Le Grand Meaulnes

Henri-Alban Fournier's classic 1913 French novel is the only one he wrote before dying in WWI. The plot is simple--village schoolboy Franois befriends charismatic older schoolmate Augustin Meaulnes. Meaulnes tells Franois that when lost one day, he had stumbled across a mysterious country estate (the domain), where he fell in love with a beautiful girl. From then on, Franois and Meaulnes try, and fail, to find the girl and lost domain again. Told in intense, evocative prose, this is a story about the magical nature of childhood, and about how, upon entering adulthood, we leave behind part of that magic, which we can never find again. Michael Maloney reads clearly, with excellent pacing in a pleasant, medium-range voice. However, he is overly affected by the book's sense of nostalgia and mystery. He often employs a tone of alarmed wonder, which diminishes, rather than enhances, the story. This tendency diminishes about half-way through the book. All in all, a creditable reading of a true classic. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine