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#french lit
soracities · 6 months
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Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (trans. Richard Howard) [ID in ALT]
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andrumedus · 1 year
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Let us love sweetly. [...]
Charles Baudelaire, tr. Aaron Poochigian, The Flowers of Evil, from “Spleen and the Ideal”; “Autumn Sonnet”
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cy-lindric · 2 years
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Musketeers again and again and again and again !!!
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remindmetoreed · 2 months
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I finished The Count of Monte Cristo yesterday and I’m still in awe. Despite being a massive undertaking, I’m so glad I took the time to read this book over the course of (a little over) a year. Definitelyyyy gonna keep this copy and re-read periodically throughout my life.
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Oh, a woman, what a wonderful thing ! Add two wings and you have an angel!
Gustave Flaubert in a diary entry featured in Gustave Flaubert: A Documentary Volume by Éric Le Calvez
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fruity-pontmercy · 2 years
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I was talking about this with a few moots the other day about this and isn't it funny how there is basically just one big Les Mis fandom that is vaguely divided into several????? Like you have the strictly musical fans, the book fans, the movie musical fans, the Amis de l’ABC fans (which are a whole thing of its own creation and frankly so fascinating) and the apparently newly rising 2019 BBC Les Mis fandom (thanks to white boy of the month Joseph Quinn) .... like isn't it funny how we’re all sort of lumped together and not divided into separate fandoms which have little to nothing to do with each other??? idk I think its kinda neat and interesting. 
( @alcoholsoup @yourpigeonwife thx for making me thimk about stuff lol) 
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blinkbones · 5 days
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Nana, Émile Zola
Finally getting some French lit in. To be completely honest, I've had this book for almost a decade, and I never read it. Well, actually, apparently I tried at some point, because I found some underlined bits very early on -- but it's clear that I gave up. I remember struggling with it back then. I didn't, this time. It's nice to see proof of my improvement, although I'm not sure what specific skill is concerned.
For a quick & anachronistic summary, it's the story of a 19th century escort girl who makes it big in paris.
I was actually surprised by how easy to read this was. I kind of expected very difficult language. It is poetic, but not actually difficult. The text is easy to follow, almost journalistic. Poetic journalism.
I really, really enjoyed Nana. It's a long ride, and what a ride. It reads, at times, like a soap opera, with how she has a roster of desperate men orbiting around her. She really is the sun of her novel -- and it is her novel. I entered this book ignorantly (despite being French and a ~lit student, I'm not actually well-versed in my country's literature) and it kept surprising me. Where I expected a moralizing tale, or at least a pessimistic outlook on the arrogant seductress, I got the unstoppable, inescapable success of Nana. It's almost a power fantasy, although I doubt Zola saw it through this angle. I mean, it does end badly. Spoilers, but she fully dies in a disfiguring manner. And there is this underlying theme of Nana, the beautiful Venus from the lower classes, bringing the rot of the sewers to the silk sheets of the aristocracy. She all but ruins the entire upper class with the raw power of her sex-appeal, and I thought that there was something cosmic about it. By the time she's at her apex, she herself does not have control of her situation. She becomes like an empire, constantly conquering further reaches to maintain peace and prosperity throughout her imperial reign. She devours. And yet she's so incredibly human. She felt to me like a deity unaware of its power, and, in that sense, her death (especially because it's in the full bloom of her youth and legendary status) felt more like a shedding of the mortal form. Admittedly, I also just find it more fun to interpret it that way. I'm reading for fun, after all. Ah, the specter of academic seriousness hangs over me.
I think Nana is an easy entry point into that sort of literature. Yes, it's part of some long-ass series, but no, you don't need to read the previous books (I didn't). It's very self-contained. It's a long, very eventful ride, through Nana's chaotic and glamorous world. It's long but it feels like going downhill on a bike, and like everything's going too fast still. And it's fucking funny.
And for you, tumblr, my beloved, yes, you will find some messy queers in there. I only talked about Nana herself here, but Nana holds a whole ensemble cast of secondary characters, many interesting women (a wealth of them, really), that are really a whole other serving of delights that I just didn't have time to talk about here. But seriously, just about every character, especially the women, is interesting.
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natreads · 1 year
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Hello Nobel Prize winner!! I loved this book so much
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empirearchives · 7 months
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Very interesting quote from Gustave Flaubert about Napoleon and the Empire:
"When you observe life with a little attention, you see cedars as being a little less tall and bushes somewhat higher. All the same, I don't like the habit some people have of disparaging great enthusiasms or minimizing sublime impulses that surpass nature. Thus Vigny's book, Servitude et grandeur militaires, shocked me a little at first glance because I saw in it a systematic depreciation of blind devotion (the cult of the Emperor, for example), of man's fanaticism for man, in favor of the abstract, dry idea of duty, a concept I've never been able to grasp and which does not seem to me inherent in human entrails. What is noble in the Empire is adoration of the Emperor, a love that is exclusive, absurd, sublime, truly human. That is why I have little understanding of what la Patrie, the fatherland, is for us today."
