Alain Fournier : Le Grand Meaulnes

I first came across this book after reading that 'The Wanderer' was one of NC Wyeths favourites and managed to get a 1950's copy of The Lost Domain.
         It's become more than mere words on a page for it's narration, descriptions and visual content reveal symbolically the longing of youthful adolescence when ones consciousness is free of the burdens this world imposes upon humanity. Published in 1913 many an adolescent would soon pass through a cold reality, growing old too soon, bathed in a nightmare, caked in mud, living in holes, becoming the ghosts in man made carnage, towards those damned bloody machines of war.


        Within it's narrated passages there are yearnings of lost youthful love and the aspiration of romance that is alluded to by the mystery of the lost domain. Those first glimpses of Yvonne at the chateau party confounded me too. Who doesn't like a mystery to solve? A story conjured up by the disappearance of Meaulnes the story unfolds to claim the passing of one last adventure away from innocent childhood days.
     Those youthful adventures are narrated by Seurel the observer and shadow to the 17 year old Meaulnes. One takes the route in reality while the other keeps a candle burning toward a waking dream. A journey through overgrown pathways leads to that unattainable world, caught in the discovery of a fleeting moment within the celebrated fete (fate?).
      Many a writer would dream of encapsulating the soul in a book.
Some are mere writers while others are poets...

The End of Youth


Henri Fournier was in a regiment ordered to advance through the forest of St Remy on the Heights of the Meuse. Still one of the areas subjected to the german advance since the battle of the Marne. He was in charge of his 23rd Company on the morning of the 22nd September when he encountered a german patrol. It was within these woods that Fournier met his end.

77 years later his body was recovered alongside his men

Fournier was identified because of the Lieutenants chevrons on the blue grey fabric of the sleeve on the upper arm, the regimental number 288 on the collar flap and by dental records. He had been killed by a single bullet which had passed through his sternum and second right rib. 21 excavated skeletons were buried in the summer of 1992 in the national cemetary of St Remy la Colonne



 Alain Henri Fournier died aged 27    


'I was born to write stories - and for them to happen to me'

'War was the great game..the game of death'

'I don't know exactly where God is in this war because none of us can solve the riddle of existence, but I know that I'll be shot down only when He wants, how He wants and where He wants' 

'Above the world of my childhood, delightful unknown things kept hovering'

'Perhaps the great problem is not happiness but purity. Purity is the burning question and the supreme torment for those who aren't pure in heart'

  The Lost Domain - Penguin classics isbn 9780141441894