Read Three Days for a Life by Pierre Lemaitre | The Price of Lies

This is my third Pierre Lemaitre book. The first book I read was " Alice in the Cage ", which is a mystery novel. The reversal ending in the book is still in my memory; the second book is " Goodbye in the Sky ", which is different from the previous book. The revenge of the little people of the First World War was created, and the atmosphere was both classical and funny, and it was quite interesting. So when it came time to read "Three Days of Life", I read it with a non-believing idea, trying to find the same routines and techniques from the context of the story. Unexpectedly, except for the occasional joking but incisive narration, like other works, there is no similarity in the characters and plots. Can't help but convince that the author's ability to describe the characters is so rich and not repetitive. At the same time, the author is also very good at telling stories. In his stories, there are no deliberate layouts, no overemphasis, and no absolute justice. Letting the human nature of the characters promote the development of the plot is surprisingly reasonable to read.

The characters in the author's pen are changeable, such as "Alice in the Cage" to write the perspective of abducted women; This time, in "Life in Three Days", he wrote about the child, An Rui, a twelve-year-old boy who is kind, innocent and ignorant of the world. Growing up in a single-parent family, living a simple life, he likes to play in the forest at ordinary times, and he is also eager to take care of the younger brother next door; troubles are just like there will be at that age: envious of others having new toys and to attract the attention of girls who are secretly in love. But he felt grief and anger for his dead dog just once, and he angered and seriously injured the neighbor's six-year-old child. An Rui, who made the big mistake, was quite panic-stricken, with all kinds of emotions mixed in it, regret, hesitation and fear, and finally chose to destroy the corpse and destroy the traces. Obviously, the age of twelve and six are children's age in the eyes of adults. At this moment Since then, An Rui has become a criminal.

An Rui tried to cheer himself up. Come on, hide the corpse, let the corpse disappear, and everything will be alright. He closed his eyes, stepped forward, grabbed Remy's arm, bent down, put Remy on his shoulders again, and started walking, walking carefully. Carrying Remy like this, he felt as if he was a firefighter rescuing trapped people from a fire, as if Peter Parker in Spider-Man was rescuing Mary Jane. —P.26

The story empathy starts from the perspective of the perpetrator and brings out the psychological process of the perpetrator. If I were to find a word to describe this book, I would use the word "suffering". The book is full of torment. A twelve-year-old child is afraid of the torment of being seen through; he is worried about the torment of his mother; In fact, An Rui is not a wicked villain. After making mistakes, he is still clumsy and immature, and he is constantly eroded by guilt, and he fantasizes about his final fate again and again, which is unbearable to read.

Perhaps the police will cover his head to avoid embarrassment. He would pass in front of his mother, who passed out on the first floor, calling out "An Rui, An Rui, An Rui!" All around, "You bastard, murderer, murderer of children!" The patrolman pushed him into the police van, but at this moment, Mr. Desmet suddenly came out halfway, and with such a hand, he opened the cover The coat on his face, he wanted An Rui to watch him put the rifle to his waist and shoot. —P.36

When I checked other books, I saw this comment: "A lot of times, mystery novels are just life dramas." This book is also very suitable for this sentence. The book divides the content into three time points: 1999, 2011 and 2015. In 1999, the key 72 hours of the police search were described at length, while in 2011 and 2015, they respectively explained how the case affected An Rui, who grew up. For such an irreversible mistake made by a twelve-year-old child, it always makes people wonder whether it is because the parents neglected to accompany him or faced too much reality and cruelty, which caused the emotional outburst of the protagonist who has endured for a long time. And the title of "Life in Three Days" seems to reveal the experience of childhood as if he had lived a lifetime, or the implication is that it pronounces the second half of the protagonist's life together. In any case, An Rui is destined to pay the price of his life for his sins.

"Three Days of Life" has been remade into a movie, which is considered a niche work. Compared with the original book, the film lacks the monologue of the protagonist in the book. It is only from the perspective of onlookers, and it does not fully explain An Rui's all-time psychological entanglement. This part is quite a pity.

A book review of "Goodbye in Heaven" is attached to the related works, because I like the writing and plot in it so much. After the first paragraph introduces the main idea, there will be a lot of spoilers and text excerpts, please read it carefully. :)