Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Brilliant documentation of an incredible travel re-enactment - was left interested in reading more about Napoleon. Another intriguing and smashing success from the wonderful Europa Editions.

The year 2012 marked the 200th anniversary of one of the greatest military defeats in history – Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Although the Grande Armee defeated the Russians in every battle, a combination of a brutal winter, lack of food and relentless guerrilla attacks decimated the troops and destroyed the illusion of Napoleon as an invincible military genius.
The French writer and adventurer, Sylvain Tesson , decided to mark the anniversary by retracing Napoleon’s route on unreliable, Soviet-era motorcycles. In Berezina, Tesson interweaves the story of his two-week journey home with an account of the Grande Armee’s disastrous retreat. The result is an entertaining and well-written hybrid book – part travelogue and part history lesson.
The stupidity of Napoleon’s decision to leave Moscow in the midst of an unusually terrible Russian winter is paralleled by Tesson and his three friends determination to ride under-powered bikes on dangerously overcrowded roads in subzero temperatures for hours at a time. The author and his pals had an advantage over the French army in that they could spend the night in warm hotel rooms drinking themselves blind with vodka and eating lavish meals.
Some of the most amusing parts of the book are the other hotel guest’s reactions when they discover why Tesson is traveling by motorcycle in such a harsh winter.
Tesson’s best writing are the historical sections detailing the massive suffering of both the French and Russian soldiers as they clashed periodically over hundreds of miles of frozen wasteland and burned-out villages. The accounts of starvation and even cannibalism are quite graphic.
The shattered remnants of the Grande Armee staggered into Paris only to be ignored by the civilian population, who were kept ignorant of their leader’s defeat. A year later, Napoleon would be defeated again, captured and sent into exile.
The author and his friends faced a much different reception upon their arrival in the City of Lights. They were welcomed as minor heroes by Parisian officials and the media.
Berezina will be enjoyed by readers who appreciate adventure stories told with a dash of humor.

In the opening of the book, the author dreams of a "real adventure", which in his mind manifests as retracing the retreat of Napolean's Grande Armee from Moscow to Paris on Soviet motorcycles. While his idea of an ideal adventure and mine may differ, the tale is equally parts absurd and intellectual in its retelling of an oft-mythologized moment in history. This is a must for history buffs and fans of War and Peace.

"It's during a previous journey that the idea of a future one comes to mind. Imagination carries the traveler far from the trap where he's gotten stuck. While in the Negev desert, he'll dream of a Scottish glen; in a monsoon, of the Hoggar Mountains; on the west side of the Aiguille de Dru, of a weekend in Tuscany. Man is never happy with his lot, but aspires to something else, cultivates the spirit of contradiction, propels himself out of the present moment. Dissatisfaction motivates his actions. "What am I doing here?" is the title of a book and the only question worth asking."

In just such a way, French author Sylvain Tesson got the somewhat ludicrous idea of traveling across 2,500 miles of Russia following the retreating footsteps of Napoleon Bonaparte as the French general abandoned his ill-planned invasion and returned to Paris. In 2012, with a set of French and Russian buddies, he sets out to make the two-week trip on an old Soviet motorcycle with sidecar. Like his countryman Napoleon, he goes in winter. At least their vehicles, called Urals, are near-indestructible?

"On the outskirts of Paris, I missed a turning and drove into the corner of a detached burrstone house. The owner failed to appreciate the poetry of Soviet scrap iron. His wall had been demolished but the motorbike was unscathed."

Along the way, he discusses the historical implications of Napoleon's flight. On the River Berezina Napoleon's Grande Armée suffered a fate-sealing loss in battle against the Russians, and the word "berezina" thus took on very different meanings for the people of the two countries. For the French, it echoes the humiliating defeat that it was for the once-glorious Grande Armée, shorthand for a situation that's an utter disaster. But for the Russians, "berezina" connotes an idea of triumphant national pride. In chronicling this trip, the bunch experience a healthy dose of both meanings.

Tesson plays with this idea throughout, of the very different meanings and implications for the two nations, as they make various stops and he ponders significant battlegrounds or sites from the War of 1812 (this is far less boring than it may sound). Cultural differences are also bandied about, between the two countries historically and between the members of this somewhat ragtag traveling group.

It is endlessly entertaining but also smart and considerate in a way that Tesson is beautifully skilled in. As much as he jokes or teases, it's clear that it's loving and deeply respectful, as he's very appreciative of Russia. There's a similar tone here, in parts, to the book that made me fall in love with his writing, The Consolations of the Forest, in which he holes up for an extended period in a Siberian cabin.

