The empire is under threat: Enemies are approaching from the east, barbaric hordes that respond to all diplomatic interventions only with the beheading of ambassadors. The narrator breaks away with some friends from the self-assured lethargy of the culture-weary capital and heads to the border region, where a decisive battle looms. Gracq's novel "The Evening Empire" from the early 1950s, never released for publication, is no less compelling than his major novels of that time, "The Shore of Syrtes" and "The Balcony in the Woods." Its extraordinarily evocative prose immerses the characters, the landscapes, and the plot of the novel in an almost surreal light. At the same time, "The Evening Empire" also serves as a kind of precursor to the fantastic realms and mythical final battles in Tolkien's epic "The Lord of the Rings." As "The Evening Empire" disintegrates, it proves...