anatole france

Another strange and mesmerizing book by one of my favorite Nobel laureate authors. As in Thais, the author layers a sometimes straightforward tale with religious and occult themes. Here we have a young main character who is tasked with aiding in a translation of Zosimus and other obscure authors for…

A surprisingly lackluster fantastical satire from Anatole France, the Nobel winner who brought us dozens of French classics. Of the books of his which I’ve read, this might be the weakest in my opinion.  Whereas Thais’s prose sparkled like Flaubert’s, the writing here is safer. There are moments of great…