Grégoire CourtoisBesprekingen

Mathilde qui ne dit rien, femme grande et costaude, ancienne judoka, est travailleuse sociale et vit depuis une bonne dizaine d'années dans une cité. Mathilde y expie un passé douloureux et traumatique derrière une vie monotone et solitaire. Le jour où elle découvre que ses voisins de palier vont être expulsés car le mari a été arnaqué et ne peut plus payer son loyer, Mathilde voit rouge et décide de faire justice elle-même…

Les chapitres alternent entre la période contemporaine et le passé de Mathilde, lorsqu’elle était un espoir du judo amoureuse d’une petite frappe. Le récit est court, percutant, efficace. Le binôme entre Mathilde et Idriss, le petit-fils de ses voisins, à la langue bien pendue, est original et fonctionne bien. Je n’ai cependant pas bien compris pourquoi le fils des voisins en voulait tellement à Mathilde et lui mettait des bâtons dans les roues alors qu’elle souhaitait aider ses parents. Petit bémol supplémentaire : j’ai trouvé que les scènes de violence, surtout à la fin, n’étaient pas complètement maîtrisées, à la limite du crédible – trop longues, trop sanguinolentes, partant un peu dans tous les sens… (lire plus : https://tuvastabimerlesyeux.fr/2022/01/23/mathilde-ne-dit-rien-tristan-saule)

It's a jungle out there, or at least a forest, as a group of children on a school camping trip get lost among the trees with no adult role models to put things in context and no comforting mother figures to allay their fears. Through mishap and malice the frightened kids soon learn the truth behind all those adult adages: no good turn goes unpunished; might makes right; you reap what you sow; and pride goeth before the fall (actual real falls involving cracked skulls and ruptured vertebrae). The author even breaks the fourth wall on occasion just to ensure that we, the readers, are not left entirely unscathed. Grégoire Courtois' cruel and sadistic fable renders the dog-eat-dog world of grown-ups in miniature, upending our fairytale expectations in the process and setting the whole horror show in a sun-dappled woods suddenly grown haunted and carnivorous. Comparable on some level with "Lord of the Flies", yet delivered with enough explicit gut-churning clarity to give even Golding a nightmare or two. Repulsive, outrageous, and sharper than a scalpel.

I liked this a lot. I wish it was a bit longer, and I think I'm going to need to reread it with my eyes as parts of it were a bit confusing, but I loved the pace of it and it was very interesting.

Damn....

I won't lie, I was hoping it would be more like "Oh, let's all go on a school camping trip! Hahaha this is so fun! Oh no, there's like, ents and fairies and boogeymen and banshees and giant insects etc., and they're all trying to devour the children!" All the campers would be hiding in cabins, barricading from the supernatural forces, and it would just be a fun, campy, yet graphic story with the simple theme of "don't fuck with the forest (please recycle :P)."

I got none of that: the set-up was underdeveloped and edgy, none of the characters felt real, there's philosophical schlock present that tries to heighten the despair but ultimately doesn't fit, the deaths in this story are lackluster, and the only real threats present are a 6-year-old, school-shooter wannabe and natural accidents. There are no fantastical elements, and yet the story can't decide on whether it wants to be gritty realism or absolute camp. There's quite literally nothing to appreciate here that you couldn't find more focused, more creatively expressed, and better realized elsewhere. That even goes for campy stories. Don't bother wasting your time with this.

Mentioned in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/10/28/villainathon-wrap-up/

I was interested in the premise, and I hoped that it could be carried out in a writing style and narrative technique that would make the plotline compelling and horrific. Instead, this book is gruesome from the first page. I wouldn't be able to recommend this title.

I suppose I'm spoiled for truly wicked horror after reading so much Hunter Shea over the last few years, so when I grabbed this on Netgalley, loving the sound of it from the blurb, I thought I was going to be really terrified.

I mean, let's face it... the premise is sick as hell.

The text lives up to the promise, too, but expect it to be more in line with a B-Movie horrorshow that doesn't spare the kids. At all.

Think about the original Halloween meets Kindergartener Survival. Or, rather, first grade. :)

Is it sick? Quite. Does it scratch all those sensational penny dreadful urges in me? Quite.

A very nice change of pace. Mind you, only the sickest readers need to hunt for this little gem. :) This is not for you old farts who sip lemonade on the porch. This is a battle royale with ultimate stakes among six-year-olds. Gird your loins.

I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program.

I can honestly say I have never read anything like The Laws of the Skies.

