cito wrote:Um, no? I don't think it's a failure at all, simply most people I talk to about L'Etranger really love it! I just thought it was funny because usually that opinion isn't voiced in front of the Giant of "The Literary Canon." I think it's good and healthy to disagree about all sorts of things! Even if someone dislikes my favorite book (which is probably The Picture of Dorian Gray) I wouldn't hold it against them, we just differ in opinion.
I also really respect that you read the book and then formulated an opinion on it. I know lots of people who decide how they feel about literature or art before they actually encounter it. But hey I mean you can't always portray tone over text so sorry if you felt like I was insulting you, Cavesa.
And as far as what I said about the book- I wasn't trying to say that I thought the book was funny- really it's almost anything but. I find the book to be disturbing and ironic and such an interesting view of a pseudo-psychopath. I enjoyed the experience of reading it, so it was even part of the reason I started learning French in the first place.
Thanks for the clarification, we agree on how the book is usually received. You're right, it is sometimes not well received, to say "I don't like it at all" about a canonical book. Honestly, I think there are plenty of people, who didn't like it at all, but they simply never wanted to look stupid publicly. I don't doubt many people adore his writing, as you say, but I guess many don't and the line is not the same as between clever and stupid readers.
Don't get me wrong, I recognize that literature (and art in general) needs to be also about disgusting things, about the worst mud at the bottom of our souls and society, and that the form sometimes counts more than the content. However, I was really missing a sort of catharsis (yeah, wrong millenium, I know). I avoid such horribly depressive books in general, as I have enough of all this in the real life, I simply don't need to be taught by writers, what I see around so often. What many of the canonical books offer and should offer (at least in my opinion), is a new light shed on the issue, or a much more creative fantasy of a solution (even if it is just one literary hero's attitude), or at least a catharsis of the emotion in spite of the described evil not going away.
L'Étranger offered me nothing at all. That's why there is such a clear disparity between my opinion "yes, it may belong in the canon, if authorities say so, even though I don't find it exceptional at all" and "no, I don't want to ever read that s..t again and would never recommend it to anybody".
Carmody wrote:Congratulations to Rick for posting a stimulating thread on French Lit.
Back on Feb 14, 2019 I set up a thread to get people to discuss these same French book issues over in the thread entitled:
A French Book Reading Resourcehttps://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=10113My sense is that Rick has done more in 1 day to get people talking than I have been able to do in almost three years. So please folks, if I am doing something wrong, please let me know.
It's obvious. Rick came up with a clickbait title
And he doesn't shy away from expressing a negative emotion about the books he criticises, which is sometimes a risk in such a discussion. What I admire the best is not that he has created a stimulating thread (even though it is an achievement), but that the thread still seems to oscilate quite well within the acceptable limits of what we consider polite, but without falling to the bland and useless superficial clichés only.
If at any time people wish to join us over there, you are more than welcome. I would love to help out with suggestions but don’t want to be a bore on a topic I love.
Now as to the topic of this thread. Each person has their own tastes in reading as with the enjoyment of ice cream. My particular tastes are for French literature and history of the 20th century. I have not read French books in the genres of scifi, mystery, detective, or fantasy genres. I am not opposed to those genres; they just do not ring any bells for me.
You don't bore! We just have different tastes and I found mine wouldn't be adding much in your thread. I am definitely not thinking that everybody should read my favourite genres (not at all) and I am glad you found your own beloved styles within the French literatures. It just confirms what I've been saying: The French literature is huge, so overgeneralisations are nonsense.
French literature is also like Napoleon who had a whole lot of good and bad to him.
Thanks for your list of recommendations. And I agree, there are also many books, that will be rubbish, which doesn't however condemn a whole literature or even a whole genre. There will be good and rubbish books in both the "more typically French" and "less typically French" current.
rdearman wrote:guyome wrote: think the reason may be that (if I read rdearman's log correctly) he's reading books that were given to him, books he didn't chose himself
Yes, that is true. The books I'm reading now were all "gifted" to me by people. When I worked for a French company, I used to ask French people visiting the UK offices to bring me any old books they had lying around. This ended with me getting quite an eclectic, and incongruous collection of French books. The object here was simply to get books in French, the content was never really an interest since I only wanted them to practice reading in French and learn vocabulary.
There's the explanation! You basically asked people to give you rubbish books
Of course they were not gonna give you their favourites!!! It's possible they hated the same things about these books as you do.
Over the years I've read a few that interested me and gave away others which didn't. I ended with 22 books I thought I might read in future. Recently my wife has decreed that "all that crap needs to go" and I have been purging books left, right and centre. I've managed to remove 2 bookshelves, but still have 3 filled to the brim.
And now there are people in the world, who were given those books. And unless they've also happened to read many more books (which were not gifted with the intention of the original owner or two getting rid of the crap), they are asking the same question: "Why are French books so rubbish?"
Some clarifications, I did recently read an autobiography of a guy who grew up in Nazi occupied France. That was pretty good, modern and not a lot of navel-gazing. I have also read (not recently) some books by Maigret, which were OK, but nothing I would be scouring the Internet to find more of.
Good, perhaps biographies and similar non fiction (or half-fiction in many cases) will be viable path.
Btw I've just encountered a totally Rubbish French Book. Not my choice, my dad asked me to buy it for a friend or colleague of his. "Tant qu'on est tous les deux" by Tchakaloff. It's supposedly a reporter's book about the Macrons, and it's one of the worst things I've ever tried to read. Before sending it away, I read the first chapter and then one random chapter in the middle. And it made me think of this thread so much!!! The navels may be under the cloths, but the "navel-gazing" term is so fitting. It's a horrible book, where the journalist spends several pages looking into pseudo-psychologycal cliché filled analyse of every wink or breath of Macron's mother during a short interview, and another chapter on pseudo-poetic and cliché filled chapter on a stagiare flirting (or more) with everybody. And given the large font, I don't think my sample from this book was that small, it's probably all rubbish.
The whole thing is much more about the journalist's feelings of importance like "oh, I know you cannot show it in public, but we've become such close friends, Emmanuel". And about pseudo-discoveries of what might the environment at Elysées feel like. Honestly, if this person wasn't proven to be a journalist, I'd read the text not as a normal reader, but as a psychiatrist faced with another psychotic person with delusional ideas including famous people, and graphomania.