In "The Escape" by Joseph Kessel (in the French Stories book), his protagonist notes the types of people who are incarcerated along with him at a detention camp in France during World War II. There's room for everyone:
"Room for foreigners. For traffikers. For Freemasons. For Kabyles. For those who were opposed to the Legion. For Jews. For refractory peasants. For vagrants. For former convicts. For political suspects. For those whose intents were suspect...." The list goes on. But I had never heard of Kabyles, and so I paused.
They are a Berber-speaking ethnic group from Algeria. Wiki tells me that for "historical and economic reasons", a lot of Kabyle folks moved to France, and it sounds like, according to Kessel, they were persecuted along with so many other groups in the 30s and 40s. After several Google searches I can't find more information about the Kabyle movement to France. Very curious!
Wednesday 5 February 2014
Completed: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
I finished this book long ago - well before Christmas. I just have not written. And I find I don't miss it when I'm not writing, but as soon as I start to write, I realize that I did, in fact, somehow miss it, and that there is something liberating about writing.
The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories was well worth the read, cover to cover. You've already heard about it once, but I have a bit more to add now that I've gotten through the whole book.
The first thing that went throughout the text, through the various time periods that flowed through each of the stories (which could have gone on for another 400 or so pages, if I'd had my way!), was that the short stories in this book were full of political commentary. They touched on topics including government, war, the prison system, morality, art. Political fiction is not normally an appealing genre to me, but each of these stories was enjoyable in its own way.
One story, The Torture of Hope by Villiers do L'Isle-Adam, was particularly poignant in this regard, but the title completely spoiled it for me. It falls into the modern category of "Spoiler Alert!" - the title betrays what is coming, and the denouement of the story was shattered because the progression was clear before I even started. It was my only disappointment within the book, and that's difficult to write, because, without the title, it was a fabulous story. If I gave it to you with no title on it, you'd be on the edge of your seat. But my seat fell through on me. The original Spoiler!
I've been through two more books since I finished this book, I'll add them here at some point in the near, or not so near, future!
Title: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
Editors: Belle Becker and Robert N. Linscott
Published: 1945
Pages: 427
Total books blogged: 13
Total pages: 4572
The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories was well worth the read, cover to cover. You've already heard about it once, but I have a bit more to add now that I've gotten through the whole book.
The first thing that went throughout the text, through the various time periods that flowed through each of the stories (which could have gone on for another 400 or so pages, if I'd had my way!), was that the short stories in this book were full of political commentary. They touched on topics including government, war, the prison system, morality, art. Political fiction is not normally an appealing genre to me, but each of these stories was enjoyable in its own way.
One story, The Torture of Hope by Villiers do L'Isle-Adam, was particularly poignant in this regard, but the title completely spoiled it for me. It falls into the modern category of "Spoiler Alert!" - the title betrays what is coming, and the denouement of the story was shattered because the progression was clear before I even started. It was my only disappointment within the book, and that's difficult to write, because, without the title, it was a fabulous story. If I gave it to you with no title on it, you'd be on the edge of your seat. But my seat fell through on me. The original Spoiler!
I've been through two more books since I finished this book, I'll add them here at some point in the near, or not so near, future!
Title: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
Editors: Belle Becker and Robert N. Linscott
Published: 1945
Pages: 427
Total books blogged: 13
Total pages: 4572
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)