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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 217 of 243 22 July 2013 at 8:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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Original post deleted; edited to add:
Happily, my problem with Izneo downloads seems to have resolved itself. I'd started prepping an e-mail to them, looking up the spelling (accent) of words like "problèmes", the gender of "téléchargement", and phrases like "mis à jour la nouvelle application", but fortunately didn't have to use that information. But I'll leave this (presumably unrelated to my problem) article in The Digital Reader: http://tinyurl.com/k5wotke, in case anyone's interested in reading it. Edited by songlines on 23 July 2013 at 12:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 218 of 243 22 July 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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BDs on French politics:
Quai d'Orsay (two volumes) http://www.dargaud.com/quai-dorsay . link and Campagne Présidentielle http://www.dargaud.com/campagne-presidentielle . link I'm sure you'd get a lot more out of these BDs if you (unlike me) have some knowledge of the French political system and current affairs, but - if not - a quick visit to Wikipedia may be enough to bring you up to speed on the context and characters in these books. Quai d'Orsay (both of which volumes have won prizes, including the 2013 Prix d'Angoulême for the second volume), looks at life and work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Dominique de Villepin's tenure there as the Minister. (His character is called "Alexandre Taillard de Worms"). It's life as seen through the eyes and pen of "Arthur Vlaminck", a beleaguered rookie speechwriter. Lanzac and Blain bring an irreverent and gleefuly satirical perspective to the milieu. De Villepin's patrician air and elegant coiffure are, to be sure, easy enough to satirize; but Lanzac and Blain give us delightfully absurb sequences such as one in which TdW changes the buzz-words they have to incorporate into a speech: 
("Claude Maupas" is the blond chap; Vlaminck the young, dark-haired one; and ATdW is of course behind the desk) Or TdW, full of self-importance, chews out his secretary for providing insufficient supplies of yellow- highlighter; or another sequence in which Maupas (the Chief of Staff?) and Vlaminck have a demented brainstorming session on how they can adapt quotes from Heraclitus (TdW's favourite author, his book much underlined in yellow) to the European anchovy-fishing crisis. More pointed and less funny in real life, are the observations on the long working hours, cancelled vacations, mad scrambles at crisis control, and various politicial idiocies (and idiots). There's a delightful bit when TdW roars, "Who came up with this stupid idea?", only to be faced with somewhat smirking silence, because it was he himself who had earlier done so. Nevertheless, despite it all, Lanzac and his alter-ego Vlaminck manage to retain some of their original idealism. Vlaminck has the benefit of some remarkably intelligent and ultra-competent mentors (in particular "Claude Maupas" and "Stéphane Cahut") who work with and support him. Fellow-sufferers in the Ministry, they meet some of the same burdens with humour, restraint, and varying degrees of equanimity or exasperation. Here, faced with what seems to be drastic and wholesale changes to a speech destined to be delivered at the U.N. (about the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, here known as "Lousdem"), Cahut reaches a comical breaking point. 
Edited to add: I love the way Blain (illustrator) includes Cahut's gesture of whisking off his specs prior to doing the forehead- plant-on-desk. - A small but perfect touch! The body language in many of the illustrations in the two volumes is sooo good. Cahut tries to engage them in actual thought on a couple of key vocabulary item/concepts, to little avail... 
One can sometimes get jaded and cynical about politics (and bureaucracies in general) - the office politics and backstabbing; the petty - and grand - personal ambitions which drive people. But in many ways, I see Quai d'Orsay as an homage to people like Maupas and Cahut: bright, capable civil servants who are willing to toil in semi-obscurity and under thankless conditions, for the public good. And perhaps, when one's words are greeted with spontaneous applause in the UN General Assembly, and you're watching it unfold in the company of men you respect, it may all be worthwhile. Edited by songlines on 24 July 2013 at 4:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 219 of 243 22 July 2013 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A couple of online reviews/articles on [I[Quai d'Orsay:
Egeablog L'Express article Copy and paste, removing extra spaces inserted by the forum software, if the link breaks: http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/bd/le-scenariste-de-qua y-d-orsay-revele-son- identite_1216555.html -------- A quick snapshot from Campagne Presidentielle, which I'll post about later. 
Edited by songlines on 24 July 2013 at 4:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 220 of 243 24 July 2013 at 5:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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From the previous post, - The woman abstaining from voting:
"I'm not voting, but I know for whom I'm not voting!" - Cracks me up. And did you notice, in the last frame of "La devise/the motto", how Campagne Présidentielle quotes Quai d'Orsay? I love it when fictional (or, in the cases below, semi-fictional) characters make references to other books which I've read and enjoyed. Several of the BDs which I've been recently reading do this. Paul Rabagliati, in one of his "Paul" books, has a charming sequence about their mutual love of Tintin (and other BDs) as being one of the things which drew him and his wife together. - In fact, her knowledge of Hergé's oeuvre quite outstrips his; when quizzed about dialogue, characters, or obscure plot details from Tintin, she knows all the minutiae. Tintin also makes a couple of appearances in La Campagne Présidentielle. During a factory visit in the course of François Hollande's campaign, one of Sapin's characters (a journalist) reminds Sapin of Tintin au Pays des Soviets, specifically the scene when Tintin, reporting on a visit to a "model factory" in the Soviet Union, pushes open a door to find someone burning straw to generate smoke from the factory stacks, part of a fake show put on for foreign visitors. Also in Quai d'Orsay, TdW, exhorting his speechwriter Vlaminck to improve the narrative drive in his speeches, riffs on Tintin:
deft comic touches. 