Letter to Louise Colet, [Rouen], [December 11, 1846]
(Bold letters by me)
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vangoghs-other-ear · 2 years
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Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique, Brûlante et suant les poisons, Ouvrait d'une façon nonchalante et cynique Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons.
les jambes- legs
en l’air- in the air
une femme lubrique- a lustful woman, a lecherous woman
brûlante- burning, searing
suant- sweating
les poisons (m)- poisons
ouvrait (ouvrir)- opened (to open)
une façon- way, manner
nonchalante- nonchalant, not fiery or passionate, cool/cold in affect (same meaning different connotation as english nonchalant)
cynique- cynical
ventre- abdomen, belly
plein d’exhalaisons- full of breathes, full of exhalations
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maddiesbookshelves · 1 year
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Five weeks in a balloon, by Jules Verne
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Doctor Samuel Fergusson, brilliant explorer renowned across all of England, has decided on his next undertaking: to cross Africa from East to West in a hot air balloon. To assist him in his new adventure, his faithful servant Joe as well as his old friend Dick, a Scottish hunter, will accompany him. Five turbulent weeks will ensue, on board the aerostat designed by doctor Fergusson.
I'm gonna start by saying that this book is not at all for everyone. It was written in 1863, an entirety different time, and takes place in Africa. So of course the descriptions of the various people that doctor Fergusson and his companions encounter are extremely racist and stereotyped. Sometimes it made me sick. But Jules Verne wrote this book in another time, when it was held as truth that black people were inferior to white people and that the African continent was full of stupid and cannibalistic savages. So don't read this book if you don't want to read this kind of thing, but don't go boycotting Jules Verne because he lived in a different time. He's dead and his works are in the public domain, anyways (and he's still one of the founding fathers of science fiction).
Now, for my review:
It was pretty slow to start, there are a lot of pages where the narrator lists names and where doctor Fergusson describes in details how his hot air balloon works. Once they're in Africa and up in the air, it's a little faster and it's nicer to read (in spite of the racist passages that made me grit my teeth). Jules Verne has a very peculiar sense of humor that made me chuckle in my scarf during my subway rides.
It really wasn't my favorite Jules Verne out of the four I've read (Journey to the center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon and The Carpathian castle being the other three), but it's nice to read. It's Jules Verne, y'know.
French version under the cut
Le docteur Samuel Fergusson, brillant aventurier reconnu dans toute l'Angleterre, a décidé de sa prochaine entreprise : traverser l'Afrique d'est en ouest à bord d'un ballon. Pour l'assister dans son aventure, viendront avec lui son fidèle serviteur Joseph Wilson, ainsi que son vieil ami Richard Kennedy, chasseur écossais. S'en suivront cinq semaines mouvementées à bord de l'aérostat conçu par le docteur Fergusson.
Je vais immédiatement commencer par dire que ce livre n'est pas du tout pour tout le monde. Il a été écrit en 1863, une époque totalement différente, et se passe en Afrique. Évidemment les descriptions des différents peuples que rencontrent le docteur Fergusson et ses compagnons sont extrêmement racistes et stéréotypées. Parfois ça m'a même écœurée. Mais Jules Verne a écrit ce livre à une autre époque, où on tenait pour vérité que les noirs étaient inférieurs aux blancs et que le continent africain était peuplé de sauvages stupides et cannibales. Donc ne lisez pas ce livre si vous ne voulez pas lire ce genre de choses, mais n'allez pas non plus boycotter Jules Verne parce qu'il appartient à une époque différente. De toute façon il est mort et ses livres sont libres de droit (et il reste un des pères fondateurs de la science-fiction).
Maintenant mon avis:
Le début était assez long, on a beaucoup de pages où le narrateur énumère des noms et où le docteur Fergusson décrit en détails le fonctionnement de son ballon. Une fois qu'ils sont en Afrique et dans les airs, ça va un peu plus vite et c'est déjà plus agréable à lire (malgré les moments racistes qui font grincer des dents). Jules Verne a vraiment un humour particulier qui m'a fait ricaner dans mon écharpe pendant mes trajets en métro.
C'était vraiment pas mon Jules Verne préféré parmi les quatre que j'ai lus (Voyage au centre de la terre, De la Terre à la Lune et Le château des Carpates étaient les trois autres) mais ça se lit bien. C'est Jules Verne, quoi.
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soracities · 6 months
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Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (trans. Richard Howard) [ID in ALT]
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andrumedus · 1 year
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I am the dagger and the scar. I am the slap, I am the cheek, I am the limbs, I am the rack, the convict, the executioner. I am the vampire of my own soul
Charles Baudelaire, tr. Aaron Poochigian, The Flowers of Evil, from “Spleen and the Ideal”; “Heautontimoroumenos”
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cy-lindric · 2 years
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Halt, Don Juan ; yesterday you gave your word that you would come dine with me.
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leer-reading-lire · 10 months
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JOMP Book Photo Challenge || May || 26 || Black & White
Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
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bluestangel · 1 year
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… and no one saw how my kisses found her, to whom I had given my life …
“Rosemonde” by Guillaume Apollinaire (tr. Greta Aart)
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