This is my review of La Liseuse by Paul Fournel.

What happens when Robert Dubois, the middle-aged, stuck in his ways editor of a Paris publishing firm, is given an e-reader by a young intern at the behest of the whizz kid accountant who has taken over the business? This is mainly a device to enable Fournel’s lively imagination to range over the effects of technology on literature. At the press of a button, a page disappears. Does it exist any more? It is no longer possible to mark comments in the margin with a pencil. If he wants his wife to read a particular book, he will have to lend her his “liseuse”, leaving himself nothing to read, together with the sneaking fear she may read something else altogether from what he has intended. Then there is the scope to alter the text: turning Proust’s madeleines into petit beurre LU biscuits.

This satirical novella introduces us to a number of neurotic authors and provides a sounding board for the author’s opinions, often expressed in flowing and poetic prose: the publisher’s resentment over being prevented from reading great works by the continual need to identify new books for a future one may not live to see, where one may be blamed for one’s choices; the fact that, when an author has a success, people want him to recreate the same book over and over again; the lack of demand for French literature in England, perhaps because it is not offered to readers there; the joy of finding bookshops which do not offer discounts and three for two deals, “ne jouent pas le jeu du commerce, juste celui de livres.”

Plot and character development are of little interest to Fournel. The sudden leaps between scenes are often confusing and the price to be paid for all this is that the reader does not engage strongly with the characters.

The frequent cultural references make this book challenging for a non-French reader. The device of writing in the form of a sestina – which means that the 36 chapters each end with one of six chosen words, “lue”, “crème”, “editeur”, “faute”, “moi”, “soir” in a complex cycle seemed pointless and a bit pretentious. This is all part of Fournel’s involvement with “L’Oulipo”, a movement of writers who subject themselves to various “mathematical” constraints.

Apart from the flashes of humour and quirky thinking – getting the local butcher to weigh the e-reader and find that the world’s great literature amounts to 730 gm – what won me over was the quality of Fournel’s writing over say, the experience of eating an artichoke, travelling in the London underground or, as a “townie” enduring the countryside: “la campagne ressemble terriblement à la campagne…une épaisse tartine d’ennui vert posée à même le sol”.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Marie DES Brebis by Christian Signol.

This is the true story written by Signol in the first person to capture the oral memories of Marie, shared with him in her old age. Found abandoned as a baby and brought up by a kindly shepherd in the remote Causse region of Quercy, Marie's life as a shepherdess, mother and husband of a quarryman spans the two World Wars and the technical advances which first disrupted and then destroyed her peaceful existence.

In a vivid account of life in a French village from the early 1900s, we see Marie taking her bread to the communal oven to be baked, her linen by cart to the washhouse twice a year, and the vital social contact she gained from all this, as from the round of traditional festivals in a community where everyone is expected to take part and support each other.

At first, I found the narrative rather sentimental and banal, as when Marie marries, when she is old enough, the farmhand sent to assist her guardians, as Signol informs us in advance as soon as Florentin makes his first appearance as a young boy, just as we are told on the birth of Marie's daughter that she will have a mind of her own and leave home at the age of eighteen.

Then, as harsher blows strike her, I began to realise that Marie's simplicity, acceptance of fate and positive attitude to adversity are not just a somewhat mawkish saintliness, but the result of her closeness to nature, of the long periods spent alone, almost meditating, observing subtle changes in the landscape and weather and the insignificance of mankind in the universe. When, in late middle age, she visits Paris, Marie is appalled by the lack of community spirit, as people pass each other in the street without any greeting, devoting themselves to acquiring material possessions. Initially, she criticises the young rioters of May '68 for protesting when they have so much, but then she realises that their "inner souls" are seeking something other than the pursuit of money, possessions and wealth.

This is a good way of practising French as the language is crystal clear (apart from the patois), with a smattering of useful idioms. It's not "great literature" but provides an insight into the mind of a good-hearted woman experiencing the undervalued pleasures and vicissitudes of rural life as it gradually crumbles away under inevitable forces of change.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Les chemins de Katmandou by Rene Barjavel.

Beautiful but mentally fragile, Jane is shattered to catch her father with his lover. Anchorless, she drifts on the hippy trail to Katmandu. The young Frenchman Olivier travels there as well, but for very different reasons. He is an angry young man, the bitterness over his unknown father and affectionate but neglectful mother twisted into an aggressive desire for change, leading him to fight on the barricades in the violent Paris student demonstrations of 1968, which leave him disillusioned.

Nostalgia for the '60s drew me to this novel, although Barjavel, who was almost sixty when he wrote this, has an older man's contempt for the hippies' self-delusion in seeking mystical peace and love in drugs. At first, I felt unengaged by the fragmented storyline and scenes of gratuitous violence involving characters I had not been given time to know. Then, I was hooked by the highly visual descriptions of Nepal. These aspects all seem to stem from the fact that the novel was in fact based on the 1969 film for which Barjavel wrote the script.

