The latest addition to my website is François Bon‘s L’enterrement [The Funeral]. This short novel/long story tells of the unnamed narrator’s visit to a remote village in the Vendée region of France for the funeral of Alain, an old friend. We do not know how Alain died but we suspect it was suicide. The narrator observes the village and the funeral ritual. He was last there five months previously for the wedding of Alain’s sister who is now visibly more than five months pregnant. Nothing much happens but the narrator observes how the village has changed, how it looks somewhat run-down and how the people still just carry on. The narrator is an excellent observer and tells his account well but is eager to leave the village at the end.