French novel set in the Vosges woods

Submitted: 24th April 2025

Répondre à la nuit – Agnes Ledig

On a farm on the edge of the Vosges forest, Témis is an archer who loves deer, Rémy is a sensitive and protective lumberjack, Then there’s Maxim who’s a passionate audio-naturalist and last but not least, Victoire, a healer..

A story of man, the natural world and how they do and don’t live together…..

Map of literary locations in Répondre à la nuit

BOARDING PASS INFORMATION

Destination : Vosges

Author guide: Agnes Ledig

Genre: literary fiction

Food and drink to accompany: anything you forage

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A novel to transport you to Vosges in the woods

Map of literary locations in Répondre à la nuit

It’s quite a unique and unusual novel this one. I wanted to read it as I have never read an Agnes Ledig novel and she’s mega popular in France. So, this being her new one, I got a copy and started reading. It’s a slow build, a novel full of landscape and atmosphere and characters of both the human and animal variety. That’s where its beauty lies – the reveal of how humans and animals treat and respect nature and how they all live alongside each other – or not as the case may be.

The people in the novel have a particular affiliation with an aspect of nature. The forest unites them all and they differ as to how they see this world and the creatures within. There are many themes for discussion and the novel does try to say a lot so at times, you don’t know where to listen. However for the main part, the voices in the novel is showing us the beauty of nature, the marvels of the animal world and how humans are changing the way that everything is. Everything that nature is and the natural world gives us.

It’s not just a novel about nature – four people with their own relationship with the land until there is something that requires a police investigation….but for me the joy of this novel was its view of nature and how we humans are dicing with danger. Climate change, extinction, destruction of the forests, why humans hunt and kill animals….why endangered animals are endangered…

It’s a quiet song of a novel really – a pause in time – it feels calming and ethereal to read it. Oh and a nice surprise to have a QR code in the book that led me to actually hearing the sounds of the forest I was about to enter via the book. It totally enhanced the reading experience. Very unique!