I thought the style, the way the narrative flowed from place to place, was interesting and well done. It felt dreamlike and nightmarish. The imagery was graphic and striking, not too different than in some thrillers I've read.

But when I finished it I could only think about how pointless it all was, and if it was any longer I wouldn't have finished it.

This is the creepiest and most violent fairy tale I have ever read. A group of six-year-old children go on a camping trip with three adults as chaperones. Each meets a violent death. This was an extremely well written tale that scared me to death!

Gregoire Courtois. "The Laws of the Skies" ("Le Lois du Ciel"), translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2019

In this grim little novel, first published as "Les Lois du Ciel", and in this edition translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins, Gregoire Courtois revives the classic fairy tale- the story mined from ancient folklore- that of children who fall victim to demonic forces. It's quite old fashioned in its way, in that it vehemently eschews the comforting modern sanitizing of the horrific old yarns. There are plenty of modern stories in which children are threatened by evil, but they are almost always rescued before the end, or they rescue themselves by becoming little heroes who vanquish the evil. Not so in Courtois' relentless "The Laws of the Skies"

This is a novel of pure horror. It resembles William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", except that "Flies" has a more "optimistic" view of basic human nature. The story is about a group of six year old French kids and their adult chaperones who are annihilated while on a camping trip in the mountains. Some of them are murdered by Enzo, the little psychopath among them, and others fall victim to accident as malevolent nature and cruel fate conspire to create a massacre. Courtois seems to revel in the tradition of the Grand Guignol.

this book feels to me like one of those indie horror movies you find scrolling through netflix late at night; gore-y, kind of depressing, and trying to be super deep but just coming across as a little silly. still, like those movies, it's pretty fun if you just take it at face value.

The Laws of The Skys
by Gregoire Courtois
Translated from French by Rhonda Mullins
2016/2019
Coach House
5.0 / 5.0
Thanks to LibraryThing, the author and publisher for sending this ARC.

I'd describe this amazing story as 'Lord Of The Flies' gone rogue. The innocence of a child, stolen with no remorse, from another child incapable of remorse....how the environment and things we see as young children can influence who we become as adults.....are at work here.

A group of 12, six year olds with their teacher, Frederic, and two chaperones, take a bus to a camp ground deep in the forest to spend a weekend camping.
No one makes it out alive.
One of the 6 year olds, Endo, is punished for his behavior. Endo is a creepy weird kid, who blungeons the teacher to dead with a stone in front of all the others. They scatter when this happens, and are one by one met with their demise attempting to escape the evil Endo.
Innocence vs. Evil
Wicked vs. Pure
The themes in this dark and brutal story are so well done. How will the children react?? How far will they go to escape the pursuit of danger??
Courtois is a writer with such deep mastery, with such a precise and clean style to a terrifying story. The slow measured pace, even knowing the eventual outcome for the students, makes this even more chilling and unsettling. I highly recommend this one!

Oh. My. God. What did I just read? I received a copy of this from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program and I just have to say thank you to them because...holy (expletive). This book was insane - intense, terrifying, horrifying, and absolutely impossible to put down. A class of a dozen six-year olds and three adult chaperones go on a weekend trip to the forest. No one survives. This is not a spoiler. The reader is told that on the first page. But the ways in which everyone dies are a combination of sad, unexpected, and depraved. The writing is gorgeous and graphic. This is a book that is going to stick with me even though I kind of want to scrub the horror from my brain. My only quibble is sometimes the kids think or say things and I just can’t picture six year olds thinking or acting in that way. Mind you, I don’t have kids of my own, so I can’t honestly say for sure, but it did pull me out of the story a bit, hence 4 stars, not 5. The publisher’s press release calls this “Winnie-the-Pooh meets The Blair Witch Project” and I would add take that and mix it with a bit of The Lord of the Flies. If you like horror or thrillers, definitely give this a shot, but don’t read it at bedtime and make sure you have something cheery to chase it with. I may never sleep again and I’m absolutely never going into a forest ever again.½

Publishers Weekly review states: " Unflinching in its savagery, the nightmarish poetry of this modern Lord of the Flies is undeniable... Far from being an exercise in idle cruelty, this wicked novel plumbs the darkest reaches of childhood fears and finds plenty to be afraid of." I totally disagree with that review. This book is ridiculous. On page one the author tells you that the children are all going to die. Frederic Brun takes his 1st grade class on a camping trip along with two women chaperones. Really? A 6 year old camping trip? the author cruelly weaves this horrific story in a confusing way- sometimes combining 2 events in back and forth dialogue that is disconcerting. Not worth the paper it is printed on.½