This classic was heartily recommended to me as a delightful blend of realism and fantasy.

It's the story of a friendship between the teenage narrator, François, and Augustin, the "great Meaulnes" of the title, who pops up in François's life with the nonchalance of an older boy. From fascination to attachment to detachment, their relation unfolds on the background of a rural region of France.

I can't say this book fascinated me, but I appreciated the slow moments of contemplation, and the intrusion of the fantastical in a very realistic narrative. And that's what it is: fantastical, and not fantasy. You never leave the French countryside, and yet the characters seem at times to walk into a more colourful reality, in the surroundings of a castle where a fabulous party is going on.

The atmosphere of profound melancholy and uncertainty made me think of Hiromasa Yonebayashi's movie When Marnie Was There (which I now want to watch again - I was very, very moved the first time). And, since the person who recommended this book to me also admitted not having been able to read The Lord of the Rings, I'll just say that I found quite a few common points between the first chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring and Alain-Fournier's novel: descriptions of an unstained countryside, the taste for nature, the intrusion of the fantastical, etc.