A French Book Reading Resource

[Carmody]

Question:
Name well known French authors since 1759 that have written happy books

ChatBot OpenAI

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
Jules Verne (Around the World in Eighty Days)
Alphonse Daudet (Tartarin of Tarascon)
Albert Londres (Le vingtième siècle)
Pierre Boulle (The Bridge over the River Kwai)
Antoine Blondin (Les Cravates de l'Empereur)
Colette (Gigi)
Raymond Queneau (Exercices de style)
Françoise Sagan (Un Certain Sourire)
Alexandre Jardin (Les Enfants Terribles)

Question:
List the most melancohly French fiction authors that have written books since 1759
Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary)
Albert Camus (The Stranger, The Plague)
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time)
Françoise Sagan (Bonjour Tristesse)
Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness)
Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)
Marguerite Duras (The Lover)
Georges Simenon (Maigret series)
Jean Genet (The Thief's Journal, The Maids)


Please note that the definition of "melancholic books" is subjective, and these authors and their works may not necessarily be considered "melancholic" by all readers.

[DaveAgain]

Question:
Name well known French authors since 1759 that have written happy books

1. I'm surprised that the bridge over the river kwai was written by a Frenchman!
2. Exercices de style is not a novel.

[Carmody]

Pierre Boulle, the author of "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," "Planet of the Apes" and other novels and short stories, died on Sunday in Paris, The Associated Press reported. He was 81 and lived in Paris. Mr. Boulle was born in Avignon.Feb 1, 1994

It was news to me too.

[Le Baron]

Dare I say I thought he was already departed?!

[Carmody]

I was not sure how to do this but here goes with an addenda to my first review...

I have finished Candide a second time and find it even more wonderful. However, readers interested in the book should find themselves a very thorough and professional Annotated Candide by Voltaire to read. There is just so very much going on in this simple little book and it is easy to miss.

Also a note that this is not easy reading, ie, it ain't no Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Little Prince. I would place it at a C1 level.

Candide by Voltaire

I am of the belief that one can’t just sit down and read the classics-any or all of them. Rather one needs to wait for the opportune moment to do so. Somewhat akin to a planetary alignment making possible the coming together of an author with my appreciation of him.

So it has taken me quite some time but I have finally come around to Candide by Voltaire and am grateful I waited for it.

I found it a short entertaining picaresque novel that I have already started rereading. For those not familiar with picaresque think of a contemporary graphic action novel with lots of action but no pictures, although the action here is clearly graphic.

There is also, lots to learn from this book when it comes to vocabulary and idioms but all of it really interesting.

So often with the classics it turns out that they don’t ring the bell with me that I hoped they would but this one does and I would definitely recommend people give it a try if they are looking for a different paced book that will entertain. Yes, it was written in 1 7 5 9 (264 years ago) but there is something strangely contemporary to the type of entertainment it offers.

And while on the topic of entertainment, I must mention that this is one of the very few books that I have read by a French author that is not melancoholic. If people out there know of other French titles that entertain rather than sink into melancohlia then please let me know, but for me for now Candide remains unique in its joyful galloping, rollicking movement through a landscape of wars, earthquakes and other assorted tragedies that leaves me certainly wanting more.

Score: 8/10

nb: come to think of it The Iliad is pretty rollicking in its own way, but the author was not French.

[Le Baron]

If people out there know of other French titles that entertain rather than sink into melancohlia then please let me know

Well, if you haven't already read it, you'll like Jacques le fataliste et son maître.

In general though I don't find that French novels are melancholic, just more interested in realism and black humour.

[Carmody]

Many thanks; that is a new title for me.

[Le Baron]

Over this week I read through La fille de mon meilleur ami - Yves Ravey. Which I picked up in August 2021 according to the old log. It's not a long book, something like 145 pages. So from Sunday I read about 25 pages a night before bed and the last this evening. A sort of literary psychological thriller, but where no-one ever shouts and most of the people act in a matter-of-fact way. I read another one of his books some time ago, Carré Blanc and it had the same economy of prose style. One of his latest Pas Dupe seems to be his most popular to date. I just don't want to especially fork out €17 for a 140 page book. Some joker on Fnac had it listed for €3 second-hand with a postage cost of something like €10.

