kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

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kanewai
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Sun Nov 14, 2021 1:40 am

Lawyer&Mom wrote:Have you ever found a history of France podcast like you have with Spain and Italy? I’ve found lots of history podcasts in French, but not specifically a chronological history of France.
Not yet. I’d love to find one. I really like long-form history podcasts, but they’re rare.
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French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Wed Dec 15, 2021 10:05 pm

française

I manage to do some work with grammaire progressive or une dictée par jour most days of the week. Sometimes it's hard to get excited about the CLE course, since it's mostly review for me. But also, I make a lot of mistakes with the small things (such as that one would be en France, à Marseille, et dans le sud ) - and so it helps to practice them.


العربية

Using the Assimil for dictation is helping immensely. This is my fourth or fifth pass at Arabic, and this round I have much more realistic expectations. I do it for fun, knowing that I am not going to become fluent. I just want the language to be familiar. I had a friend visiting from Beirut, and we was actually able to read my attempts at ruqʿah handwriting. He was not impressed at all with my pronunciation.


podcasts

Among the highlights this past month were La buena reputación de Brassens (Documentos, Spanish), an episode on the popular French singer Georges Brassens, who put a lot of French poetry to music; and Frida Kahlo et Trotski : romance ou vengeance ? (Au coeur de l'histoire, French), a two-part episode on the complicated emotional triangle between Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky.


books

Spanish: Santiago Posteguillo. Los asesinos del emperador. 2013

I thought this book would never end - it's a 1200-page look at the last of the Flavian emperors of Rome. There are some interesting parts - the siege of Jerusalem, the building of the Flavian amphitheater, the eruption of Vesuvius, political assassinations, a mad emperor, the final days of last of the 12 apostles, gladiatorial games - it could have been great. It should have been great. Instead, it just feels bloated. And unlike Posteguillo's other novels, this one has a lot of torture, rape, and sexual violence. He spends more time on each individual torture scene than he does on the eruption of Vesuvius. By the last 300 pages I was just skimming through the chapters to get it over with.

This is the first part of a trilogy. I have no interest in continuing.


French: Hervé Le Tellier. L'anomalie. 2020

It's hard to review this one without spoilers. I'm going to keep this vague. Basically, we meet roughly a dozen characters. Each are well drawn, and has their own unique voice. There is an "anomaly" - and the rest of the novel focuses on the religious, political, philosophical, and personal impacts of the event. It'd be a great book club choice, as I often found myself putting the book aside as I wondered what I would do in that situation.

One thing I appreciated is that Le Tellier avoids a lot of the clichés that plague this genre.


English: Mike Duncan. Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution. 2021.

This history book found some surprising connections between the American and French revolutions, as seen through the eyes of the Marquis de Lafayette. In the US we know him as the rich French aristocrat who fought with Washington in the War of Independence. That's about it. We never studied what came next. He lived a full life, crossing paths with everyone from Marie Antoinette to Napoleon. I like that the book didn't shy away from addressing the dark side of the American Revolution (slavery, theft of Indian lands) or the complicated legacy of the French one (the reign of terror).

new: Mohamed Mbougar Sarr. La plus secrète mémoire des hommes. 2021

One chapter in and I already think I'm going to love this book. It's the story of a young Senegalese writer who discovers a legendary book in Paris, Le Labyrinthe de l'inhumain. The mysterious author of this book, known as Rimbaud nègre (the Black Rimbaud) had disappeared without a trace after a certain scandal.

The writing is beautiful, and I've already highlighted a couple passages like this one: plus on découvre un fragment du monde, mieux nous apparaît l’immensité de l’inconnu et de notre ignorance

new: Italo Calvino. Il cavaliere inesistente. 1959

This is a fantasy novel by Calvino about a knight in Charlemagne's army who does not have a body.


audiobooks

Marcel Proust. À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs.

We are finally in Balbec. This is one of my favorite sections of the series - Proust keeps the story moving forward, and there aren't any of the excruciatingly long sessions set in the Parisian salons.
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Wed Dec 15, 2021 11:08 pm

some bonus clips:

Georges Brassens - La Mauvaise Réputation



Au village, sans prétention
J'ai mauvaise réputation
Qu'je me démène ou que je reste coi
Je passe pour un je-ne-sais-quoi

Je ne fais pourtant de tort à personne
En suivant mon chemin de petit bonhomme ...


full lyrics here

...

