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Anatole France
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The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard Kindle Edition

by Anatole France (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 32 ratings
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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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  1. Print length
    236 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    March 30, 2011
  5. File size
    488 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004UJ0YC6
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 30, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 488 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 236 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1477674810
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 32 ratings

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Anatole France

Anatole France

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
32 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Marla McQ
5.0 out of 5 stars So much fun. I love this book.
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2021
Verified Purchase
I learned so very much when looking up topics introduced in the body of the book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in history, France, plant propagation and old time manners. Keep your Kleenex handy. What a great 👍.
2 people found this helpful
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Maria Pedro
5.0 out of 5 stars good
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2012
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this book i think should be a best seller - it just made you want to read on and on - i think that i would read it again - i am going to keep it on my kindle for keep sake - it was enjoyable and intriguing - what a nice book - everyone should read it
6 people found this helpful
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Rebecca Lindroos
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2016
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Way better than expected - funny and kind of heart-warming. It was written in 1880s though and translated from the French. Anatole France did not win the Nobel for this one. lol
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I. Archer
1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadble type size
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2016
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This particular edition is unreadable due to the miniscule font size used to save money so the book could be squeezed into 79 pages. And my vision is 20/20. Truly obnoxious. Not to mention the sloppy copy editing with a typo every few lines!!! Amazon should never inflict such a travesty on loyal customers.
3 people found this helpful
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A. Rosinsky
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2018
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Brilliant.
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Mr. D. James
3.0 out of 5 stars A Life in Books
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2013
Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

In his time Anatole France (1844-1924) was regarded as a great man of letters. He was a poet, journalist and novelist, the son of a bookstore owner who became a member of the Académie Française and was ultimately awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although he must have appeared to his contemporaries to be a revolutionary writer, a scourge of the Church and a witty satirist, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard is a somewhat plodding read today. True, I have only read a translation of the work of this so-called master-stylist, a first person narrative of the eponymous hero that frequently dragged.

The main trouble for me is that Bonnard, a fusty old scholar with an enquiring mind and wide sympathies, doesn't actually do anything until the end of the story when he adopts a young girl, Jeanne, rescuing her from an oppressive scholastic regime. Not that our hero (or anti-hero) is unsympathetic. He is earnest and meticulous in his pursuit of ancient texts, having devoted his life to recovering works that nobody but he is ever likely to read. He sees life, as Johnson said of Milton, `through the spectacles of books.' To Bonnard's credit, he is only too aware of being buried in the past: "Bonnard," I said to myself, "Thou knowest how to decipher old texts; but thou dost not know how to read the Book of Life." The archaic language is maintained throughout, serving to underline the narrator's distance from what we might call `the real world.'

The out-of-touch bibliophile is constantly being orientated to practical issues by his dominatrix of a housekeeper, Therese. `On re-entering my lodgings I had to endure the sharpest remonstrances from Therese, who said she had given up trying to understand my new way of living.' His new way of living (his Crime in fact) entails living with `the child', Jeanne, who becomes his ward and indeed spiritual inamorata, although he ultimately but reluctantly cedes her to Gelis, a younger man - shades of Esther Summerson, perhaps?

But even the old man's happy relationship with the rescued Jeanne is seen by the scholar a re-enactment of the Antigone situation. Thus when Bonnard reads the Chorus of Antigone to Jeanne, the tragic heroine's face appears before him `in all its passionless purity.' He tells his ward `I am reading, Mademoiselle - I am reading that Antigone, having buried the blind old man, wove a fair tapestry embroidered with images in the likeness of laughing faces.' The realistic Gelis who overhears this protests that this ending is not in the text. No, Bonnard agrees, `It is a scholium' - a marginal note, but adds Gelis `Unpublished.' Thus does the wish-fulfilment of life in the end triumph over the reality of textual scholarship.
6 people found this helpful
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Karl Janssen
5.0 out of 5 stars An old scholar finds there’s more to life than books
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2022
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, published in 1881, was French author Anatole France’s debut novel, after having previously established his literary reputation as a poet. I have seen several websites that classify this novel as “detective fiction.” It is certainly not that, and despite its title, not crime fiction by any means. It is, however, a very entertaining read. The novel won a prize from the Académie Française the year it was published, and the author would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921.

Sylvestre Bonnard is a 62-year-old historian and philologist whose specific area of expertise is the medieval history of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Bonnard is a bachelor, lives with a housekeeper and his cat Hamilcar, and spends much of his time in his extensive library, which he has dubbed the City of Books. Browsing through a catalogue of manuscripts, he discovers a mention of the existence of a previously unknown book that would be integral to his studies, one that contains the legends of various saints as written by a 14th century clerk at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Desiring this volume for his collection, he obsessively sets about hunting for it.

