Bernard du Boucheron

In which a pompous churchman sets out on an expedition to check up on the spiritual and material conditions among a Christian settlement in the far reaches of the Arctic, finding there an impoverished community with little hope or spiritual ardor, whereupon he inflicts a series of punishments which are violent and humiliating. All of this is described in a mock-heroic simulation of a medieval religious or military chronicle. For an added frisson of violence and desperation, the expedition's atrocities are interrupted by a further penetration into an even more remote region which ends in near-disaster and a full dose of the standard cliches of survival epics. This is one plenty crazy book. To me, it had little to recommend it except for the faux-epic style and the deadpan black humor, and even that got old eventually. To find the book at all enjoyable, one would also have to be considerably less squeamish than I, though I am aware that many such individuals exist.… (meer)

Literary prizes are strange things. This novel won the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française in 2004, which led me to expect something rather brilliant, but it fell gloomily short of expectations. Austere, cold and brutal, it tells the story of the medieval Catholic priest Insulomontanus, who is dispatched to New Thule (Greenland) to minister to the faithful. The New York Times regarded the book as a tour-de-force of black humour, but I found it an increasing slog of horrific cruelty and almost unbearable suffering. Framed as Insulomontanus’s grovelling report back to his master, it plays deftly with notions of the unreliable narrator – but that in itself isn’t enough to transform this monotonous miserable story into an engaging read...

For my full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/03/18/the-voyage-of-the-short-serpent-bernard-du-b...… (meer)