My Shot (from Hamilton) (The Marquis de Lafayette at 1:40)



Oui oui, mon ami, je m'appelle Lafayette!
The Lancelot of the revolutionary set!
Tell the King "Casse toi!" Who's the best? C'est moi!
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Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Amandine » Wed Dec 15, 2021 11:46 pm

Thanks to Hamilton the number of anglophones who can count to 9 in French has surely exploded exponentially :lol:
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Carmody » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:35 am

Thanks as always for your wonderful updates.

Was especially interesting to read what you thought of Hervé Le Tellier, L'anomalie
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:40 pm

Ten Years of French Novels

Sometime around 2010 I started lurking at the original HTLAL, though it took me a couple months before I was brave enough to post.

In 2011 I dove into French, for the nth time, but this time with the support of HTLAL and a new approach: using a mix of FSI and Assimil, keeping a log, and taking part in various challenges.

In 2012 a member named Cristina (whom I still miss) had the bright idea for a super challenge - we'd read 100 books and watch 100 movies in 20 months in our target language. Fortunately we scaled back the challenge, and started counting every 100 pages as one "book." I still went through a brutal learning curve to finish the challenge, but I've been reading French novels for pleasure ever since.

Ten years on, and I've finally reached Book No. 86.

I'll put my thoughts in a follow-up post. First, the books:

  • 1677 Racine, Jean Phèdre
  • 1759 Voltaire Candide, ou l'optimisme
  • 1802 Chateaubriand René
  • 1831 Hugo, Victor Notre-Dame de Paris
  • 1835 Balzac, Honoré de Le père Goriot
  • 1839 Stendhal, Henri Beyle La chartreuse de Parme
  • 1843 Balzac, Honoré de Illusions perdues
  • 1844 Dumas, Alexandre Les Trois Mousquetaires
  • 1845 Dumas, Alexandre Vingt ans après
  • 1846 Dumas, Alexandre Le comte de Monte-Cristo
  • 1856 Flaubert, Gustave Madame Bovary
  • 1862 Hugo, Victor Les misérables
  • 1869 Flaubert, Gustave L'éducation sentimentale  
  • 1870 Verne, Julius Vingt mille lieues sous les mers
  • 1874 Hugo, Victor Quatrevingt-treize
  • 1877 Flaubert, Gustave Trois contes
  • 1883 Zola, Émile Au Bonheur des Dames
  • 1885 Maupassant, Guy de Bel ami
  • 1885 Zola, Émile Germinal
  • 1886 Zola, Émile L'Œuvre
  • 1886 Loti, Pierre Pêcheur d'Islande
  • 1888 Maupassant, Guy de Pierre et Jean
  • 1900 Bédier, M. Joseph Tristan et Iseut
  • 1905 Gide, André L'immoraliste
  • 1913 Proust, Marcel Du côte de chez Swann
  • 1913 Alain-Fournier Le Grand Meaulnes
  • 1919 Proust, Marcel A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
  • 1919 Gide, André La symphonie pastorale
  • 1920 Proust, Marcel Le Côté de Guermantes
  • 1922 Proust, Marcel Sodome et Gomorrhe
  • 1923 Proust, Marcel La Prisonnière
  • 1925 Proust, Marcel Albertine disparue
  • 1927 Proust, Marcel Le Temps retrouvé
  • 1929 Giono, Jean Colline
  • 1932 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand Voyage au bout de la nuit
  • 1933 Malraux, André La condition humaine
  • 1942 Anouilh, Jean Antigone
  • 1942 Camus, Albert L'Étranger
  • 1943 Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de Le petit prince
  • 1936 Hergé Le Lotus bleu (Les aventures de Tintin) (plus three) (bande dessinée)
  • 1944 Aragon, Louis Aurélien
  • 1944 Genet, Jean Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
  • 1947 Camus, Albert La peste
  • 1947 Vian, Boris L'écume des jours
  • 1950 Duras, Margeurite Un barrage contre le Pacifique
  • 1951 Giono, Jean Le hussard sur le toit
  • 1951 Yourcenar, Margeurite Mémoires d'Hadrien
  • 1953 Giono, Jean L'homme qui plantait des arbes
  • 1954 Sagan, Françoise Bonjour tristesse
  • 1955 Druon, Maurice La reine étranglée
  • 1955 Druon, Maurice Le roi de fer
  • 1959 Goscinny, René Astérix le gaulois (plus three) (bande dessinée)
  • 1960 Sempé, Jean-Jacques; Goscinny, René Le petit Nicolas
  • 1963 Boulle, Pierre La planète des singes
  • 1963 Pagnol, Marcel L'eau des collines
  • 1967 Tournier, Michel Vendredi ou les limbes du pacifique
  • 1968 Yourcenar, Margeurite L'oeuvre au noir
  • 1978 Perec, Georges La vie mode d'emploi
  • 1978 Modiano, Patrick Rue des boutiques obscures
  • 1985 Le Clézio, J.M.G. Désert
  • 1985 Ben Jallloun, Tahar L'enfant de sable
  • 1986 Kristóf, Ágota Le grand cahier
  • 1988 Maalouf, Amin Samarcande
  • 1991 Duras, Margeurite L'amant de la Chine du Nord
  • 1995 Izzo, Jean Claude Total Khéops
  • 1996 Izzo, Jean Claude Chourmo
  • 1997 Modiano, Patrick Dora Bruder
  • 1999 Vargas, Fred L'Homme à l'envers
  • 2000 Canales, Juan Díaz; Guarnido, Juanjo Blacksad (trilogy) (bande dessinée)
  • 2000 Satrapi, Marjane Persepolis (bande dessinée)
  • 2001 Ben Jallloun, Tahar Cette aveuglante absence de lumière
  • 2001 Vargas, Fred Pars vite et reviens tard
  • 2002 Sfar, Joan Le Chat du rabbin (bande dessinée)
  • 2002 Khadra, Yasmina Les hirondelles de Kaboul
  • 2004 Damasio, Alain La horde du contrevent
  • 2005 Houlebecq, Michel La possibilité d'une île
  • 2007 Delisle, Guy Chroniques birmanes (bande dessinée)
  • 2007 Modiano, Patrick Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue
  • 2007 Alice, Alex Siegfried (trilogy) (bande dessinée)
  • 2010 al-Koni, Ibrahim Les mages
  • 2015 Houlebecq, Michel Soumission
  • 2019 Binet, Laurent Civlizations
  • 2019 Houlebecq, Michel Sérotonine
  • 2020 Le Tellier, Hervé L'anomalie
  • 2020 Maalouf, Amin Nos frères inattendus
  • 2021 Sarr, Mohamed Mbougar La plus secrète mémoire des hommes

