Categories
Biography and autobiography

Biography : L’homme en mouvement.

L'homme en mouvement, de l'auteur Patrick Straumann.
L’homme en mouvement, de l’auteur Patrick Straumann.

A biography generally tells the story of a person who has made an impact on his or her environment and society. Why, then, take the time to write a book about the existence of a completely unknown individual, who passes through life like a ghost?

Paul Reichstein, “l’homme en mouvement (the man in motion)”, is the enigmatic great-uncle of the author, journalist Patrick Straumann. The latter has carried out an extensive research to find out more about this “black sheep” of the family.

Why “black sheep”? Because Paul was born into a talented family, one of whose brothers, Tadeus (nicknamed Tajik), even won the Nobel Prize in collaboration with two Americans for having succeeded in isolating cortisone. His other brothers all went on to earn degrees that launched them into life. Except Paul, who is interested in everything, but quickly tires of one subject or one place.

Paul was born in Kiev in 1905 and spent his youth in Switzerland, specifically Zurich. He went everywhere, but only briefly. We find him in Russia, where he witnessed the return of the survivors of the Chelyuskin icebreaker . He worked in a tractor factory during the Stalin era and also became a mountaineering instructor where he climbed very high mountains for the glory of the Stalinist regime. (See also “Les alpinistes de Staline” on my blog).

He also joined the US Navy as a soldier. He managed to be expelled twice from Switzerland, did a stint in prison, sailed the Pacific Ocean working for the merchant navy, sold land and cabins in Anchorage, Alaska, and worked for several months in a mine in Chile, before making a detour to Australia.

He was hospitalized for accidents in Rochester, Oakland and Yokohama. We also follow him to San Francisco, Baltimore, Palm Springs, the banks of the Volga, Pusan, Seoul, China and the Philippines.

He died in 1995 and, having outlived all his brothers, there were only a dozen people at his funeral who didn’t know what to say about this elusive “man in motion”.

In 140 pages, the author succeeds in painting a generous, non-judgmental portrait of this great-uncle. Paul’s troubles and wanderings make this man very endearing.

Click on the link for more biographies on my blog.

Title: L’homme en mouvement

Author: Patrick Straumann

Publisher: Chandeigne, © 2024

ISBN: 978-2-36732-279-7

Categories
Biography and autobiography

Race to the South Pole: « Un monde au-delà des hommes ».

The novel "Un monde au-delà des hommes" by Catherine Hermary-Vieille.
The novel “Un monde au-delà des hommes” by Catherine Hermary-Vieille.

The novel ” Un monde au-delà des hommes” will be of particular interest to readers whose knowledge of early Antarctic expeditions is limited. If you don’t know whether Norway’s Roald Amundsen or Britain’s Robert Scott reached the South Pole in Antarctica first, don’t do the research before opening this book. You’ll find it much more interesting.

In the days of the great conquests of the planet’s uncharted territories, explorers risked their lives for the glory of their country. Here, Norway and Great Britain race to reach the South Pole first.

This historical novel runs to just 134 pages, allowing the author to concentrate on the essentials. She has divided the book into two parts. The first focuses on Amundsen, the second on Scott. The two men used very different methods to achieve their ends. At the beginning of the book, she includes a map showing the routes chosen by each team and the stopovers they agreed on.

Author Catherine Hermary-Vieille discusses the preparation of the journey, the strategic choices made regarding objectives, the obstacles encountered along the way, not to mention the mental attitude adopted by each explorer and the members of the expedition.

Back cover of the novel "Un monde au-delà des hommes" by Catherine Hermary-Vieille.
Back cover of the novel “Un monde au-delà des hommes” by Catherine Hermary-Vieille.

On this trip, one of the two expedition leaders will use sledge dogs as their main means of transport, while the other will try to make progress with mules. One will have only one objective in mind, the other will have several goals to achieve. One will behave as a flexible leader, the other will be more intransigent. The choices and attitude of each explorer will have a direct impact on the success of the expedition.

It’s worth noting that the two competitors don’t start their journey to Antarctica at the same time, so there’s an imbalance right from the start as to when they’ll arrive at the South Pole. But even so, once you know this, there’s still a frozen continent to cross, men to feed, crevasses to avoid and frostbite to treat. You also have to be able to come back alive.

A novel like this can be read in a day. We can forgive a few sketchy descriptions and even a small error like the one on page 19, where the name of the Inuit dog “Funcha” appears twice in the list. These distractions don’t detract from the intensity of the story. These are, after all, the stories of men who went to the very end of themselves for the glory of their country.

Today, we’re witnessing a similar race between countries to send humans to the planet Mars. Which country will get there first? And once it gets there, will it have the right to claim a planet for itself at the expense of Earth’s other humans?

Click on the link for more biography books on my blog.

Title: Un monde au-delà des hommes.

Author: Catherine Hermary-Vieille

© Éditions Albin Michel,

2023

ISBN: 978-2-226-44240-6

Categories
Biography and autobiography

Jacques Godbout’s autobiography

Front cover of the book Autos Biographie by Jacques Godbout
Front cover of the book Autos Biographie by Jacques Godbout

Jacques Godbout has found a very interesting way to present his autobiography. The cars that he once owned or rented , even those who he attempted to drive without success, become the link that the reader follows to travel around the world, always learning something new about the author’s life.

This is a refreshing book, filled with humor, where the author presents his family and many other people with whom he studied or worked, including Robert Bourassa, a former Prime Minister of Quebec.

Back cover of the book Autos Biographie by Jacques Godbout
Back cover of the book Autos Biographie by Jacques Godbout

As a citizen of Quebec City, I was surprised to learn that it is the rounded shape of the St-Laurent bar, inside Château Frontenac, that inspired Jacques Godbout and three of his friends (Paul Buissonneau, Gilles Carle and Jacques Languirand) when they were asked to sketch the beautiful Montreal Expo 67’s pavillion “L’homme dans la cité” (Man in the Community).

Click on the link for more biographies and autobiographies on my blog.

Title : Autos biographie
Author : Jacques Godbout
Edition : Somme toute
©2014 Jacques Godbout, Rémy Simard and the Somme toute edition.
ISBN papier : 978-2-924283-25-7