A French Book Reading Resource

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Le Baron
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:43 pm

After starting and getting not very far with several books in the pile, I plumped for reading a French book: La salle de bain - Jean-Philippe Toussaint. His first novel.
It's a strange, eccentric but amusing 'novel'. There are no real chapters, it is divided into numbered passages of varying lengths; from maybe two pages, to e.g. no.14 of the first section which is just a single word: maintenant. :lol: The language is relatively simple.

According to the folded, slightly faded receipt I bought this in Brussels in 1997!

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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:36 pm

Le Baron wrote:After starting and getting not very far with several books in the pile, I plumped for reading a French book: La salle de bain - Jean-Philippe Toussaint.
Seems like a better title would have been Où se trouve la salle de bain?, non? :)
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Mon Nov 28, 2022 8:33 pm

Let us know what you think.......
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:45 pm

I've just read and enjoyed Le Suspect by Georges Simenon. It's NOT an Inspector Maigret whodunnit but a thriller - political exile crosses border illegally to thwart a terrorist bombing.

I listened to a radio programme about Mr Simenon recently and I've been curious to read one his non-Maigrets ever since.
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Amandine » Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:10 am

Vie et légendes de Charles Aznavour by Robert Belleret (L'archipel, 2018, 637 pages)

I apologise for this review being 2000 words :o but I had to say what I had to say (and I could've said a lot more).

Below is the review I posted on Goodreads:

Disclaimer: I read this in French and I will flatter myself and say my French reading is around upper intermediate. I can understand well enough but I certainly miss details and nuance and things like tone of voice. When I criticise some things below, I’m only dealing with things that come up time and time and time again, or are part of the overarching narrative where I can be quite confident I’m getting the author's intent. If it was just a line or two, even if I thought it was odd or wrong, I let it go because maybe there’s a wry tone to it or something I’m missing.


First the good parts.

The best part of the book is the first third, the beginnings of Aznavour up until his major success in his 30s. He has done a lot of research on the family origins, not an easy task given the widespread origins across Georgia, Turkey and Russia in the 19th and early 20th century. Being a previous biographer of Piaf and others in that milieu, the sections on this period are rich in detail. He makes a good case that Aznavour’s various autobiographies (there are about 5 or 6 memoirs under his name) play extremely loose with the facts on a range of topics, which would make an independent book like this a more important resource. I knew of course that he had an acting career but I didn’t really appreciate the extent to which his acting career was actually in a way more successful than his singing career for a long time early on, how late (comparatively) his singing success came and how much criticism as a singer he copped. Hard to imagine and quite fascinating when you only know “Aznavour the icon”. The classic “hustle for 20 years to become an overnight success” tale. For the first third, my opinion was that the book was somewhat slow-going (because of the level of detail and also the richness of the vocabulary meant I personally was encountering a lot of new words) but worthwhile.

Unfortunately once Aznavour has his breakthrough, the next 400 pages were quite frustrating for me. For two reasons - structural and in the author's limited approach to this very rich biographical material.

The author has done a lot of research - I imagine somewhere a massive chronological spreadsheet of every single thing it is publicly known Aznavour did. Every interview, every tour, every appearance on a French tv show, every album, every song on every album. This is a very good start for writing a biography, but you can’t just pad each entry in this hypothetical timeline out to a half a paragraph and call it a biography which is what it reads like a lot of the time. Frequently, it zips from one topic per paragraph to the next in such a choppy fashion with no connective tissue that it's quite dizzying to read.

Sections really do go like:
Paragraph about being interviewed on a Michel Drucker show.
Paragraph about his wife being tied up and robbed in a home invasion.
Paragraph about a tour in Brazil.

This happened, then this happened then this happened. OK but what does it all mean? What’s important?

In such a long and varied career, it really is necessary to choose what you are going to talk about and how everything comes together for a full portrait. This is where my second and really more serious criticism comes in - when the author does choose to talk at length about something, his choices of what deserves attention are often completely baffling and his own blind spots hinder giving us a really complex picture. I will choose a couple of the most important examples.

