The Silence of the Sea - by Vercors
published 1942 - read 2005

This short novella was written under a pseudonym by some French guy who also had a career later. The reason it was under a pseudonym is that the book was written during the occupation of France by the Nazis, and in fact the book is a not-at-all-veiled argument against any collaboration with the occupier; even engaging in small talk is beyond what the narrator is willing to do, even with the nicest possible German you could ever imagine showing up in France in 1942. Unfortunately the story kind of drowns in the politics; the translation probably doesn't help that, but what do I know? Anyway, I can't blame "Vercors" for any of that, I bet if you were a French resister this was an awesome book. It shortness and its simplicity kind of work in its favor, though - it's easy enough to retell that I expect it to linger in the memory the way fables or zen koons do.

The coolest thing about the book, though, is that it got published at all; the "Historical Notes" in the front of my edition explain that secrecy was so intense that the author was actually hand-binding copies of the book side by side with people who didn't know he was the guy who wrote it. That's awesome. If things ever get really bad around here (and I guess some would argue that this is already the case) the zine network might be our only hope.

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