The narrative is set at a castle in Brittany, where a man has invited a friend, who also has brought a young woman.

With a highly abstract plot, the novel is loaded with symbols and uses narrative modes from Gothic horror literature which blends with Hegelian thinking and stylistic traits close to the surrealist movement.

In his "Notice to the reader", Gracq describes the book as a "demonic version" of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal.

[1] An English translation by Louise Varèse was published in 1951.

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