Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. Continue reading
Tag Archives: French
Sample Saturday – elves, murders, and a girl grieving
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery Continue reading
My Wish List by Grégoire Delacourt
Can money buy happiness? That is the question at the core of Grégoire Delacourt’s quaint novel, My Wish List.
Jocelyne is middle-aged, has been married to the same man for decades, lives in a small provincial French town and runs her own dressmaking shop. Her life is quite different to what she imagined it might be. In fact, her life is ordinary. And then she wins the lottery. Continue reading
The Son by Michel Rostain
We’ve never had a child, we have them forever. (Marina Tsvetaïeva)
Who can judge a father’s memoir, a story of losing an only child to meningitis? No one. And I’m almost reluctant to write a review of any sort.
Despite the blurb that it is not a a book about death, but that it’s a book about life, Michel Rostain’s story, The Son, is devastatingly sad. The shocking and sudden circumstances in which his 21 year old son, Lion, died – feeling unwell for a few days, a fever, then death – are raw, chaotic and incomprehensible. Continue reading
‘The Gourmet’ by Muriel Barbery
My first question is ‘Why isn’t Muriel Barbery herself a food critic?’ – her descriptions of food in The Gourmet
As the world’s most celebrated food critic, Pierre Arthens, lays dying in his plush Parisian apartment (the same apartment building of The Elegance of the Hedgehog fame), his mind turns to key culinary moments in his past. Having eaten at the finest restaurants and drunk the best wines, Pierre is desperate to recall the most delicious food ever to pass his lips. All he wants is one last taste.
“How ironic! After decades of grub, deluges of wine and alcohol of every sort, after a life spent in butter, cream, rich sauces, and oil in constant, knowingly orchestrated and meticulously cajoled excess, my trustiest right-hand men, Sir Liver and his associate Stomach, are doing marvelously well and it is my heart that is giving out. I am dying of cardiac insufficiency. What a bitter pill to swallow.”
“I’m going to die and there is a flavour that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it. I know that this particular flavour is the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced… and original, marvellous dish that predates my vocation as a critic, before I had any desire or pretension to expound on my pleasure in eating.” Continue reading
‘Someone I Loved’ by Anna Gavalda
It’s just a wisp of a book but an odd wisp at that.
Someone I Loved by French author, Anna Gavalda, is the story of Chloé, whose husband suddenly leaves her and their two daughters for another woman. Unexpectedly, her usually cold and distant father-in-law, Pierre, comes to her aid, sharing what he has learned about life and love.
Interestingly, the book is subtitled ‘A Novel’. Hmmm – that made me wonder. Did the publishers add that because at just short of 160 pages, it’s straying into ‘novella’ territory – what are the official guidelines, anyway? Or did they add ‘A Novel’ because everyone in Gavalda’s home country knows all about her private life and assumes that she has written all about herself. I couldn’t help myself – took a quick peek at Google. Seems my thoughts were not far off the mark. The book was written after Gavalda’s marriage failed and the publication of Someone I Loved in 2002 was followed by the 600 page doorstop, Hunting and Gathering in 2004 – take that, anyone who mentioned ‘lightweight’! Continue reading
Book vs. Film: Delicacy
Book.
- It’s a far more delicate story on paper than on film.
- For its gentle humour and its palatable grief.
- But well done to the casting agent for not choosing a ‘perhaps-could-be-handsome-Markus’.
- Also worth noting the amazing mid-century office that is used as a location in the film – seriously amazing.
Delicacy by David Foenkinos
‘Delicacy’ by David Foenkinos
Wow. I just loved this book from the very first page.
Delicacy by David Foenkinos took France by storm when it was published in 2009 and has since been made into a film (starring French darling, Audrey Tautou).
Delicacy is an unlikely love story. It begins with François, approaching a beautiful stranger (Natalie) on the street. He asks her out for coffee. She agrees and so begins their deep and blissful romance.
“Why had he stopped her? It had mostly to do with the way she walked. He’d sensed something new, almost childlike, like a rhapsody of kneecaps.”
But don’t get too comfortable – François is knocked over by a car and killed while out on a Sunday morning jog (that’s not a spoiler – it happens early in the book). Continue reading