Lorelei

by Maurice Genevoix

En juillet 1905, à Chasseneuil, dans le Val de Loire, Julien Derouet, dix-sept ans, lycéen « entre ses deux bacs », se voit offrir des vacan-ces merveilleusement inattendues : un séjour d'un grand mois en Allemagne. C'est la prestigieuse Mme Roy qui l'invite à les y accompagner, elle et ses fille, Brigitte, l'aînée, Blonde, la cadette, dont Julien est amoureux depuis l'enfance. Le but du voyage est Offenbach sur le Main, près de Francfort, où le fils de Mme Roy, Pacome, fait son apprentissage chez un maître tanneur. Que leur réserve ce séjour ? Qu'advient-il de cette famille, singulièrement de cet adolescent, ce jeune Français des « coteaux modérés », lorsqu'il découvre les deux Allemagne, excessives et contrastées, chez les êtres comme dans les paysages : celle de la sentimen-talité et celle de la violence, celle des auberges folkloriques et celle des forêts mystérieuses, l'Allemagne romantique et l'Allemagne guerrière (1905, c'est l'année de Tanger) ? Ne s'unissent-elles pas dans la personnification symbolique de la Lorelei, l'ondine du Rhin chantée par Brentano et Heine ? C'est sous les traits de différents visages de femmes qu'elle tentera et troublera Julien. Mais c'est par un visage viril, classiquement marqué au sabre, qu'elle l'envoûtera et le subjuguera. L'amitié des deux garçons connaîtra des affrontements d'autant plus durs qu'elle est au fond plus passionnelle ; à l'instar, peut-on dire, de la mutuelle fascination des deux peuples. Le jeune Français n'en sortira pas indemne.Maurice Genevoix, inséparable du drame humain où sa pénétration nous entraîne, évoque les sortilèges de la forêt allemande aussi magistralement que les attraits des bois solognots, les tempêtes du Rhin aussi intensément que les charmes de la Loire. Dans Un jour, le grand écrivain nous livrait sereinement le dernier mot d'un art de vivre. Dans Lorelei, il nous en confie le premier : c'est une « éducation sentimentale ».

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Maurice Genevoix (1890–1980) was a French author.

Born on 29 November 1890 at Decize, Nièvre as Maurice-Charles-Louis-Genevoix, Genevoix spent his childhood in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire. After attending the local school, he studied at the lycée of Orléans and the Lycée Lakanal. Genevoix was accepted to the Ecole Normale Supérieure, being first in his class, but was soon mobilized into World War I in 1914. He was quickly promoted to a lieutenant, but was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and returned to Paris. The battle left a profound influence on him, and he wrote the tetrology Ceux de 14 (The Men of 1914), which brought him recognition among the public.

Around 1919, Genevoix contracted Spanish influenza, causing him to move back to the Loire. He was quite prolific during his time in the Loire area, earning a Prix Blumenthal grant from the Florence Blumenthal Foundation to support him as a professional writer. It was this grant that allowed him to continue with some of his most celebrated works, Rémi des Rauches and Raboliot, the latter of which earned him the Prix Goncourt.

In 1928, his father died, and Genevoix moved to Vernelles in Loiret. At around this time, Genevoix started to travel abroad to Canada, Scandinavia, Mexico, and Africa. Canada and Africa were both admired by the writer, the latter of which he dedicated a 1949 essay to it, Afrique blanche, Afrique noire. He was elected to the Académie française on 24 October 1946 and was formally inducted the following year. In 1950, he returned to Paris and became secretary of the Académie française in 1958. In 1970, Genevoix, who was president of the program committee of French state radio, started a television series on French writers. He was also offered the Grand Prix National de Letters. He died on 8 September 1980.

The Académie française literary Prix Maurice Genevoix is named for him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_...

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Drawing inspiration from German rock, the narrowest part of the Rhine, the Nixe and Gérard de Nerval's poem, Maurice Genevoix introduces us to Julien, a student from the Loire Valley who embarks on a journey to Offenbach with Madame Roy, a wealthy widow whose daughters he adores. There, they meet Pacôme Roy, who is training to be a tanner.
It is in a romantic, mysterious Germany, but also in a changing urban area, that Julien will discover the many bewitching faces of the Lorelei, including that of a man who will become his frenemy.

The descriptions are numerous, but bland and static to the point of stifling at times. Furthermore, there is a strong, almost Flaubertian, sociological desire to present complex characters.
The beginning is soporific, recounting the love affairs of middle-class people who flirt with each other in the countryside. The real intrigue only emerges at the end of the first part. The stay in Germany is slightly more exciting than the beginning in France, but the first encounter with the Lorelei is nothing out of the ordinary. The mythical aspect is disregarded, making her seem almost banal.

The third part reinforces the initial impression of a sociological focus, which takes precedence over the somewhat fanciful mythical aspect evoked by the Lorelei.

Genevoix attempts to blend the marvellous with the modern, but the result is uneven. Simply placing the action in nature does not make it any more ethereal. While it is possible for a setting to seem conducive to supernatural, superhuman or romantic events, Genevoix does not exploit this enough or to good effect. On rare occasions, he comes across as spiritual or philosophical.

The writing is sorely lacking in subtlety and panders to the reader, but the romances are left open-ended with no real purpose. The only freedom lies in the open ending. Nonetheless, I found the author's manner of making his points unpleasant. Lorelei's background and initial intentions seemed interesting, but ultimately, the book is just window dressing.

[Cécile B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je n'ai probablement pas compris ce livre. Les intentions des personnages m'ont semblé incroyablement obscurs et indéchiffrables, leurs réactions et leurs discours incompréhensibles, leurs relations fades et superficielles dans l'ensemble. Je n'ai pas ressenti cet amour du pays voisin dont nombre de commentaires parlent ici, ni ces sublimes descriptions lyriques. Je me suis ennuyée ferme et je me suis sentie soulagée une fois la dernière page tournée (ce qui m'a pris un temps fou au regard de la petite taille du livre).

[Lizz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro que cumple su función de entretener, pero por momentos se vuelve bastante tedioso de leer.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genevoix used to be a very popular - yet serious and literary - writer in France, but his fame seems to have slowly faded. He’s rarely talked about today, it seems. That is a shame because his writing is gorgeous. Lorelei, an ode to the German countryside, the murmurs of its forests, and the beauty of its nature, as well as a nostalgic homage to the tender, moving friendships of youth, is a shining example of Genevoix’s talent at its best. Reconnecting with the original German sources of romanticism, the novel is the intimate portrait of a French teenager who travels to Germany and falls in love, in every sense of the way, and it is superbly evocative. You can almost hear the landscape whispers and see its shimmering loveliness. You also can sense what makes German culture so fascinating for a curious, sensitive French boy, but, as the narration unfolds, you can also feel what it contains that will, in troubled times, lead German people to more dubious and dangerous endeavors. Lorelei – a title based on one of the most enduring of all German traditions - is deceptively simple. It’s the tribute of a Frenchman to the charms and mysteries of his neighbor country. It’s also much more than that.

[Marie-aimée · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une histoire d'amour où se mêle les influences de la Lorelei, en Allemagne, entre esprit mythologique et contexte de l'avant guerre.

[Jaime Ibarra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prosa disfrazada de poesia algo sosa y sentimentalista.