"The stone stela bore an inscription: "Here, the soldiers of the Grande Armee crossed the Berezina." A sentence that made the nightmare sound like nothing at all."

He's a seasoned travel writer who has a knack for highlighting interesting locations and putting their historical significance into context related to the present, made all the richer by the space of 200 years between his journey and Napoleon's retreat. As in Consolations, he imbues this blend of an often nonspecific nostalgia and aching in the soul with unexpected humor. I love reading him because it's impossible to predict where the narrative will go next, and I say this even as this book follows along a clearly delineated map.

"I was...nostalgic for a world I hadn't known."

There is a sense of heaviness throughout, as the War of 1812 was a terrible, brutal conflict and there were many more to come to Russia, and these scars are vividly evident as they make their way through the countryside, staying in hotels that haven't been updated since the Cold War and witnessing some of the country's troubles in various forms. Despite the travelogue format, it's very internally-focused somehow, as so much of this comes directly from Tesson's thoughts. He's a ruminative type, and his musings on Franco-Russian relations, culture, and history are all tinged with a very personal viewpoint.

It reads surprisingly light and fast, despite some darker topics, and ends up being a fantastic history and cultural lesson as well as a constantly amusing ride-along. My high expectations following Consolations of the Forest weren't disappointed, his writing even in translation is wonderful and I hope more of it will make its way into English.

Not my usual type of read but enjoyable nonetheless.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an unbiased review.
Three French men, two Russians, some motorbikes and a recreation of Napoleon's disasterous retreat of 2,500 miles form Moscow to Paris. Combining history and travel this was a pretty good read although a little bit more of the history might have been beneficial to those reading who haven't studied history to the depth that I have.

4 stars.
This is the story of a wild adventure. Three Frenchmen and two Russians decide to recreate Napoleon 's retreat from Moscow on the 200th anniversary of the brutal winter retreat. They do this on vintage USSR Ural motorcycles. They suffer in the bone chilling Russian winter, but do make the complete trip to Paris. They stop at historic battlefield sites and graveyards. They drink copious amounts of vodka every night along the way.
One quote: "Cold is a ferocious beast. It grabs you by a limb, sinks its teeth into it, doesn't let go, and its venom gradually spreads through your being."
Thanks to the author and Europa editions for sending me this book through NetGalley.
#Berezina #NetGalley

Thank you to Europa Editions and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book, tracing the route of Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, was intriguing and had me hooked from the word go. And doing it on Russian-built Ural motorcycles, with a group of travellers up for adventure, sounded like a genius idea and fuel for amazing stories.

Sadly, the book itself did not live up to the build-up. The history behind the route, and the recounting of the French retreat was very well done, evoking the bleak despair and complete catastrophe that Napoleon wrought on his army (and the local populace). However, I would have welcomed a bit of a broader base of reference, to see the bigger picture.

The travelling itself was - dare I say it - boring. Motorcycles were ridden. It was cold. Bikes broke down. It was dangerous.. We reached our destination, slept, got up and did it again.

For an introduction to the history of Napoleon's Russian retreat, this is a quick and enjoyable read. For a travel book about a fascinating part of the world, not so much.

This was a book that I really, really wanted to like. The premise, tracing the route of Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, was intriguing and looked to be fun. The added idea of following this path using Russian-built Ural motorcycles added a layer of humor and excitement to the journey. And the group of travelers seemed like they were destined for many interesting (vodka-fueled) adventures that would be recounted.

But this book left me wanting more on all accounts. The historical recounting of the French retreat was very well described, and actually ended up being most of this story. But Mr. Tesson ended up using only a few main sources for his history - this made me want to not just read those accounts but more importantly see what other perspectives exist out there.

The actual traveling was repetitive and not very well described: we rode our bikes, it was cold and/or dangerous, maybe a bike broke down, we got to the next city, we drank and rested for the next day. Very little description of the roads beyond the basics, just about no descriptions and/or adventures in the towns and cities along the way. Every stop seemed to be interchangeable with the one before it.

There were one or two paragraphs describing Mr. Tesson's fellow travelers, but they quickly became interchangeable other than the basic stereotypes (these are the Russians, this is the photographer, etc.). I'm sure people who were willing to take this journey were interesting and exciting, I just wish some of their story could be better told.

