Praise
Among the most haunting books I've read this year . . . The punch of Ramuz's story comes not from its plot, but from his dizzying, sinuous prose . . . On the basis of this gripping tale, [Ramuz's novels] deserve a far wider Anglophone readership –– and Great Fear on the Mountain is an excellent place to start.
— Alex Diggins, The Telegraph
Mankind in Ramuz's view can perpetually self-generate instead of self-destruct by embracing an inner beauty that is the source of our self-worth and empathy. He reminds his readers that an eternal state of flux is the only way to uncover those hidden layers and webs of selves, where we can stretch ourselves among others for a more whole and transcendent being.
— Jennifer Kurdyla, Music & Literature
Through the telescope of time, it is easy to see how navigating both fluidity and fragmentation allowed Ramuz to join those twentieth-century novelists who redefined literature—Proust, Woolf, and Mann.
— Patti M. Maexsen, Asymptote
The narrative voice is one of the most curious and distinctive aspects of [Beauty on Earth]. Part Greek chorus, part omniscient witness, it veers between every perspective and none, swooping in and out of people’s minds and concerns – not to mention pronouns and tenses. At times it has an almost hypnotic feel, with the repetition of key phrases giving the text a compelling timelessness, as though its events are taking place in an eerie eternal present.
— Ann Morgan
The greatest Swiss novelist of the French language.
— Francois Bondy, The New York Times
Nature’s terrifying power is on display in a new translation of this breathtaking 1926 novel . . . Lush prose (snowy mountain peaks seem “made of metal, of gold, steel, of silver; making all around you a sort of jeweled crown”), and profound insights about the insignificance of human life and the force of superstition pave the way to an earth-shattering finale. This thrilling tale has a timeless potency.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
Great Fear on the Mountain is presented as an allegorical tale that has become part of a larger consciousness, and one that is made more suspenseful by the intentional, almost jarring, repetition of phrases and images, and the depiction of natural phenomena, such as the light and shadows on mountain peaks, as portents of ill fate. You know it can’t end well, but like all the members of this little community, you cannot see what is coming.
— Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts
Faulknerian . . . Whether influenced by cinema’s visual possibilities, airplane feats, or his experience of the stage, Ramuz uses multiple perspectives to locate his characters.
— Alice-Catherine Carls, World Literature Today