Plague and Cholera by Patrick Deville (Book Analysis) E-Book

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• Herausgeber: BrightSummaries.com
• Kategorie: Bildung
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• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 25

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Unlock the more straightforward side of Plague and Cholera with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!
This engaging summary presents an analysis of Plague and Cholera by Patrick Deville, in which the narrator, a “ghost of the future”, sets out to find out more about Alexandre Yersin, a scientist and explorer who invented the cure for the plague but who has sadly been largely forgotten throughout history. The novel was a great success, awarded the Prix du roman Fnac, a French literary award, in the year of its publication, and shortlisted for four other awards in the same year. Patrick Deville is a successful French author whose books have been translated into a dozen languages, and who skilfully brings Yersin, our forgotten hero, to life in this work.
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Leseprobe

Patrick Deville

French writer

Born in Saint-Brévin (Western France) in 1957Notable works:Pura Vida (2004), novelKampuchéa (2011), novelPlague and Cholera (2012), novel

After completing two Masters degrees in French literature and comparative literature, Patrick Deville (born in 1957) gained a teaching qualification in philosophy and went abroad to teach. He thus began a series of journeys that would lead him to the Middle East, Africa and Central America. While travelling abroad, he became involved in organising literary events, as well as in the management of the French writers’ and translators’ magazine Meet and in the creation of the Latin American prize for new literature in 1996. His passion for Latin America is also expressed through his work, especially in Pura Vida (‘Pure Life’, 2004) and La Tentation des Armes à Feu (‘The Temptation of Fireworks’, 2006), which constituted a turning point in his writing and a major shift away from his novels Le Feu d’Artifice (‘The Fireworks’, 1992), LaFemme Parfaite (‘The Perfect Woman’, 1995) and Ces deux-là (‘These Two’, 2000), which are all written in a minimalist style. Fascinated by adventure stories, he also wrote Equatoria (2009), Kampuchéa (2011) and Plague and Cholera (2012).

Plague and Cholera

A vibrant tribute to a forgotten researcher

Genre: novelReference edition: Deville, P. (2012) Peste et Choléra. Paris: Seuil.1First edition: 2012Themes: medicine, scientific research, ambition, Indochina, exploration

In Plague and Cholera, published in 2012, the narrator, through a “ghost of the future”, sets out to find out about Alexandre Yersin, one of the members of Louis Pasteur’s first team that discovered the bacteria that cause the plague and invented the vaccine against the illness. But Yersin is not just a scientific genius: he is also a sailor, explorer, cartographer, mechanic, architect, photographer, a rubber and quinine plantation owner, and above all a man with encyclopaedic knowledge who wants to know everything, and is ready to give up a promising career in the Pasteur Institute.

Patrick Deville uses the richness of his life to his advantage to describe the problems and the progress of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, and to thus prevent them from being forgotten. He also pays tribute to the extraordinary fates of the men who crossed paths with Yersin and contributed, in their own way, to humanity’s advancement.

1 All quotes taken from the reference edition have been translated by BrightSummaries.com

Summary

A persistent dream

Alexandre Yersin’s father died before he was born from a brain haemorrhage, while his mother, Fanny, moved to Morgues (Switzerland) where she founded a boarding house for young girls. Even as a child, Yersin has his father’s passion for insects, his taste for exploration in the woods and a profound dislike for the futile activities his mother teaches him, as well as for material goods. He chooses to study medicine.