French Authors with easy styles

[JBI]

I'm looking for French texts to read in the original, and my language skills are not very good, so I was wondering if anyone has any idea of any books, in any genre pretty much, that aren't too difficult in terms of language - I've already read Le Petit Prince, so one can refrain from recommending it, despite its obvious fulfillment of the criteria.


Thanks in advance - I would like books that really have some sort of status, whether as children's books within a French canon, or as merely good, easy reading - texts from Quebec and France, as well as elsewhere if the dialect isn't too thick would be excellent - thanks in advance -

JBI

[thomas212]

The more classic the language is the easier it will be for you.
You also need a strong plot to make it interesting.

Maupassant -Le horla is a novela, fantastic.A bit in the line of Lovecraft.excellent.

Balzac-Peau de chagrin also fantastic and short.Could be compared to Dorian Gray.

Those two are among my favorite short stories in French.

[Frankie Anne]

I like to dabble in French a bit. I have a little book I like entitled "Six Contes Choisis" by Maupassant. The stories are very short. I think Maupassant would be a good choice. I also have a little book by Balzac "Le Cure de Tours."

[crystalmoonshin]

La Fontaine's fables. I have this book "Introductory French Reader" and it includes "Le chene et le roseau", "La cigale et la fourmi", "Le corbeau et le renard", "Les animaux malades de la peste" and "Les deux pigeons". Easy reads and a nice way to build up one's French vocabulary when it comes to animals.

[amarna]

The Asterix and Obelix series, by Toutatis!

[kiki1982]

Dumas is good if you like historic fiction or intrigue.

I was crap at French, and he did a lot of good. :p Once you have got into it and acquired a certain vocabulary (for example what évanouir means), h does not go out of that. And his sentence construction is not as creative as Hugo's.

Maybe you could also try something more modern. Amélie Nothomb seems quite popular, but not liked by everyone...

There are also Perrault's fairytales, but you'll have to be very creative as to the spelling of words... But otherwise there are always more updated versions... The same goes for Les Fables de la Fontaine.

Molière is not that hard and certainly short, if you canot keep you head with it.

I have never read Le Petit Prince, but they used to read that as the first book in that language, so it can't be that hard.

Anyway... How is Leroux, because I'd like to read that once... (hisPhantom...). This is the time to ask.

[My name is red]

One of my french teachers recommend me Anna Gavalda's books.She said its language is simple and clean.I haven't read yet so i don't know if she is right.But i think,you should give it a try

[crystalmoonshin]

If you want to read a French novel, you might want to try George Sand's "Francois le Champi". (I have the Livre Poche version and it explains words employed by Sand.)

[Frankie Anne]

Oh, the fable book sounds interesting. I'll be looking for a copy of that for myself. :)

[mayneverhave]

I've heard Camus's The Stranger (L'Etranger) is not difficult in French. Having read it in English, I can believe this.

[JBI]

La Fontaine's fables. I have this book "Introductory French Reader" and it includes "Le chene et le roseau", "La cigale et la fourmi", "Le corbeau et le renard", "Les animaux malades de la peste" and "Les deux pigeons". Easy reads and a nice way to build up one's French vocabulary when it comes to animals.

Is his language a little archaic though - I remember reading him in English, and finding him a little bit old-fashion, and my knowledge of French isn't that great, so I'm not at all sure how the language has really changed over time, as I haven't really read texts from many eras - is the older language very different, like English, or has the language remained rather static, like in Italian?

[kelby_lake]

Les Enfents Terribles by Jean Cocteau. And it's short!

[kiki1982]

@JBI:

I don't think it is impossible to understand. The only thing that does strike is that they used to use passé simple (the equivlent of the subjonctif présent in the past, different to the imparfait (past simple)). For some verbs it is different like for être (fût), but as soon as you have consulted a grammar book or just your ability to understand in context, that problem is over and you get used to it. Most of the verbs have a form similar to the imparfait-form anyway, so that is not really a problem.

For the rest, there are a few chanegs in spelling. For example the accent circonflexe (do you write it like that?) used to be written as 's' after a vowel. You might just encounter chasteau instead of château. But as soon as you get used to it...

