The latest addition to my website is Jacques Roubaud‘s L’Enlèvement d’Hortense (Hortense is Abducted). One of the minor pleasures in reading novels is finding commonalities between different novels. The last two novels I have read are both by French authors but they are very different novels, yet both feature a main character called Hortense (a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Katherine Pancol‘s Les Yeux jaunes des crocodiles (The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles). I have been hesitating about reading this book but, on my recent holiday in France, it seemed somehow appropriate, not least because Pancol’s latest book, Muchachas 3 was in every book shop I visited and, though … Read more
Last year we spent an enjoyable few days in Provence, so we headed back this year. This was more of an artistic trip than a literary one. Before going, we watched one of my favourite actors, Richard E Grant, giving an interesting introduction to the various artists who lived and worked on the Côte d’Azur. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Danièle Sallenave‘s La vie fantôme (Phantom Life). This is the story of a conventional love affair. He (Pierre) is married, with two children, and works as a school teacher in the school where he himself was taught. She (Laure) is single and a librarian. The affair has been … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean-Luc Seigle‘s En vieillissant les hommes pleurent [Men Cry As They Get Older]. It is set primarily in July 1961 and concerns the Chassaing family – Albert, a working class man who works for Michelin but who still feels the shame of the surrender of the French army … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vincent Message‘s Les Veilleurs [The Watchmen]. Oscar Waldo Andreas Nexus is a loner, living in the fictitious town of Regson. One day, he casually shoots three people, apparently selected at random, and then proceeds to lie down on the bodies, showing no resistance when the police arrive. As … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes [You Should Love Men a Lot]. This book has not yet been translated into English but almost certainly will be. It tells the story of Solange, whom we met in her previous book Clèves (All the Way). She is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Tom est mort (Tom is Dead). This is (fictitious) tale of a woman whose four-and-a-half year old son dies in an accident – we are not given the details till the end of the book – and what happens to her afterwards. She is writing ten … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Le Mal de mer (UK: Breathing Underwater; US: Undercurrents). This is something of a strange book, with virtually no direct conversation in it and not a great deal of plot. It tells of an unnamed mother who walks out on her husband, taking their unnamed daughter … Read more