Bastille Day (July 14th) Reading Poll

[Scheherazade]

Please nominate a book by a French author

for

our

Bastille Day (July 14th) Reading

by June 30th.


As always, only the first 10 nominations will be included in the poll.




***Some information on the books***

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Whatever by Michel Houellebecq

Nausea by Sartre

The Wall (Intimacy) by Sartre

The Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

Stranger by Camus

The Ice People by Rene Barjavel

Madame Bovary by Flaubert

***This poll will be closed on July 7***

Book Club Procedures

[Virgil]

Oh I would love to participate, but I'm swamped with backlogged reading. Some day I will read Stendahl's, The Red and the Black. But until then...

[papayahed]

Can it be set in France or does it have to be a french author?

[Quark]

Stendhal is an good suggestion, but maybe The Charterhouse of Parma instead of The Red and The Black. Perhaps, a novel with a more moving plot would be better than an incisive satire of Restoration France. While I like The Red and The Black for its psychological bent, the story sometimes sacrifices pages that could be spent furthering the story or deepening the characters on clever jabs at the, then, contemporary French Society. Many of the references and societal criticisms are lost on a twenty-first century audience; and, while this problem may be unavoidable in realist literature, we probably should choose a novel less committed to the time period.

Other suggestion might be Zola or Balzac--Pere Goriot and Germinal in particular.

[Virgil]

I've read The Charterhouse of Parma and enjoyed it. I did not know The Red and the Black was a slower movng novel. I just know it is the more famous of the two.

[Quark]

Why didn't you suggest the novel that you enjoyed rather than one you've never read?

[Virgil]

Why didn't you suggest the novel that you enjoyed rather than one you've never read?

I've been meaning to read The Red and the Black. It's on my book shelf just sitting there waiting for me.

[Quark]

Well, forget what I've been writing anyway because my vote doesn't count according to the rules. I just wanted to take part in one of the book club discussions. I've been peering in periodically at the discussions like someone looking at a fun party from behind a sheet of glass. I just thought I would enter the room once and feel important.

[Virgil]

Well, forget what I've been writing anyway because my vote doesn't count according to the rules. I just wanted to take part in one of the book club discussions. I've been peering in periodically at the discussions like someone looking at a fun party from behind a sheet of glass. I just thought I would enter the room once and feel important.

Why doesn't your vote count? I think you need 50 posts and you will have that in a few minutes.

[Quark]

I know I'm dangerously close to being relevent

[Virgil]

I know I'm dangerously close to being relevent

Well, if you reply to this you will be.

[Quark]

Consider this my touchdown dance

[Scheherazade]

Can it be set in France or does it have to be a french author?

A French author, please... Just to add some variety

Quark>Glad you have decided to join us Nominations are limited to one per member so would you like to pick one of the books you mentioned in your earlier posts?

I would like to nominate The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I know it is listed as children's book but I hear it can be read/interpreted in different ways as well (and also it is a quick read! ).

[NickAdams]

I would like to nominate Samuel Beckett, but would you consider him a French author? If not: I would nominate Sartre; I would like to read his short story or play collection.

[hastalavictoria]

Albert Camus is amazing. I've read The Stranger...(aka The Outsider...depending on translation) and I LOVE it.
Either that or The Plague or The Fall, which I have not read, well I read the begining of The Plague, but got caught up in other things and couldn't finish it. But it was fantastic as well.

Anyway...I want to read something by Camus, if I have not already made that apparent...