In short, I think that if you are looking for an introduction to the history of Napoleon's Russian retreat then this is a quick read that you will find enjoyable. If you are looking for a travel book (as I was) about an interesting journey in a part of the world that you might not have seen with enormous historical value, then this will disappoint.

Thank you to Europa Editions and NetGalley for providing me with a free advance electronic copy of this book

This was a very good book, travel and history combined. The author has recreated Napoleon’s retreat from the Russian campaign in 1812 by going from Moscow to Paris, doing all this on a soviet bike with side car.
Reading about travel and history are not always my go to genre but I am so glad on this occasion that I did as this was no disappointment. It made me want to get out there on a road trip myself just not something as adventurous, but definitely a visit to Lithuania added to the bucket list.

The author is well traveled, so the book is a real good read and I look forward to reading other by this author .

Recommend it to everyone who likes travel, history and well written books and glad to have had the opportunity to review via netgalley. All opinions expressed are my own

Review of courtesy copy of Berezina, by Sylvain Tesson, translated from the French by Katherine Gregor.

Writer and extreme adventurer Sylvain Tesson is on an Arctic expedition when he decides that he and his friends should retrace Napoleon’s famous retreat from Moscow to Paris. They will also undertake this journey in the dead of winter, only on Ural motorcycles with sidecars. Billed as “…a riotous and erudite book that combines travel, history, comradery, and adventure,” Berezina is all of that, and more.

Testosterone oozes from this band of adventurers, Russophiles, and vodka-swilling Slavs as they toast their voyage and the proletarian king the night before they set off on their twelve-day trek. But as they get underway, as Tesson and crew re-read firsthand accounts of the Grande Armée’s brutal march, the weight of that ghost army settles over them and their story gains astounding depth.

Tesson clothes the skeleton of what we all learned in high school history class, of Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of cold and hunger, with facts and details and quotes from various sources. He then makes it personal, adding his own emotional, philosophical, and insightful reflections along his journey.

It is only day two when the author ruminates: “The reason for this journey was precisely to make this nightmare sink deep into our heads in order to hush the inner laments and to wring the neck of this shrew, this repugnant tendency that is man’s true enemy: self-pity. Since our journey along the path of the French Retreat, whenever I’ve found myself on cliffs that were too steep, or in bivouacs that were too cold, I’ve often thought of those poor devils crawling on the icy road, huddled in their rags, fed on rotting tripe, and I’ve swallowed back the phlegm of whining rising to my lips.”

Katherine Gregor’s translation portrays a voice that is at times boorish and others erudite, but always highly engaging.

Fascinating account of a French adventurer's desire to retrace the retreat of Napoleon's Grand Armee from Moscow. Only the French adventurer would be attempting it on an iconic URAL soviet-build motorcycle. In winter, of course. The parallels drawn with our current geopolitical predicament provide a fascinating study of human nature, folly, pride and the ancient ontogeny that binds us, regardless of national allegiance.

A real-life quest story filled with humor, camaraderie, and sufficient melancholy to engender hope that he might try it again. Perhaps this time in a covered wagon along the Oregon Trail.

This was a very good book, travel and history combined. The author has recreated Napoleon’s retreat from the Russian campaign in 1812 by going from Moscow to Paris, doing all this on a soviet bike with side car, an Ural. I had to google this, as I think I had never seen one.

Reading about travel and history are always sure bets for me, and this was no disappointment. I almost feel like doing a road trip myself. Maybe not something so adventurous, but definitely a visit to Belarus or Lithuania.

The author is well traveled, savant in many subjects, so the book is a real pleasure to read and I am now investigating his works further.

Recommend it to everyone who likes travel, history and well written books.

This book is a trip! Three French guys and two Russians re-create Napoleon's awful and deadly retreat from Moscow to Paris in 1812. This time, the trip is made on Russian motorcycles with sidecars. The author and his friends have a wry sense of humor, and much the tone is off-beat and a little zany (in a good way). But the group is also thoughtful and reflective of the horrors of war, stopping to paid tribute to the thousands of men (and horses) who died gut-wrenching deaths in the devastating cold of the French Army's retreat.

A quick read, this book moves along at a nice pace. I read it in two sittings. Translated from the French, the syntax may seem a bit odd to American readers, but you get used to it. It's very French (also in a good way). Highly recommended for those who like good travel stories.

If the guys who made the TV show/movie Jackass wrote a book peppered with references to Journey to the End of the Night and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, this might be the result.

This is a translated (from French) entry into what I think of as an English (meaning, often penned by people from England) genre, which I will dub Short Books about Extremely Ill-advised Travel. Other entries in this genre include Into the Heart of Borneo and The Places in Between.

