The book, translated in my 1986 edition by Richard Howard, is full of mist-metaphoric and otherwise. But I was enraptured by this haunting story of a nobleman in the decadent, fading, fictional land of Orsenna, who is compelled-out of arrogance, yes, but also with nightmarish inevitability-to drag his country into war. Though the book and its author aren’t exactly obscure- Shore won the Goncourt Prize (though Gracq refused it!), and A Balcony in the Forest was reissued by NYRB in 2017-I rarely see mention of The Opposing Shore. Published in 1951, The Opposing Shore, a French novel by Julien Gracq, was the best surprise discovery of my reading life. This week Molly Dektar, whose story “ Ethel ” appears in the Fall 2020 issue, examines a passage from The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq. For our Marginalia web feature, we ask writers to introduce us to their favorite works of literature by way of a short piece of prose.
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