The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Un roi sans divertissement [A King Without Distraction]. The title comes from a quote by Pascal and is the last sentence of the book. This was Giono’s first book published after World War II, when he had been imprisoned for both pacifism (at the beginning) and … Read more
Every year at around this time, publishers in France and francophone Belgium issue a large of numbers of books in all genres, including those originally written in French and those translated from other languages into French. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, to get them into place and into the shops for the Christmas … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Que ma joie demeure (Joy of Man’s Desiring). This is an unusual book for Giono, as it flirts with fantasy. It is set, as usual, in a farming community in an unnamed region of central France. The region has been affected by a general malaise, making … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Julien Gracq‘s Un balcon en forêt (A Balcony in the Forest). This novel was based on Gracq’s own experiences in World War II and tells of Grange, a young lieutenant, put in charge of a bunker by the River Meuse, near the Belgian border, to stop advancing German … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Le Chant du monde (The Song of the World). This is another superb novel from Giono, something of a Western but with a very French flavour. Sailor, a man of the forest, calls on his friend, Antonio, a man of the river, to help him find … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Julien Gracq‘s Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore). This is is considered Gracq’s best novel, though clearly is related to Dino Buzzati‘s Il deserto dei Tartari (The Tartar Steppe). Like the Buzzati, our hero goes to the remote outpost of a fading empire, which borders a mysterious … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Pierre Senges‘ Fragments de Lichtenberg (Fragments of Lichtenberg) . This is another glorious post-modern romp, this time taking as it starting point the relatively unknown German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Lichtenberg left behind a collection of what he called Sudelbücher in German, which translates as, approximately, scrap books … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Pierre Senges‘ La réfutation majeure (The Major Refutation). This is a brilliant pastiche, allegedly the French version of a sixteenth century work by the very real Franciscan monk Antonio de Guevara. No manuscript of this work has been found and, even if it did exist, it is not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Le Grand Troupeau (To the Slaughterhouse). This is Jean Giono’s World War I novel, telling of the horrors of that war. We follow both the fate of those left behind (but near the front), older men and women in this novel, as well as their loved … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Julien Gracq‘s Au château d’Argol (The Castle of Argol). This was Gracq’s first novel and was rejected by Gallimard, no doubt because it is somewhat overwrought. It tells of a rich, noble scion buying, sight unseen, a remote castle in Brittany, to which he invites Herminien, his best … Read more