9 h 14 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it cost a decent man to question the war everyone around him supports?
Clerambault is a comfortable, respected Frenchman who takes his country's cause as his own. In Romain Rolland's novel, patriotic feeling draws him into the tide of war. He believes he stands on the right side. Then war reaches his own life and those close to him, and certainty begins to give way to grief and doubt.
As Clerambault questions what he once accepts, a harder choice comes into view: whether to speak in public. Rolland follows a conscience under pressure, exploring the pull of shared feeling and the price of resisting it. At stake is the freedom to place truth and care for other human beings above loyalty to a nation.
What you’ll discover
- The pull of belonging See how a decent man finds reassurance in a cause shared by those around him.
- Doubt close to home Follow the grief and questions that unsettle Clerambault's trust in the national cause.
- The cost of speaking Face the difficult choice between keeping silent and voicing a conviction the crowd rejects.
- Humanity before the nation Explore Rolland's belief that loyalty to country must not silence truth or human concern.
- Room for reflection Spend time with the slow, inward struggle of a man learning to think against the tide.
Who will love it
Readers who love novels about conscience, family and the pull of the crowd, and anyone drawn to the First World War as lived in Paris homes, hospitals and cafés rather than on the battlefield.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A gentle poet trusts that peace will hold
- The crowd swallows the poet whole
- Maxime comes home and cannot be reached
- One night strips away every borrowed belief
- He finds no guide and begins to speak
- Speaking out costs him friends and family
- Young survivors, a false friend and a hostile mind
- The free mind against the collective soul
- How Rolland tells the story
Who’s who
- Agénor ClerambaultA kind, trusting poet past fifty who first cheers the war and then, after losing his son, chooses to speak for a free conscience.
- RosineHis quiet daughter, who sees more than she says, loves her father and Daniel Favre, and wants to keep both.
- MaximeClerambault's nineteen-year-old son, witty and loving, who enlists with joy and comes to know what the front is.
- Madame ClerambaultPauline, his devoted wife, who loves his person more than his thoughts and fears every scandal that touches the family.
- Léo CamusPauline's bitter brother, a ministry clerk who finds belonging in the war fever and cannot forgive his brother-in-law for leaving it.
- Hippolyte PerrotinAn elderly scholar and Academician, clear-sighted and cautious, who thinks freely at home but bows to authority in public.
- Octave BertinClerambault's brilliant schoolmate turned columnist, who becomes a fierce flag-waver and the loudest voice against his old friend.
- Julien MoreauA student maimed in the trenches, who seeks in Clerambault an answer for his anger and drifts toward revolution.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 9 h 14 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Clérambault
by Romain Rolland · 1920
A Paris poet who cheers the war loses his son and starts writing against it, whatever the crowd thinks.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Clerambault is a novel by Romain Rolland, written between 1916 and 1920 while he lived in Switzerland and watched Europe tear itself apart. Rolland wrote against hatred between nations, and this book gives that stand a human face.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A gentle poet trusts that peace will hold
The novel opens on a July evening in 1914 at Saint-Prix, a village outside Paris. Agénor Clerambault sits under the arbor in his garden and reads his family a new ode to universal peace. He is past fifty, tall and kind, with a thick blond mustache, and he has only lately become well known after years of obscurity. As he reads, he looks from face to face, certain that his own joy is shining back at him.
His listeners are drawn with warmth and a little humor. His wife Pauline loves him but drifts off during any reading, so she grabs the last words she heard and gushes over them. Maxime, nineteen, is a quick Parisian boy who teases his father and admires him all the more for it. Rosine, the quiet daughter, says almost nothing, yet her blush and her shining eyes show how deeply she takes in every word.
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What is Clerambault by Romain Rolland about?
It follows a French poet who supports the First World War, loses his son at the front and then speaks out against the war. He faces the anger of friends, family and the press, and learns to trust his own conscience.
Is Clerambault a true story?
It is a novel, not a true account, though it grows out of Rolland's own stand against the war. He began it in 1916 in Switzerland and finished it in 1920, and it echoes real events such as the murder of Jaurès.
What does One Against All mean in the book?
It is the name a nationalist newspaper gives Clerambault to mock him as a lone voice against the nation. He comes to accept it, seeing himself as one of the free minds who stand alone for everyone.
The author
Romain Rolland
1866–1944 · French novelist and dramatist
Romain Rolland (1866–1944) was a French novelist, playwright and biographer. He was born in Clamecy, France, and lived in France and Switzerland. He wrote the novel sequence Jean-Christophe, published between 1904 and 1912, and Clerambault, published in 1920. He died in Vézelay, France.
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