Present Books As Le Rivage des Syrtes
Original Title: | Le Rivage des Syrtes |
ISBN: | 2714303595 (ISBN13: 9782714303592) |
Edition Language: | French |
Literary Awards: | Prix Goncourt (1951) |
Julien Gracq
Broché | Pages: 321 pages Rating: 4.06 | 842 Users | 91 Reviews
Point Of Books Le Rivage des Syrtes
Title | : | Le Rivage des Syrtes |
Author | : | Julien Gracq |
Book Format | : | Broché |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 321 pages |
Published | : | 1992 by Librairie José Corti (first published 1951) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. France. European Literature. French Literature |
Description Supposing Books Le Rivage des Syrtes
À la suite d'un chagrin d'amour, Aldo se fait affecter par le gouvernement de la principauté d'Orsenna dans une forteresse sur le front des Syrtes. Il est là pour observer l'ennemi de toujours, replié sur le rivage d'en face, le Farghestan. Aldo rêve de franchir la frontière, y parvient, aidé par une patricienne, Vanessa Aldobrandi dont la famille est liée au pays ennemi. Cette aide inattendue provoquera les hostilités...Dans ce paysage de torpeur, fin d'un monde où des ennemis imaginaires se massacrent, le temps et le lieu de l'histoire restent délibérément incertains dans un récit à la première personne qui semble se situer après la chute d'Orsenna. Julien Gracq entraîne son lecteur dans un univers intemporel qui réinvente l'Histoire et donne lieu à une écriture qui s'impose avec majesté, s'enflamme au contact de l'imagination. Pour Le Rivage des Syrtes Julien Gracq obtint en 1951 le prix Goncourt, qu'il refusa. --Nathalie Jungerman
Rating Of Books Le Rivage des Syrtes
Ratings: 4.06 From 842 Users | 91 ReviewsCriticism Of Books Le Rivage des Syrtes
I loved the first 1/3 of this book. Dense with rich language and vivid atmospherics. I wanted it to go on forever.... and then, unfortunately, it did. And while I understand that the exaggerated baroque style underscores the theme of cyclical ruin, ultimately I lost patience and felt buried beneath the purple prose. I lost count of the number of times "fever/feverish" was employed. Followed closely be "lugubrious" and even several repetitive variations on "leprosy". The alternating hot/cold andRead this thanks to this bit in Enrique Vila-Matas's Dublinesque:"He'd published lots of important authors, but only in Julien Gracq's novel The Opposing Shore did he perceive any spirit for the future. In his room in Lyon, over the course of endless hours spent locked away, he devoted himself to a theory of the novel that, based on the lessons apparent to him the moment he opened The Opposing Shore, established five elements he considered essential for the novel of the future. These essential
It was an effort to finish this book. It's not very long, but it actually took me months to read it, because I hated it so much I could only handle it in small doses. Gracq has maybe the most pretentious prose style I've ever read. In fact, this book contains what just might be the worst sentence ever written (but don't ask me what it is, because I don't remember and can't seem to find it ... I just remember laughing when I read it). The book is less a story than a collection of strained similes
Gracq's prose can be exhausting at times, but it is so, so lovely. I read his work very slowly and deliberately, giving his atmospheres time to settle in. I try to place myself in his worlds, which always seem to lie at the edge of a dream. I believe this is what his work demands of the reader. The Opposing Shore is one of his more elusive works. Not only is the land of Orsenna and its Admiralty veiled in misty shadow, but even the motivations of its inhabitants seem to slither from our grasp.
From the beginning you can tell his prose is something else: very poetic, lyrical but not yet baroque. . About the themes for this novel, there's a sense of oppression that you know all too well, that works perfectly with the sterile soil, the low shrubbery around the dry lands, and overall a feeling of despair throughout landscape and mind of the people coexisting in this forgotten place.
Edit: Oh and that cover with the giant floating rock is a complete lie :# .So in premise this reminded me a lot of the excellent The Tartar Steppe. Both are about young men sent to remote outposts where the odds of anything exciting happening are quite remote but vigilance is nevertheless required.You could easily change the setting of these stories to say a nuclear missile silo in the usa and the stories would still work pretty well.However the Opposing Shore diverts completely from the Tartar
A capriccio on late Byzantine and Venetian themes. One of de Chiricos piazzas. Surrealist-Normalien lucubration. A film noir ruefully posthumously? narrated by a police spy whose restless ennui and self-destructive bent make him the lover/accomplice/dupe of a femme fatale, and a tool in the hands of a mysterious boss, the secret power of the city. All of my favorite aphorisms on decadence and debacle, pressed into a short dream.
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