Every album gets mentioned (there are over 50!!) and every song on every album gets at least a brief comment. I love love love Aznavour but a lot of these songs are more or less interchangeable love songs and it would be a much better use of space to not do this and instead talk more in depth about the songs that deserve it. Case in point: "Comme ils disent". Aznavour wrote this in 1972 from the point of view of a gay man/drag performer at a time homosexuality was still a crime, to say nothing of the social taboo. On one hand, it is empathetic and a genuinely bold thing for a mainstream star to do at the time. On the other, certainly seen from 2022, it presents a sometimes uncomfortable stereotype (he lives with his mother, is “a sad unhappy clown”, in love with a straight guy and gossips acidly with his friends). It is also one of his few handful of CA songs that are not strictly about 1) happy love 2) unhappy love 3) the nostalgic passing of time and that deals with a “social issue”. All in all, very ripe for an all around re-consideration! What biographer wouldn’t love to have this song and its context to talk about at length! Unfortunately, it gets hardly more ink than a lot of the much more forgettable songs. The author’s opinion is that its stereotypes outweigh its ‘sociological’ importance. My own opinion is higher than that, however I think that is a perfectly reasonable place to land on it. It’s such a baffling decision, though, to give it so little attention.You are leaving so much fascinating material on the table!!

Speaking of “Comme ils disent” (she covered an English language version of the song, “What makes a man a man.”), I was really looking forward to reading in this book about his long professional/personal relationship with Liza Minnelli of which I have read contradictory things. While she is mentioned by name quite a few times it is not much more than passing and I learned nothing new.

This is when it finally twigged with me that the author - personally - simply could not care less about Aznavour’s international career. Which is his right - but seems to me an attitude fatal to writing a good biography about a man whose main distinction from any number of other French stars is that unparalleled international career.

Actually, I would go further and say that the author has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about Aznavour’s upfront desire to be famous globally, not just in France. In Australia, we have what is called the ‘cultural cringe’ - that real success is only when Europeans and North Americans think you’re good, success “just” in Australia doesn’t count. Without wanting to be too pop psych, I really did get the impression Belleret has a bit of the opposite going on - he finds Aznavour’s not being content with being famous “just” in France to be positively suspicious, and an actual character flaw.

He uses the word “mégalomanie” a lot. Like A LOT. Over and over again. So many times, you guys. To make sure this was not a ‘false friend’ and the meaning in French softer than in English, I consulted a variety of sources and concluded that, indeed, it's the same meaning for megalomania.

And well, if he suffered from that he would hardly be the first celebrity so OK, show me what you’ve got. While not a ‘mari modèle’ to his first two wives, it is all in a pretty banal way, nothing shocking. (His third marriage lasted apparently completely harmoniously for over 50 years until his death). Definitely a little unreconstructed in his idea of gender roles, but again nothing we could ‘cancel’ him over. I actually expected a bit of snark between him and the more poetic, high falutin’ Brassens/Brel/Ferre set but, no, they all seemed to get on well personally. His professional collaborations were long and loyal, with barely any falling out and legal rancor that often happens (not none, but not much). There are zero anecdotes about him being high-handed or mean, still less tyrannical, in his personal or professional life.

So the claim of ‘megalomania’ rests solely on the fact that in interviews he did not go in for false modesty about his fame, his ambitions and how he liked to make and spend money. There are a lot of quotes along these lines and sure, bloke didn’t hide his light under a bushel but also I didn't actually see a whole lot of exaggeration let alone delusions of grandeur. When he says no French person alive could compare to his fame globally, that is … literally true? There was Piaf, Chevalier and I can’t think of any French person of his generation or since who could sell out flagship venues on every inhabited continent for decades. It’s just literally true! The things cited as evidence of his excess (a white Rolls Royce the same model as Prince Charles!) seem all very tame in the annals of pop stardom.

To quote an Aznavour song, Le Cabotin (The Showman) - Soit dit sans vanité je connais ma valeur - Let it be said without vanity, I know my worth.

I recently read Lucy Worlsey’s new biography of Agatha Christie and I thought of it fairly often while reading this book although on first glance the two subjects are very different. Christie was an upper class Victorian/Edwardian lady with all those attitudes towards work and money. She was in fact a workaholic who took what she did as seriously as anyone but would never let that be seen and never got over the idea she grew up with that women like her didn’t ‘work’ even while she was very involved in turning herself into a global brand. Christie also had all of the same ambitions to make a lot of money and all of the gripes about the highest rate of marginal tax in the 50s/60s/70s as Aznavour but could never have done something as ruthless as tax exile because that would mean, psychologically, placing money front and centre in her identity which this well-bred upper class Edwardian lady couldn’t contemplate doing.

