Welcome to Litsy!

This is the first Gracq I've read, and the first book he wrote, based on which I've ordered his second. A new favourite author, I think.
In this vibrant translation, his language is poetically florid, but not overblown - violet prose, perhaps, rather than purple - moving from a densely described realism into a dreamlike, at times nightmarish, surreality. Despite, or perhaps because of, the somewhat ambiguous climax, a gothically baroque 5🌟

“She felt herself to be at one of those nodes of the planet's human vibrations where absolute calm, albeit engendered by the juggling interference of contrary motions, is all the more soothing in its perilous instability.”

This sums up the sense of trembling, feverish tension between Albert, Herminien and Heide. It feels like the story is moving toward an inevitable snapping of the cords precariously binding them together.

While the comparison isn't exact, reading of the MC's ride down from the château, through a wind-blasted forest to the desolate strand where the sun leaks light onto a blank, sclerotic sea, put me in mind of the cover of Nico's "Desertshore" album. The song "All That Is My Own" captures the atmosphere of abandonment in Albert's visit to a sand-choked graveyard. Gracq's use of gothic tropes is skilful, so far, rather than formulaic.
#booksandmusic

Starting a new one, a 1938 gothic-surreal novel about a love-triangle (I think) set in a Breton castle and, in the first 20-or-so pages, just overbrimming with sumptuous language.
I've no idea what to call the cocktail, other than delicious - gin, rosso vermouth and grenadine syrup, garnished with maraschino cherries 🍸🍒
Musical accompaniment, some cool jazz/bossa nova by Paul Desmond 🎷😎
I'm feeling as smooth as an oiled otter 😂

An elusive, oneiric tale - thick with florid prose - exceedingly beautiful and mysterious.