Does anyone else enjoy reading French writers and literature?

[cassiatwenty]

Hi friends,

(Inspired by @WhatWouldHopperDo and their thread on Korean and Japanese literarure )

I noticed people on here read Malraux, Zola, Flaubert, and even Pierre Choderlos de Laclos of Dangerous Liasons fame.

How about contemporary writers?

I read David Foenkinos Delicacy (+)
Delphine De Vigan Underground Time (+)
Françoise Sagan Bonjour Triestesse (+)
Duras The Lover (+)
Frédéric Beigbeder Love Lasts Three Years (+)

I couldn't really get into Valérie Perrin, Michel Houellebecq or Muriel Barbery.

What do you read? What did you like? What did you dislike? Any thoughts and/or recs?

Let me know because I'd like to know 😊 Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

I've been trying to read a few books from Francophone Africa - Alain Mabanckou (The Death of Comrade President) and David Diop (At Night All Blood is Black). I have read Charlotte by Foenkinos and enjoyed it. I also just picked up recently Didier Decoin's The Office of Gardens and Ponds but not started yet.

Hi OP, just curious, do you read in French or English translations? I'd like to read more French lit but my French is probably not good enough to get the most out of it.

@BuffysBigSister I have been wanting to read 'Charlotte' -- if you enjoyed that then 'Delicacy' might be up your street. There's a film but I don't really recommend it.

@Correlation Just English unfortunately. I wish my French was better so I could read it in French. I know I'm missing out

I like Jean Christophe Grangé but his books are différent. Thrillers with a twist. The first one I read was about negative near death experiences which left me reading until 2am finding a safe place to put the book down.
Some are available in english others just in french.
I started reading in french with a pocket dictionary and books by Janine Boissard and Françoise Bourdin. Mindless chick lit but got me over the first hurdle.

I read quite a lot, but in French.

Favourite authors are Fred Vargas and Daniel Pennac. I also love Philippe Claudel but his books are very sad.

Ive read most of your list, loved the Sagan. Also couldn’t cope with Houellbecq or Virginie Despentes, who are big names, although controversial

For my French class I’m reading Francois Mauriac’s Therese Desqueyroux, which I would recommend, a portrayal of the stifled life of an intelligent woman in rural France in the 1920s.

We also read Annie Ernaux, recent winner of the Nobel Prize, but fascinating insight into 20th century French life.

Yes, I read a fair bit in French! Am watching this thread with interest.

I would also recommend Annie Ernaux (I love her!), and Daniel Pennac. I can't stand Houllebecq; as far as I'm concerned he's a racist, sexist arse.

I've recently read Maryse Conde, Tales from the Heart (vignettes from her childhood in Guadeloupe). It was great. I also love her literary masterpiece Crossing the Mangrove.

If you like fantasy, I would recommend the Mirror Visitor series by Christelle Dabos. I'm two volumes in and have really enjoyed it so far.

I would also recommend:
Edouard Louis, The End of Eddy (an autobiographical novel about growing up gay and working-class in northern France).
Leila Slimani, Lullaby and also The Country of Others
Vanessa Springora, Consent (a short, elegant memoir that can be linked to the #MeToo movement)
Delphine de Vigan, No and me

Amelie Nothomb (Belgian) and Marie Darieussecq are also interesting contemporary French writers. They're both very quirky and I have liked some of their works more than others.

The novels of Colette are classic and fun.

I recommend Michel Bussi and here for other recommendations 😃

Watching as I’ll be moving back to France in the next couple of years and this time I want to learn to speak the language better! I watch all the French films and tv stuff.

I really liked Therese Desqueyroux too.

Hey everyone, thanks for your replies and recs! I'm so impressed by people who are able to read in French. I know I'm missing out.

Currently reading Patrick Modiano (Little Jewel --- La Petite Bijou)

I have read both Ernaux and Nothomb. Did anyone read Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling) by Nothomb? It won Grand prix du roman 1999. So interesting.

I wish I could read in French, too!

I’m a huge Mauriac fan, though I haven’t read Thérèse D since my undergraduate days — I really like Ernaux, too. I can’t get on with Houellbecq. I liked Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes, and some Fred Vargas, but I think my favourite French novelists are Stendhal Flaubert, Proust, Colette and Duras, and maybe my favourite novel in French of all time is Le Grand Meaulnes. DH has a sentimental liking for Pagnol.

Ive never got on with Balzac.

Yes. I'm a bit of a Francophile. One of my big regrets in life is that I didn't do French A-Level. My French is OKish, but I'm entirely self-taught and don't seem able to get beyond a certain point, no matter how hard I try. I am wading through the first volume of Proust atm, using a parallel text.

