Humus by Gaspard Koenig

 

Humus by Gaspard Koenig

I head about this book on the radio, and the author - who presents himself as a philosopher - seemed cogent and interesting enough. That made the bitter disappointment of Humus all the more pungent (pun intended.) The novel follows two leads, students in agronomics who want, each in their own way, to revolutionise ecology, one by using earthworms to revive fallow land, and the other by using earthworms to digest and decompose refuse. While the characters seem real at first, as the book progresses their decisions become less and less believable and you understand that you're not reading a novel, but rather a very long fairy tale whose very contrived conclusion is that ecology is a dead end. The shame of it is it's well written and quite gripping, but the substance does not match the form.