Mourning Diary
Of all of the forms of memoir that I read, I feel particularly drawn towards the diary. There’s something about reading the immediate thoughts of the writer as they live through and work through the moment.
French
Books written by French authors. Usually written in French.
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The Fire Within
He has been institutionalized and addicted to drugs for quite some time, and he feels that he is on the verge of losing his looks and his status as he continues to fail to meet expectations.
The Mad and the Bad
You know just enough about the characters — no more, no less. You are provided with just enough background information. It keeps the story tight and moves things along in ways that longer works often struggle with. Perhaps if you look closely you can see the traces of a formula, but it is applied so skillfully that it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment or impact of the narrative.
Blood Dark
In a novel that occurs in single day, it can be ironically difficult to mark time and to create atmosphere. There are often limits to setting to consider, as well as how to convey the sense of hours passing without it seeming chaotic or creating too much stress in the reader experience. Guilloux is a master of atmosphere and space.
The Flanders Road
After reading it, I don’t think I’ll be reading much — or any — more of Simon’s work, but at the same time that didn’t render this novel a complete waste of time.
The Misanthrope, The Miser, and Other Plays
Molière was a seventeenth-century playwright and I have seen readers approach him with a comparable trepidation to which I’ve seen when high school students approach Shakespeare for the first time.
French Decadent Tales
I saw the Oxford World’s Classics French Decadent Tales sitting on my local independent bookstore’s shelf and I got so excited. French Decadence was a movement that did so much to further the form of the short story in general, but it also has all of those dark stories to tell at twilight that I can’t get enough of.
A Very Easy Death
What constitutes an easy death? Or a difficult one? Though her mother’s death was considered ‘easy’ by doctors, it still involved pain, suffering, and turmoil.
The Blood of Others
I think it’s obvious by this discussion alone that this is an incredibly complex concept to even touch on, let alone explore in depth, but de Beauvoir does just that in a way that is accessible to the reader and tied to the driving plot. If you’re interested in the mechanics of building conceptual narratives into concrete storylines, this novel is definitely a must-read.
Bel-Ami
A critique of journalism and the complex politics and corruption present in the newspaper industry in Paris at the turn of the last century, this is a review of Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-Ami.