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NANA by Emile ZOLA

Back to XIXth litterature. Among French Novelists: BALZAC, STENDHAL, GONCOURT, FLAUBERT, MAUPASSANT ... ZOLA is the author I know the most, and one of my favorite author.

What you've to know about Zola:
- he liked science and studies how genetic and environnement act on people
- he imagined one family : Les Rougon-Macquart, doomed by crazy and alchoolic ancestors so each book focuses on someone of the Family.
- he made very serious research about everything he wrote , and studied every class of society.

These may seem quite boring, very scientific and so far away from litterature BUT the great miracle about Zola book is the perfect mix between art and science : his description are true and full of symbols and poetry in the same time. His characters give us a good vision about 19th century people and also about fallen heroes and some eternal image of human beings.
There is a quote I really love, I ll try to translate it : " j' ai le souci du detail vrai, le saut dans les étoiles sur le tremplin de l' observation exacte. "
" I care about true details : look exactly makes me jump to the stars"

Furthermore, Zola wrote a lot about women, and I like Zola heroins. Nana is the story about a woman who use men and is used by them.. classic. Read it and then we ll talk about it !

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DERNIERE BANDE by Beckett
(Krapp's Last Tape)
Written in english for the british radio, then translated in French to become a play fo one character.
(Beckett also chose to write directly in french, but not for this one.)
I saw it on stage, it's quite short but very impressive: only one charater, and a tape he's listenning, with rewind and fast forward times... so it's almost become a dialog between 2 parts of the same man !

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The Player, by F. DOSTOEIVSKI

Well, to be honest, I chose this one because it's on af the shorter Dostoievski's books!
I don't have the time to read one of his master pieces yet .. do you have read one ?
I felt quite surprised by the realistic way to describe feelings, and relationships he had in this short novel, but I confess I know this author very badly ..

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ROMEO & JULIET by Shakespeare

I won't introduce this book ^^ but I had the occasion to study some scenes with my pupils, and I really discover the beauty of Shakespeare words again.

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LA PORTE CONDAMNEE by JULIO CORTAZAR ( La puerta condenada, means a door kept closen)

I chose this book to study with my pupils. A short story with some mystery " unresolved" ...Petrone listen every night a child crying, and yet he' s said that there is no child around... I can't say more !

Cortazar was a litterature teacher from Argentina. He translated in Spanish a lot of famous French and English authors. He belongs to these authors who escape from South American Dictatorship and set in Europe. His novels are often full of mysteries who keeps the reader waiting and wondering. I also found a sort of pessimistic description of reality, so nude, but at last so true and not so sad at all.
( I am reading again my last sentence, and I find it hardly understandable : well I wanted to say that I liked his way to describe reality, despite it may seem a pessimistic point of view. )

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MARIE ANTOINETTE by Stefan Zweig.

Zweig wrote Novels and Biographies. I always feel amazed by Marie Antoinette, and it's one of the Best Biography I ve read about her. Zweig had found a lot of documents, and his analysis really tries to understand the characters of these trouble times.
We discover a heroine as in Novels , but also a woman we can better understand behind the myth built by History and Revolution.

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LE JOUEUR D' ECHECS by Stefan Zweig ( Chess Story/ The Royal game.

I studied this book to graduate high school, so I read it a long time ago, but I keep a very strong memory of it.

During a travel, the narrator meets an incredibly chess player, who manage to defeat the world champions...but during a game, this player refuses to play, because he feel his madness coming back.
Listening to the chess player story, the narrator will discover why this man is so good at playing chess, and yet, why he can't take the risk to play anymore...
A very short novel, who shows how mind and thoughts can be strong and fragile.