![]() ![]() When Annette’s fervor turns to supporting the rebel FLN, we hear again DeGaulle’s duplicity in his famous statement in Algiers in 1958 - I have understood you! - although the government had no intent of granting independence, and suspected rebels were being tortured Historical asides like this one, stunning at least to this reader, provide more than enrichment they expand the biography of an extraordinary individual into an expressionist portrait of a swath of one European century. Fewer than eight hundred are executed after being tried in court.” At this point the narrator pulls back, to inform us that, “During the Occupation and shortly after, eight thousand men and women are summarily liquidated. The probable traitors here, there are the average cowards, and those simply fingered out of jealousy or greed. So be it: I can’t resist adding that not yet aged 20, in the vengeful lynch-happy fury that followed the German defeat, short and chubby-cheeked Annette is appointed with six older men to triage among those accused of having been collaborationists. And so the first real adventure begins, leading her into the rigorous discipline of the Communist Party, and later, for painfully good reasons, out again… but now there is a risk of my telling too much. Signal-not the brand of toothpaste we have today,īut a propaganda journal spreading Nazi ideology Immersed in a book, and clamped under his right arm, She will see her contact leaning on the railing, Puts her in touch with a potential contact. … you have to want to find them and know how. If you only count those who refuse to fall into step with the Germans In Paris, at University, she passes through the disorganized Trotskyites to a possible real entry to the Resistance. And above all her adored grandmother, Mamère, raised essentially in serfdom, sleeping on straw, allotted wooden sabots but no underwear.Īt 16, under the Nazi Occupation, Annette’s ardent thirst for action isn’t slaked by occasional contraband deliveries and hand-offs. The child’s guiding lights are a loving mother and father, both quick to aid anyone in need or downtrodden, despite their own poverty in a small fishing village. ![]() Why then, this choice of “epic poem”? My guess is that Weber found it gave her project the needed freedom to dive in and pull out quickly, to convey a dramatic scene in one paragraph, then zoom out, Homeric-style, for a panoramic view of matters unknown to her subject, or for a swift swipe forward or back in time.ĭoes the opening paragraph above, which lists high points of Annette’s career, constitute a spoiler? No, because Epic Annette convinces as a tale of extraordinary idealistic courage and self-sacrifice through its quotidian detail. Turns out to be an investigator at times. The voice of Epic Annette rolls through history as a jaw-dropping contemporary adventure tale, now high-flown, now colloquial, with plenty of offstage commentary from the omniscient narrator - she is unnamed and indistinct, like a Greek chorus, yet a character in this tale. Reader, do not let a matter of form put you off! To be honest, the author’s free verse is to my ear (thank you, German Audible) indistinguishable from prose, and Tess Lewis’s translation is both pitch-perfect and exact. Weber’s book aspires to be the literal thing: a 204-page epic poem composed of verse units that don’t on average exceed 25 lines. Surely the selfless subject of Anne Weber’s Epic Annette qualifies beyond doubt as a true heroine of the 20th century? Indeed, “A Heroine’s Tale” is the subtitle, echoing the German original title: Heldinnenepos.Įpos denotes a poetic form, whereas in English “epic” equally suggests outstanding size or grandeur. She was condemned to a 10-year prison term, escaped, and worked as an advisor in the Ministry of Health of a newborn, ravaged North African country. Then, as an “illegal” courier, she risked death yet again for the “Free Algeria” FLN. Born in poverty in Brittany, she volunteered as a teenager for the underground French Resistance, was twice married, a mother of three, a highly respected MD researcher in neurology. Take Annette Beaumanoir, who was an active woman in her 90s as this eponymous book took shape. Some people experience more lives in one mortal span than others can imagine - or would want. ![]() Surely the selfless subject of Anne Weber’s Epic Annette qualifies beyond doubt as a true heroine of the 20th century?Įpic Annette: A Heroine’s Tale by Anne Weber. ![]()
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