While the Gods Were Sleeping
Set in Europe and encompassing World War I, this is a beautiful novel about love and the effect of war on love. There are battles but most take place in the human heart.
Helena, who tells this story, has outlived those she loves. Her companion is a caregiver. Her physical world has shrunk. But her mental world contains a lifetime, which she relives, by following one thread of memory and then another, unfettered by distance or time.
Born in Belgium to French and Flemish parents, Helena (or Hélène or Helen) has relatives in three countries. She travels frequently, speaks several languages, and enjoys an unusual amount of personal freedom—a heady mix for a bright young woman with curiosity. Her mother is disturbed by what she calls Helena’s “craziness,” her inability to settle on the surface of things instead of always digging deeper. Their fraught relationship drives Helena to seek a more meaningful life.
When Helena meets Michael, an English combat photographer, she is attracted by his foreignness, not his dangerous occupation, which she doesn’t fully understand—until she accompanies him into the war zone. Her parents are horrified by Helena’s recklessness and disregard for her reputation; but the experience confirms her need for change. As she describes her life before and after Michael, we learn, often by inference, what world she found in him and what she lost.
The structure of While the Gods Were Sleeping is unconventional but, thanks to Mercier’s lucid prose and a smooth translation (except for a few odd word choices), it is seldom confusing. While the Gods Were Sleeping is, after all, a book to read more than once. Highly recommended.
