I had the book under wraps for several months, three sub bought in a flea market, pushing reading always tomorrow as War of the Buttons is so notorious that everybody thinks have already read 'which n is certainly not the reality, I'm willing to bet it. The author Louis Pergaud born in Doubs (1882-1915) is a teacher like his father before becoming a novelist and excel in the wildlife area. He will perish during the Great War without his body was never found. His most famous novel, War of the Buttons whose subtitle is Roman in my twelfth year in 1912. The boys of two small neighboring villages and Longeverne Velrans grouped into bands compete for several generations following a cadastral different but almost forgotten since that endures in the mind. On leaving school, the kids spin in the country and compete verbally with stones from their catapults, swords, wooden or punches if close combat is required. Gradually this war will intensify, leaders organize their troops as the army everyone young and old with its well-defined role and purpose of the fighting becomes harder now when we make the buttons of a prisoner is cut off his clothes, his shoes were recovered or belt loops and is fiercely battering before returning it to his friends who swear to avenge him. When the kid comes home with torn clothes him, we are in the world of the poor peasants who kills himself to the task, parents do not have enough harsh punishment to chastise the unfortunate already dishonored. Louis Pergaud succeeds there a masterful novel that immerses us in rural France in the late nineteenth century, the classroom and the teacher, large and small pupils, confabulations about firms in the court, not the lessons learned with the boyfriend blowing, the blackboard and deductions, life in the fields and on the farm. But it is also an opportunity to take a sketch of the Third Republic, the conflict between the Church and the Republic, each village is identified with one side or the other "because we were black cap and red to Velrans Longeverne to "allusions to evoke the spirit of revenge after the War of 1870. These large sociopolitical backdrop lines are complemented by tasty details about the lives of these poor small towns at the time, and to add the credibility of these slices of life, the dialogue is peppered with words from the patois of Franche-Comté or grammatical mistakes of dunces urchins often because "we understood that it was impossible for such a subject, s' stick to only vocabulary Racine "Pergaud wrote in his preface. Say I really enjoyed myself this reading would still be far from the truth, a great novel that goes beyond the poor summary I have just made. This is not a book of children's stories for kids - "this book, despite its title, does not address small children, or young virgins" - here the children are not considered brats by the author, he describes them as he knows and as a teacher can give him credit. I've never read this book, my only approach was the film version of Yves Robert (1961) with Jacques Dufilho, Richard and Jean Michel Galabru which I have also a very distant memory as I n 'I see that the only time, and the names of urchins and Tigibus Grandgibus. It was time to close this gap.
"- Soft Couille! 'The balls, although what is known is, Pardine, since everyone has the same Miraut of Lisée, and they look like brown bug free, but spineless wimp! 'Spineless wimp! ...' Surely that means we are of not much, cut Tigibus since last night, laughing with Narcissus, not 'sucker, I called spineless wimp like that, for see, and my father, whom I had not seen, and just going, without telling me, once screwed me a good slap. Then 'The argument was peremptory and each felt. 'So God! No to rebeuiller longer, one has only revenge, na! concludes Lebrac '- This is vot'idée ty, you people? 'Get the hell out of there, eh, the shit-in-bed, made Boulot small approaching to listen! They approved the Lebrac to inanimité, as they said. "
My copy of the War of 1947 Date buttons Littéraires Editions de France with illustrations in black and white or color Ralph Soupault a famous designer of the time, but a disreputable person sentenced in 1945 for "intelligence with the enemy ".
