Balcony in the Forest

Not entirely my kind of thing--too much description of nature, too much manic pixie dream girl drama--but exceptionally well written and well done. I don't often get upset about the fate of characters, but I did here. This is the way to write about war.

A Balcony in the Forest is a slow, poetic book that explores seclusion, waiting and anxiety in the midst of a war which is for most of the book still distant.
We follow an officer named Grange who commands a small unit somewhere in a forest in the Ardennes. He spends his days walking in the forest, visiting a nearby village, and even meeting a sprite-like lover. His experience is the core of this novel, his thoughts and meditations about life, war and nature. We know very few of the external details for any of the characters and there is a dream-like quality throughout this book.

The language is exquisite and while the book is quite simple in its concept, it is memorable because of the universality of themes it touches so subtly.

I can make this quick and (not really) dirty. "Balcony in the Forest" was not Julien Gracq's best book but it is a great book and Gracq was a great writer. His prose is both detailed and beautiful. Some might find his descriptions somewhat overworked but the overall beauty of the work can't be questioned. There isn't a lot of "action" in the novel but Gracq clearly reveals how much of life takes place beyond our actions. Certainly worth investing the the time to read this short work.

This is a very sad story. But beautifully written (at least in French). I especially liked the beginning of the first chapter, perhaps because it was my first dip into this novel after having read many books in English, but most probably because sentences are so delicately chiselled.

The general tone of the novel reminded me my father's War Diaries I recently discovered in his belongings. Although he was not stationed at the Belgium border, but in a military camp in the southern Massif central, the atmosphere is very similar, especially dinners at the officers' mess.

Highly recommended for its melancholy poetry.

The prose, mediated though it is through the translator, has a dreamlike quality that I enjoy, but which is also distancing. It's appropriate, because Grange's alienation from himself and from others is central to the book, but it prevents me from fully entering his mind or the world of the novel. It's still very beautiful, though some of the descriptions of women were off-putting.

La guerra è (anche) un'estenuante incombenza che grava sull'uomo e sull'ambiente e Julien Gracq la descrive con maestria e con sensibilità.

No plot, written absolutely beautifully.