7.2 /10 1 Votes7.2
Original title Au château d'Argol Language French Published in English 1951 Originally published 1938 Page count 182 Country France | 3.6/5 Goodreads Translator Louise Varèse Publication date 1938 Pages 182 Published in english 1951 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Castle of Argol (French: Au château d'Argol) is a 1938 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. The narrative is set at a castle in Brittany, where a man has invited a friend, who also has brought a young woman. The novel is loaded with symbols and uses narrative modes from Gothic horror literature, which it blends with Hegelian thinking and stylistic traits close to the surrealist movement, including a highly abstract plot. In his "Notice to the reader", Gracq describes the book as a "demonic version" of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal.
Publication
The novel, which was the author's first, was rejected by éditions Gallimard but accepted and published by José Corti, which was associated with the surrealists. It was praised by the surrealist leader André Breton. An English translation by Louise Varèse was published in 1951.