A novel of intersecting historical threads.
The Tears is, at one level, a novel about the turbulent lives of
twins, the sons of Charlemagne's daughter Bertha. The studious and
scholarly Nithard succeeds his father Angilbert as lay abbot of the
Abbey of Saint Riquier in Normandy and accompanies his cousin the
emperor Charles the Bald on his military campaigns. His twin brother
Hartnid strikes out boldly for more exotic parts--including, eventually,
Baghdad--in a seemingly deranged quest to track down the elusive female
face that haunts his dreams. Yet this novel of intersecting historical
threads and patches of poetic reimagining is crisscrossed by a host of
other themes: the enigmatic joys afforded by nature, the intimate
relation between living creatures which literature has since earliest
times depicted, and the mysterious power of contingent events that have
shaped entire cultures--including the birth of the French language
itself. This heady brew of medieval chronicle, miraculous folktale, and
speculative reconstruction of history further strengthens Pascal
Quignard's status as one of France's most imaginative contemporary
writers.
