A French Book Reading Resource

[Carmody]

DaveAgain,

Many thanks for the feed back; it looks as if you are correct.

In 1957, the first two novels in the series, La Gloire de mon père and Le château de ma mère were published to instant acclaim.[2] The third Le Temps des secrets was published in 1959,[2] the fourth Le Temps des Amours was to remain unfinished and was not published until 1977, after his death. In the meantime, Pagnol turned to a second series, L'Eau des Collines – Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources – which focused on the machinations of Provençal peasant life at the beginning of the twentieth century and were published in 1962.[2]

[Carmody]

Herewith a new book-La Rose de Java by Joseph Kessel.

Kessel was born in Villa Clara, Entre Ríos, Argentina, because of the constant journeys of his father, a Litvak physician. From 1905 to 1908, Joseph Kessel lived the first years of his childhood in Orenburg, Russia, before the family moved to France in 1908. He studied in lycée Masséna, Nice and lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris and took part in the First World War as an aviator. He was also an aviator during the Second World War, in the Free French Groupe de Bombardement n° 1/20 "Lorraine" (342 Squadron RAF) with RAF Bomber Command,[citation needed] with Romain Gary, who was also a talented French novelist.

Kessel wrote several novels and books that were later represented in the cinema, notably Belle de Jour (by Luis Buñuel in 1967). In 1943 he and his nephew Maurice Druon translated Anna Marly's song Chant des Partisans into French from its original Russian. The song became one of the anthems of Free French Forces during the Second World War.

Kessel was elected at the Académie française in 1962 and died on 23 July 1979 in Avernes, Val-d'Oise. He is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

Résumé :
1919, Extrême-Orient. Après avoir parcouru la moitié du monde pour servir en Sibérie, deux lieutenants aviateurs français regagnent leur patrie. Ils sont très jeunes, ardents à vivre vite et fort : alcool, jeu, rixes et femmes.
Ils embarquent à Kobé (Japon) sur un vieux cargo hollandais, la Rose de Java, qui doit les mener à Shanghaï. Ils croyaient y trouver quelques jours de repos, mais ils découvrent à bord une jeune femme surnaturellement belle, séquestrée dans une cabine par un vieil Anglais. Qui est cette femme ? Et lequel des deux jeunes gens en fera sauvagement la conquête au péril de sa vie ?

It is a truly unique book and not like any other I have ever read. Would love to hear if others read it. It was a suggested book by Alliance Française.

I give it a 8/10 and promise you that you can not anticipate the ending.

[Carmody]

Dix heures et demie du soir en été M. Duras

At long last a really great find. This book was suggested by Alliance Française. The author is well known but not this short book.

A good analysis can be found here: https://www.marguerite-duras.com/Dix-heures-et-demi-du-soir-en-ete.php

What embarrasses me is my first read through and not picking up the subtleties of the layers.

This is a short but excellent book that will always be great to come back to read.

I give it a 9/10.

[Carmody]

Many thanks to people for visiting.
It is easy to feel I am talking to myself in a closet when I don't get any feedback.

[jeffers]

I really enjoyed reading Le chapeau de Mitterand by Antoine Laurain. The story was simple but engaging, and the language was pretty easy for me to follow throughout. I also listened to the audiobook on audible twice. When I switch French back into high gear this will be one of my first re-reads. I will also be looking for more by the same author, starting with La femme au carnet rouge since I just figured out that I already bought it on kindle as well as the audiobook in 2019!

An aller simple by Didier van Cauwelaert was also quite a good read, and relatively simple although with a lot more colloquial language. I really enjoyed the first section of the book, set in Marseille. When the voyage begins I found I didn't enjoy the narrative as much, but it was interesting enough that I was able to read it twice and listen to the audiobook (read by the author in this case) four times.

[Carmody]

Many thanks for the suggestions; they sound interesting.

[katsu]

Just dropping in to recommend Chanson Douce, by Leïla Slimani, which I recently finished. Many of you have probably heard of this novel, which won the prix Goncourt a few years ago and was recently made into a movie. The New Yorker called it "The Killer-Nanny Novel That Conquered France," which sounds like a possible spoiler, but really isn't--the first line of the book, after all, is "Le bébé est mort."

Going in I was half-expecting a kind of thriller in which an evil nanny terrorizes an innocent young couple, but it turned out to be something much more interesting and subtle than that. All of the characters, particularly the nanny, are fully-realized and easy to empathize with. There's also lots of commentary on contemporary French culture, most obviously involving class but also race to an extent.

What most surprised me was how easy the French was. This is partly due to the refreshing lack of passé simple: the entire book is told with a mix of passé composé and present tense. I also found the vocabulary to be relatively easy. Overall, this was a much easier read than the Marc Levy novel I read before it. I would heartily recommend Chanson Douce to French learners like myself who are looking to graduate from YA fiction to more "grown-up" books.

[Carmody]

Katsu
What most surprised me was how easy the French was. This is partly due to the refreshing lack of passé simple: the entire book is told with a mix of passé composé and present tense. I also found the vocabulary to be relatively easy. Overall, this was a much easier read than the Marc Levy novel I read before it. I would heartily recommend Chanson Douce to French learners like myself who are looking to graduate from YA fiction to more "grown-up" books.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. I must say that I have read Dans le jardin de l’ogre L. Slimani and found it a very poor book.

Of course I love the absence of the passe simple and certainly welcome the passé composé but I am dragging my feet to read another of hers. But thanks for suggesting it; I might very well give it a try based on your review.

Please do consider Dix heures et demie du soir en été by M. Duras. The vocabulary is not too challenging and it has lots of layers.

[Carmody]

Le rempart des béguines de Françoise Mallet-Joris,

I really liked this book. I read 'Bonjour tristesse' by Sagan first and in that book she referred to the books by this author.

It is about the Sapphic initiation of Hélène at the age of 15 by her father's mistress who has been widowed for 8 years, Tamara sometimes cruelly taking advantage of the candor of a Hélène in need of tenderness. Interesting character, this Russian Tamara, 35 years old, an adventurous life, memories of disappointed loves, underlying madness...

It was a ground breaking book at the time, 1951, because of its focus on females homosexuality.

This was a tough read for me in a few parts since there are paragraphs that run on up to 6 pages long, but it was interesting for the psychology of Hélène, the main character.

The works of both Françoise Sagan and Françoise Mallet-Joris are in a genre that I have difficulty defining but nevertheless enjoy. It is a combination of: autobiographical, interior ruminations, plus an examination of psychological interplay of the characters that really interests me.

I would give it a 8/10.

If anyone has any questions about any of the books I review, by all means please feel free to ask.......

[MorkTheFiddle]

I really liked this book.
The works of both Françoise Sagan and Françoise Mallet-Joris are in a genre that I have difficulty defining but nevertheless enjoy. It is a combination of: autobiographical, interior ruminations, plus an examination of psychological interplay of the characters that really interests me.

I would give it a 8/10.

If anyone has any questions about any of the books I review, by all means please feel free to ask.......

La Chute by Camus also mixes the autobiographical, interior ruminations and psychological interplay of the characters (even though in effect there is only one character). The mix of the real and the fictional can be disorienting: where does the real Camus end and the fictional protagonist begin? The description of the actual physical "fall" referred to in the title, BTW, is riveting and hair-raising.

Thanks too for recommending Mallet-Joris. In recent French cinema a film appeared about two young women who fall in love. Perhaps someone can remember the name of it?