Excuse the amateur sociology, but what I’m saying is it does not remotely surprise me that “le titi parisien” Shahnour Azna(v)ourian (every source says Aznavourian but Belleret insists he has discovered it was actually Aznaourian, sans “v”) did not have these same hang-ups and simply DGAF what you thought about the fact he wanted to be rich and famous, hustled to be rich and famous, enjoyed being rich and famous and didn't ever want to go back to not being rich and famous. A better comparison would be depression-era country singers or present day rappers from similarly outsider-ish communities who, once hitting the big time, are not exactly known for their dowdy self-effacement. Actually, compared to the classic examples of those, his comportment, personal life and habits described here simply do not rate.

One thing that really came through in the book was about how hard success was to get for him. He was constantly told he was too short, too ‘brun’, his voice was too rough (!!!!!). Edith Piaf told him his nose was too “hooked” and “Armenian” and that he should get plastic surgery on it, which he did. He seemed destined to a middling singing career down the bill and if, even in the late 1950s in his 30s, he had given up to focus on acting and songwriting, no one would have been surprised. This is some strong psychological stuff.

Aznavour’s pursuit of and reaction to wealth and fame is definitely well worth dissecting and distaste at the tax exile etc well justified. Power, even more than money, really exposes a person and in this age of social media we are increasingly aware of the toxic effects celebrity has on a person. All fair game. Such great material for a biography. Unfortunately, in this book we just get the most surface level contemplation of it. Again, such a baffling choice - so much interesting stuff to be said about all of this which is ignored in favour of stupid snarking about ‘megalomania’.

There is an episode of the panel show ‘C dans l’air’ available on Youtube from just after Aznavour’s death and devoted entirely to the panel (which includes the author of this book) discussing his career, what he meant in France and how that changed over time, what he meant in the world, his contradictory politics and everything else. If you understand French, it's well worth watching and put a lot of things in context in a way I wish this book had done.
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Le Baron
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:51 pm

Brilliant review Amandine, worth reading all 2000 words. I'm also a fan of Aznavour, though more as an actor (first film I saw him in was Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste). I have his 'greatest hits' on a lovely old vinyl. :lol:

However with regard to this:
Amandine wrote:Actually, I would go further and say that the author has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about Aznavour’s upfront desire to be famous globally, not just in France. In Australia, we have what is called the ‘cultural cringe’ - that real success is only when Europeans and North Americans think you’re good, success “just” in Australia doesn’t count. Without wanting to be too pop psych, I really did get the impression Belleret has a bit of the opposite going on - he finds Aznavour’s not being content with being famous “just” in France to be positively suspicious, and an actual character flaw.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it is the 'common' response, but it isn't unknown. A lot of France does have a chip on the shoulder around these things. I once, years ago, had what became a heated discussion with some people in a holiday guesthouse in Biarritz. A couple of Spaniards a Dutch person and several French. Where I said that the French are sometimes like the (stereotypical) Americans of Europe. Lauding everything French and not ironically or with self-effacement. E.g. 'why go on holiday elsewhere, France has all the greatest destinations in the world!..' The discussion went awry after I'd been told: English wouldn't exist without French and practically everything in it is borrowed from French; we clearly have the greatest film industry in Europe, if not the world; we have the greatest literary scene and output; we're "thinkers" compared to most of Europe...'

So there is some sense of disdain when e.g. a French writer lives in let's say England and chooses to write a book in English and wins praise. Or an actor chooses Hollywood. I recall listening to Romy Schneider interviewed by Jacques Chancel (70s interview) and at a certain point he asks her who the greatest actors are, according to her. Before she even starts he's suggesting them to her: her frequent co-star Michel Piccoli and Alain Delon. She suggests Marlon Brando and especially Dustin Hoffman and you can actually hear the disappointment in Chancel's voice!

And yet on the other side of this coin, the people from France who are admired abroad (let's say Catherine Deneuve from the old school and maybe Marion Cotillard and Audrey Tautou more recently) inspire pride. A kind of equality that France produces great stars in the world dominated by (English speaking) Hollywood. I'm not using one broad brush, because there are plenty of people with a broader outlook, but the view of contradictions mixed with national greatness are easily found in France.
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Mon Dec 12, 2022 1:19 am

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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Thu Dec 15, 2022 8:58 pm

From Behind Bars, Inmates Award France’s Latest Book Prize

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/books/goncourt-inmates-book-prize-france.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Books

The prize was awarded on Thursday in Paris to Sarah Jollien-Fardel for “Sa Préférée,” or “His Favorite,” about a woman struggling to cope with the legacy of her father’s physical and psychological abuse.
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Tue Dec 20, 2022 3:02 am

Just in case you are looking for a book to read:

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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Wed Jan 18, 2023 3:45 pm

An updated list for books to read from: culturetheque

https://www.culturetheque.com/US/
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