Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the French (Switzerland) by Sarah Fisher Scott

In the early summer of 1749 in a valley on the south side of the Bernese Alps in Switzerland, at an altitude on 1450 metres, two massive landslides fell. Thousands of tons of rocks tumbled from 500 metres forming a 2 kilometre long natural barrier which gradually filled with water and became what is today, Lake Derborence.

Ramuz, who writes beautifully about the Swiss Alps, and sets this novel in that summer pasture and its huts that 19 shepherds, several with their young sons, occupy to look after their cattle for the summer. Whether or not there were actually any people killed by the rockfall, history has not recorded, but it seems certain that they were.

This really is a novel of two halves.. the first is concerned with the rockfall, and the second.. well.. it’s best not to say anything about it. Suffice to say, it’s what Ramuz likes to do, inject an element of fantasy and the supernatural arriving when least expected.

I’m on an ‘out of print’ binge at the moment, this being my fourth such book in the week. It never ceases to surprise me that books like this lapse to be out of print. This is an undeservedly forgotten or neglected piece of fiction that will fascinate anyone with the slightest interest in mountains and their folklore.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5