May / France Reading Poll

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Originally Posted by Dori

An excellent book, in my opinion. :)

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One of the best :p

I would like to nominate Sartre's Wall.

If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to take my nomination back. There were a lot of other good nominations, so I don't feel The Empire of Darkness by Christian Jacq has to be included. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Niamh

Asked the french guy in work to recommend a book so i could nominate it. So this is it. not sure if its been done lately.
Candide by Voltaire

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I bought this book last week, so this could have my vote! :)

Looks like i made the right choice for a change!:p

I would like to nominate "Ninety Three" by Victor Hugo.

We have got the 10 nominations we need. Thanks, all! :)

1. Papillon by Henri Charriere

2. Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne

3. Ninety Three by Victor Hugo

4. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

5. Candide by Voltaire

6. The Red and the Black by Stendhal

7. A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant

8. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais

9. The Lover by Margurite Duras

10. Wall by Sartre

Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Originally Posted by bazarov

Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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I might have voted for that one.

Emile Zola's Germinal (or wait, do I want to nominate Nana).

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Originally Posted by NickAdams

I might have voted for that one.

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Yeah me too..too bad it's too late.

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Originally Posted by bazarov

Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Originally Posted by NickAdams

I might have voted for that one.

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Originally Posted by manolia

Yeah me too..too bad it's too late.

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Yes, I would have voted for it as well. Better yet, I would have nominated it myself if it hadn't already been previously read in this book club.

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=2430

yes but that was back in 2004, and there is a two year exempt period so it would possibly have been allowed...

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Originally Posted by bazarov

Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Originally Posted by JBI

Emile Zola's Germinal (or wait, do I want to nominate Nana).

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We have already got the 10 nominations we need so unless someone withdraws their nominations, yours will not be included in the poll.

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Originally Posted by Niamh

yes but that was back in 2004, and there is a two year exempt period so it would possibly have been allowed...

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

We have already got the 10 nominations we need so unless someone withdraws their nominations, yours will not be included in the poll.

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Very well then. Would it be alright if I withdrew my nomination (Five Weeks in a Balloon ~ Jules Verne) and replaced it with bazarov's nomination (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame ~ Hugo)? :)

Who cares, aren't we all voting for Gargantua and Pantagruel anyways?

A little publicity:

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Originally Posted by Guterberg Project's edition introduction

Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would
ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands outside other things--a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good
sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him. He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain.

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Gargantua and Pantagruel is probably the most fundamental work of French literature, an equivalent to Shakespeare plays in English, Don Quixote in Spanish or The Divine Comedy in Italian, but it also stands as one of the most fundamental works of world literature.

If you do not believe me at how great this work is, then vote for it and you'll see for yourself!