Second Reading

Le Grand Meaulnes By Alain-Fournier, First published 1912  Mystery, romance and unbearable sadness haunt this graceful, elegiac study of the passage from boyhood, that lost domain of dreams, to the adult world, writes Eileen Battersby .

Yet this time, it was different, the long red building with the Virginia creeper and the courtyard really did become home as father stayed on at the same school for 10 years. One cold winter day, a wealthy widow had arrived, hoping that her son could not only attend the school, but board with the schoolmaster's family. The newcomer was, to the eyes of the then 15-year-old narrator, "a tall youth, about seventeen. It was too dark to make out much more than his peasant's hat of felt pushed back on his head and a black smock tightly belted in like a schoolboy's. But I could see that he was smiling."

The smile belonged to Augustin Meaulnes. He captured the attention of the entire family and for the narrator, the elusive Meaulnes became his hero, and his friend. It was an important time; not only had the narrator finally recovered from the weak knee which had left him "timid and forlorn" and unable to play with other children, the arrival of Meaulnes changed his life. Instead of spending the evenings sitting in with his parents, he began to join the senior boys who huddled around Meaulnes.

They debated and argued, and although Meaulnes said very little, the boys sought his company. He became their leader.

One day he disappeared. On his return, exhausted, four days later, he brought an air of heightened mystery. His story is dream-like, vivid, strange and immediate. Having become lost he happens upon a marvellous gathering at a mansion. The occasion is to celebrate the son of the great house who is bringing his fiancée home. The description of the festivities, the rambling house, the gardens, the fancy dress, the players ready to entertain the guests, is like nothing else. But Franz, the wilful, indulged son of the great house, returns without his beloved and flees, everything collapses into disarray.

Meaulnes vows to find the girl. His quest transforms him into an obsessive knight of old. The narrator watches, is privy to some of it, befriends the heroine and eventually plays a vital role. In the course of his search Meaulnes experiences his own romance which ends in tragedy. The only novel of Alain-Fournier (born Henri Alban Alain-Fournier in 1886), who was killed in action on the Meuse in 1914, it is subtle and atmospheric, as lovely as a flower, as unforgettable as a plaintive melody.

This is a weekly series in which Eileen Battersby revisits titles from the literary canon

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times