Journal d'une adolescente dans la guerre

[Marilyne]

Hi all,

I found this book a week ago in a minuscule bookstore in the centre of Strasburg.

Marcelle Lerouge was 13 when the war broke out and she decided to keep a diary from that moment on, until the end of the war. Her family found it after she died in 1974 and it was published in 2004 by Jean-Yves Le Naour.

It is an exceptional testimony on the way that the population of France lived the war, through the official communiqués, through newspapers and the information she gets from her uncles at the front. She tells about standing on Montmartre and sheering at the artillery shooting down zeppelins; she tells about her life at school, and how it also turned to the war. although she is not herself at war, her entourage is, and her whole life revolves around that.

Very amusing is the naïvity with which she accepts information. She describes the Nivelle offensive as a valliant attack of the French army because the papers said so, and never, never do you find in the whole book an indication about the failure of the French.

Great read !!

At the same time, I bought the memoirs of Louis Maufrais: J'étais médecin dans les tranchées . 4 years as a doctor in the trenches certainly changed his life, I'll review it as soon as I have done!

Marilyne

PS: I was going to make some funny remark about "extra isolation" for the hamster room (some of you will remember this from a thread on Christmas gifts, earlier this year) but unfortunaltely this morning, Gadget has moved to Hamster-Heaven!! Now the office feels a bit empty and quiet ...