ALEX ACIMAN ON "LE GRAND MEAULNES," BACK TO SCHOOL, AND THE ROBERT HALL SONG
It's that time of year when most of us academics head back to school, only this year, for the first time in many moons, I am not. Instead, I was able to read an insightful NPR piece by Alex Aciman on the 1913 French novel, "Le Grand Meaulnes" ( "The Lost Estate") by Henri Alain-Fournier, killed in combat in 1914, but whose body was not found until 1991. This was Alain-Fournier's only book. Aciman makes an eloquent, compelling case for why this is "such an appropriate last book for someone days away from becoming a college student....Without ever actually announcing it, 'The Lost Estate' tells a story about feeling inescapably tied to one's life as a student and a child, but hoping that something far more enchanting will come along and distract us." Like the novel's young hero, "we wish we could be set off course." I think I know what he means. Le grand Meaulnes Oh, Les beaux jours! Does one ever get over the com...