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Le Grand Meaulnes [The Wanderer]

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Le Grand Meaulnes [The Wanderer]

By: Henri Alain-Fournier
Narrated by: John Hollingworth
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Le Grand Meaulnes is one of the great classics of French literature, a mysterious, even impressionistic tale of adolescence in the French countryside in the dying years of the 19th century.

A teenager, Agustin Meaulnes, arrives in a country school, and his strong personality immediately affects its rural atmosphere, especially in the eyes of his younger school companion, the 15 year old François. He is dubbed 'le grand Meaulnes', and he lives up to his reputation by going missing for a few days. He says little about his adventure on his return. But François eventually discovers that Meaulnes stumbled upon a strange party held at an unknown chateau, and became enmeshed in the lives of the beautiful young Yvonne de Galais and her brother Frantz.

Love, confusion, the urgency of young passion propels these three along unpredictable paths, observed anxiously by François, who desperately wants to help solve and resolve the mysteries. But Meaulnes and Frantz are driven by their own emotions along a trajectory which is anything but simple and straight.

Le Grand Meaulnes, regarded by John Fowles as 'the greatest novel of adolescence in European literature' has cast a remarkable spell on successive many generations.

In turn elliptical, impressionist, hopeful, haunting, Le Grand Meaulnes made an immediate impression on the French public when it was first published in 1913 (a year before its author died in the First World War) and swiftly gained a permanent place in European literature. The translation by Françoise Delisle has been revised for this recording.(P)2016 Ukemi Productions Ltd Classics Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Jewish Literary Fiction World Literature
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… written. Beautifully narrated!! It’s one to listen to more than once!!! I intend to do so as I think I’d like it even more 2nd time around.

Beautifully…

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Heard great things about this book however personally I found it very slow going and boring. Considering it is set in France there appears northern English accents which is offputting to say the least. I gave it a good go but in the end I had to switch it off.

Not the best

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The reader broke the sentences up into short detached phrases. Apart from that he was good.

A compelling poignant romance

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Manages to blend the slightly surreal with vivid accounts of 19th century daily life - a fascinating tale that really draws you into another world.

Poignant storyline

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I know that I have a tendency sometimes to use reviews already done as a foil for my own. whether this is malpractice by a reviewer or not is an open question but it seems only fair to address points in other reviews which are going to only put people off something which deserves their time and attention.

The translation of Le Grand Meaulnes which Mr Hollingsworth reads is not the only one available. I have another called "The Magnificent Meaulnes". I have to agree that they differ a lot. Put the two side by side and sentence by sentence you will find that one of the two is closer to the original, one of the two more artistically rendered, but it's not consistent that one is better than the other on either of those scores.

This translation is mapped more closely on the French. That makes it a slightly more wooden version as far as readability is concerned. One example, in the scene in the last chapter before the epilogue "Vous avez pu, Vous avez pu!" Is rendered "You could. You could!" here but is rendered much better as "How could you! How could you!" in the Magnificent Meaulnes translation by Valerie Lester.

This might be an issue for some but for the student of French, on the contrary, it can be of immense help.

Beyond which John Hollingsworth reads this really well. His calm reading reflects the mind of Seurel.

The use of Northern English accents to reflect the rural speech if the Cher valley is 100% valid and well executed in my opinion. How else can you relect a local accent in a translation than to pick one of the ones available in English.

In English we can't do a Cher valley accent. But we can be quite happy if in the French narration of Hardy the actor chooses an accent like that for Gabriel Oakes, rather than try to add English west country rhotic vocal acrobatics to the French, which would be incongruous.

It's as good a translation as any other

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