Mathias Enard’s new novel, The Deserters, comprises two parallel stories that never intersect but are worked from the same thematic material: war, its martyrs and its devastations. In the hollow of a Mediterranean mountain, an unnamed soldier is working his way to his childhood cabin, where he takes refuge from a war he has deserted. One night, his solitude is disturbed by a young woman fleeing a nearby village with her donkey. The soldier remembers the war only as a jumble of mauled bodies; the villages he helped ravage have fused into an imprecise wreckage. The girl, on the other hand, recognises him as an accomplice to the ‘death and shame’ soldiers have inflicted on the women of the village. The girl flees the cabin at the first opportunity, but when she is injured during a storm, the soldier comes to her rescue. As he nurses her back to health, his humanity begins to heal as well.

In the novel’s other narrative, the focus moves between Berlin, Weimar and Liège. In 2001, a floating mathematics conference is being held on a cruise ship on the River Havel. The conference is billed as a tribute to Paul Heudeber, a talented mathematician and committed socialist who was sent to Buchenwald. During his time in the camp, he composed his seminal book, Buchenwald Conjectures, a blend of mathematical theory and poetry. After the war, he remained loyal to his political ideals, choosing to reside in East Berlin even as Maja, the love of his life, pursued a political career in the western part of the city. When news of the 9/11 attacks reaches the ship, past and present collide. 

The Deserters is at its best when the writing is ahistorical. The soldier’s tale plays out against the backdrop of a generic war, the kind in which neighbours slaughter one another and civilians pay the price. In marked contrast, Paul’s story, told by Maja’s daughter, Irina, a historian of