bookshelves: spring-2013, tbr-busting-2013, translation, e-book, gutenberg-project, france, published-1887, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, families, filthy-lucre, re-visit-2014, re-read, summer-2014

Revisit via BBC BABT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ccdql

Description: Guy de Maupassant's compelling short novel, abridged in 4 parts by Penny Leicester, follows family rivalries in the seaport of Le Havre.

1/4. On a fishing trip all is happy with the Roland clan. Then returning home, a revelation..

2/4 The Marechal Will causes ructions between the brothers, then a second revelation surfaces.

3/4 Jean is happy of course, but Pierre burns with rage. So a confrontation is due.

4/4 The two brothers must take action to avoid a family showdown.

Reader Carl Prekopp
Producer Duncan Minshull.





Nutty NUUT read

Translator: Clara Bell

Opening: "Tschah!" exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remained motionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, while now and again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea.

Mme. Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Mme. Rosemilly, who had been invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head to look at her husband, said:

"Well, well! Gerome."

And the old fellow replied in a fury:

"They do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only men should ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it is too late."

From wiki: It appeared in three instalments in the Nouvelle Revue and then in volume form in 1888, together with the essay “Le Roman” [“The Novel”]. Pierre et Jean is a realist work, notably so by the subjects on which it treats, including knowledge of one's heredity (whether one is a legitimate son or a bastard), the bourgeoisie, and the problems stemming from money.

Powerful story for it being so short.



#65 TBR Busting 2013

bookshelves: translation, sweden, france, paper-read, one-penny-wonder, nonfiction, published-2001, spring-2013, midlife-crisis, under-500-ratings, autobiography-memoir, gardening, history

Description: 'In the same way as there's a partner for every person, there's a place. All you have to do is find the one that's yours among the billions that belong to someone else, you have to be awake, you have to choose.'

With this conviction in mind, acclaimed Swedish writer Bodil Malmsten abandons her native country at the age of fifty-five and settles in Brittany.

At the heart of this memoir is the conviction that the happiness to be found in Finistère will not allow itself to be, cannot be, expressed in writing. Embroidered around this seeming paradox are poignant, outraged and thought-provoking observations on the widest range of subjects: how not to buy plants, the elicit pleasures of bargain-hunting, the misery of writer's block, social democracy, racism, tulipomania, the stubbornness of bank managers, the controlling of moles and slugs, death, political hypocrisy, the delights of wild weather.

Malmsten's passion and humour shine through every episode she describes, however minor, offering the reader a window onto a solitary life at once touching, thought-provoking and, occasionally, hilarious.

Translated by Frank Perry.

Dedication: To my editor, Andrea Belloli

Opening: I'm in my garden in Finistère filling out change of address cards. It's an afternoon at the beginning of September 2000, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning bouy like an owl.

Finistère is the region furthest west in Brittany.

Self indulgent and at times a full-steam rant. High 2* rounded up.

bookshelves: under-500-ratings, translation, published-1987, medieval5c-16c, nonfiction, paper-read, history, spring-2013

Opening: The Viking Age is shot through with the spirit of adventure. For 300 years, from just before AD800 until well into the eleventh century, Scandinavians from the modern countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden played a decisive role in many parts of Europe.

the noun vik means 'bay' in English. So to go a-viking meant skulking in and out of bays (once the open sea voyage was over, natch)

It's got to be done:

clickerty click on the kitty

Lots of facts not necessarily displayed to best advantage and the utilitarian style got the job done. Yet where was the zest?