ABSTRACT
Though some of his books have been available in English before, the reputation that Julien Gracq enjoys in France has still not crossed the English Channel, let alone the Atlantic. although Corti continues to publish Gracq's books (not one of which has ever gone out of print), his collected works now also exist in the scholarly Pleiade series brought out by Gallimard. After A Balcony in the Forest, however, Gracq method changed. Certain descriptions in Liberte grande were based on real landscapes or cityscapes. This is clearly true of Les Eaux etroites (1976), about a boat trip down the Evre, a tributary of the Loire near Saint-Florent-le-Vieil; or La Forme d'une ville (1985), about his years as a boarder in a Nantes lycee; and of Autour des sept collines. The books represent a reconciliation, though no facile one, with the real world.