(This is, as far as I can tell, an exclusively male genre. The reason, I think, can be adequately summed up by the guy who created the popular yellow pill-shaped animated film creatures called Minions. When asked why there were no female minions, he reportedly replied, "I just can't imagine women behaving that stupidly.")

Even under the best conditions, the trip -- following the trail of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow to Paris, riding Soviet-era motorcycles with sidecar -- would be unwise, and our intrepid heroes did not have the best conditions. For example, you might think, to maintain the connection with the original event, the book's heroes might have chosen to leave Moscow at about the same time of year as Napoleon's Grand Army did so (mid-October).

Readers may recall that, even though the French army left relatively early in the winter, the trip was deadly for most who embarked on it.

But the heroes of the contemporary journey are, like many of us, prisoners of their commercial obligations, so cannot actually depart Moscow until the end of November, when the Moscow Book Fair is over. Although our 21st-century protagonists generally have better clothing and footware that Napoleon's soldiers, they are still woefully unprepared for the mud-splattered hardships of the post-Soviet road.

However, even Soviet-era motorcycles move faster than Napoleon's retreating army, so eventually the heroes of this book appear at certain historically important places on the same date as the French army.

Since the book's table of contents gives ample evidence that the travellers reached their destination, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the potentially deadly highways of Europe left the heroes with only emotional scars.

The book is well-translated. The author seems to have a talent for a well-turned phrase but I also enjoyed the moments when the differences between the norms of English-language and French-language rhetoric popped up.

For example, Tesson can apparently use the word "vulgar" without irony or self-consciousness, as when he writes "Vodka is at least as effective as hope. And so much less vulgar" (Kindle location 144) and "He considered foresight vulgar" (location 434).

Once in a while I quibbled with sentence structure, or perhaps sentence length, for example:

... he displayed his knowledge of the country, his foresight, and his tactical genius to try and find a solution for the Grande Armee and, at the same time, the courage and coolness of a Muscovite girl.

What? He displayed his knowledge of the character of Muscovite schoolgirls? Was that really relevant? And how did he acquire this knowledge? Or maybe he had to find a solution for the courage and coolness of a Muscovite girl? One shudders to ponder why.

Upon rereading, I think I understand that the man in question displayed four qualities: knowledge of country, foresight, tactical genius, and courage. But I had to read that sentence several times before I came to that conclusion.

As an American, I've read a truckload of books that treated the rest of the world like it didn't exist and assumed that the American experience is the same as everyone else's. I even recently read a book that narrowed the Universe of things worth paying attention to further, down to New York City only. However, I don't often get a chance to read something written by a French person that assumes the whole world's experience is exactly like the experience of the French, so it was interesting to experience this type of literary provincialism first-hand. I understand better now how American provincialism might really fry your biscuit.

In particular, Tesson writes (location 943)

... in our world, the individual did not accept sacrifice except for other individuals of his or her choice: his family, his nearest and dearest, perhaps a few friends. The only conceivable wars consisted in defending our property. We were quite happy to right, but only for the safety of the floor where our apartments were. We would never have completed in enthusiasm at the prospect of sacrificing ourselves for an abstract concept that was superior to us, for the collective interest of -- worse -- for the love of a chief.

I know that this was written in 2015 or so, when the world looked quite different than it does now, but still it takes an impressive ability to ignore the evidence of one's senses to fail to see people (most of whom, admittedly, not well-off French people like the author) who were sacrificing themselves, rightly or wrong, for religion, ethnicity, or nationality.

On the positive side, a pleasantly fast easy read and also entertaining, as an account of a ridiculously ill-conceived journey should be.

Thank you to Europa Editions and Netgalley for providing me with a free advance egalley copy of this book.

This book is like a travelogue, a history lesson, and interactions between friends. Very interesting from a historical perspective as well as a travel book. Very Good!

