The Death of Napoleon Author:Simon Leys "Ladies and gentlemen, alas! The Emperor is dead". The news goes out across Europe, but in fact Napoleon has not died. By means of an ingenious escape, he has returned to the Continent, leaving an impersonator on St. Helena, and it is this double who has unexpectedly and very problematically passed away. Traveling incognito, the Emperor experien... more »ces a series of bizarre adventures which bring him face to face with the myth of Napoleon as it is disconcertingly played out in everyday life. After a visit to Waterloo and near-arrest at the French border, he eventually arrives in Paris, where he falls in with some veteran Bonapartists and visits an asylum where most of the inmates are laboring under the mistaken impression that they are he. Will Napoleon ever recapture his true identity? Who, in the end, is he, now that "the Emperor is dead"? Simon Leys's truculent, delightful fable poses these and other questions in a rare work of fiction that is continually surprising and effervescent.« less
Humerous, but short (maybe that's the way it should be, he already escaped from exile once. The book needs fleshing out - its very short, and the description above just about covers every plot line.