The delicate elegance of the writing welcomes the reader from the novel’s very first pages: the prosaic, tranquil life of a provincial town, daily routines, rigid social roles, thwarted romances, predictable and mundane existence are described with such affectionate and ironic detail that one wishes the story would continue along this path, as if it were a modern, condensed edition of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece (In Search of Lost Time), where truly nothing happens.
Non è così, because war bursts in! The story begins with a scandal: against the will of his grandfather, a powerful and wealthy industrialist, Pierre marries Agnes, a girl without a dowry or useful social connections, with whom he is nonetheless deeply in love.
Pierre’s mother

thought confusedly: to have loved him so much, protected him, shielded him from every evil, only for him to be snatched away from me in an instant! He will not be able to stay in Saint-Elme.
His grandfather will not allow it.
I have lost him

.
The First World War breaks out, and Pierre is called up to arms.
There is far more to worry about.
People cling to the illusion that

a world war must unfold almost without bloodshed.
(...) no State will want to answer before posterity for such a crime! (...) It is impossible for such a thing to happen, she told herself, and millions of people that evening repeated the very same words.
(...) But out there, my God, there is Pierre; come now, there is Pierre, my baby boy! It is not possible.
It is a nightmare

.
(...) And yet, not a single tear escaped her.
Her grief was too strange and too intense to allow her to weep

.
If these were the mother’s conflicting feelings, the newlyweds had bid each other farewell with calm resignation.

Alone, in the silence of their room, in the warmth of their bed, the night before they had exchanged their parting kiss, a mute and deep kiss, without lamentations, without futile recriminations.
Now their lips were weary and lifeless

.
When returning home on leave, the soldiers do not recount what truly happens at the front; they want to keep the war separate from the lives of their loved ones.

It is enough that we suffer

, they think.
Yet that is impossible.
Saint-Elme, too, is overwhelmed by bombings, by columns of refugees and fleeing soldiers, by the German occupation.
The population stubbornly resists.
On the other hand,

the war will pass, we will pass, but there will always be these simple, innocent pleasures: the coolness of the air, the sun, a red apple, a fire burning in winter, a woman, children, everyday life... the roar, the din of wars will eventually fade away

.
It is a vain hope: once the first great slaughter is over, another follows, even more terrible.

War was awaited as a man awaits death.
He knows he cannot escape it; he merely pleads for a reprieve

.
It is the Second World War.
This time it is Guy, the son of Pierre and Agnes, who is called up to the front.
During a leave, Rose, Guy's wife, announces to him that she is expecting a child:

this war is horrible...
No, don’t laugh.
I’m a woman, I’m childish.
But what do you expect? I see things as a woman.
(...) Do you remember the book you had me read, (...) a military commander is ironic because the man he sent to his death has a wife waiting for him at home, with the lamp lit on the table and flowers on the tablecloth, and clean sheets on the bed? But she is the one who is right, and I, I....(...) I am very happy, he repeated without looking at her, with a strange shyness, very, very happy.
(...) It was a feeling of triumph.
Ah, you mock me, but I mock you too.
(...) You want to destroy me, and I live! You want to rob me of all hope? Look, I marry, I love, I rejoice, I have a child! And the more you vent your fury upon me, the more stubborn I will be on my part!

By many, the novel is viewed as the story of a provincial bourgeois family during the two world wars.
It is a reductive approach to a book that speaks of how feelings—real ones—withstand every tempest and allow human beings to overcome any disaster.
Pierre and Agnes continually seek each other out, drift apart, and reunite; there is perhaps not the passion one might expect, but rather a profound tenderness.
In the novel’s conclusion, Agnes finds her husband again after a long and arduous journey through the war.
He is alive; he is safe.

She stopped at the doorway, seized by such a trembling that she could go no further.
He seemed to sense her presence.
He walked toward her: Is it you? My God, at last it's you!, he said.
Everyone was watching them.
They kissed fleetingly, awkwardly.
No kiss, no embrace could express the joy of their hearts".

Is it a bourgeois story? Perhaps, but it expresses the strength that enables survival and rebuilding after the most appalling disasters.
It shows how a woman, with her sensitivity and gentleness, views one of man’s most absurd follies: war.
One can speak of death without being captivated by it: a lesson for our own time, traversed by so much violence, both real and narrated.

Why read it? It is a masterpiece, for its splendid writing.

The Gifts of Life