Claude Simon's The Flanders Road

10 thoughts about the most recent entry to the experimental French master's English-translated work

1. A much-needed addition to English translations of the Nobel prize-winning French master Claude Simon’s work, it’s wonderful to see on the roster at NYRB. Before this I’d long admiredTriptych (1973)—recommended to me by Dennis Cooper, who has a great post about Simon here—from near the end of his career, which stands up as one of my favorite examples of the nouveau roman, despite the fact that Simon isn’t always a perfect example of that genre. Triptych ended up having a pretty big impact on me at the time, more so than I’d say about his other works, though he’s the kind of author I think merits continued consumption on the grounds of understanding the benchmark of a certain mode of style that seems to have gone missing from a lot of contemporary lit, and for the worse.