A really good book, and one certainly deserving of consideration. I wouldn't have approached this giving a single hoot, let alone two, about Napoleon's retreat from the burning Moscow. But this recreation (ish) of his journey, all two thousand miles and change back to Paris, really taught me a lot in amongst its travelogue detail. The journey here is not by starving horse, bridges made practically out of corpses, and mad-cap dashes on winter sledges, but by Soviet-built Ural motorbikes, complete with sidecars that would only help tip the bloody things off the road into a tree or under a six-axled freight lorry. I'd forgotten that I'd read the author's "Consolations of the Forest", where he pretended to be alone for months in a cabin alongside Lake Baikal – I was one of the few who didn't mind it being pretentious, and boozy to all hell. Here it's certain the riders got on their bikes on several days the morning after with enough vodka still in their system to make it illegal, but the writing is perfectly fluid, cutting easily from Napoleonic considerations to the current conditions and the actual achievement of the ride. There is a lesson, our author thinks, from looking back on what Napoleon meant and achieved, and how implausible it would be to expect a modern equivalent. That's fine. The drear reportage of snowed roads, the cold, the grey skies – that's also fine (and of course not drear to the armchair traveller). The history, where hundreds of thousands of people and a quarter of a million horses almost all lost their lives, is equally drear, but surprisingly fine. In giving me more than I signed up for, in opening my eyes to such a different topic than I expected, and for making me want to read every word about it too, this has to get the highest marks.

I received an advance review copy of this book via NetGalley.

This is a curious sort of travelogue. At first I wasn’t sure I liked it—this concept of the French author and his French and Russian buddies riding Urals to retrace the horrors of the collapse of Napoleon’s Grande Armee sounded flippant. The initial attitude came across as aggravatingly 'br'" as well. However, as the author delved deeper into the terrible tragedy of two centuries ago, it is clear that this is a journey conducted with a profound understanding of the past. I’m a history buff, but I confess, I have never read in detail about this incident. I know it as a catastrophic loss of life to the French and Russians, and that ‘berezina’ still carries deep connotations in French culture. This book puts the horrors in blunt terms and contrasts that with the numerous difficulties presented by the modern journey—recalcitrant motorbikes, bitter cold, customs officials, and all. Sure, the book has a ‘bro’ attitude at times, but there’s also a lot to learn here about an almost incomprehensible tragedy and the stubbornness of Russians motorcycles... and the stubbornness and resilience of humans as well.

I'm not usually a reader of travel literature but this has an intriguing premise as three Frenchman and two Russians set out to follow the route of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Tesson is such an entertaining companion: thoughtful, funny, informative, as he intersperses their journey with accounts they're reading of the French army's experience via contemporary memoirs. Some bits are horrific: the starvation of the army culminating in eating the cavalry horses, cannibalism and even autophagy (according to the sources). Other parts are more amusing as our travellers get drunk, their bikes break down and they party unwisely en route.

At heart, though, this is a duel journey through Europe and the thought of Napoleon and his devoted army raises questions about community, unity, and whether or what we might believe in today: 'What had happened for a nation to become an aggregate of individuals convinced they had nothing in common with others? Shopping, perhaps?... For many of us, <i>buying</i> had become a principal activity, a horizon, a destination.'

This partly works, I think, because Tesson keeps it short and sharp - at just under 200 pages, this is entertaining but also with more substance than might at first appear.

Another excellent offering from Europa Editions who are rapidly becoming one of my 'read everything they put out' publishers :)

Mr. Sylvain Tesson elucidates to the uninitiated the deeper and transcendental meaning of the word “Doing a Berezina” in the French. Usually denoting an astonishingly unfortunate piece of event fro which a protagonist just about evades the inevitable, the phrase usually means: “We made it by a whisker guys, we felt if fly right by us, we got our fingers burned, but life goes on and Stuff The Queen Of England”

Berezina is also, on a more solemn and somber note, the river across which the Battle of Berezina (or Beresina) took place from 26 to 29 November 1812, between the French army of Napoleon, forced to beat back after a disastrous invasion of Russia, and crossing the Berezina (near Borisov, Belarus), and the Russian armies under the stewardship of Mikhail Kutuzov, Peter Wittgenstein and Admiral Pavel Chichagov. While, the French suffered calamitous losses, the diminutive Corsican Emperor himself avoided being captured or killed crossing the river and speeding off to the safe confines of Paris. Since then “Bérézina” has been used in French as a synonym for “disaster.”

In his book “Berezina”, which is extraordinary in its hilarity, eviscerating in its evocativeness and egregious in its narrative, Mr. Tesson recaptures an incredulous journey performed by him along with four of his friends which takes the form of a recreation of the ‘Retreat’ of the Grande Armee from Moscow to Paris. Powered by the off-road Ural Motorcycles fitted with side-cars, egged on by a mixture of adrenaline and passion and fueled by gallons of Vodka along their way, Mr. Tesson and his accomplices, Vassily, Vitaly, Cedric Gras and Thomas Goisque – two Russian and two Frenchmen respectively, heave, hurtle, groan and grit their way across the expanses of Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Germany before finally arriving at the Napoleon memorial in Paris.

