To the Slaughterhouse
By Jean Giono
1931
First Published
3.61
Average Rating
251
Number of Pages
Written in chilling detail, this novel describes the effect of World War I on a small community in Provence. In some of the most fiercely realistic and horrifying scenes of war ever recreated in literature, this story evokes the harsh, primitive conditions in the trenches as well as the loneliness and anxiety experienced by those left at home. The gradual disintegration of normal life and morals in areas far from the fighting grimly parallels the wholesale destruction of men, land, and animals at the front.
Avg Rating
3.61
Number of Ratings
257
5 STARS
18%
4 STARS
41%
3 STARS
30%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
3%
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Author
Jean Giono
Author · 32 books
Jean Giono, the only son of a cobbler and a laundress, was one of France’s greatest writers. His prodigious literary output included stories, essays, poetry, plays, film scripts, translations and over thirty novels, many of which have been translated into English. Giono was a pacifist, and was twice imprisoned in France at the outset and conclusion of World War II. He remained tied to Provence and Manosque, the little city where he was born in 1895 and, in 1970, died. Giono was awarded the Prix Bretano, the Prix de Monaco (for the most outstanding collected work by a French writer), the Légion d’Honneur, and he was a member of the Académie Goncourt.
