The Peninsula - Julien Gracq

The Peninsula by Julien Gracq, translated by Elizabeth Deshays / ISBN 9781933382395 / 117 page paperback from Green Integer (new copies with light shelf wear) *** Julien Gracq's short fiction The Peninsula is a deceptively simple work with regard to plot. Simon is at the Brévenay train station in Brittany waiting for his lover, Irmgard, although she has warned him that her arrival at midday is "very unlikely." As expected, she is not on the train, and he has a whole afternoon to while away before the next one gets in that evening. A methodical man, Simon determines to spend the time driving along the Brittany coast and arranging for their journey. He returns that evening to the train station to meet her. Little else "happens" -- but in Gracq's beautifully lyrical tale, everything happens on the emotional level as the reader participates in Simon's psychical journey which leads him through the harsh and uncompromising Brittany landscape, scene of his childhood vacations, into the mytho