Name: Malia's review of The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Alain-Fournier
Item: The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes)
Rating: 5
Author: Malia

Alain-Fournier

The Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes. This Penguin Classics edition also contains an introduction by Adam Gopnik.When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne, everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. But when Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with tales of a strange party at a mysterious house - and his love for the beautiful girl hidden within it, Yvonne de Galais - his life has been changed forever. In his restless search for his Lost Estate and the happiness he found there, Meaulnes, observed by his loyal friend Francois, may risk losing everything he ever had. Poised between youthful admiration and adult resignation, Alain-Fournier's compelling narrator carries the reader through this evocative and unbearably poignant portrayal of desperate friendship and vanished adolescence. Robin Buss's translation of Le Grand Meaulnes sensitively and accurately renders Alain-Fournier's poetically charged, expressive and deceptively simple style. In his introduction, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik discusses the life of Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the First World War after writing this, his only novel.Henri Alban-Fournier (1886-1914), better known by the pseudonym Alain-Fournier, was born in La Chapelle d'Angillon, the son of a country school-master. He was educated at Brest and Paris, where he met the original Yvonne, who left a lasting impression on his life and work. Le Grand Meaulnes was published in 1912. Alan-Fournier joined the army as a Lieutenant in August 1914, and was killed in action on the Meuse less than a month later. Les Miracles, a volume of poems and essays, appeared posthumously in 1924.If you liked Le Grand Meaulnes, you might enjoy Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education, also available in Penguin Classics.'I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as poignant now as I did then'Nick Hornby

The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes)

shen

i'm a sucker for the theme of nostalgia, dream-like atmosphere, and coming of age stories. sue me

Malia

3 stars — a beautiful story about the passing of youth and how young dreams embark on a fresh beginning even if we achieve it later in life. what makes this book compelling is how it resonates to most of us about our ideal places—real or imaginary, that if we're fortunate enough, we can visit it for a short while. yet that time is filled with happy and blissful moments that we would not exchange anything for the world. it is a place we found during our youth and a place where we kept revisiting. 

it is a place where we will attempt to find again for the rest of our lives because it altered our lives forever.

unedited review:

i dissociated the whole time reading this. not sure which one’s lost, the estate or my head.

Zoë Schaefer

At times this really did feel like the French take on The Great Gatsby. Not all of it, but the main characters and the overall feeling of the book left me in a similar state of mind. I have a feeling, like with Gatsby, it will be better during a reread. For now, I'm not quite sure where it's sitting. I do feel like I need it on my bookshelf, though.

shen &
The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Alain-Fournier

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The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Alain-Fournier