8 /10 1 Votes
Original title Un balcon en forêt Language French Published in English 1959 Originally published 1958 Page count 253 Translator Richard Howard | 4/5 Goodreads Country France Publication date 1958 Pages 253 Publisher José Corti Published in english 1959 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A Balcony in the Forest (French: Un balcon en forêt) is a 1958 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. It tells the story of a French lieutenant, Grange, who is assigned to an old fortified building in the forest of the Ardennes in the autumn of 1939, where he waits at the outbreak of World War II together with a few men.
An English translation by Richard Howard was published in 1959. The book was the basis for a 1978 film with the same title directed by Michel Mitrani.
Reception
Max Bogart wrote in The Saturday Review: "Julien Gracq has written a sensitive and analytical study of men enmeshed in a phony war—a war that would ultimately result in the tragic, dramatic fall of France. ... Gracq's characterizations are vivid and the story is completely credible with one major exception: the lieutenant's love affair mars the narrative's development, for Mona, a young widow, is an elusive, shadowy figure, who not only puzzled Grange, but whose role in this story mystified this reader. ... The facile pen of the author is evident on every page, especially in the descriptive passages of the phantom forest, the seasonal landscape colors, and the beauty of nature in contrast with man's destructiveness in wartime."