The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild

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Frank Wynne, Mathias Énard: The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild (Paperback, 2023, Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Paperback, 496 pages

English language

Published Oct. 4, 2023 by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

ISBN:
978-1-80427-059-2
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4 stars (1 review)

To research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris to La Pierre-Saint-Christophe, a village in the marshlands of western France. Determined to capture the essence of rurality, the intrepid scholar shuttles around on his moped to interview local residents. Unbeknownst to David, in these nondescript lands, once theatres of wars and revolutions, Death leads the dance. When an existence ends, the Wheel of Life recycles its soul and hurls it back into the world as microbe, human or wild animal, sometimes in the past, sometimes in the future. Only once a year do Death and the living observe a temporary truce, during a gargantuan three-day feast where gravediggers gorge themselves on food, libations and language. Brimming with Mathias Enard’s characteristic wit and encyclopaedic brilliance, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild is a riotous novel where the edges between past and present are constantly …

1 edition

Playful, rambling

4 stars

Content warning minor plot points

Subjects

  • Romance literature