Le Rivage des Syrtes

Prix Goncourt, 1951 — refused by the author. A sumptuous and allegorical novel, Le Rivage des Syrtes transports the reader into an imaginary world of silent lagoons, sleeping cities and uncertain borderlands. Gracq, trained as a geographer, deploys a precise and poetic vocabulary to describe isthmuses, promontories, islands and shores, turning landscape itself into a true character. Beneath its dreamlike surface lies a meditation on waiting and war: the ghostly atmosphere of Orsenna and Farghestan subtly evokes the “Phoney War,” a theme Gracq would return to in 1958 in Un Balcon en forêt.

By the time of publication, Julien Gracq had already set himself apart from the literary establishment, notably through his pamphlet La Littérature à l’estomac (1950), denouncing media collusion and the obsession with literary prizes. True to this stance, he obstinately refused the 1951 Prix Goncourt. The refusal caused a considerable scandal and, paradoxically, enormous publicity: print runs rose from 7,000 copies in September to 127,000 in December. It became the author’s greatest commercial success, worlds away from the 130 copies sold of his first novel, Au Château d’Argol (1938).

Critical reception was marked by Antoine Blondin’s memorable phrase, describing the book as an “imprecis of history and geography” (Rivarol, 6 December 1951). This ambiguity, between a dreamed world and historical resonance, gives the novel its singularity.

Gracq never wavered in his distance from official honors. The only “corridors of power” he agreed to frequent were those of Georges Pompidou, his fellow student at the École normale supérieure between 1930 and 1934, who tried in vain to have him awarded the Légion d’honneur. François Mitterrand received three polite refusals to his invitations.

Julien Gracq had received three copies on deluxe paper: one was given to his mother, another to his sister. He kept the third at his house in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil for the rest of his life.

This copy appeared in the catalogue of his estate sale (Nantes, Couton-Veyrac, November 12, 2008, lot 32); it bears, as expected, the red provenance stamp, at both the beginning and end of the volume. Gracq had also kept two copies of the regular issue, one from the first edition and one from the first reprint of 1952.

The working manuscripts and fair copy of Le Rivage des Syrtes are now held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Legs Julien Gracq, 2008).