This is another novel by the writer Julien Gracq, whose novel The Balcony in the Forest, I read earlier this month. This is apparently the novel that made him famous, and it makes sense because it’s much richer, complex, satisfying, and frustrating to read than that one. This novel, if you read the wikipedia page on it, is a “waiting novel” and that reminds me of several other similar novels both ahead of this one and after it. So the situation of the novel is that […]
What also pleased him was the stone of this countryside
This is a 1959 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. In this novel we find ourselves on the defensive lines between the German and French borders (or at least within the combat paths of the German army) in 1939 awaiting the imminent attack. We follow Lieutenant Grange as he commands or at least waits to command his small force guarding a French pillbox and observation post. While waiting for whatever is to come he begins an affair with a local woman named Mona. As […]