Brodecks report by philippe claudel biography

Your review Optional. Ronald Beavers PhD Dr. Bright Summaries. They are so guilty that it is nearly pointless to speak of guilt and innocence, much less forgiveness. Among those destroyed by it is the village priest, who confides to Brodeck: Men are strange.

Brodecks report by philippe claudel biography: Brodeck's Report is a novel by

They commit the worst crimes without question, but later they can't live anymore with the memory of what they've done. They have to get rid of it. And so they come to me, because they know I'm the only person who can give them relief, and they tell me everything. I'm the sewer, Brodeck. I'm not the priest; I'm the sewer man. I'm the man into whose brain they can pour all their ordure, all their filthy deeds, and then they feel relieved, they feel unburdened.

Brodecks report by philippe claudel biography: Brodeck's Report is the story

The Anderer 's crime, the deed which pushes the villagers over the edge, is that he holds a little exhibition of drawings he has made of some of the townsfolk including Brodeck and some village-scenes. Cruelly, the pictures are: "not really faithful, but very true" -- and truth is something the villagers don't want to see, since it is so very, very ugly.

Even Brodeck is nearly overwhelmed when he looks at his portrait, "an opaque mirror that threw back into my face all that I'd been and all that I was. He was badly treated in the concentration camp, but he survived -- and it is that, of course, that weighs so terribly heavily on him: "I chose to live, and my punishment is my life". Midway, Brodeck moans yet again that he's the wrong person for this task I must confess to being totally at a loss.

I've been charged with a mission that far exceeds my capabilities and my intelligence. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a police officer. I'm not a storyteller. The present account, if anyone ever reads it, will prove I'm not: I keep going backward and forward, jumping over time like a hurdle, getting lost on tangents, and maybe even, without wishing to, concealing what's essential.

Alas, Claudel conceals nothing, essential or otherwise: he spells out absolutely everything, in this bluntest of allegories.

Brodecks report by philippe claudel biography: The book begins with

He unfolds his stories fairly well, even with all the back and forth and piecemeal filling in of background, but ultimately it's all much too obvious. The different layers of the story are revealed slowly like the peeling of an onion and the full horrors of what has happened to Brodeck and his village are discovered. There is the mystery of the identity of the Anderer and why has he come on horseback with his strange clothes and black notebook to stay in that village in a room above the inn.

Anderer's flamboyance, his eccentricity and eventually his perceptiveness cause suspicion and hostility among the villagers. In other projects. Wikidata item. Reception [ edit ].

Brodecks report by philippe claudel biography: Brodeck has been charged

In Other Media [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The Guardian.