In 1949, the filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville made it his first film, which bears the same title as the narrative.
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