World More or Less

Jean Rouaud's power to evoke the past is incandescent. His first two universally acclaimed novels, Fields of Glory ("Remarkable" -- New York Times; "Irresistible" -- Boston Globe) and Of illustrious Men ("Amazing" -- Philadelphia Inquirer; "A lovingly written book" -- New York Times), proved he was a worthy successor to the mantle of Proust. The first was an elegy to his grandfather and to the tragic ironies of World War I heroism; the second an elegy to his father, an ordinary man thrown into the extraordinary chaos of World War II. The World, More or Less is a portrait of the writer as a young man: myopic, dreamy, lonely, still grieving the deaths of his father and grandfather and seeking for a way to bring the confusions of adolescent life into focus. His nearsightedness gives him double vision: closing one eye brings clarity, closing the other blurs. Sharing this more-or-less world are Theo and Gyf, lover and friend, one far whom life is mystery, the other who wants to frame it in a camera lens. A crass between The Catcher in the Rye and Flaubert's Sentimental Education, The World, More or Less is a haunting story about growing up.