A French Book Reading Resource

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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:01 pm

Ok, this is another book review wherein I heartily suggest people learn from my mistakes.

Mémoires Sur Napoléon, Le Directoire, Le Consulat, L'empire Et La Restauration... by Louis Antonine Fauve De Bourrienne.

Image

My desire was and is to learn more about Napoleon, so, I thought I would go to a Primary resource. In this case the memoires of one of his long time friends. However, the book is plagued with difficulties of the very poor photocopying of the facsimile pages plus lots of references to the author Bourrienne and not so many to Napoleon. Oh well, I tried.

Rating: 3/10
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Oct 07, 2021 4:41 pm

Carmody wrote:
My desire was and is to learn more about Napoleon, so, I thought I would go to a Primary resource. In this case the memoires of one of his long time friends. However, the book is plagued with difficulties of the very poor photocopying of the facsimile pages plus lots of references to the author Bourrienne and not so many to Napoleon. Oh well, I tried.

Rating: 3/10

Have you looked at other books from that publisher? Just wondering if it's one of the internet vultures who prey on out-of-copyright works and waste all our time with shoddy products.
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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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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Thu Oct 07, 2021 6:27 pm

Well, my guess is that you are probably correct, however they did in fact deliver the goods, even if they were not readable.

This is what they say:
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


Note: As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc.


I do hope people benefit from my ignorance in this case. Life is all about learning...........As a history buff I am always tempted by Primary resources.

enjoy...
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s_allard
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby s_allard » Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:45 am

@carmody. Responding to your request for a list of my choices of fiction and non-fiction titles of 20th century literature, I'm going to have to disappoint you and say that I just don't have the time to compile such a list. I must however congratulate you on what you have been doing so far in your log.

Like you, I like to reread certain authors, such as Marcel Aymé that I mentioned in the other thread. Something else that I highly recommend is reading aloud, especially if you have an inexpensive conversation partner to whom you could read and talk about the work. This adds a whole new dimension to the work and is great for acquiring vocabulary.

Not to totally disappoint you, a modern author that I highly recommend is Éric-Émmanuel-Schmitt. One short novel is Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. I also highly recommend the short stories of Odette Toulemonde.

I also see you like Françoise Sagan whom I appreciate a lot. Good luck and bon voyage in your literary adventure.
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:34 pm

Yes, I enjoy Éric-Émmanuel-Schmitt as well.
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Sat Oct 30, 2021 6:38 pm

I have definitely continued reading although I have not posted of late. So herewith the results of my readings:

Book 1:
Jeanne Guyon by Francoise Mallet-Joris

I have previously reported on my reading of Le Rempart Des Beguines and La Chambre Rouge by by Françoise Mallet-Joris. They were unusual and very interesting books, so, I thought to just keep rolling and read her biography of Jeanne Guyon.

For those of you who might not be familiar with the name Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon (commonly known as Madame Guyon, French: April 1648 – 9 June 1717 was a French mystic and was accused of advocating Quietism, although she never called herself a Quietist. Quietism was considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, and she was imprisoned from 1695 to 1703 after publishing the book A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer.

This book turned out to be a rather lengthy biography of the woman and her many, many travails. Much of it has to do with the politics of the time and the religious orders. It is pretty dry and slow going. I would not recommend it to others.
5/10

Book 2:
L'Ignorance by Milan Kunderra

Milan Kundera born 1 April 1929 is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalized French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979; he received his Czech citizenship in 2019.

He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores". I find that very interesting.

The book's plot is about a man who has been away from Czechoslovakia for 20 years and has now come home, as did Odysseus after 20 years away from Ithaca. It is a short book and not much happens by way of revelations but I do find it very interesting for one main reason; he has written three books in French and this is his fourth. The French language that he uses, his choice of words, does seem to reflect a somewhat limited vocabulary. This of course is great for me because it means less dictionary look ups on my part. But the story itself is somewhat plodding. I am going to do another and intensive read of this book to see if I have missed anything but I don’t think so.

One observation is that Cavesa, who is one of our more talented members of this Forum, has written how she finds French literature to be lacking because it is always being inner focused and lacking in action. It would seem to me that Cavesa who is also from Czechoslovakia would view this work as rubbish by her standards.

I would love to know what she thinks of this highly acclaimed author, but I will probably never know since she never visits this thread on French books.

I would rate the book a 6.5/10 and not lower due to his discussion of memory and how it changes over time.

Just for the record, I realize the ratings on both these books is low and am sorry they are not higher. I love to share the good news about great books, but these just are not that great.
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Sun Oct 31, 2021 4:08 pm

In an effort to emphasize the positive when it comes to these two books, I need to add one thing.

I am not sure if I am the only one aware of this, but there is a pleasure in reading a book with pages that are thick. The Jeanne Guyon by Francoise Mallet-Joris published in 1978 is on totally different paper than the books published today. In fact the pages were almost parchment like and a real tactile joy.

The pages of books today are by comparison, very thin and light.

The L'Ignorance by Milan Kunderra was picked up at a book sale for $1.00. It was published by Gallimard Press and was like all their books a special read when it comes to the paper.


I don't think others care since everyone else is on e-readers, but for this book reader it was a joy.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:00 pm

Carmody wrote:The L'Ignorance by Milan Kunderra was picked up at a book sale for $1.00. It was published by Gallimard Press and was like all their books a special read when it comes to the paper.
I don't think others care since everyone else is on e-readers, but for this book reader it was a joy.

For me, my Kindle is merely a convenient space-saver, though I do also like the built-in dictionary. The paper of the old-timey Gallimards feels almost like cloth and does add a pleasant dimension to reading. :) A couple of mine even require some cutting of pages, but this is not my favorite pasttime. :(
Kundera blew into prominence in the USA with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, first published, as it happened, in its French translation, followed up by a movie version. I don't know how his subsequent work was received, whether in Czech, French or English.
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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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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:39 am

MorkTheFiddle
For me, my Kindle is merely a convenient space-saver, though I do also like the built-in dictionary.

Could you tell me how many words there are in the built-in dictionary?
Last edited by Carmody on Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:10 pm

This is the paperback dictionary that I use. It supposedly lists 260,000 words.

Image

It seems good but if anyone knows of some paperback that is better, I am eager to learn of it.
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