A couple of French novels I'd recommend:

Huysman: A Rebors about a misanthropic French aristocrat, named Des Esseintes, who withdraws from society. He is also an aesthete, and this is the novel that Dorian becomes obsessed with in Wilde's Dorian Gray. It is also Bruce Robinson's favourite book. I believe he based the character Withnail (in the film Withnail and I) on Des Esseintes.

Nemrovsky: Suite Francaise. Though my French is pretty wretched, I was able to get through this with a dictionary. Apparently, she planned to write an epic, and this was going to be the first volume. Such a shame that she never got to do so.

@LineMadeByWalking You have read a lot! Houellebecq is popular for some reason but I just can't with him. Le Grand Meaulnes sounds like a really good rec, thank you for contributing to this thread.

Hey @Hartley99 thank you for posting here, always appreciate your comments and insights -- you've read so many books I never heard of, thank you for your recs as usual 😊

My degree was in French a bazillion years ago.

Le Grand Meaulnes is bewitching (with a sad origin story — the only novel of a man killed in the first month of WW1 in his 20s, whose body was only identified in the 1990s), but it’s possible that it’s the kind of romantic, wistful novel you might need to have first read in your teens. I know there are lots of translations into English (under several different titles, because the title is kind of untranslatable), but I have never read it in English.

That's so impressive @LineMadeByWalking

Thanks to this thread I am now reading Shame by Annie Ernaux. I've never read anything by her before and with two small children I haven't read anything good for a long time, so thank you @cassiatwenty

I read in French but mainly classics like Madame Bovary and some Zola. I tried Notre Dame de Paris but it was too hard - too much cathedral vocab! I have a De Vigan on the tbr pile at the moment and I'm looking forward to the Choderlos de Laclos readalong! My dh likes Houellebecq but he is a bit of a sexist arse so no surprise there.

I used to read classic French literature extensively during my uni years: Stenhal, Dumas, Zola, Hugo, Flaubert, Romain Rolland, Balzac, George Sand etc.
Years ago I enjoyed Elsa Triolet (Les Amants d'Avignon), and would love to find it to re-read.
In the last few years I read several books by Antoine Laurain (heavily promoted by The Gallic press). Some are more entertaining (Vintage 1954), some are tedious and pretentious (The red notebook).
Other modern writers I can think of - Tatiana de Rosnay.
Andrei Makine - just beautiful.

@Correlation You're welcome, I hope you enjoy it 😊

@InstantCustard Choderlos de Laclos readalong ought to be fun!

@SometimesNine Thank you for recommending Tatiana de Rosnay and Andrei Makine

I've read Bonjour Triestesse in a comic of sorts (Frédéric Rébéna, Françoise Sagan) if anyone is interested. Not very high-brow but interesting

Hello! I try to read a book in French every few weeks. 'Thérèse Desqueroux' was the first book I read as an undergraduate. I must read it again. Thanks for the suggestions mentioned. I'll list the better ones that I read over the past while.

Françoise Sagan: Bonjour Tristesse, Un Certain Sourire, Aimez-Vous Brahms?

Emmanuel Carrère: L'Adversaire.

Victoria Mas: Le Bal des Folles

Antoine Laurain: Le Chapeau de Mitterrand

Leïla Slimani: Chanson Douce

Maurice LeBlanc: Toutes Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin

Annie Ernaux: Les Années (also read this in translation!)

Madame Bovary: Gustave Flaubert

Maigret: Georges Simenon

Romain Gary: La Promesse de l'Aube.

And Albert Camus: L'Etranger.

My French is serviceable rather than perfect, but I've been reading L'Affaire Alaska Saunders in the original while I wait for the English translation but I am plodding through it, with the help of the Kindle's translation dictionary. However, it's often too idiomatic/slangy for complete success.

Welcome and thank you for your recs @Papyrophile and @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

Lots of new and interesting authors and titles! @FuzzyCaoraDhubh Camus is very interesting. I'm certain you have read or heard of Le mythe de Sisyphe but I think it's very interesting

@Papyrophile I agree with you, it's very idiomatic. It's my first time reading about Joël Dicker, so many thanks for contributing -- I'm not familiar with Swiss/Geneva writers so interesting

@cassiatwenty I have enjoyed all Joel Dicker's previous novels but read them in English translations. This one is taking forever to publication. Not due until September this year. Plus he always writes complex plots. I can often guess what he's telling us, and am still missing big pointers and that is mostly because I can't read it as a native speaker. I read a few pages at a time now, unless on holiday with time and energy to check every word that's unfamiliar. Thrillers seem to be particularly tough to read in other languages.