A French Book Reading Resource

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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Sat Feb 18, 2023 1:08 am



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.
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:11 pm

Image

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. :lol: 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.
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:24 pm

Ok, here goes with something entirely different. In the 4 years I have been posting to A French Book Reading Resource I have always finished a book; mostly because I choose what the books I want to read. But now that I am reading books that are being given to me things are different; a bit of a tectonic shift.

I started reading Pietre-le-Letton by Simenon about 5 days ago. Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer, most famous for his fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most popular authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 novels, 21 volumes of memoirs and many short stories, selling over 500 million copies.

And folks, try as I might, I just can not continue to bludgeon myself. Mind you, I know I am wrong and he is right and very popular but I just find it too boring. As a genre, detective stories just don't do it for me in general, and this one in particular has Maigret going tediously from pillar to post looking for the culprit who will in good French style just commit suicide in the end anyway. So I will leave this to Simenon fans and move on with my reading elsewhere.

On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Mon Mar 13, 2023 5:25 pm

Carmody wrote:On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.

Okay I'm joking. ;)
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby rdearman » Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:54 am

Le Baron wrote:
Carmody wrote:On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.

Okay I'm joking. ;)

That is the traditional ending for a french novel isn't it?
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Le Baron
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:27 pm

rdearman wrote:
Le Baron wrote:
Carmody wrote:On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.

Okay I'm joking. ;)

That is the traditional ending for a french novel isn't it?

Yes, I think they consider it a happy ending if only one person dies. :lol:
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby kanewai » Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:15 pm

rdearman wrote:
Le Baron wrote:
Carmody wrote:On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.
Okay I'm joking. ;)

That is the traditional ending for a french novel isn't it?
I was watching a French indie film in the 90s that was supposed to be a comedy, but 3/4 of the way through a major character committed suicide. There was no foreshadowing, just suddenly there he was hanging from a rope. And I started laughing, because it was the most stupidly cliched artsy-fartsy indie plot twist - of course the director couldn't make anything as simple as a normal comedy. My friends were horrified that I was giggling at this horrible scene.

But the plot twist was just so *French, and it was hard to explain to my friends.

*Though now that I think about it, a lot of Spanish indie movies in the 90s also had random acts of violence in the middle of "comedies."
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Carmody
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Carmody » Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:20 pm

Le Baron » Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:27 am
rdearman wrote:

Le Baron wrote:

Carmody wrote:
On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.

Okay I'm joking. ;)

That is the traditional ending for a french novel isn't it?

Yes, I think they consider it a happy ending if only one person dies. :lol:


Well, on the last page of my book, the main character gets run over by a car in the street. Seriously; what is a guy to do....
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby jeffers » Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:56 am

kanewai wrote:
rdearman wrote:
Le Baron wrote:
Carmody wrote:On a positive note, I was also given La petite fille de Monsieur Linh by Philippe Claudel and have hopes I do better with that

I believe she jumps off a cliff at the end after the suicide of her dear father.
Okay I'm joking. ;)

That is the traditional ending for a french novel isn't it?
I was watching a French indie film in the 90s that was supposed to be a comedy, but 3/4 of the way through a major character committed suicide. There was no foreshadowing, just suddenly there he was hanging from a rope. And I started laughing, because it was the most stupidly cliched artsy-fartsy indie plot twist - of course the director couldn't make anything as simple as a normal comedy. My friends were horrified that I was giggling at this horrible scene.

But the plot twist was just so *French, and it was hard to explain to my friends.

*Though now that I think about it, a lot of Spanish indie movies in the 90s also had random acts of violence in the middle of "comedies."


Something similar happened in a Bollywood comedy, but without any foreshadowing. It literally happens at the end of an upbeat song. The film was making a point about the pressure put on university students, and Bollywood films like to drive their points in with a sledgehammer.
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Le Baron
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Re: A French Book Reading Resource

Postby Le Baron » Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:46 pm

jeffers wrote:Something similar happened in a Bollywood comedy, but without any foreshadowing. It literally happens at the end of an upbeat song. The film was making a point about the pressure put on university students, and Bollywood films like to drive their points in with a sledgehammer.

And a song (with dancing), just in case you didn't get the point.
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