(Apologies for the poor photo quality.) Edited by songlines on 24 July 2013 at 5:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 221 of 243 14 September 2013 at 8:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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Have recently caught Quai d'Orsay at
the Toronto Film Festival. Some of the details from the book have been changed (e.g. Arthur seems younger in the film, and his girlfriend is also quite different); and a number of elements and scenes which were in the BD have also been omitted. - But, by and large, it was an enjoyable adaptation. - In particular, Thierry Lhermitte (IMDB) seemed to throw himself into the role with notable relish. Didn't catch as many French-language films this year as last. Some years certain themes or countries seem to appear out of the 40 or so films in my selection, and of those, 2013 seemed to have a lot of films either from Israel or on Jewish themes, and also a significant number of films from Arabic-speaking countries. (Though tonight's most recent screening, from Morocco, had both French and Arabic.) Also saw a trio of strong Japanese-language films, with Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises being my favourite. Absolutely stunning animation/ artwork. Have still been pootling along with my French, with some weeks better than others. - Managing to keep up with regular-ish Français Facile podcasts and 7 Jours sur la planète programmes at least. On a technical Htlal note, my pro membership briefly lapsed, and - although I've now renewed it - I seem to have lost the thread "watch" feature - the link still appears, but no notifications of new posts in threads which I'm following arrive via e-mail. Edited by songlines on 14 September 2013 at 8:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 222 of 243 24 September 2013 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Summary from 21 July to 23 Sept, 2013:
Audio podcasts: 1, 235 mins. (20 hours, 35 mins.), from RFI, Le Service Protestant, Au Coeur du l'Histoire. Video podcasts: 379 mins. (6 hours, 19 mins.) from 7 Jours sur la Planète. Reading, books: 18 pages, from Un Lointain Miroir, by Barbara Tuchman. Reading, BDs: 11 BDs, 610 pages in total. Finished: Les Aventures de Tintin au Pays des Soviets Chinaman, Tome 1. Les Racines du Chaos Blake & Mortimer: L'Étrange Rendez-vous Les Sarcophages des 6ème Continent (Tomes 1 & 2) Le Sanctuaire du Gondwanda Le Serment des Cinq Lords Le Maledication des Trente Deniers (Tomes 1& 2) Edited to correct the arithmetic. Edited by songlines on 29 December 2013 at 7:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 223 of 243 24 September 2013 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Tried a couple of new series for BDs.
Les Racines du Chaos, set in the 1950s, is a two-volume series covering the former Yugoslavia. Alexander, the main protagonist, is shocked to learn that his mother, whom he had thought to be an entirely house-bound recluse, has been discovered, run over by a car, in a neighbourhood far from her care facility in London. Upon further investigating the circumstances surrounding her death, he stumbles upon unexpected secrets about her life which related to the fraught politics of their country of origin, and which throw his own life into danger and cause his to question what he knows of the past. "Chinaman", despite the entirely politically incorrect series title, looks like an interesting series. Set in the American West, it follows the adventures of a young Chinese immigrant who travels to America in the employ of, and bound by honour to, a triad leader who had taken him under his wing when his father had died. He is torn by conflicting loyalties - those to the leader, and that of his own conscience. The series, drawn by Olivier TaDuc (a Frenchman of Vietnamese ethnic origin), and scripted by Serge Le Tendre, gives a refreshingly different take on the usual "Wild West" narratives; one from a previously- neglected perspective. Edited by songlines on 24 September 2013 at 9:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 224 of 243 05 October 2013 at 7:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Back from a visit home to Vancouver, and finally making some headway with one of the books I bought
during my previous visit in December: Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century, or Un Lointain Miroir. There's lots of fascinating historical detail in the book, and Tuchman's writing is excellent. I'm not entirely sure the same can be said of the translated version: I found one egregious slip ("three days" of rioting is translated as "three years"!); and there have been a number of instances when small details or entire paragraphs have been omitted entirely. Granted, the omissions weren't crucial, but they were grace notes which enriched the text. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the book. My notebook pages are gradually filling up with "medieval" vocabulary, such as that related to the feudal system, medieval warfare, etc. And I'm finding out a lot more about the political, military, economic, and social history of the period. Some of it's quite harrowing (e.g. accounts of the persecutions of Jews), but there are also many lighter passages. Here, for example, a section on childhood: French translation:
English original:
I loved the bit on "doll carriages harnessed to mice"! Edited by songlines on 05 October 2013 at 7:59am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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