Julien Gracq: 2 books

It is the fall of 1939, and Lieutenant Grange and his men are living in a chalet above a concrete bunker deep in the Ardennes forest, charged with defending the French-Belgian border against the Germans in a war that seems unreal, distant, and unlikely. Far more immediate is the earthy life of the...

From the moment he arrives at an elegant seaside hotel with his lover, Allan unsettles and obsesses the other guests. Elusive, equivocal, beautiful, he lives, gambles, swims and dances with a strange fierceness that they find intoxicating. Soon he even haunts their dreams. One by one, each guest is...