disclaimer - some of these books I couldn't finish, but if I read over 300 pages I included them. I also only included bandes dessinées if they read like a novel, or if I read multiple of them in a series. There were a lot of one-offs that I didn't track.
Last edited by kanewai on Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Carmody » Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:48 am

kanewai

Congratulations and well done!!!
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:18 am

Ten 19th century classics worth reading

Ten years ago it was really hard to find modern French novels. I'd find some at used bookstores, but mostly I was dependent on the oeuvres complètes that Amazon sells for writers in the public domain. For a couple dollars each I downloaded the complete works of Flaubert, Hugo, Balzac, Dumas, Stendhal, de Maupassant, and Zola.

It took a lot of patience to read these authors, but they were all I had. All of them dragged at times. All had great parts. And all offered vivid portraits of life in France in the past. I like big fat 19th century epics, but I'm always glad when I've finished them. They are rewarding but exhausting.

Honoré de Balzac - (1) Le père Goriot is Balzac's most famous book, but it wasn't very enjoyable. It's actually quite cruel - we meet the inhabitants of a poor boarding house, and meet the people who exploit them. Goriot himself was too passive for my tastes - he's a completely docile victim - and I found myself feeling more irritation than sympathy. Read this book because it's the one other authors talk about, or because it's always the one people claim to have read even though you suspect they haven't. (2) Illusions perdues was a stronger work. It's divided in three parts: "Les Deux poètes," is an enjoyable enough tale about the idealistic inventor David, the beautiful young poet Lucien, his sister Eve, and the frustrated noblewoman Madame de Bargeton. "Un grand homme de province à Paris" chronicles David's rise and fall through Paris society. "Ève et David" is all about how the couple become trapped in debt. It's excruciatingly boring ... and then the novel is redeemed with the entrance of the villain Vautrin. I almost want to continue with the sequel just to see what evil Vautrin gets up to next.

Gustave Flaubert - He only wrote a decade after Balzac, but the writing feels generations away. (3) Madame Bovary almost feels modern. Emma Bovary wants to escape her dull provincial life and live a more exciting life in Paris, and she will destroy anyone who gets in her way, including herself.