Molière is not comparable to Shakespeare, I don't think. It is not so hard to understand.

If you are unsure about things like Perrault and de la Fontaine, just google them. There are bound to be entire texts on the internet. I read La Ligue des Rats of LaFontaine a while ago and didn't think that it was that hard...

[jinjang]

In my hands, I have

Le Mur and Les Mots by Jean-Paul Sartre,
Les Choses by Georges Perec,
Terre des Hommes by Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
La Peste by Camus,
Le Petit Nicolas by Sempé-Goscinny.

You may look up each book Online and see if you would like any.

[kratsayra]

I've heard Camus's The Stranger (L'Etranger) is not difficult in French. Having read it in English, I can believe this.

When I was in high school, we read pretty much only Camus, Sartre, and Ionesco in my French classes. I'm pretty sure it was because my teacher figured those would be the easiest for us to read. And indeed, I didn't have very much trouble reading them. Unfortunately, this didn't lead to me having a very good background in French lit.

But if you are up for some absurdity or some existentialism, you probably won't have much trouble with those authors.

I still do love Sartre's Huis clos (No Exit) and Les mouches (The Flies). In a way, plays can be easier to read also.

Ionesco's La leçon (The Lesson) really amused my morbid sense of humor as a teenager. I'm not sure what I'd think about it now, but I loved it back then.

You also might try reading bilingual editions of things, if you can trust yourself not to cheat too much. ;) That way, if you start feeling too lost, you can check in briefly with the English version. It's also a good way to learn new words, without continually hauling out the dictionary.

Unfortunately, I don't know that much about what good bilingual editions of things there are. The only thing I know is Aimé Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land), which is really quite difficult. So i wouldn't recommend it unless you expect to be consulting that English side a lot.

Anyway, I love this thread, because I've just started a plan to read more French classics.

Oh yeah, Jacques Prévert's poetry is very accessible. I know he's like "the" French poet or whatever. But we read his Paroles in a graduate level French class, so he's not totally a joke either.

[mayneverhave]

When I was in high school, we read pretty much only Camus, Sartre, and Ionesco in my French classes. I'm pretty sure it was because my teacher figured those would be the easiest for us to read. And indeed, I didn't have very much trouble reading them. Unfortunately, this didn't lead to me having a very good background in French lit.

But if you are up for some absurdity or some existentialism, you probably won't have much trouble with those authors.

I only recommended Camus because I had assumed he would serve as an easy French text to understand in the original - I don't care if the work's themes would be too difficult or if the reader even enjoys it. I myself was huge on Camus at one point, but my tastes have changed.

As for providing a background into French lit, I'm sure JBI does not exactly require that, only good practice texts in French.

[kratsayra]

I only recommended Camus because I had assumed he would serve as an easy French text to understand in the original - I don't care if the work's themes would be too difficult or if the reader even enjoys it. I myself was huge on Camus at one point, but my tastes have changed.

As for providing a background into French lit, I'm sure JBI does not exactly require that, only good practice texts in French.

Certainly. I agree with you. I was just suggesting, for my own recommendations, that if he doesn't like existentialism or the absurd, he wouldn't like my recommendations much. even if they are in fairly easy to read French.

and I was only commenting on my own knowledge of and background in French lit. I think it was kind of silly my French teacher had us only read that stuff. I had her for three years, and that was all we read, ever. she never delved into other stuff. but it's true those authors have an easy style. looking back though, I think it's kind of funny.

[mona amon]

I've already read Le Petit Prince, so one can refrain from recommending it, despite its obvious fulfillment of the criteria. - JBI

How about Vol de Nuit and Terre des Hommes by the same author? I've read the latter only in an english translation, but we had Vol de Nuit as a textbook in school. I liked both very much.

[Gustavo L.]

we had Vol de Nuit as a textbook in school. I liked both very much.

I second that. Great book.

I'd also suggest the play Ondine by Jean Giraudoux. It was the first book I read in French.

