The Thibaults

Roger Martin du Gard · 1881–1958 · France

Originally Les Thibault (French) · translated by Stuart Gilbert

Why it matters

Two sons of a domineering Catholic patriarch (Antoine the doctor, Jacques the rebel) are carried with their whole generation into August 1914. France's great realist roman-fleuve, and one of fiction's most damning accounts of how a civilization sleepwalks into war.

At a glance

Documentary patience and enormous length; the Summer 1914 volumes track European politics hour by hour.