Narrated with subtle variations of tone, the fourteen short stories [in Le Coq de bruyère] are modern parables and fairy tales, a genre natural to Tournier's art, rich in symbols and images. Lucid and realistic in the midst of fantasy, the stories are told from the point of view of the hero, generally a child, an adolescent or an underdog, who encounters a series of dramatic adventures. As in the traditional fairy tale, external events and roles achieve a greater relevancy than their immediate signification in the unfolding of the particular story. Many of the tales which show the protagonist leaving behind a secure and familiar way of life and stepping into a different age—adolescence, adulthood or senescence—may be interpreted as initiations. The development and outcome of the hero's confrontations, however shocking they may be, provide for the reader an aid to find himself, integrate the discordant aspects of his personality and proceed toward the laborious, and impoverished, path of maturity.

Though their quest is not a chivalrous one, the protagonists long for the renewal of a pre-Christian culture. Along with the regret for a golden age, nostalgia for childhood is keenly felt. Exiled into maturity and urbanism, the characters dream of rediscovering the purity, intensity and acuity of a child's experiences. An Orphic vision of the world prevails in Tournier's work, which adds a mystical and lyrical dimension to the tales. (p. 250)

Tournier's tales in their symbolic significance are more convincing than realistic fiction. They represent a poetic rendering of his relationship to the world. Concretizing arcane reality through delusion or enchantment, Tournier is a magician who gives us the reassurance that there is a secret garden next to our backyard, that there is another world behind the mirror and that there is a small island in the Pacific Ocean where we lived happily once upon a time. (p. 251)