{"product_id":"2026100008171-secondhand-the-bells-of-basel","title":"The Bells Of Basel","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: 1st eng ed.,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCondition: Fair\/Poor. Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth\/board worn - frayed spine; bumped corners. Page Condition:FEP missing; Tanning and foxing throughout. Markings: Name penned on half-title page. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet against the turbulent backdrop of pre-war Europe, The Bells of Basel plunges the reader into the social and political upheaval of early twentieth-century France, where the lives of the bourgeoisie, the working class, and revolutionary dreamers collide in a sweeping narrative of desire, corruption, and awakening. Louis Aragon chronicles the intertwined destinies of a cast of richly drawn characters — from the morally compromised Diane de Nettencourt to the radical Clara — whose personal crises mirror the fractures of a society on the brink of catastrophe.\n\nThe first volume of Aragon's celebrated The Real World cycle, this novel marks the author's decisive turn from Surrealism toward Socialist Realism, wielding a prose style that is at once forensic and lyrical. Aragon's unflinching dissection of class and gender, rendered with the precision of a committed political intellect, transforms what might otherwise be a bourgeois roman à clef into a fierce indictment of capitalism and complacency. The question that haunts every page — whether individuals can transcend the world that made them — remains as urgent and unanswered as the tolling of those distant bells.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130725834971,"sku":"2026100008171-SECONDHAND","price":60.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/4125fed3-9f93-4c66-8ed1-3c9d8825cce6.png?v=1786589371","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100008171-secondhand-the-bells-of-basel","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}