Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds and Other Stories, a collection of more or less gothic short stories, ending with a story about a dysfunctional family who live by the lake and turn out in the last sentence to be a family of swans. Like, literal swans. Is this cheating? I can’t decide. Certainly it changes how one views the narrator’s decision not to tell the police that the father probably killed the son, since the police would quite rightly point out that they are not here to police the homicidal tendencies of swans.

Also Colette’s Claudine at School, translated by Antonia White. I originally meant to read all four of the Claudine novels, but after barely limping past the finish line of this first one, I decided that life was too short. Claudine is just so mean! She doesn’t have any friends, doesn’t like anyone, sees the ulterior motive in every action that anyone undertakes, and mercilessly bullied a girl who has a crush on her because the girl’s older sister (one of the assistant teachers) threw Claudine over to get with the headmistress. This book was a sensation in fin de siecle Paris and I don’t understand why.

What I’m Reading Now

Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World, a collection of essays. I've long meant to go back and read some of Vowell’s earlier work, and these essays are a delightful peek at that long-vanished world of the 1990s. An essay about the art of the mix tape! What a blast from the past.

The essays have a more controlled and serious tone than some of Vowell’s longer history books, which I love but feel were sometimes marred by Vowell’s pop culture digressions or current-day political screeds.

It looks like Vowell hasn’t published any books since 2015. I wonder what she’s been up to?

What I Plan to Read Next

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but littlerhymes and I are planning to meet up in Paris in mid-June. We thought it would be fun to read a book together in person, but we are not quite sure what to read, so I thought I’d ask for suggestions.

We’re looking for something France or Paris themed; a translation from French would be fun, but we’d also be happy with an English language book set in Paris. Most of our buddy reads are children’s books, and we’re looking for something on the shorter side, since we’ll only be in Paris a week and we want plenty of time to sightsee.

I’ve already vetoed The Little Prince because I’ve read it in two languages and didn’t enjoy it in either.

Comments

[coffeeandink]

I remember the Claudine books getting better as they go along, but they're still not as good as just about anything else by Colette.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I might give Colette a rest for a bit and then swing back around with one of her other books.

[asakiyume]

Actually SWANS! does raise some questions. Are they not aware that they're swans? Have they had much luck interacting with humans in other capacities. Seems like a cute zing that lasts for a whole two seconds before you start going, But wait...

Re: a buddy read, did Alexandre Dumas have a short-story collection? Because something short by him sounds like guaranteed fun.

[osprey_archer]

So the conceit of the story is that a guy is telling you (a person that he has buttonholed, like the Ancient Mariner at the wedding) about this family that lives by the lake, and presumably you, in the story, are looking at the swans as he speaks and therefore know all along that the family by the lake is a swan family.

The swans are quite unaware that any story is being told about them, let alone that this strange human has been watching them so intently that he can share the soap opera of their lives with random passersby.

I'll have to look into the Alexandre Dumas option. He's always fun if we can find something of a reasonable length.

[asakiyume]

So the conceit of the story is that a guy is telling you (a person that he has buttonholed, like the Ancient Mariner at the wedding) about this family that lives by the lake --Got it, got it! That makes it more plausible and kind of funny.

[conuly]

A significant portion of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit takes place in Paris, and I just re-read it so it's on my mind

[osprey_archer]

Oh gosh, I think a Holocaust book is a bit of a downer for vacation, to be honest. But thank you!

[conuly]

Yeah, it's actually not. The author and her family had the good timing to get out of Germany before the fateful election, and then they proceeded to leave Paris long before it was invaded.

[rachelmanija]

Eloise in Paris!

[osprey_archer]

I do love Eloise!

[landofnowhere]

Madeline (and sequels)?

[lokifan]

Oh, seconding this - lovely!

[osprey_archer]

Madeline is a classic!

