No, I didn't read these stories in the original French, though isn't it comforting to know that I could have, if French was a language I understood? One of the great things about reading a dual-language book - it feels like you're flying through the pages. After I finished it and started the next one, I was distressed to have to read the even-numbered pages again. C'est la vie.Some of the stories here were quite excellent, others were a bit puzzling. Here are some one-liner reviews:
"Micromegas", Voltaire - Pithy jabs at 18th century bigwigs couched in a science-fiction-esque vignette.
"The Atheist's Mass", Honore de Balzac - A surprisingly moving story of a young medical student and the sacrificial love shown him by his working class roommate.
"The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler", Gustave Flaubert - Psycho-sexual revisioning of the life of a Medieval saint who inadvertently kills his parents. If only it weren't so well-written...
"Spleen of Paris", Charles Baudelaire - Three semi-related prose poems, supposed to depict in moving tones the plight of the Paris poor, I think... This one didn't really stick with me.
"Minuet", Guy de Maupassant - Another prose poem lamenting the lost art of dancing. Snooze.
"Death of Judas", Paul Claudel - Fascinating monologue where Judas recounts what led him to his end, mixed with modern references.
"The Return of the Prodigal Son", Andre Gide - Revision/expansion of the end of Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, where the father is God, the mother is Mary, the brother is the Pope, the home is the Catholic Church, and the prodigal's younger brother is the next generation that will finally succeed in breaking free. Blech.
"Grand-Lebrun", Francois Mauriac - Shapeless autobiographical reminiscences with no real memorable pictures or occurrences. Yawn fest.
"The Passer-through-Walls", Marcel Ayme - Brilliant merger of the modern "humdrum, lonely workaday existence" story and science-fiction/fantasy. Quite funny.
"The Guest", Albert Camus - Tightly constructed tale of an Algerian Frenchman unwillingly deputized to deliver an Arab criminal to the nearby city.
Arbitrary rating - 3.5 out of 5 tricolor flags
No comments:
Post a Comment