Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (1912)

Perhaps because Alain-Fournier died in action in WWI this, his only novel, is lauded in France. I might have enjoyed it more as a 12 year old. Perhaps then I could have put up with the absurd coincidences, obsessions, unrequited passions and self-defeating decisions surrounding Augustin Meaulnes. I get that this book speaks of the lost idealism of youth and that in post WWI France this would certainly have struck a chord, but there was just too much else besides in this convoluted plot. One for the young and yearning, not the old and cynical.