[cyphomandra]

Ooh, Paris! I was last there in a very dismal November but June should be great. Elaine Dundy’s The Dud Avocado is an American in Paris in the 1950s, and it’s such a great voice. Otherwise, hmm, Madeleine and Anatole for children’s books, but when I start thinking of adult lit I end up unhelpfully thinking of bricks like Les Mis or Count of Monte Cristo. The Phantom of the Opera is shorter?

I read Claudine at School after loving Antonia White’s Frost in May and liked it more than you did but lost interest rapidly in the sequels.

[osprey_archer]

The Dud Avocado is a great title. And Americans in Paris in the 1950s reminds me of Giovanni's Room, although that's perhaps rather grim for a vacation read.

French writers do love their bricks. Or else they are Emile Zola, whose books are shorter, but also perhaps a bit more grim than you'd want for a vacation read!

[anna_wing]

Edmund White The Flaneur
Adam Gopnik Paris To The Moon
The Three Musketeers

[osprey_archer]

I love Paris to the Moon! He has a children's book set in Paris too, which might work...

I love Alexandre Dumas too, but The Three Musketeers is too long for a one-week trip with ambitious sight-seeing plans. Maybe I'll see if he has any shorter options, though.

[luzula]

Like, literal swans. Is this cheating? I can’t decide. Certainly it changes how one views the narrator’s decision not to tell the police that the father probably killed the son, since the police would quite rightly point out that they are not here to police the homicidal tendencies of swans.
What? Is this an alternate universe where swans regularly do consider telling the human police about crimes? Or does swan society have its own policing arrangements?

Fannish meetings in Paris: I can recommend them! I had a lovely one there with garonne.

[osprey_archer]

No, no, the narrator of the story is a human, who has been watching this swan family for months and has now buttonholed you, the random passerby, to hear the tale of the swans. He doesn't mention they're swans because presumably he is telling this story to someone who is looking at the swans as he speaks. The swans are just wandering around doing normal swan things.

[luzula]

Ah, I see!

[profiterole_reads]

Lunar New Love by Ophelia Silk (nb/nb, contemporary Paris)
The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin (nb/nb, 1820s Paris)

[osprey_archer]

We've never done a buddy read of a romance novel before, but there's a first time for everything.

[vcmw]

If a play might be pleasant, Cyrano de Bergerac is quite readable (not all plays are good on the page, but I think Cyrano is).

[msilverstar]

IMNSHO, Cyrano is OTT Romantic, which is ameliorated by good acting.

[osprey_archer]

Do you know, the only Cyrano de Bergerac I've ever experienced is the Wishbone version. Might be time to correct this!

[skygiants]

I've only read the Christopher Fry translation but I LOVED it.

[blotthis]

THE HOUSE IN PARIS THE HOUSE IN PARIS THE HOUSE IN PARIS

[blotthis]

this isn't an easy book by any measure--cheating, suicide, death, & emotional abuse are all major themes, and it's also got period-typical English and French upper class antisemetic flavors (although somewhat complicated by the events of the book, definitely still there, and it Tastes Bad Man), so i wouldnt blame you both if you didnt want to read it for a vacation read, but it's absolutely one of the best books i read last year. it and vilette, probably. bowen's own irish-british background makes her such a good observer of how people's cultural environments create boundaries seen and unseen, and her prose is second to none. the two children in it are among the best children i've read in fiction in my life; the first section alone is, to me, worth the price of admission.

[osprey_archer]

Any book mentioned in the same sentence as Villette is worth a look! What a fantastic book. I love Lucy Snowe so much.

[blotthis]

I LOVE LUCY!!!!! she's got so many PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!

house in paris is a very different book, but one could connect them in terms of English women navigate becoming adults with Frenchmen, shit is, in many ways, Fucked Up. ghosts TECHNICALLY aren't there but the book's haunted anyway

[osprey_archer]

Lucy is past master at shooting herself in the foot and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and I love her for it. Fail human, let me hug you! (Lucy disdains my hugs.)