In "The Lives of the Little Dead," Pierre Michon wonderfully succeeds in portraying people from humble, often rural backgrounds without allowing even a trace of picturesque idyll to cling to their misery. The tragedy of the fates that move us so deeply arises from the sudden appearance of a hint of another world amidst this suffering, the dream of wealth or knowledge – and from this torn state between the imagined and the lived emerges a longing that grants these individuals, no matter how insignificant their existence may seem, a sense of greatness.