The Flanders Road

A soldier’s memory of a cavalry officer’s death during the fall of France, looping, fragmentary, and impossible to put down once it takes hold.

Why Start Here

The Flanders Road is Simon’s most controlled achievement, and the one that shows most clearly what he is doing and why. It circles one scene, a commanding officer shot from a horse during the 1940 German advance, and returns to it again and again from different angles, each time adding new detail, new uncertainty. The novel is not about the event. It is about how the mind cannot let go of an event.

This makes it the ideal entry into Simon’s world: the method is visible and purposeful, the emotional stakes are clear, and the compressed length keeps you from getting lost. It is also simply one of the finest war novels of the twentieth century.

What to Expect

Long, flowing sentences that fold time back on themselves. No conventional chapter breaks. A narrative that moves associatively rather than chronologically. Difficult in form, devastating in effect.