#parisinjuly2024

Being French, I obviously read a lot of French lit throughout the year, especially with several of my advanced French students.
Following their tastes, we cover different genres and periods, from classics literary fiction, to recently published thrillers, and many more!
Here are the five French books I finished since the beginning of #parisinjuly2024:

 📚 Une langue venue d’ailleurs,
by Akira Mizubayashi
Nonfiction
2011
272 pages
Reading with French student F.

This is a wonderful love letter to the French language, by a Japanese man who was fascinated by it, and ended up teaching it.
Extremely well written, with lots of fabulous excerpts of books read (Rousseau among others), of also great ideas on how to communicate the love of a language.
The focus is definitely on the love and discipline of learning, and on what happens to you when you straddle two languages.
I was surprised that he originally was attracted to the French language because he was experiencing some type of void in his own language, at a time of many social changes.
Instead, he finds so much richness in the depth and sounds of French language, which he associates with music (“toute la richesse sonore, tout l’ondoiement acoustique”).

He was greatly helped and encouraged by his father, who sacrificed a lot for the education of his sons.
There are interesting passages when he finally arrives in France, discovers the language as it is spoken in everyday life, with some goofs that remained moments of shame for the talented and hard working student that he was.
I liked his reflection on how you become  a person more free (part2, chapter 2) in another language – I totally resonate with that.
And the epilogue focuses on the issue that when you straddle two languages, you enter a no man’s land, where you are from/in neither world:
“j’ai appris à parler comme un étranger dans ma propre langue… je ne cesse finalement de me rendre étranger à moi-même dans les deux langues… je suis étranger ici et là et je le demeure…. sans honte ni tristesse mon étrangéité: ce double statut d’étranger que je porte en moi, qui me permet de tendre sans cesse vers une perspective sur le réel qui est celle de l’Autre.”

And here are a few more sentences I enjoyed:

J’avançais pas à pas dans la pénombre de la prodigieuse forêt française.
plaisir quasi physiqu de réciter le texte.
Habiter le français… en faire un lieu de vie, mon espace vital, ma demeure permanente, mon paysage intime, mon milieu environnemental essentiel.
Se cultiver, c’est sortir de sa culture porpre.
Parler, c’est quelque part résister à la pudeur.

📚 Fatale,
by Jean-Patrick Manchette
French mystery/noir novella
1977
98 pages
Read for 20 Books of Summer.
It counts for The Classics Club

This was my first book by Manchette, I ended up reading it sometimes in English, sometimes in French.
The Afterword by Échenoz in this edition is really good.
This is definitely noir, and I have read this is probably the darkest of all his books.
Still, I enjoyed the style, and the description of the characters (even the awful main character).
Not sure I understood the very last line though…
I’m open to try another of his books, maybe less bleak.

“Whether you call her a coldhearted grifter or the soul of modern capitalism, there’s no question that Aimée is a killer and a more than professional one.
Now she’s set her eyes on a backwater burg—where, while posing as an innocent (albeit drop-dead gorgeous) newcomer to town, she means to sniff out old grudges and engineer new opportunities, deftly playing different people and different interests against each other the better, as always, to make a killing.
But then something snaps: the master manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion.”

📚 Fils de personne,
by Jean-François Pasques
Mystery
2022
408 pages
Reading with French student E.

My student E. and I both read a lot of mysteries, French or other, and yet we thought this one was really unique.
The author, a policeman, gives tons of fascinating details about procedures and situations, with details that you usually don’t find in novels nor movies, showing better their real job circumstances.
We partly guessed who had done what, but as usual, without guessing the real motive behind it all.
The book is not gruesome, and the topic itself not dramatic, but still, I felt some type of psychological heaviness after we were done.
The main topic is babies who are given birth anonymously, and all the consequent impacts on them.
When the book opens, the police is actually investigating on other business: the kidnapping of three women, with apparently no common element between them.

There are some intense scenes, with interesting references to literature.
There are also very interesting dynamics in the police department, at a time when procedures are changing.
Highly recommended, and now we want to read more by this author for sure.
Pasques won the Prix du Quai des Orfèvres in 2023, an award given by policemen to an anonymous (as all literature awards should be, according to my standards) manuscript. Well worth it.

