Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Current Reading - Books best thread

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    If we’re talking Balzac and the old French heavyweights, then Gramsci could do worse than start with the wonderful La Peau de chagrin.

    And when in Paris, visit the house Balzac rented for a while in Western Paris (the only Balzac house still in existence). Free admission too as it belongs to the Paris municipality, http://www.maisondebalzac.paris.fr/en/discover-museum

    It is one of the many locations that Balzac used to hide from the bailiffs (he rented it under his housekeeper’s name), it was part of Passy village then (so, not Paris proper and it was harder for the Parisian authorities to get him, or something like that). I think he'd rigged up some sort of secret passage to get quickly to the back door and escape through the garden whenever the bailiffs would come knocking at the door (but sadly that's gone). Just like Baudelaire, who lived in 45 (!) known Paris places (probably more then), mainly situated in the hypercentre (and briefly in Brussels too), in 20-odd years at the same time as Balzac give or take a few years (same reason, playing hide-and-seek with the bailiffs).

    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 10-04-2018, 13:30.

    Comment


      I've been there. It's quite interesting, though I have a bit of a thing for authors' residences.

      Comment


        Also for Gramsci or those who've never read Zola, this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinal_(1993_film) (but annoyingly, no English subtitles apparently on amazon co uk, that fucking sucks really - not a great trailer but gives a flavour, wonderful acting by Miou-Miou, Jean Carmet, Depardieu and Renaud):

        Comment


          I love the hell out of L'Assommoir, such a great downbeat read. Poor auld Gervaise. Fucking Lantier.

          Comment


            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
            I've been there. It's quite interesting, though I have a bit of a thing for authors' residences.
            Indeed. Hemingway's house in Key West is all kinds of lovely.

            Comment


              Actually, speaking of Balzac's La peau de chagrin, I didn’t know but they’ve adapted the book into a film (telefilm). But again, no foreign subtitles (just French for the hearing impaired).

              Much more expensive on amazon.com ($37) than on amazon.co.uk (£15) at the minute, it depends on the availability I suppose.

              Here's an excerpt from the telefilm:

              http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_...lm=185196.html
              Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 10-04-2018, 19:29.

              Comment


                So I am in the midst of the Occupation Trilogy (about a third of the way through the third one now), and I am underwhelmed. I think the hallucinatory dream sequences and the exaggerated seediness of it all are, I dunno, lacking in subtlety?

                The de Beauvoir I read last month was The Mandarins, which as I understand it is a lightly fictionalized version of her, Sartre and Camus in '45-'47, only where Camus ends up marrying her 18 year old daughter. It was OK, but ENORMOUSLY cliched. Though it occurred to me that given when it was written it might actually be the source of many of these cliches, and therefore isn't (or might not be) cliches in their own right.

                I do have some Balzac and Zola on my kindle (the free or free-ish stuff as Ursus noted), but on the whole I prefer modern fiction, so I'm focussing on post-WWII for the moment. I may work my way back afterwards. Shifting to japan for a bit (in prep for my trip there), going to read some of the Murakami I haven;t read and get a couple of Kenzaburo Oe in there as well. Maybe back to the french stuff later in the year.

                Comment


                  Please live tweet your reading of Houellebecq

                  Comment


                    The bugger has really scrubbed up well, he looks almost normal now.

                    Before...



                    After (2017)...

                    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 11-04-2018, 22:04.

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                      Please live tweet your reading of Houellebecq
                      I read Houllebecq's first 3 (4?) books when Platform came out. I get the idea, I don't feel any particular need to read more.

                      Comment


                        Nor has anyone else

                        Comment


                          Also: Ring Roads is better than the other two novellas in the Occupation Trilogy. I feel a little bit better about having read this.

                          Also also: have started Svetlana Alexievich's: The Unwomanly Face of War. Excellent. Loved Second-Hand Time and this is at least as good.

                          Comment


                            That’s why I only recommended the first Houellebecq, Extension du domaine de la lutte. As I wrote here a year ago, the rest is forgettable IMO, the other two Houellebecqs I've read anyway (second one, Les Particules Élémentaires isn’t too bad but average really), especially his latest offerings which really don’t appeal to me one bit.

                            Gramsci, if you want more modern or contemporary fiction as you've indicated, then try Daniel Pennac or Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1, cf my post (the Irish Times review: One of the books of the year, if not the decade), and zany Belgian Amélie Nothomb, especially the satirical Fear and Trembling (130-odd pages, on aspects of Japanese society. Nothomb lived in Japan as a bairn, speaks Japanese and has worked there too, Fear and Trembling is semi-autobiographical).

                            Up-and-coming Leïla Slimani too, especially Dans le Jardin de l’Ogre. Also read some Faïza Guène last year, Kiffe kiffe demain (on life in the Paris banlieues, translated into English as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow), not earth-shattering but very readable. Also recently re-read E = MC2, mon amour by the late Patrick Cauvin – translated as A little romance – great feelgood novel. Check out Jonathan Littell and Tahar Ben Jelloun too (francophone literature, he is Moroccan, been famous in France since the 1980s).

                            Maybe stay clear of Frédéric Beigbeder, he's reasonably popular and seen as hip and all the rest (so his name may well pop up in your investigations) but he's rather lacklustre according to a few trusty French relations of mine.

