Narrative
Pierre and Luce
Pierre et Luce
Romain Rolland · 1920
Synopsis
Paris, at the end of January 1918, under bombardment. Pierre, eighteen, knows he will be called up in six months. During an air-raid alert, in the metro, he takes in the darkness the hand of a young girl he does not know, and she does not withdraw it. He finds her again; her name is Luce. They arrange to meet at the Luxembourg, walk through Paris, enter churches and live their love apart from the war.
Context
The first edition appeared in 1920 in Geneva, from the éditions du Sablier, illustrated with sixteen woodcuts by Frans Masereel. The story opens on Wednesday 30 January 1918 and takes place during the bombardments of Paris that winter and spring. Its author, who had received the Nobel Prize in 1915 and had upheld a pacifist position since the beginning of the war, shows in it the effects of war on two very young lovers.
Who it is for
A short narrative in brief chapters, in a simple and restrained language, which can be read in one sitting in an evening.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English as early as 1922 under the title Pierre and Luce, the narrative inspired a Slovak opera in 1967 and a Czechoslovak film in 1968.
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