An interesting passage end of chapter 6, when they leave the morgue:
“On se sentait quelqu’un d’autre, en transit entre deux mondes, avec néanmoins la conviction d’être privilégié. On promenait sur les choses un regard neuf, on s’étonnait d’en faire partie. On se sentait au fond un peu plus vivant que les autres en retrouvant la capacité de s’enthousiasmer du moindre rien, une ligne blanche dessinée dans le ciel par un avion, un parfum en suspension dans le sillage d’une femme… même le vrombissement d’une grosse cylindrée pouvait devenir agréable…
Paris leur apparaissait soudainement comme un concentré de richesse et de beauté.”

We usually are very happy with our choices, but that was not really the case this past week, with these two:

📚 Sido,
by Colette
Autofiction
1930
124 pages
Read with French student E.
It counts for The Classics Club

Colette is probably more famous outside of France, even though there’s been a recent effort to make her more popular.
Not sure if it’s because her books were not deemed that good, or if it’s because of her life style, but all throughout my education in France (and I followed a literary track), I was never requested to read anything by her!
I did read a few books in my teens, but was never impressed.
I thought I would give it another try, with one of my French students, so we read this one, focused on her Mom.
Well, it confirmed my former impressions. There were a few interesting scenes, descriptions and funny passages related to people’s personality traits, but nothing to really encourage me to read more at this point in my life.

“Je ne peux pas m’empêcher de rire en constatant combien tous les Parisiens sont fiers d’habiter Paris, les vrais parce qu’ils assimilent cela à un titre nobiliaire, les faux parce qu’ils s’imaginent avoir monté en grade.”
“Rien qu’à parler d’elles [deux sources d’eau] je souhaite que leur saveur m’emplisse la bouche au moment de tout finir, et que j’emporte, avec moi, cette gorgée imaginaire…

📚 Les petits chevaux de Tarquinia,
Little Horses of Tarquinia
by Marguerite Duras
Literary fiction
1953
220 pages
Read in French with student F.
It counts for The Classics Club

I have read and enjoyed several books by Marguerite Duras, especially Moderato Cantabile, but this one was disappointing.
It’s one of those super hot summers, and these couples chose to go to vacation to Italy. They hate the heat and they are bored.
Right before the book opened, a young man jumped on a mine, and his parents stick there on top of the mountain, not ready to bury their son, but staying there in front of a box with his remains…
And then, a stranger arrives on a nice boat.
It’s rather boring, the dialogs are not very interesting either, they keep fighting and drink a lot, the author never reveals us some dynamics between these people. The nanny is the most obnoxious you can imagine.
There are a few redeeming lines, that’s about it.
Oh, and I just discovered that Duras mixed up two sites in her title: there are no horses on the frescoes in Tarquinia necropolis, but they are small statues somewhere else in Italy!

Le soleil ne brillait pas, étouffé qu’il était par l’éoaisse brume qui enserrait le ciel dans un carcan de fer.
Personne n’était d’accord avec personne sauf en ce qui concernait la chaleur et la mer.
La chaleur était-elle que c’était rare qu’on ait la force de se dire bonjour. [!!!]
L’été, la véritable nature des gens apparaissait bien mieux… sous le soleil les caractères s’ouvraient et se faisaient voir.

Il n’y a pas de vacances à l’amour, dit-il, ça n’existe pas. L’amour, il faut le vivre complètement avec son ennui et tout, il n’y a pas de vacances possible à ça.
Et c’est ça l’amour. S’y soustraire, on ne peut pas. Comme à la vie, avec sa beauté, sa merde et son ennui.

I’m having better luck with Madame Bovary, by Flaubert.
I’m also listening to a very recent scfi thriller by Laurent Gounelle: Un Monde presque parfait, which sounds very promising.

The next novels I will read with students are
Signé Picpus, by Georges Simenon (Maigret #23 – we’ve been reading the Maigret series in order together)
and
Une Activité respectable, an essay on writing by Julia Kerninon.

HAVE YOU READ
OR ARE YOU PLANNING TO READ ANY OF THESE?

It’s not too late to join us for #parisinjuly2024!
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