Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

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Hello and welcome. Tonight we're marking the centenary of one of the most treasured stories in French literature, a tale of heartbreak, lost love and half-remembered country castles.

It's Le Grand Moines by Alan Furnier. His tale of the life of a youthful adventurer, the Mone of the title,

was called by John Fowles, the greatest novel of adolescence in European literature,

and a book like a secret garden.

It's also been described as a work that's haunted the European mind

since it first appeared in 1913,

and it's the only novel the hero of Kerouac's

on the road takes with him on his journey, even if he doesn't read it. I've been revisiting the book

I first read as a teenager with its dreamlike evocation of a lost world as we follow the life

of Mone, his unfulfilled longingsings and the twists and turns of amorous adventures,

all unleashed in the heart of rural France before the eruption of the First World War.

With me to follow in the dashing steps of Le Grand Mone is the literary scholar Hermione Lee,

who last year traced the life and work of Alan Furnier for a BBC documentary.

She's down the line from Oxford.

Michelle Roberts, the novelist who's the perfect blend of half French, half English, is in the studio,

and down the line from Brussels, the professor of French literature and novelist Patrick McGuinness.

And to take us into the world of Le Grame Mone, the actor Peter Marinka is also with me.

So, Michelle, what is it about this book that really does grab us and has kept interest in it so alive?

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