                            I think Fecility’s suggestion (Didier Daeninckx) looks good, I know of him of course as he is well-known but have never read him, will try soon.
                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 12-04-2018, 08:18.

                            Comment


                              I thought The Map and the Territory was very good but I've had no desire to read anything else by him.

                              Tangentially, I saw that hhhh has been made into a film and as much as I enjoyed the book I don't see how the transition to celluloid will work.

                              Comment


                                On the contemporary Francophone writers’ scene, I quite like Yann Moix too, especially his first novel, Jubilations vers le ciel (1996). He is now famous in France (mainly through his TV work it has to be said) I don't think that he's been translated (his style and language are idiosyncratic so it would be no sinecure to render all this faithfully into English, and that's often the problem with these iconoclasts, i.e finding talented enough translators for this sort of work, real professionals that publishers are willing to pay decently).

                                Incidentally, Moix is currently shooting a documentary on the migrants in Calais (called "Re-Calais", play on words) and it looks damning for the police, well, for a small % of the police I should say, the CRS mainly (quelle surprise - looks like it although this doc hasn't been released yet so who does what, how involved the CRS are etc. no-one really knows yet but it looks like the CRS are quite central).

                                Moix is a bit of a néo-réac/controversialist, a bit of a professional "poil à gratter" as the French say (someone paid to be an irritant), and has sort of admitted of having generalised a little his Calais doc (some having understood this as "he has sensationalised the whole thing") and has been taken to task by newspapers such as Libération but, nevertheless, some of the stuff he’s been able to see and film looks absolutely shocking (we sort of knew through migrants’ associations, the migrants themselves etc. what was going on there but it looks even worse than previously thought).

                                Total denial of course from the French interior ministry, the minister even claiming that Moix has doctored some footage (Moix is suing him for defamation). Documentary to be shown on Arte next month, see below (first clip, Moix talks about Calais from ~3’10, when the insert "actes de barbarie à Calais ?" appears). You can get French subtitles by clicking on the first icon on the bottom-right (it’s a word recognition software so not 100% accurate but does the job).

                                OK, I'm off to the Lakes in an hour or so and to Spain shortly after that, take care all.



                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtafvORaHwY

                                Comment


                                  Heh, it's fifty years ago that I first remember hearing the "CRS SS" chants in the news on telly...

                                  Comment


                                    If anyone wants to read French left-leaning detective fiction I've read pretty much them all.

                                    all good- Thierry Joncquet; Manchette; Vilar; Izzo

                                    I'll dig out more names later

                                    Comment


                                      Originally posted by Anton Gramscescu View Post
                                      I read Houllebecq's first 3 (4?) books when Platform came out. I get the idea, I don't feel any particular need to read more.
                                      Gwen Stefani said the same.

                                      Comment


                                        Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                        Well, it's a parable of a biblical story, and it features talking animals. And it goes down hill from there...and it's boring.
                                        And it's done. I'd say the last thirty pages were far more compelling than the first 230, but that's not enough reason to embark on the voyage.

                                        Comment


                                          Oh, I do like Jean-Philippe Toussaint thought I've no idea how he reads in French. People here are probably familiar with him for La Mélancolie de Zidane.

                                          I've enjoyed Zola much more than Balzac but I've no idea if that's translations or the books themselves.

                                          Comment


                                            I'm currently reading In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile. It's not comfortable bedtime reading.

                                            Comment


                                              Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                                              That’s why I only recommended the first Houellebecq, [I]
                                              Gramsci, if you want more modern or contemporary fiction as you've indicated, then try Daniel Pennac or Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1, cf my post (the Irish Times review: One of the books of the year, if not the decade), and zany Belgian Amélie Nothomb, especially the satirical Fear and Trembling (130-odd pages, on aspects of Japanese society. Nothomb lived in Japan as a bairn, speaks Japanese and has worked there too, Fear and Trembling is semi-autobiographical).

                                              Up-and-coming Leïla Slimani too, especially Dans le Jardin de l’Ogre. Also read some Faïza Guène last year, Kiffe kiffe demain (on life in the Paris banlieues, translated into English as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow), not earth-shattering but very readable. Also recently re-read E = MC2, mon amour by the late Patrick Cauvin – translated as A little romance – great feelgood novel. Check out Jonathan Littell and Tahar Ben Jelloun too (francophone literature, he is Moroccan, been famous in France since the 1980s).
                                              These are great suggestions, thanks loads!

                                              Comment


                                                Finished Cooking With Fernet Branca a couple of hours ago. Enjoyable enough.

                                                I'll be starting either The Sellout or The Underground Railroad, both of which we've been leant by OTF Chess's Alex, and both of which my girlfriend has already got through, tomorrow. Will report back.

                                                Comment


                                                  Am reading a second Elly Griffiths 'Ruth Galloway' novel- she (Ruth) is an archeologist working at a ficional North Norfolk Uni, who helps the cops with long-buried bones.

                                                  The N. Norfolk coast and countryside figure greatly, quite atmospheric, but the visits to Norwich and King's Lynn (a scene in this one where the cop screeches past the-sadly now demolished- Campbell's soup factory) certainly add to their pleasures if you have Norfolk connections.

                                                  Decent British crime fiction, mildly feminist tone-if you like that kind of thing.

                                                  Comment


                                                    I went for The Sellout.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X