Balcony in the Forest - Julien Gracq

Balcony in the Forest by Julien Gracq, translated by Richard Howard / ISBN 9781681371399 / 240-page paperback from NYRB Classics *** "Richard Howard’s sinuous translation...is from 1959 but feels perfectly up-to-date...The war arrives in this unexpectedly delicate story with the shadowy unreality of a dream...but it is a dream of a vastly different nature."--Sam Sacks, WSJ It is the fall of 1939, and Lieutenant Grange and his men are living in a chalet above a concrete bunker deep in the Ardennes forest, charged with defending the French-Belgian border against the Germans in a war that seems unreal, distant, and unlikely. Far more immediate is the earthy life of the forest itself and the deep sensations of childhood it recalls from Grange’s memory. Ostensibly readying for war, Grange instead spends his time observing the change in seasons, falling in love with a young free-spirited widow, and contemplating the absurd stasis of his present condition. This novel of long takes, dream stat