French writer Gandon on everyday hardships under the German occupation of France

The French writer Gandon recounts the German occupation of France. Among the hardships and horrors of those years he lists, on a par with the executions, grey bread, moonshine in place of wine, roasted barley in place of coffee, and cakes of buckwheat flour as hard as stone. It reads, of course, as the cynical and self-regarding lament of a pampered and vulgar man, by and large simply the shameful whimpering of one who belittles real suffering. But as an introduction to Gandon's work I think this passage will do very nicely. Further on he has more to say about how hard it was to hide a mistress for two years and keep up his love affairs while serving in the ranks of the Resistance