one of the great french novels

l reread this book every few years and each time it is an exciting and enchanting book, evoking a time when the world was about to change, yet still full of the harshness of country life, through which the story of love and fantastic memory runs.

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3 people found this helpful

It's as good a translation as any other

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.

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Coming to man's estate

My long-ago first reading of Le Grand Meaulnes left me with a powerful mystical swathe of impressions, and it has been fascinating to listen so many decades later to find that my perspective has altered. This time around I found I was seeing with the 15 year-old growing-up-boy narrator, Seurel, who narrates the complex story (rather as Nick Carraway narrates The Great Gatsby), observing as if watching an opera, rather than feeling bound up with the youthful passions of Meaulnes and Franz. Experience tells you that once Meaulnes has consummated his innocent fantasy-passion for Yvonne, it will disintegrate, and that the search of Franz for his runaway fiancée Valentine will bring him pain and destruction. What gives an extra layer of poignancy to Le Grand Meaulnes is the death of its author Alain Fournier just weeks into the Great War which keys into his novel’s theme of loss. Whatever dreams Fournier had nurtured were extinguished and the rural France of his novel was gone for ever.

Whatever your age, the visual and emotional intensity of the story is overwhelming. It’s all a great theatre in the head as you listen: the purity of Meaulnes’ and Franz’s romantic love made up of dream, enchantment and longing; the fantastical masquerade in the grounds of the hidden chateau where Meaulnes first sees Yvonne; the tangled mesh of impossible love; appearances and disappearances; insatiable wanderlust; disguise and carnival; searches with mysterious maps; the pain of terrible loss, yearning and desire…. So it goes on.

And to balance all this, there is the level-headed Seurel, the son of the teachers at the country school where 17 year-old Meaulnes suddenly appears, alluring and intriguing only to disappear and reappear three days later with a fine silk waistcoat beneath his school jacket. Seurel matures over the years and through him we feel the rather melancholy ordinary rural life in Sologne at the end of the nineteenth century with the schoolroom, the horses, carriages and domestic drudgery.

The narration is exactly right. John Hollingworth with his short a’s and unobtrusive gentle northern phrasing is just right for keeping us in Seurel’s sombre real world from which we view the unfolding of Meaulnes’ bright wanderings.

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10 people found this helpful

Beautifully…

… 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.

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A compelling poignant romance

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

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Not the best

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.

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Fantastic

I have listened to this over and over during the last 10 years and it never ceases to amaze. Beautifully read , a wonderful story. Such a pity the author was killed in the First World War.

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Hoping to enjoy this book

I was hoping to enjoy this book after studying it in French for A level.
An awful translation,and although I persevered I could not listen any longer and gave up with five chapters left.

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terrible translation, terrible reading

terrible translation, terrible reading, this is painful to listen to. overall rubbish I'm afraid to say.

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