Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Éric Vuillard is a writer and filmmaker born in Lyon in 1968 who has written nine award-winning books, including Conquistadors (winner of the 2010 Prix Ignatius J. Reilly), and La bataille d’Occident and Congo (both of which received the 2012 Prix Franz-Hessel and the 2013 Prix Valery-Larbaud). He won the 2017 Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize, for L’ordre du jour.<b>A tightly paced and gripping read</b> . . . Vuillard has written a<b> magnificently entertaining</b> account that manages to capture the wild and uneven emotional climate of the 1930s and speaks too to our own era of liars, demagogues and politics as farce, which, as Vuillard deftly shows us, can slide all too quickly into tragedy.
- Andrew Hussey, Observer
<b>A thoroughly gripping and mesmerising work of black comedy and political disaster</b>. It seems designed single-mindedly to remind us that, as it says, “Great catastrophes often creep up on us in tiny steps.
Guardian
<b>Remarkable </b>. . . It captures the bizarre blend of wishful thinking, clownish self-importance, and cold calculation that characterized many of the Nazis’ powerful enablers.
New Yorker
<b>Gripping</b> . . . The method of [<i>The Order of the Day</i>] is to peel away the veils of dissimulation, disguise and self-justification that conspire to make historical disasters appear as just the way things happen.
Wall Street Journal
<b>Quietly momentous.</b>
Evening Standard
<b>A chilling, gripping novel</b> – it takes a number of key moments in the run-up to the Second World War and uses tremendous skill and verve to dramatize hours and minutes in which often quite ordinary men took decisions that would destroy whole nations.
- Simon Winder, author of <i>Germania</i>,
Offering us a seat at the jolly lunches and country retreats where a handful of men condemned their nations to unthinkable slaughter, <i>The Order of the Day</i> is <b>a powerful warning that cowardice saves no one</b>, not even the coward.
- Alex Christofi, author of <i>Glass</i>,
Beautifully and economically crafted . . . <b><i>The Order of the Day </i>is a stark examination of the price of silence</b>, the cost of sticking to the rules to keep the peace, and the human toll when ruling elites not only go along to get along, but support the ravings of a violent and vengeful leader.
Millions
A book whose staggering power lies in its simplicity.
Le Monde
A powerful story you read in one go, with astonishment and dread.
La Presse
Just brilliant. [ . . . ] Vuillard shows what literature is capable of in its moments of greatness: a lightning-like transformation of a tired, old, and far too often told story into a shocking new narrative.
Der Spiegel
Brief and striking . . . history behind the scenes.
L'Express
Snatched from oblivion, these scenes spring to life in our minds like a jack-in-the-box.
Le Figaro Littéraire
<b>A fascinating novelisation</b> of the pivotal meetings that took place in the run up to the Second World War . . . A damning indictment of politicians and those in power, with obvious resonances in today’s global political climate.
Big Issue
<b>Striking imaginative flair</b> . . . Vuillard explores the thoughts and feelings of his protagonists with nimble facility in this <i><b>tour de force</b></i> of enhanced realism.
i
<b>Eerily resonant</b> . . . a story of ultimatums and compromises, forced agreements and wishful thinking among European powers.
The Times
Vuillard has a good eye for issues such as war, empire, the fate of colonized peoples, and the gulf between perception and reality…[His] prose – <b>muscular, concrete, richly inventive, ironic, sardonic, opinionated</b> – is no doubt the feature of <i>The Order of the Day</i> that most appealed to the Goncourt jury. Vuillard is expert at black humor.
New York Review of Books
[<i>The Order of the Day</i>] scripts the awful behind-the-scenes march, with all its corporate and foreign complicity, from 1933 to Hitler’s rise to power in ways<b> so closely observed it feels lived</b>.
- Best Books of the Year, Boston Globe
[A] masterpiece . . . [Vuillard] illuminates in <b>glorious and ugly precision</b> how the concentration of wealth and power, a cult of personality, political corruption, bigotry, and narcissism are the necessary but sometimes ignored steps that lead to catastrophe.
- Favorite Books of the Year, Literary Hub
A gripping tale of failed diplomacy and the catastrophic momentum that led to World War II
Winner of the 2017 Prix Goncourt, Éric Vuillard's novel The Order of the Day offers a mesmerising account of the pivotal meetings between European powers in the run-up to World War Two. Through a series of vignettes, Vuillard reveals the broken relationships and political machinations that set the stage for war.
German industrialists gather to lend their support to Adolf Hitler, while the Austrian Chancellor realises too late that he has wandered into a trap. Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain bid farewell to Joachim von Ribbentrop, the future Foreign Minister in the Nazi government, over a tense luncheon.
Suffused with dramatic tension, The Order of the Day is an unforgettable novel that illuminates how the actions of a few powerful men brought the world to the brink of war. Vuillard's gripping prose and keen eye for historical detail make this a must-read for fans of historical fiction and political thrillers alike.