With this beginning, Bonnard calls to mind the scholarly bookworm heroes of novels by Umberto Eco like Foucault’s Pendulum or The Name of the Rose. The plot takes a different turn, however, when, over the course of his bibliophilic pursuits, Bonnard indirectly reconnects with a lost love, a coincidental event that changes the course of his life. Formerly quite set in his ways, Bonnard opens his heart to receive a friend in need. From here, the story turns into a touching story of the platonic relationship between an aged man and a young woman. Though that sounds like the plot description of many a European film, the story of The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard is refreshingly distinctive and unpredictable. France causes the reader to care about his characters through judiciously paced moments of lighthearted humor, suspenseful distress, and heartwarming love, without the narrative ever becoming overly sentimental or sappy.

The most enjoyable aspect of the book is hearing the story told through the unique voice of its narrator, Sylvestre Bonnard himself. The reader gets a glimpse inside the mind of this aged scholar who is in some respects an intellectual giant crossed with an emotional child. At a young age, Bonnard turned away from matters of the heart to sequester himself among his dusty old books, yet among the cobwebs of his soul there still beats a warm heart of gold. Through Bonnard’s voice, France tells his tale with humor and poignancy. To be receptive to Bonnard’s charm, however, the reader should really have an interest in old books, libraries, and arcane areas of study, otherwise the old man’s digressions on books and history might not appeal to you. I for one, however, enjoyed all my time spent amid Bonnard’s City of Books, and at times I envied his quasi-monastic lifestyle.

Anatole France is known for satire and social criticism, but that’s not really evident here, other than he may be gently poking fun at the academicians of the Académie Française, of which Bonnard is a member. France himself would join that club 15 years later. France clearly has an affection for his character, and it rubs off on the reader. The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard is a very well-written and delightfully engaging novel. My only other experience with Anatole France has been his 1912 novel The Gods are Athirst, which I did not enjoy as much, but after reading this book I will certainly delve further into his fiction.
One person found this helpful
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wiredweird
3.0 out of 5 stars Has its moments
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2012
After reading France's  Thais  and especially his  Penguin Island , I had highest hopes for more of his gentle satire and piercing wit. Although a few examples of them appeared, generally in the narrator's self-deprecating moments, Bonnard never really engaged me. Too many premises about society and social niceties have changed, and not much actually happens - it added up to very little for me to hold onto, and no easy connection to that little.

I'll come back to other works by France, but might not be so persistent in reading each one to the end.

-- wiredweird
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Charles Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars Pl;easant reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2017
Verified Purchase
A nicely printed facsimile of the original book, which I first read back in the 1950s. Clear large type for easy reading.
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schmose
3.0 out of 5 stars 老いた文献学者の恋、しかし今では誰も読まない
Reviewed in Japan on March 27, 2014
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著者37歳、1881年の作です。

シルヴェストル･ボナールは、60歳過ぎの老いた文献学者、
国立古文書学校の卒業生、熱烈な図書館学者です。
パリの"本の町"のアパートに猫アミカルと老いた女中テレーズ
と生活してます。彼はシシリーまでジャック･ドヴォラジーヌの
金色の伝説の本を探しに行き、ジャン･トゥムイェの未発表の
原稿さえも見つけます。彼は若いときクレマンティーヌと
恋をしたが、人生の偶然で、恋を実らす事はできなかった。
城には所有者ロシア夫人の死後、許可を得て図書をカタログ化する
のにやってきます。彼は偶然にもクレマンティーヌの娘で、貧乏で
孤児ジャンヌ･アレクサンドルに廻り合い、その新鮮さと単純さに
驚き、魅せられ、クレマンティーヌを思い出します。彼女はムーシュ師、
暴力的な公証人の保護の元で住んでいます。彼女を救うため、養子
にし、パリに連れてきます。また彼女の将来を心配し、豊富な
図書館の本を売り持参金とし、彼の生徒と彼女は結婚します。
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Rhone
4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Mind
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 29, 2014
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Every sentence shows a deep intelligence, and add to that such wit. What a wonderful writer. On the negative side its age showed, in the last quarter, and theres a really sloppy English translation . But I'm so pleased I discovered Anatole France
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S.C.W.
1.0 out of 5 stars UN-READABLE TYPE SIZE
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
Was so looking forward to this book. The cover looks good -- but when you open it to read you find tiny, tiny print size. I can't read it with my newest specs on, so I tried adding a magnifying glass ! I could just read it then. But is is much to uncomfortable to struggle through a whole book trying to keep pages and magnifyer aligned.
Sadly I shall have to return it.
And so, I still have not read anything by Anatole France -- this was a starting point to explore him as an author!
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S.C.W.
1.0 out of 5 stars UN-READABLE TYPE SIZE
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2023
Was so looking forward to this book. The cover looks good -- but when you open it to read you find tiny, tiny print size. I can't read it with my newest specs on, so I tried adding a magnifying glass ! I could just read it then. But is is much to uncomfortable to struggle through a whole book trying to keep pages and magnifyer aligned.
Sadly I shall have to return it.
And so, I still have not read anything by Anatole France -- this was a starting point to explore him as an author!
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JOJO
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2017
Verified Purchase
Interesting, descriptive work.
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