The Sage of Waterloo

A clever premise is squandered in the debut from pianist turned author Francombe. In opening scenes full of potential, the novel introduces a family of rabbits who live on the farm at Hougoumont (in modern-day Belgium), where part of the Battle of Waterloo was fought. Across the generations, these rabbits have curated an oral history of the battle, filling quiet time in the hutch debating details and analyzing tactics. William, the narrator, is the only white rabbit in the colony; his grandmother, Old Lavender, is the family’s resident Waterloo expert. Eventually Old Lavender disappears, and William is taken from the farm to become a pet, but these moments are buffered by so much battlefield minutiae that they reduce excitement. The charm of the premise erodes as scene after scene piles up of the rabbits presenting history lessons with almost nothing happening in the present—Francombe underscores this weakness late in the novel by having William summarize what little plot there has been in half a page. There is one dynamite line—“Nature never truly recovers from human cataclysms”—and it’s repeated twice, as if to impose a thesis. But so little has happened with so little at stake that the novel fails to make an emotional or intellectual impact.[em] (June) [/em]