The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes)

It had been years since I had thought of 'Le Grand Meaulnes', a French literary classic at school introduced in early adolescence - a state in age we thought as students would never end on lingering summer days - preparing to return to another season of learning, before spreading our wings and venturing out with a view to grown-up horizons, accompanied by a feeling of incertitude, even uneasiness on occasion, yet with the youthful hope that we were getting ready for life's great expedition, and traveling onward through growing passages in time.'Francois Seurel' is the narrator of the above, which takes place in Sologne in 189-, a central northern region of France near the Cher & Loire river with Corot skies, and his anecdote begins in December when he is fifteen. His father is the Village Teacher of Sainte-Agathe's Upper School, where future traders and toilers of the soil are given learning tools for their livelihood, to take over in time from their parents and elders; some of the latter now resting peacefully in the recollections of an older generation.The young narrator is gentle of nature, his health at first uneven in childhood, and his mother 'Millie', a dedicated parent and home-maker, keeps a devoted eye on her only offspring, while they settle into a consistent pattern of every-day living in an aura of containment and contentment.All this changes for Francois, with the unexpected arrival of an older boy of seventeen, Augustin Meaulnes, a boarder now under the roof of his parents, who will change his outlook and perspective on life for ever. Francois, lonely, was feeling a bit lost in solitude reflection, and Augustin brings to him a feeling of trust, brotherhood in friendship, acting as an inspiration to join him in looking outward, while remaining responsible and real to his heart and spirit.The commanding, yet solid presence and adventurous character of Augustin, further causes reluctant hero-worship on the part of his school mates, and also draws the attention of the village people. His appearance and demeanor (tall in stature, coupled with his strength and quiet vitality) are a challenge to his peers, which verged at times on careless truancy.And then one day in the cold of winter, Augustin wanders off on a snowy road less traveled, having fallen asleep on his way, with a borrowed farmer's cart and horse, to meet a train of visiting passengers, and enters into the avenue of a forgotten abandoned estate, where the ruined chateau is peopled with children filled with mirth and a growing crowd of festive guests, awaiting the arrival of a young couple to celebrate their wedding ceremony.'The Grand Meaulnes', as Francois and his peers think of his friend, Augustin, returns to the village three days later in a dream-like stance, and changed. He now sets out fervently to find what is lost to him, having glimpsed his true life love in threads of lightness and fulfillment. Despair sometimes awaits him on his knight-like search, and this tale carries poetic notes of melancholy, with honorable and noble choices to be made.Alain-Fournier (1886-1914) wrote this autobiographical novel in his twenties, interlaced with an original flavor of realism, surrealism and romance, published a year before he joined the French army in August 1914, and died a few weeks later on the battlefield of The Great War.A great success on publication, it has been deemed 'non-translatable' by many great authors into another language other than its original French, and yet for this reader, even in English, it cast a curious spell of revisited enchantment of what beauty, chivalry and true belief can accomplish in youth.

I remember reading this amazing novel as a young man in my 20's. My review is based on this poor translation by Robin Buss of the French original. I found this translation lacking in the subtle nuances that I distinctly recall in a far superior translation that titled the novel as "The Wanderer, The end of Youth" by Frank Davison.

This is one of the world's best known studies of adolescent idealism. This translation is very sensitive and is true to the French original. Very well worth reading.

I enjoyed this book, and found the new translation excellent. I especially approve of the title. Both introduction and notes are worth attention.In the distant past I minutely dissected this book, in French, during my last year in school. So slowly did the class proceed that we never got any further than the entrance of Le Grand Meaulnes. It was dinned in that not only was Meaulnes (close to unpronounceable for Ayrshire Scots) "tall", he was also considered "great" or "terrific" by his classmates, though we never had the opportunity to discover why.The process we were involved in then was akin to turning over the individual stones on a gravel path, rather than standing back and looking at the garden. It killed any interest completely. Consequently, this book was a revelation, on several levels.Not only did I find out how the story ended -- which was what I had really wanted to know -- I discovered atmosphere and charm our class had never seen. In addition, I found themes that have echoes in later works by other authors. The most significant of these, noted in the introduction, being of Alain-Fournier's teenage narrator in 'Catcher in the Rye' and other 'coming of age' books. And in the same way that the story owes a debt to ballads and fairy tales, it can be seen as a precursor of 'magic realism', in terms of the strange events at the Lost Estate.But it isn't just of literary historical interest -- it's a good read, too. There's a debate over whether it's a children's book, a teenage book, or even for adults, but frankly, who cares? Just read it and see what you think.

As Adam Gopnik says in the introduction, this is a novel that is "hard to 'understand' in conventional terms". Gopnik's introduction is a useful aid to improve understanding of the novel for readers and potential readers (although the final page, in which Gopnik muses on the Freudian significance, is less enlightening).According to Gopnik, "even the most Francophile of English-speaking readers are likely to throw up their hands at... the improbability of the incidents and the extremity of the experiences" in the novel. Gopnik gives as an example the lengthy incident in the middle of the book concerning a wandering gypsy, who turns out to be the heroine's brother, Frantz. Gopnik describes the incident as: "a bit of melodrama that might have struck even Balzac as far-fetched".The Economist of Dec 22nd 2012 had a long article called "Le Grand Meaulnes - The girl at the Grand Palais", which also helps to understand both the novel and also its author. I particularly liked a comment on the article from someone called "Mormorola", who claimed that one of the reasons that Fournier's novel became so popular in France was that when it came out, other authors such as Zola, Gide and Proust were banned by the Church and Le Grand Meaulnes was one of the few pieces of good literature that was not banned, so teachers in high school became marketing agents for Fournier, lacking proper alternatives!Many of the reviews here on Amazon are also informative, interesting and enjoyable. I particularly liked the one by @Frequent Traveller.The importance of the translator's task should not be forgotten: Robin Buss has provided an excellent translation.Finally, Alain-Fournier's novel is like high-quality, strong, heavy French wine: in moderation it is highly enjoyable, but if you overdo it, your head starts to spin and you have to lie down to sleep it off.