#aaah i remember when i had like 100? followers and there were so many anons!

[zenyye]

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[janiedean]

Hi! I'l french, I don't really have many things tl add because you said quite a lot and also a lot of things were ruined by school (like madame bovary, I have no idea if it's good or not, I just know I hated it and couldn't understand why it was that iconic, I guess there is a reason lol), but I got excited seeing you talking about it so I will just comment for a bit haha

I love maupassant! It was something about his writing that even when I didn't care about the story I still had a good moment reading it (I don't know how it translates into english or other languages though, which is true for any writing)

Zola I only read (besides J'accuse; side note but if someonewant understand a bit more some stuff about france history they should for sure look into l'affaire dreyfus and the following events :) ) Germinal, which was so long and I didn't finish it but it's one of those book I would like to read again now.

Also yes for jules verne ! And I really need to read the compte of montecristo

I'm really curious about how poems are translated and understood. When we're kids we often study 'Il pleure dans mon cœur' (Paul Verlaine) which literally means it's raining in my heart, but you loose the rhyme. Fun fact I remember when the teacher told us that verlaine and rimbaud had a relationship (paul verlaine was much older...) that ended badly and we started to read all their poems as if they were about that that the teacher had to put a stop because not everything is about that 😂

For the 20th century, there is a bunch of things that maybe aren't for everyone (quite peculiar?) but are worth to know, like ionesco in theater. There is also boris vian (20th century), I don't know if he's translated but there is L'arrache-coeur, L'herbe rouge or L'écume des jours (the last 2 are maybe more accessible?).

There is a lot more but I really don't know enough about literature 😭

Also for anyone interested... There is a very controversial author. Rightfully: he was a collabo during ww2 and he has books about escaping after the end lf the war etc it's... yeah. Don't read these books. But there is one that he wrote before that is really well known. It's really weird to read because of who he was but also because it's hard to understand how he became that after writing this. And he was a really good writer (more than a good person :/). It's like semi autobiographic (not really) and talks about the soldier experience in the ww1 and then the society in the post war in the 20, the colionalism, the industrial society... Really interesting but it's a lot.

hello anon! first of all thanks for the contribution ;) and going in order

haha dw I GET YOU ON THINGS BEING RUINED BY SCHOOL I have that problem with a few as well T_T maupassant translates decently enough in italian tho idk for english but I can confirm that dkslg and yes I should have specified to read j'accuse which is pretty damned great so thanks for mentioning it!

how poems are translated and understood.

eh like... the thing is that I know enough french to like, if I read the translation and then read the original I can get the meaning/I can get by with it so I'm not too bothered if they don't keep the rhymes/translate trying to keep the meaning but there's a reason why I'm in 100% awe of people who can translate poetry I could never /o\ from what I recall with verlaine/rimbaud/baudelaire most people do that while trying to maintain a musical rhythm and all the ones I saw where they tried to save the rhyming were... not 100% of the time good but yeah I feel that

For the 20th century, there is a bunch of things that maybe aren't for everyone (quite peculiar?) but are worth to know, like ionesco in theater. There is also boris vian (20th century), I don't know if he's translated but there is L'arrache-coeur, L'herbe rouge or L'écume des jours (the last 2 are maybe more accessible?).

AAAH thanks for mentioning ionesco I KNEW I was forgetting someone but I do quite like his theater! and fdklgjdlkjsdlkj FUCK I forgot boris vian wrote books too - I mean in italian there are some translated but let's say one of the parents is very much into vian so they have all of his stuff in french (I'm partial to the songs admittedly, I haven't tried the novels yet but le deserteur in my heart xD), I have absolutely no idea if he's translated into english though but thanks for mentioning him!

uuuuh is perchance the last you mentioned celine's journey to the end of the night? because hahahahah I never read it exactly because of what you said but at some point I think I should give at least that one a go out of like IT'S IMPORTANT I SHOULD READ IT but yeah the man's background doesn't really push you to try his stuff out :/