Michel Tournier, The Erl-King (on normblog)

Just over a month ago, Norman Geras did me the honour of asking me to contribute a second time to his Writer’s Choice series on normblog. The first time I wrote about Christopher Isherwood‘s second novel, The Memorial, due to be reissued by Vintage next month (and about time too). This time round I decided to write about Michel Tournier‘s second novel, The Erl-King, more commonly – but, I think, less felicitously – referred to these days as The Ogre. It’s a dark and challenging book, and it’s haunted me for years, for better or for worse. You can find out why I rate it so highly and why I’m intrigued and disturbed by the hold it continues to have on me by reading what I wrote here.