Decidedly, the Prix Goncourt High Schoolers and very consistent in the high quality of the winning books. Here we are with this novel immersed in the Middle Ages, in eastern France, near Besançon, where the Lord of "Whispers" decides to marry his daughter, the beautiful Esclarmonde, the impetuous Lothair of Montfaucon. The young woman refuses to marry with full ceremony and decides to adopt the recluse of life to better serve God. She believes that absolute isolation immured in a box behind a chapel dedicated to Saint Agnes his heroine, allow it to better serve and approaching this omnipresent and omnipotent God. The novel sets up quickly refused this marriage, Mass "burial" of the beautiful in his cell, the events that will influence the further course of his life. Of course nothing goes as expected and the journey of the history of the heroine turns marked by those of his father, his family, all those colorful characters that populate the novel whose voluptuous Bérangère, the simplistic Ivette, his brother Benedict father, or Thierry II, bishop of Besançon engineer who authenticate miraculous acts revolving around heroin. The great achievement of this book is the first style that cleverly mixes the French of old, and today, the representations of the cosmos, nature, beings, and of things as they should be the Middle Ages, and the keys to understanding for today's reader. It's a bit like "Ship of Fools" or the golden legend of Jean de Voragines, Bosch or Brueghel's paintings, we were presented simultaneously in the original expression and in their current understanding. It's never pontificating. There are all kind of natural, evidence, sometimes fatal, virtues far from our vain races against time and other contemporary illusions. In this sense, this book has a real poetic dimension. This is a book about love, about human credulity, the wickedness of men (especially males), on the simple goodness and true other, religion, war, crusades, nature, magic and mystique. Yes really, Esclarmonde has informed the world of his time, but also very beautiful way today's reader. A very deserved award and a reading to recommend warmly.
