The BURIED Book Club discussion

Surrealist writer Julien Gracq was greatly inspired by André Breton's novel Nadja and published his first novel, Chateau d'Argol, in 1938, which he dedicated to Breton. He won the Goncourt Prize for his 1951 novel The Opposing Shore.

Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_G...

List cnp'd from the wikipedia page:


Au château d’Argol, 1938 (novel) (English translation: The Castle of Argol or Château d'Argol)
Un beau ténébreux, 1945 (novel)
Liberté grande, 1947 (poetry)
Le Roi pêcheur, 1948 (play)
André Breton, quelques aspects de l’écrivain, 1948 (critique)
La Littérature à l'estomac, 1949
Le Rivage des Syrtes, 1951 (novel) (English translation: The Opposing Shore)

The Opposing Shore (Le Rivage des Syrtes, 1951) is Julien Gracq's most famous novel, a novel of waiting. Set in a closed place (a fortress) close to a frontier (the sea) which defines the threshold between the here (the stagnant principality of Orsenna) and there (mysterious Farghestan), its lonely characters are in-betweens waiting for something to happen, wondering whether something must get done to bring about change, particularly when this may mean the death of men and states.

Prose pour l’Etrangère, 1952
Penthésilée, 1954
Un balcon en forêt, 1958 (novel) (English translation: A Balcony in the Forest)
Préférences, 1961
Lettrines, 1967
La Presqu’île, 1970
Le Roi Cophetua, 1970 (novel) (English translation: King Cophetua); it inspired the film Rendezvous at Bray, directed by André Delvaux
Lettrines II, 1974
Les Eaux Etroites, 1976 (Allusions, allegories and metaphors on a French river, l'Èvre.)
En lisant en écrivant, 1980
La Forme d’une ville, 1985
Autour des sept collines, 1988
Carnets du grand chemin, 1992
Entretiens, 2002

Excellent! I've been meaning to make a foray into Gracq for quite some time, and this is a help. I guess that The Opposing Shore is really the place to start, then?

Nate D wrote: "Excellent! I've been meaning to make a foray into Gracq for quite some time, and this is a help. I guess that The Opposing Shore is really the place to start, then?"

I haven't read it yet, but I think it would be a fine place to start. I bought Chateau d'Argol at the same time as TOS and I'm reading it first since it's his debut. So far, an interesting Gothic love triangle set in a Chateau in Brittany, which is a part of France I really like, and so a special treat to read his descriptions of the landscape. Will link to my review when I finish.

A brief review of Chateau d'Argol here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I just read A Balcony in the Forest -- an excellent treatment of pre-wartime limbo, and perhaps one of the better novels by surrealists. I'm surprised he's buried enough to be Buried, though -- seems much more widely read than most.

Nate D wrote: "I just read A Balcony in the Forest -- an excellent treatment of pre-wartime limbo, and perhaps one of the better novels by surrealists. I'm surprised he's buried enough to be Buried, though -- see..."

His most famous book, The Opposing Shore has 168 ratings and the rest of his books have less than 100 each, many less than 20 each. Only 58 total written reviews so far. If not buried, then at least very obscured...

I've somehow failed to read The Opposing Shore, though it sits forelorn upon my bookshelf. Somehow my first browse turned me off. But I bought it around the time that I was reading The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati, which is super-awesome. I think I was expecting the books to be similar.

The book will wait for me for a little while, but I'll get to it.

Zadignose wrote: "I've somehow failed to read The Opposing Shore, though it sits forelorn upon my bookshelf. Somehow my first browse turned me off. But I bought it around the time that I was reading The Tartar Stepp..."

Gaetano (from Brain Pain and Bookish) recommended The Opposing Shore and characterized it as a French version of the Buzzati. I have both on my shelf but haven't started them yet.

I read the first chapter of The Opposing Shore just now. I see I am not only one who immediately thought of Tartar Steppe which I had read a few months ago. Both seem to have a very similar premise.

As does The Balcony in the Forest, though in a more historically specific way.

Damn, I'm really enjoying this guy's titles. Now if only I could do the same for his books... Alright, I'll crack the spine once more... eventually.

Richard Howard's English translation of Balcony in the Forest has just been republished by NYRB.