[Carmody]

Le collier rouge by Jean-Christophe Rufin.


The Author
I never heard of the book or the author before but Rufin has quite a track record.

Jean-Christophe Rufin (born 28 June 1952) is a French doctor, diplomat, historian, globetrotter and novelist. He is the president of Action Against Hunger, one of the earliest members of Médecins Sans Frontières, and a member of the Académie française.

As a doctor, he is one of the pioneers of the humanitarian movement "without borders," for which he has led numerous missions in eastern Africa and Latin America. A former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières and former president of the non-governmental organization Action Against Hunger.

As an author he certainly has gathered awards:
1997 The Abyssinian (1997) - winner of Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and Prix Méditerranée
1999 Lost Causes / "Asmara et les causes perdues" (1999) - winner of prix Interallié
2001 Brazil Red (Rouge Brésil; 2001) - winner of prix Goncourt
2014 The Red Collar (Le Collier rouge) - winner of prix Maurice Genevoix

The Book
I am in the midst of reading, as always, a second time. I always do an extensive and then an intensive reading of my books. I do like it and think it has a lot of substance to think about. The book takes place following the war in 1919 and covers four days in the interrogation of one of the soldiers who fought in that war. It also deals with his dog.......You wouldn't think the theme would be interesting but it certainly was and is for me.

The writing is at a B1>C2 level and has a lovely pacing as the story slowly develops. If you love an action thriller with lots of shoot ups and suspense this is not for you. The reason I like Marguerite Duras and L'Amant as well as Voltaire and Candide is the slowness of the plot development as well as the lapidarian and slow rhythm of the writing. I will definitely be reading more books by this author.

9/10

NB: Like rdearman I have a neighbor who just keeps giving me French books to get rid of. Otherwise I never would have heard of either the author or the book. Lucky me.

[Le Baron]

It's worth having a look at the author. Anne Philipe, despite being lesser-known nowadays, is still remembered as a minor novelist; still in print and still read. Though being married to a famous film star probably helped stop her falling into total obscurity. If you look at her husband's (Gérard Philipe) English Wikipedia entry we would never know she even existed. His 'spouse' is named as 'Nicole Fourcade' whom he met and later married when she was working as an ethnologist and married to a sinologist, François Fourcade. Before this she was 'Anne Marie Nicole Ghislaine Navaux' and used Nicole as her main name. After the war they were in Nanking and she became the first French woman (though she was Belgian actually) to travel the 'silk route' with a caravan, and she wrote a well-received book about it Caravanes d'Asie.

Gérard Philipe had somehow met her during the war (and really not long after her marriage) and they obviously maintained contact because in 1951 they got married (their daughter is also a famous actress). He apparently convinced her to revert to her original christian name and so the personage of 'Anne Philipe' came to be.

Again the link with Gérard Philipe is what made her a 'novelist', but not with a novel. Rather an account of her last weeks with Philipe before he died of liver cancer aged just 36. His early, unexpected death at a young age struck the public, so this first-hand account also gained traction. Which is not to say it isn't a good work in its own right or that she rode on his coattails, because she was already pretty successful as both a journalist (for Le Monde and Liberation) writing ethnographically-informed accounts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, about Cuba for example or Japanese cinema. She also made many documentaries and a founder of the Comité du film ethnographique, in whose 'about us' history she is also not mentioned! I think without her writings she probably would have faded into obscurity.

About the book:

I'm no more than 78 pages in, though this is halfway trough a 149-page book. I think it's one of those that rdearman referred to as 'navel-gazing', but maybe not. As a 'novella' you can't go for the type of plotting and approach that a 300-page novel would; especially the type of modern novel that thinks it's a paperback blockbuster film (or hoping to become one). So it's in the tradition of those books that are a vignette, but with a beginning, middle and end to the particular tranche de vie being recounted. It's a bit of a poem to Provence (and also in Paris) and the perspectives of a mother and daughter living a rather pastoral life where the daughter is between childhood and adolescence and becoming ever more conscious of herself and the mother is moved to recall her own feelings at that age.

I'll note in the log any final thoughts after finishing.