There Will Come Soft Rains: A Journey Along the Western Front
By Briana Gervat (Apeiron Books, 2025)
Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir/Travel/Self-Discovery
Pages (print): 226)
Via: Author request
Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book for honest review.
“Soft rains.” What images do those words bring to mind?
A quiet whisper from the sky? A liquid lullaby singing the day to rest? A gentle patter of renewal washing over the world?
The “soft rains” metaphor and title for this book come the first line of Sara Teasdale’s hauntingly elegiac poem, War Time. Written during World War I, Teasdale’s poem explores nature’s indifference to humanity and the permanence of the natural world compared to the self-destruction of war. It sets the stage for this compelling and thoroughly captivating tome whilst we come to realize, along with the author, that “Sometimes the only thing that words do is get in the way.”
Like in World War I. “The Great War.” “The war to end all wars.” The war with a mind-boggling death toll. Destruction and devastation that beggar description. A war that’s impossible to fully fathom, even a century+ later. This war and its terrible cost are recalled in Gervat’s richly evocative account of her 2022 walk along the length of the Western Front.
La Guerre. La Guerre. C’est un vie sans aire.
Beginning
The author’s journey begins as the world starts to open after the isolation of a global pandemic. Beginning at the border that France shares with Switzerland, Gervat goes into the wild in search of hope and peace. Armed with boots, a backpack and a hungry soul, Gervat steps into this open wound of history. She walks not as a tourist, but as a contemplative pilgrim. For thirty-six days and 500 miles.
“The thing is, I wanted to be alone. I wanted to walk along the Western Front so that I may grieve the past as well as the present. … For these reasons and more, I could think of no better way to make sense of the world than to walk a path of peace.”
A Living Scar
Thus, There Will Come Soft Rains is a living scar. An ache. The author, an athlete and art historian, takes us on a physical and emotional walking journey across a landscape that’s impossible to describe. Words fail. So rather than rehearsing a sterile timeline of dates and military tactics, Gervat approaches the region as a pilgrim searching for peace amidst the languid, lingering echoes of World War I. The devastation – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual – is still evident over a century later.
“”But the war remained unforgotten. A fallen shadow across a century; a harbinger of melancholy and grief.”
A Soulful Journey
Gervat’s soulful journey winds through the mountains of Alsace. Skeletal cathedrals. The mountains of the Vosges and the battle-scarred landscapes of Verdun. The Somme. The Marne. Feasts of food and wine. Light. Color. Campsites. Storms. Sobs. She sleeps “dreaming; forever dreaming of peace.” While reflecting that “some grief can never be put right,” the author contemplates a peaceful planet where seasons spring eternal and nature renews itself daily in the shadow of conflict both past and present.
“Sometimes nothing is more perfect than a simple meal shared among strangers. After, I returned to my tent to rest, my body aching, my heart not.”
Transformative
Additionally, Gervat’s prose moves like the soft rain of the book’s title—gentle, persistent, and deeply transformative as she chronicles her inner and outer journey along the Front. Words fall without force, one drop at a time. She sleeps beneath the same sky that once rained death, feeling “Great Unknowing” that still lingers in the landscape. Meanwhile, the physical act of walking becomes a slow, rhythmic meditation on loss, remembrance, and the resilience of nature.
“But then again, history is like wine. You can only learn so much before you fall down drunk.”
The book opens with Part I: Prelude and a Hemingway quote from A Farewell to Arms. We return to Hemingway in Soft Rains’s closing pages. Sharp-eyed readers will note the chapter heading, A Moveable Feast. It’s a nod to Hemingway’s classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I. It’s brilliant.
“How could so much death happen all at once?”
Cameos
There are also “cameos” by Monet. Tolkien. Isengard. F. Scott Fitzgerald. A black bear from Winnipeg dubbed “Pooh.” By a little boy named Christopher Robin. Ray Kinsella and Field of Dreams. Mata Hari. “The Hollow Years.” No Man’s Land. Wildflowers and bells. Petals and peals pop up throughout the pages like overnight mushrooms, soothing lullabies of wind, light, and color.
“It was as if France had called to me from far away, shaking me from my slumber so that I may awaken the deepest parts of myself that desperately needed to be healed.”
A Few Bones to Pick
Packed with power and pathos, Soft Rains speaks in low, hushed tones of history, tragedy, and yearning. It’s a heart-rendingly eloquent account of one woman’s search for beauty and grace in the midst of immense suffering and loss. But we do have a few bones to pick. (You knew that was coming, right?) Typos crop up here and there. Dropped commas. Repeated or misplaced words, etc. They are rare but they are there. Another issue: Readability. The print is very small. The ink is very light. This made reading a significant challenge for those of us who’ve been around since the Pleistocene Age (Hi, Mom).
“I suppose there is nothing that can erase thousands of years of history. Nothing can wash it away. Not even the rain. Allies are only temporary, and enemies, like war, are forever.”
Also, French phrases are sometimes included sans translation into English. It’s pretty annoying for those of us whose French is limited to Merci, S’il vous plaît Ça va?, and Au revoir. Black and white photos abound. It’d be nice if they were captioned. But they aren’t. We’re just supposed to guess what they reference and why.
The Bottom Line
If you’re looking for your standard history text of timelines and lightning-fast facts or a recitation of military battles and strategy, keep looking. Cuz this ain’t it. But if you want a poetic, deliberate meditation on how history lives in the soil beneath our feet, saturated with soft whispers from sky and soul, this is it.
We have a split decision on this book’s rating:
Pages & Paws 