Le Livre du Graal (edited by Gallimard) is an annotated bilingual edition (medieval and modern French) of the complete Arthurian Vulgate Cycle. The modern French text is very easy.

[kiki1982]

I second Le petit Nicolas! So funny.
That was the only book I enjoyed in my school years French, actually.

[MANICHAEAN]

Try "Pere Goriot" by Honore de Balzac. Its a nice easy flowing style. Another alternative is " Les Nourritures Terrestres" The Fruits of the Earth by Andre Gide.
Its so easy nowdays to download from the internet in both French & English if you get stuck.
Courage mon brave!

[Madame X]

Maupassant is an excellent suggestion. Sure, he's a bit of an old-schooler but the language is highly accessible and he's astonishingly concise, for a Frenchman. ;) A random excerpt from Le horla:

Je hâtai le pas, inquiet d’être seul dans ce bois, apeuré sans raison, stupidement, par la profonde solitude. Tout à coup, il me sembla que j’étais suivi, qu’on marchait sur mes talons, tout près, à me toucher.

You'll hardly break a sweat on it.

[Whifflingpin]

The Arsene Lupin stories are somewhere between "children's books within a French canon" and "merely good, easy reading" Sort of equivalent standing to Sherlock Holmes.

[lupe]

"Les mots etrangers" or anything else by Vasilis Alexakis. His books are easy to read, very pleasant and though-provoking. The French AND the Greek versions are the originals.

[Pecksie]

One of my french teachers recommend me Anna Gavalda's books.She said its language is simple and clean.I haven't read yet so i don't know if she is right.But i think,you should give it a try

Her books are easy, all right... but light and vapid. I tried two (which were very cheap on Amazon) and they're the typical, overhyped light fare.

A wonderful French novel which shouldn't be too easy to read is Simone de Beauvoir's 'All Men are Mortal'. It's about twenty years since I first read it, and I still love it...

[crystalmoonshin]

Is his language a little archaic though - I remember reading him in English, and finding him a little bit old-fashion, and my knowledge of French isn't that great, so I'm not at all sure how the language has really changed over time, as I haven't really read texts from many eras - is the older language very different, like English, or has the language remained rather static, like in Italian?

Oops, I checked out the book in our library and his fables are written in the form of poetry... The ones I read were in prose... Must have been edited out to facilitate reading. My bad. :blush:

[kiki1982]

Yes, they are written in poetry, but they're not that hard...

Here is a link, with certain expressions explained in French...

http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/fables.htm

[crystalmoonshin]

Thanks for the link, Kiki. :)

[kiki1982]

No problem, Cristalmoonshin(e).

The French are great, they put everything on the internet and well too!

[JoBourne]

Or ... following Amarne's suggestion ... can you get hold of bandes dessinées?
Great way to enjoy French.

Glance at
http://www.bdtheque.com/
(see the boutique to buy)

[kiki1982]

Yes, that's a good suggestion.

I started readig Asterix. Tintin is also good, but you need to be into politics and so...

There are further a lot of other orignally Frenchspeaking series of comic strips.

[stacey1981]

@JBI:

I don't think it is impossible to understand. The only thing that does strike is that they used to use passé simple (the equivlent of the subjonctif présent in the past, different to the imparfait (past simple)). For some verbs it is different like for être (fût), but as soon as you have consulted a grammar book or just your ability to understand in context, that problem is over and you get used to it. Most of the verbs have a form similar to the imparfait-form anyway, so that is not really a problem.


this is not true. passe simple is a literary tense that functions the same grammatically as passe compose (it is "simple" because it does not have an auxilary verb; passe compose is composed of an auxiliary and a past participle). it is not at all related to the subjonctif. it is used in conjuction with imparfait like passe compose is in spoken language.

for example:
il pleuvait et tout à coup, je tombai is the exact same as il pleuvait et tout à coup, je suis tombée.

[kiki1982]

Oh, my God! Thank you for pointing that out! :eek: They told me wrongly in school then about the passé simple/Imparfait. Unbelievable, and that in a parly Frenchspeaking country.

What I was thinking at the 'subjonctif présent'-bit is a riddle to me. I must have been sleeping...