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Must-read literature of modern French | ||
Tags: Literature | French | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Patriciaa Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5676 days ago 59 posts - 73 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese | Message 33 of 53 16 December 2009 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
To continue with Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt's works, I liked reading Oscar et la dame rose, which is a touching book about a child with cancer and his relashionship with god. I mean, this may sound like a cheesy book but it's not. There's a lot of style in the writing, very enjoyable. But I must say I found his Lorsque j'étais une œuvre d'art plainly weird and pointless. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5784 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 34 of 53 18 December 2009 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found in "Lorsque j'étais une œuvre d'art" a lot of satire on "showmans" and the idea that the beauty must be intetior rather than phisical appearence. It's not original, but i rather like the book
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| Patriciaa Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5676 days ago 59 posts - 73 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese | Message 35 of 53 21 December 2009 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, I may take back the "pointless", I must say that the story behind it was somehow interesting and it carries a
good moral message but the whole was so weird that I couldn't almost bear it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nadia Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5505 days ago 50 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Hindi | Message 36 of 53 22 December 2009 at 11:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I enjoy reading books by Anna Gavalda because her language is modern, easy and it's all about dialogues not pages of description. I'm now reading "L'echappee belle" which my friend sent me and I've already read "Ensemble, c'est tout."
Other more or less modern writers whose books I like include: Robert Merle -- and his book "La mort est mon metier"/"Death Is My Trade" (1952), which is a fictionalized biography of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the concentration camp Auschwitz. Here's the summary from Wikipedia: "The story begins in 1913, when Lang is 13 years old. His parents give him a harsh catholic education, to which he reacts badly. His unstable father, with whom the young Lang has an awkward relationship, wants him to become a priest. At the age of fifteen, Lang starts a military career which leads in 1943 to the post of commandant of Auschwitz. At first a concentration camp, later an extermination camp, the camp, near town of Auschwitz, was the site of the “slow and clumsy creation of a death factory”. Lang works hard to achieve his mission: to kill as many Jews as possible, disposing of the bodies as efficiently as possible.[1]" Antoine de Saint-Exupery and his "Le Petit Prince"/"The Little Prince." It's considered to be a children's book but I actually disagree with this notion. It's an amazing book but not every child can understand and appreciate it, because it's a very deep book which tells about love and death in an allegorical form. Herve Bazin -- "Vipere au poing". This book is set in the middle of the 20th century, if I'm not mistaken. In a very ironic key, it portrays the life of an aristocratic but impoverished family. Amelie Nothomb who has been mentioned here is also a very good read -- easy, modern and accessible. Guillaume Musso is another modern writer. I read his "Seras-tu la" and it was a very gripping read, a page-turner with a fantastic twist in its plot, just all right for my level of French. I've also got a book by Marc Levy but I'm yet to read it. And among the classics my favourites are Dumas-pere, Jules Verne, and Guy de Maupassant. As for the others, some of them I haven't yet read, like Hugo, Balsac, and Zola, the others, like Flaubert and Stendhal, I'd like re-read and see if I will like them better on closer aquaintance. Edited by nadia on 22 December 2009 at 11:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| michamotor Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5431 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: German*, Czech, French, English Studies: Hungarian | Message 37 of 53 04 January 2010 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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For Beginners in reading French, I would recommend "Le petit Nicolas", ther are several books and it´s a rather easy language, but it´s so funny and advanced learners will enjoy it too.
Francoise Sagan: "Bonjour Tristesse" and others are very good books, the stories are always about affairs, but if you read two of them it will become boring. Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "Le petit prince", of course, and "Vol de nuit" are both about flying, but not only about flying. Jean Cocteau: "Les enfants terribles" is a fascinating and mysterious story about two children who live without parents Edited by michamotor on 04 January 2010 at 9:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julien71 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 5363 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Hungarian | Message 38 of 53 14 March 2010 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd recommend a recent book published in 2009: Ocean's Songs by Olivier de Kersauson. That's a book in French contrary to what the title might suggest and rather for those of you who have an advanced level in French.
http://www.amazon.fr/Oceans-Songs-1DVD-Olivier-Kersauson/dp/ 2749115132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268595640&sr=8-1 Olivier de Kersauson is a famous French sailor and sailing champion. I found the book very interesting as I love oceans in general and original because he's telling his maritime geography by doing the portrait of different seas and oceans as you would do the portrait of women. He's sometimes writing about oceans and harbors as a poet, making you dream you're virtually sailing with him. If you're interested, here is a video in French of Kersauson at a talk show in France where he speaks about his book and two reviewers give their opinions on it: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa0b69_kersauson-vs-naullea u-zemmour_news Edited by Julien71 on 15 March 2010 at 5:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LLF Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5571 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* | Message 39 of 53 16 April 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maurice Druon - Les Rois Maudits
A series of 7 historical novels about the intrigues of the Capetien kings in the early 1300s. Very well written and extremely gripping but occasionally challenging French so not for the beginner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6656 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 40 of 53 17 April 2010 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||
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The Prix Goncourt is a good indicator of good literature (comparable to the Booker Prize).
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