La quarta di copertina lo definisce "estatico" e c'è da concordare. Messo in scena in un contesto geografico fittizio restituito per sensazioni più che descrizioni, è il racconto di una guerra immobile e "fredda" (nota: il libro è del 1951, anno in cui riceve anche il premio Goncourt, rifiutato da Gracq) che scalda l'animo del protagonista e dei suoi comprimari, le cui sottili, simboliche vicende si dipanano come raggi poetici all'interno di una scrittura sobria, austera e insieme ricchissima, resa nella traduzione d'epoca di Mario Bonfantini che le aggiunge oggi fascino. In Francia - e forse non solo - è considerato un capolavoro, onore al merito a chi in Italia ci aiuta a riscoprirlo (L'orma Editore). ( )

Edit: Oh and that cover with the giant floating rock is a complete lie :# .

So in premise this reminded me a lot of the excellent [b:The Tartar Steppe|83017|The Tartar Steppe|Dino Buzzati|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327904364s/83017.jpg|1245179]. Both are about young men sent to remote outposts where the odds of anything exciting happening are quite remote but vigilance is nevertheless required.
You could easily change the setting of these stories to say a nuclear missile silo in the usa and the stories would still work pretty well.

However the Opposing Shore diverts completely from the Tartar Steppe in certain areas which i can't really talk about without spoilers.
So firstly i need to address the language. This is the best and worst part of the book, its soooooo overwritten and yet leaves you with many ambiguities and uncertainties. Even right at the end another one popped up so that i'm not really sure how to interpret the conclusion.
But the descriptions... I really like purple prose, make it as over the top as you like i'll just lap that stuff up, normally. This however was a bit too much at times even for me.

There can be a page or two of metaphors and similes describing a single item or event. There are metaphors within metaphors. Again i like purple prose and i did enjoy a lot of this but it is really pompous and highbrow at times.

Then there's the message of the story which like everything else left me uncertain. It seems to be about the individual versus history. Does any one ever really make a decision? or does history, the collective unconscious if you will, force events regardless of individual wishes?
Its the former, done ;) .
I feel like english professors could argue about the meaning of this book for months but part of that is again the sheer uncertainty of what the hell actually happened at certain points :P .

There is a lot to like here don't get me wrong, but it is a bit drowned in the over the top style. Definitely not for your average reader. ( )

[Le Rivage des Syrtes] - Julien Gracq
Civilisations rise and inevitably fall, especially if they do not change or at least adapt to new situations: they become at risk to the barbarian outside the gates. Gracq's book retitled in its English translation as The Opposing Shore imagines a country which has been ruled by a coterie of Aristocratic families for generations from its capital Orsenna in the north. It had received a bloody nose in a war with a country from the opposing shore which lies the other side of a sea on its southern border. The war was three hundred years ago and ever since that time Orsenna has strived to have no communication with Farghestan. Gracq's novel looks at the tipping point; the time when pressures arising from this oppositional stalemate forces Orsenna into some kind of reaction. There are rumours of widespread infiltration in the southern border town of Maremma, soothsayers are predicting a catastrophe and Aldo a young aristocrat has been sent to the southern district of Syrtes as L'Observateur at a naval establishment on the coast.

Gracq's novel won the prix Goncourt in 1951. France's most prestigious literary prize for a book that is "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year" and so one can be sure that this novel is something more than a political thriller: in fact thriller would be absolutely the wrong genre with which to label the book: it is a book of mysteries and possibilities. The young Aldo tells his story in the first person: he is on his own voyage of discovery, and anchors the story, because the reader sees him as a reliable witness, coming to terms with the characters around him as the novel proceeds. The novel is full of atmosphere created by the desert like landscape that dominates almost every chapter. Characters appear to be sleepwalking to their fate, but Aldo injects life into the proceedings, he feels the somnambulism, but fights against it. The desert here is one of marshlands and waterways, mudflats, fog and mist, that seeps into the fabric of the story.

Aldo travels down to Syrtes from Orsenna and installs himself in the Amirauté. He shares the fortified base with Captain Marino and his lieutenants: Robert, Fabrizio and Giovanni, who are the crew to the warship: the "Redoubtable" Aldo's duties are to report back to Orsenna, but he becomes fascinated by the history of the war with Farghestan and discovers the map room full of naval charts. At the town of Maremma further along the coast he is seduced by Vanessa the daughter of a rival family of aristocrats based in Orsenna. She lives in a castle outside of the run down town and is hostess to some grand balls, where Aldo meets Belsenza, who is carrying out a spying mission and is becoming nervous of the strange people circulating in the town. Aldo visits the strange overgrow ruins of Sagra and comes across a suspicious character who has a boat docked in one of the hidden waterways. Aldo's fascination with the map room, and his own observations make him burn with curiosity about Farghestan and its people. The suspicion is that they have infiltrated Maremma and Vanessa's role comes under suspicion. Captain Marino travels back to Orsenna leaving the Redoubtable and crew ready for Aldo to take command of the regular coastal patrols and Farghestan is only one days crossing on the other side of the sea. The mystery deepens and Aldo's precipitous action starts a chain of events that will determine the fate of Orsenna.

Gracq's writing is dense and full of smilies and some fairly old fashioned syntax, some of which I believe is alluding to French classically inspired literature of two centuries earlier. I enjoyed the sound of the words in my head even if I had to puzzle out the meaning, which was at times as mysterious and dark as the story. This is certainly a book to linger over and one where once you know how the story ends, would bear re-reading to find out what had been missed along the way. Aldo does find out much of what is happening even if he does not understand it, but characters such as Vanessa and Belsenza remain shrouded in their own secrets. A dose of realpolitick closes out the novel nicely and the reader feels that this is a novel which has substance and integrity and reflects on Europe's position in the world in the early 1950's. A four star read for me at this time, but I suspect I will rate it more highly in the future. ( )

Ce que j’ai cherché à faire, entre autres choses, dans Le Rivage des Syrtes, plutôt qu’à raconter une histoire intemporelle, c’est à libérer par distillation un élément volatil, « l’esprit-de-l’Histoire », au sens où on parle d’esprit-de-vin, et à le raffiner suffisamment pour qu’il pût s’enflammer au contact de l’imagination. Il y a dans l’Histoire un sortilège embusqué, un élément qui, quoique mêlé à une masse considérable d’excipient interne, a la vertu de griser. […]
Quand l’Histoire bande ses ressorts, comme elle fit, pratiquement sans un moment de répit, de 1929 à 1939, elle dispose sur l’ouïe intérieure de la même agressivité monitrice qu’a sur l’oreille, au bord de la mer, la marée montante […]. C’est cette remise en route de l’Histoire, aussi imperceptible, aussi saisissante dans ses commencements que le premier tressaillement d’une coque qui glisse à la mer, qui m’occupait quand j’ai projeté le livre.
(Julien Gracq, En lisant en écrivant) ( )