Alexandre Dumas - Both (4) Le comte de Monte-Cristo and (5) Les Trois Mousquetaires follow a similar pattern - there's an exciting start, a very long slow section in the middle, and then a finale that totally turns the rules of the genre on its head. These are stories that we think we know ... but then we read them & realize how much we didn't know.

Victor Hugo - (6) Les misérables and (7) Notre-Dame de Paris are still popular for a good reason. Hugo tends to go on long digressions that can tire a reader out, but when he gets back to the action the books are hard to put down. The musical Les Mis is faithful to the book. The Disney version of Notre Dame is an abomination that has little to do with the book.

Émile Zola - Zola is an amazing storyteller, but his writing is dense and it takes a long time to read his novels. (8) Germinal, the story of a miners' strike, is shocking and riveting and worth the effort. (9) Au Bonheur des Dames is the story of life inside Paris's first fashionable department store. The romance at the center of Au Bonheur drags on, but his description of Paris is wonderful. Maybe it's the original The Devil Wears Prada?

Guy de Maupassant - (10) Bel Ami is the story of George Duroy, who uses his beauty and charm to scheme and seduce his way to the top of society.

Who is not on the list: I couldn't finish La chartreuse de Parme by Stendhal. I've heard Le rouge et le noir is better, and one day I'll get to it. And Jules Verne certainly had some great ideas for stories, but he got paid by the word and it shows.
Last edited by kanewai on Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:41 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:07 am

Two more lists

I tried and failed to make lists of my ten favorite books, or the ten best books, or anything along those lines. I kept over thinking things. The two lists below, though, were easy.

The "dude you should read this ... " list I
(books others have recommended to me the most, in no particular order)

  1. Margeurite Duras, Un barrage contre le Pacifique. A brutally honest look at the life of a poor white family in colonial French Indochina.
  2. Michel Houlebecq, La possibilité d'une île . For those who like a healthy dose of misanthropy. I actually liked the book, even though the main character was a complete shit.
  3. Alain Damasio, La horde du contrevent. A sci-fi novel written in an experimental style. It was too hard for me to follow. I might try again one day.
  4. Voltaire, Candide, ou l'optimisme. It's Voltaire.
  5. Patrick Modiano, Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue. Life in the shadows of Paris
  6. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit. It starts as a brutal and honest look at war, colonialism, and industrialization. It ends in complete misanthropy and ugliness.
  7. Chateaubriand, René. A short novel set in Louisiana. Friends tell me Chateaubriand writes a pure and beautiful form of French.
  8. Guy de Maupassant, short stories. Same as Chateaubriand.
  9. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary. I have a buddy who re-reads it every year.
  10. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le petit prince. Do I even need to introduce this one?


The "dude you should read this ... " list II
(books I've recommended to others the most, in no particular order)

  1. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes. Winner of the 2021 Prix Goncourt. I'm only 20% of the way through it and already I want to share it with friends. See the article in France Culture.
  2. Marcel Pagnol. L'eau des collines. Just wonderful.
  3. Margeurite Yourcenar. Mémoires d'Hadrien. The emperor Hadrien reflects on his life, and his one great love, in a long letter to his heir Marcus Aurelius.
  4. Joan Sfar. Le Chat du rabbin. A bande dessiné about a rabbi and his talking cat in medieval Morocco.
  5. Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis. A bande dessiné about a modern young woman during and after the revolution in Iran.
  6. André Gide. L'immoraliste. A scholar has a sensual awakening in North Africa, where he discovers he prefers the company of Arab boys to his own wife. It's hard to believe it was written in 1902
  7. Jean Genet. Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs. A story of prostitutes, thieves, pimps, transvestites, and one young assassin in the gay Paris underground of the 1930s. Very graphic, though you have to look up a lot of the argot to realize it. I'd love to make a movie of this book, but I'd probably be sent to jail for it.
  8. Jean Giono. Le hussard sur le toit. An adventure novel and romance set during a cholera epidemic in Provence.
  9. Albert Camus. La peste. More epidemics; a city in Algeria is cut off from the world after plague is discovered. This novel feels far more humanistic than Camus's other famous work.
  10. Marcel Proust. Du côte de chez Swann . It's better than you think it is, I'll say. Really. You might not like it, but just give it a chance.
13 x
Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Dec 23, 2021 5:14 am

Mémoires d'Hadrien is one of the mandatory books for the French baccalaureate in 2022. So hundreds of thousands of young people will join your book club this year!
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Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5


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