''The Opposing Shore'' () is a 1951 novel by the French writer

Julien Gracq Julien Gracq (; born Louis Poirier; 27 July 1910 – 22 December 2007) was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were noted for their dreamlike abstraction, elegant style and refined vocabulary. He ...

. The story is set at the border between two fictional Mediterranean countries, Orsenna and Farghestan, which have been at war for 300 years. It is Gracq's third and most famous novel. It was awarded the

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt ( , "The Goncourt Prize") is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but resul ...

, but Gracq refused to accept the prize as a protest against commercial compromising in world literature. The novel has been described as a "

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

ian prelude for an unplayed opera" as it doesn't focus on telling a story but is first and foremost concerned with creating a mysterious, out-of-time atmosphere.

Plot

A novel of waiting, it is set in an almost empty old fortress close to a sea which defines the ancestral border between the stagnant principality of Orsenna and the territory of its archenemy, the mysterious and elusive Farghestan. The two countries are officially at war although no fighting has taken place for decades, so that there is an uneasy, de facto peace. The main character, Aldo, is sent as an "observer" to the isolated fortress. Bored with the immobility and eerie silence, he longs for action and slowly becomes obsessed with the unseen border. Aldo starts entertaining the thought of crossing it, even if that leads to a resuming of hostilities and the possible collapse of his own civilisation, reasoning that destruction may be preferable to slow decadence. The novel ends when the "story" begins, i.e. when consequences of his actions start manifesting themselves.

Themes

Like several other works by

, ''The Opposing Shore'' expresses its author's fascination with expectation, the foreboding and apocalypse. It fits within the popular 20th-century theme of ' waiting for the barbarians

Orsenna symbolizes history, tradition and order, while Farghestan stands for the irrational and ahistorical. Aldo's attraction to Farghestan and his attempt to escape the reality of history is portrayed as both heroic and self-destructive. The dreamlike qualities of the novel are related to Gracq's previous affinity with the surrealism, surrealist movement; Gracq described ''The Opposing Shore'' as an "awakened dream".

Publication

The book was published through

José Corti José Corti is a bookshop and publishing house located in Paris, France, and was founded in 1925. It is named after its founder, José Corticchiato (14 January 1895 – 25 December 1984). José Corticchiato started his business by publishing the ...

in 1951. An English translation by

Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022), adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz, was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, ...

was published by

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

in 1986.

Reception

Elisabeth Cardonne-Arlyck wrote in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in 1986:

In different ways, the French title ''Le Rivage des Syrtes'' and its English counterpart, ''The Opposing Shore,'' conjure up this old image of an alien coast, clearly still vivid in the Western imagination. ... The author uses his extensive classical culture and Proustian sense of names to create a geography of the mind.

Cardonne-Arlyck continued:

There are some word choices I question, but one of the achievements of Mr. Howard's translation is that he has faced up to what are stylistic peculiarities in the French text and rendered them into an equally intricate but lush and rhythmic prose. ''The Opposing Shore'' is Mr. Gracq's best-known and richest work. It has already been translated into six languages, and its long overdue appearance in English reminds us of one of the more stimulating and original imaginations in contemporary French literature.

References

External links

''The Opposing Shore''
at the French publisher's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Opposing Shore 1951 French novels French-language novels Novels by Julien Gracq Prix Goncourt–winning works Novels set in fictional countries