Often gripping and moving, sometimes ludicrous, even a little crass, this book is "a good read", but it has a thread of negativity – "What's the point of anything?" I took from this book the message that life is transient, we are all "dust to dust". Western materialist, "can do" culture may be pointless and eastern fatalism and acceptance closer to the mark, but once you have gained a sense of the rational, and the need to act, it is hard to lose it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Le Tour de Gaule d’Astérix by René Goscinny,Albert Uderzo.

As a mature student of French, I read this in an attempt to understand the addiction to "les bandes dessinées" which seems to persist into adulthood even for French literature lovers. I hesitate to repeat what must be widely known – since I had grasped it without reading a single Asterix in the past – that the revered Goscinny has created a "village gaulois" populated by "irréductibles gaulois" who manage to make mincemeat of the entrenched Roman garrisons surrounding them, and fools of the occasional representative of Caesar who comes along with the intention of bringing the villagers to heel. The secret of the locals' success lies in the magic potion prepared by the venerable druid Panoramix, and the exceptional strength of the menhir delivery man, Obelisk, who never needs to take the potion since he tumbled into the brew at berth.

The ensuing tale of the wager for Asterix and Obelisk to tour France without being captured, collecting local specialities on the way as evidence, is pretty silly although amusing, partly in showing one again the French preoccupation with food – all the items collected are edible and listed with gusto at the end: "saucisse de tolosa", "huîtres et vin de burdigala" and so on.

In trying to find an equivalent story embedded in English culture I came up first with Winnie the Pooh, then thought perhaps Dad's Army would be nearer the mark. You may need to be able to associate Asterix with the nostalgia of childhood, and also be a native of France to understand the puns fully. I have at least learned the French for "port" and "starboard" and that, "Je tire ou je pointe?" refers to the game of pétanque.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of L’Homme Aux Cercles Bleus by Fred Vargas.

Blue chalk circles begin to appear in the Paris suburbs, each ringing some everyday object. But Commissaire Adamsberg knows it is only a matter of time before a circle contains a murder victim. Unlike his sidekick Danglard, the pragmatic, cynical, stereotypical heavy-drinking inspector deserted by his wife, Adamsberg is not your usual senior police detective. Burdened by his acute intuition, "if only I could be wrong about someone once in a while" , he wanders round with his shirt half hanging out, idles around in coffee shops too depressed to go into work, and is only tolerated by colleagues at his new post in Paris because of his astonishing success record in solving cases.

Some of the characters are entertaining, such as the beautiful Mathilde, a famous marine biologist, only really happy deep-sea diving, who spends her time when on dry ground following and observing strangers. I liked her glass table with a built-in aquarium. However, the main characters are all highly eccentric and somewhat unrealistic. I enjoyed some of the quirky dialogue and was prepared to go with the flow of the off-the-wall plot until it reverted abruptly to the kind of trite, contrived thriller overfull of coincidences with a hero who keeps presenting his bemused colleagues with the next piece in the jigsaw, obtained through his latest light-bulb moment.

I recommend this in French for the practice, and the English version to help with some more obscure language points. Some of the English translation is a little oddly worded partly because the distinctive whimsical quality is hard to capture in English.

Not sure I'll read any more in the series……..

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of David Golder (Le Livre de Poche) by Irene Nemirovsky.

In her spare prose, Irene Nemirovsky portrays in vivid and minute detail the thoughts and final acts of David Golder as he faces up to the death he has always feared. Having escaped as a youth from poverty in Russia, Golder has ruthlessly gained a vast fortune, but has nothing to spend it on, save the extravagances of his wife, who uses luxuries as a substitute for the love he cannot give her, their daughter Joyce who has been spoiled with material goods, and all the hangers on whom the rich attract.

On the surface, all the main characters are despicable, calculating, self-seeking and unlikeable. However, Irene contrives to evoke from us some pity for all of them, in particular Golder. Although this is to be honest a rather depressing book, there are some unexpectedly moving and beautiful scenes, evoking long-lost places and lifestyles of 1920s Europe and Russia. Nemirovsky is worth reading for the quality of her writing.

I have read reviews which attack Nemirovsky for her anti-semitic tone. Although Jewish herself, she converted to Catholicism and wrote for anti-Jewish publications, yet this could be excused as an attempt to escape persecution – one which failed since she was deported to Auschwitz where she died of typhus. I admit that at times, I find it hard to believe that she is not "a self-hating Jew" in the prejudiced and negative descriptions she often employs. Apart from the fact she may only be conveying the views of other characters, there is a subtle humanity in her writing – she seems to me to describe characters warts and all, with all their flaws and vulnerability, without a trace of sentimentality.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars