Very dense and descriptive prose, quite enjoyable. "Albert now perceived that the abnormal disposition of the interior, which the appearance of the façade had suggested to his imagination, was not belied. The visitor first entered a lofty vaulted hall with Romanesque arches, and divided by three rows of pillars. The slanting rays of the sun coming through the low horizontal loopholes seen in the façade, and that the setting sun now lighted with long streaks of dancing golden dust, formed with the white pillars a luminous pattern separating the entire upper part of the vaulted ceiling, and their ever-changing and fantastic fluctuations prevented the eye from measuring its true height. No furniture was to be seen in this hall, but here and there piles of deep furred skins; and cushions, covered with Asiatic silken fabrics of an extravagant luxury, were piled against the naked walls and pillars with an air of negligent profusion, making one think of a night encampment of the Golden Horde in a white Byzantine cathedral. Out of this great entrance hall opened low and endlessly winding corridors interrupted by stairways and steep descents full of recesses and corners, which seemed to run like veins through the vast structure of the castle, presenting the appearance of a three-dimensional labyrinth."
Mistery, beauty,and a dreamy nature makes this book a master piece in its kind. A story about friendship and love in a sort of wild entourage. One follows it willing to know what is going to happen, but follows it, would say, for the beauty of the writing. You will want to know Britanny, in case you yet do not. At the end, may find the closing of the plot foreseenable, maybe, but the whole will leave a track in your mind that will last a whole life. As one of the most wonderful dreams one could have. You can rew read passages once and again, they keep an inner beauty difficult to find in other books. Think as other books of this weird author, it already is a classic. Only him could write this way and mantain interest in the reading. For poetry lovers.
Do You like book Château D'Argol (1999)?
A very mysterious and symbolic novel written by a master of the French language. A strange castle, two men and one woman, an intense atmosphere of intellectual stimulation and erotic attraction, and not one line of dialogue. It reminded me of some of the great European silent movies of the twenties, like L'Herbier's L'inhumaine (The Inhuman). The heroine could have been played by Garbo or Brigitte Helm. It may be a difficult and hermetic experience to some, but it is exceptionally intriguing, and the reader floats in a strange world he does not fully comprehend but cannot help be fascinated with.
—Denis
A small, curious book about a man who goes to live in a castle in the forest. Ten chapters, only three characters; as far as novels go there's not much happening here.I discovered, however, that if I approached this work as I would a set of paintings, I began to appreciate it more. Nature abounds - scenes of forests and thunder and the sea, and the internal, dreamlike deliberations of Albert and his guests are breathtaking. The design of the physical book is also remarkable, even minimalist, with a centerfold of a corpse in the back that I almost missed.File this under prose poetry, fantasy in form if not in content. A bit of Hegelian philosophy, too, although that pretty much blew past me as I went.
—Nathan Jerpe
A surrealist novel. One finds already all the style of Gracq: wealth of descriptions, hallucinations. The feelings are felt but ever expressed.There could be photographs as in Nadja de Breton. Remain that the drama is quite present. It is a Jules and Jim destroy. We are far from the organized dialogues. Feelings violence joined physical violence. All rests on this shift between this violence and with the smoothes style. There are rape and suicide. A first text surprising compared to the production of this time 1937.
—Philippe Malzieu