“Two hundred years later, I decide to follow the route of the agonising army, of the shocked cavalry, of those skeleton-like infantrymen, of those men with feathered helmets believing in the invincibility of the Eagle. It’s not for a commemoration (do you commemorate horror?), much less a celebration, it’s to acknowledge across the centuries and the verstes, those Frenchmen of year XII blinded by the Corsican sun and smashed on the reefs of nightmares”

A travelogue punctuated with historical accounts, “Berezina” is a sheer and elegantly crafted delight. Holding forth on the potential exhilaration and worthy merits of embarking on such a landmark journey, Mr. Tesson dangles the bait to his fellow perpetrators in crime: “It’s a madness we get obsessed with, that transports us into myth; a drift, a frenzy, with History and Geography running through it, irrigated with Vodka, a Kerouac-style ride, something that, in the evening will leave us panting, weeping by the side of a pit. Feverish….”

Having enlisted support, Mr. Tesson and Co mount their khakhi-green Ural bikes, relics of the Soviet manufacturing era. These “motorcycles with adjacent baskets” according to Mr. Tesson are an obstinate breed. “You can never tell if they’ll start, and once launched no one knows if they’ll stop.” On the 2nd of December, 2012, two hundred years after the French Emperor’s chaotic retreat, Mr. Tesson and his friends stick the French national flag in front of the basket and set forth on their peculiar journey. Inscribed against the tri-colour background in gold letters were the words:

“Imperial Guard; Emperor of the French to the 1st regiment of light cavalry lancers.

Mr. Tesson possesses this remarkable ability to make even the mundane a quintessential element of the metaphysical. Take his ruminations about his motorcycle helmet for example:

“A motorcycle helmet is a meditation cell. Trapped inside, ideas circulate better than in the open air. It would be ideal to smoke in there. Sadly, the lack of space in an integral crash helmet prevents one from drawing on a Havana cigar…. A helmet is also a sounding box. It’s nice to sing inside it. It’s like being in a recording studio. I hummed the epigraph of Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night…”

Blinded by pouring rain and cascading snow, Mr. Tesson with Gras, his friend with a philosophical bent of mind demurely sitting in his side car, faces some perilous bit of navigation to do hemmed in by huge Russian transportation trucks. Even under such discomfiting circumstances, Mr. Tesson finds time to reflect upon the foibles and fragilities of a vulnerable species. What more circumstances than the bloody war of Berezina and the plight of the fleeing French Army to illustrate this universal feature?

“I saw soldiers on their knees next to carcasses, biting into the flesh like hungry wolves,” Captain Francois recalls. Bourgogne himself survived for a few days sucking, ‘blood Icicles’ Even the Emperor had to get out of his carriage and walk leaning on the arm of Caulaincourt or a camp aide. The road was cluttered with dead men and horses, dying civilians and soldiers, crates, carts, cannons and all that the scattering army was losing behind it. Those who were not dead stumbled over the corpses of those who had already fallen. The men advanced through soul-destroying plains. The cold had destroyed all hope, God no longer existed, the temperatures were dropping…. Crazy with suffering, emaciated, eaten by vermin, they walked straight on, from fields covered in dead to other fields of graves. “

However, it is not all cannibalism and autophagy. In between the testimonies of chaos and carnage, Mr. Tesson relieves us of the terrors of war and the tedium of desperation by interspersing his account with an irrepressible and irreverent dose of pure humour, wicked wit and scintillating spontaneity! Consider this blisteringly funny account of an unfortunate eviction from a bar: “We’d been so cold in the past few hours, since Berezina, that we decided to warm ourselves up with peppered Vodka. The first bottle in memory of the French, the second in memory of Russians, and a few extra glasses for the Polish, British and Germans…. The bar manager threw us out after, in between bellows, we’d set fire to the tablecloth by knocking over the candles on our table.”

Or consider this brilliantly matter-of-fact account of Mr. Tesson’s fellow traveler Vassily being bitten by a dog, “”A dog bit Vassily on the calf in the little garden where 2 1/s inch Pak 40 cannons taken from the Germans in 1940 are on display. The blood drew a flower on the snow.”

Napoleon’s ambitions of invading Russia might have been put to paid by a combination of nature, nationalism and naiveté. However, every adverse circumstance and material misfortune brings along with it some of life’s most pristine lessons. Mr. Tesson sure provides us with some of them with panache!