A Very Long Engagement | Literary Criticism & Book Review

A Very Long Engagement Critical Overview

Reviews of A Very Long Engagement applaud Japrisot's skill in creating an intriguing mystery and the many ways in which he evokes the devastation caused by World War I. A Publishers Weekly critic praises Japrisot's "eloquently easy, almost offhand style," and comments that his "re-creation of the nobility, futility and horror of trench warfare is harshly beautiful." The critic has one reservation, however, and that is the character Mathilde, whom the critic finds difficult to like.

Christine Donougher in the Times Literary Supplement admires the way in which the novel places ordinary people at the center of events. The effect, Donougher argues, is to make the reader aware that the noncombatant survivors of the war—wives, girlfriends, parents, children, and neighbors—were just as much victims of the war as the men who fought and died. Although Donougher feels the unsentimental tone of the novel is sometimes forced, she concludes that...
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