Words, words, words

A while ago I confessed in my blog that I prefer not to meet writers whose work I enjoy (Close encounters of the literary kind) - but today I have to add that it can be quite a pleasant experience when it happens the other way round. I recently met a charming American expatriate living in a neighbouring village - and then read her equally charming book, Words in a French Life (Lessons in Love and Language from the South of France).


Kristin Espinasse, who describes herself as 'a former desert rat from Phoenix', fell in love with the French language and with a Frenchman (in that order) and now has French children who correct her grammatical errors when she speaks 'their' language. (That's when they're not splitting their sides at the way she mispronounces some words.)


Of course I can identify with all of this - except for the desert rat bit - because my own children cannot, for the life of them, understand my daily struggle with the gender of French nouns. They know intuitively that 'question' is feminine (la question) and 'problem' masculine (le problème). So what is their mother's problem (masculine) with this gender business? That is the question (feminine).


But even readers without French partners, children or family-in-law would appreciate Espinasse's short and humorous 'lessons' in French living - each time built around a specific word. The book tackles these rather random but always useful words alphabetically. For instance, under d you would find words like déguster, dent and douche (savour, tooth and shower), clarified by three separate anecdotes about wine tasting, the tooth fairy and a catastrophic bathroom experience in a French hotel. Each chapter starts with a word (like goût), provides its English meaning and pronounciation (goo - noun, masculine - taste), tells a little story, and concludes with everyday or idiomatic expressions (such as prendre goût a quelque chose = to take a liking to something).

Great stuff, whether you want to polish your own French, learn a few basic words - or have no desire to speak French but simply enjoy reading about life in the slow lane of the French countryside. As many people apparently do, because this book is the result of an astonishingly successful blog, French-word-a-day.com, that Espinasse has been keeping for seven years. Consistently, at least three times a week, with the kind of enthusiam and self-discipline that more occasional bloggers like myself can only admire, never copy. She started it as a little newsletter about the trials and tribulations of settling in a foreign country and struggling with a foreign language - soon attracting thousands of dedicated followers - and eventually published some of these anecdotes in book form herself. Her popularity just kept growing, until finally she was approached by American publishers Simon & Schuster, which led to the publication of Words in a French Life, in 2007.

She must be an example to millions of bloggers. French-word-a-day.com has by now become much more than a hobby, rather an almost full-time occupation, a way of earning a living while working from home, and at the same time keeping in contact with Francophiles all over the world.

And, maybe most surprising of all, she's as entertaining and modest in real life as on the pages of her book, as I can testify after having enjoyed coffee with her twice. And that really impresses me.

One man's perversity...

Sometimes writing a blog feels a little like undressing in front of a one-way window. You don't know who's watching, so you have to pretend you're alone, otherwise you become all embarrassed.


That's why it's always great when readers react. Thanks to everyone who has been sending comments, suggesting must-read authors or books, or providing links to other sites. Sometimes friends or acquaintances prefer to send emails to my personal address, often in Afrikaans or French, rather than 'public statements' to this site. Fine with me, as long as we can keep talking, in whatever language, about books and bookish things.


Earlier this week, for instance, Karin from Stellenbosch sent a link to a New York Times piece about Jonathan Littell's novel, The Kindly Ones, finally on sale in English. Some of you might remember that in November last year I wrote about Littell and other authors who achieve literary glory in a second or even third language (Choosing the other tongue), and concluded that I'd rather wait for the English translation of Les Bienveillantes. Well, I still haven't read the translation (it has nearly a thousand pages, have mercy), but I did read what the New York Times had to say about the book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/books/04litt.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bub2

Since the link is available for only a few days, I'll sum it up for you. The narrator of this 'divisive French novel' (according to the caption) is 'a remorseless former Nazi SS officer, who in addition to taking part in the mass extermination of the Jews, commits incest with his sister, sodomizes himself with a sausage and most likely kills his mother and stepfather.' While some American and British critics are hailing the book as a masterpiece and its author as a genius, others are calling it perverse, pretensious, odious, disgusting and vile.


What fascinates me, is that I can't recall any French reviews - or any of my French friends who read the novel - going on about incest or sodomy-by-sausage or any other juicy bits of perversity. Surely there must have been differences of opinion over here too, but the mainstream reviews that I read were mostly ravingly positive. The book was also awarded France's most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, and as far as I know the jury of this prize is regarded as rather conservative.


Or is this just conservative by French standards?


I do remember my friend Pierre-Luc saying that it was hard to read the details of some of the atrocities commited by the SS, and that the narrator was not exactly a charming character, but I thought that was the whole point of the book. The former SS officer is, after all, unrepentant. Just a few nights ago I happened to watch a television documentary about the horrendous massacre of most of the inhabitants of an Italian village during the Second World War - and all the Nazi officers and soldiers involved, except one, refused to admit any guilt or remorse. They had simply been doing their duty, according to them. Just like Littell's fictional officer, I suppose.


Besides, many literary masterpieces have been called vile, disgusting, perverse and worse when they were first published. I don't yet know if I would find The Kindly Ones a masterpiece, but I do know that I am more curious than ever to read it. Meanwhile I'm wondering if French readers and reviewers are simply less easily shocked than those in England or the United States. Or perhaps one has become so used to 'perversity' in French literature that one doesn't notice it any more? Or perhaps the French concept of 'perversity' differs quite dramatically from the Anglo-Saxon one?


Or maybe this has nothing to do with nationalities. It might be just another example in a long list of books that have proven that one man's perversity is almost always another man's pleasure. So please let me know if you've read it - in whatever language - and whether you found it delightful, disturbing or disgusting.

Close encounters of the literary kind

I don't like meeting writers whose work I admire. Novelists in flesh and blood are nearly never as exciting as their words on paper would lead one to believe. Which figures, I suppose. If you were enjoying a really exciting life, you would hardly have the time to write exciting novels, would you?

My experience of famous novelists - rather limited, granted - has also taught me that they are rarely as likeable as their books. Less amusing, less entertaining, less intelligent even. I know Milan Kundera (whom I haven't met) said a novel should always be more intelligent than the author who wrote it. But still, I can't help feeling a little pang of disappointment each time the person doesn't quite measure up to my high expectations.

So maybe it's a good thing that I live in an unsophisticated village in the French campagne, rather than in a cosmopolitan city like Paris, London or New York where famous authors pass through all the time to promote their books and meet their readers. Here I have far less opportunity for disappointment, I tell myself. And yet, every once in a while a really famous writer ventures to the countryside of Provence - not to enjoy a glamorous holiday among fields of lavender, but to actually work. Not to write, either, but to perform that most difficult of all writers' tasks, the promotion tour. (I'm not being ironic; as a small-time writer myself I know how emotionally and physically exhausting these tours can be. Most authors would prefer the solitary daily struggle with words to the frantic 'socialising' with journalists and sycophants.)

Recently it was Salman Rushdie's turn to visit my intellectual outpost. Well, no, he didn't visit my village. He's not that desperate to sell books. I still had to drive for nearly two hours to see him in Aix-en-Provence, where he was the guest of honour at an annual book festival - which happened to coincide with a promotion tour for the French translation of his latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence. But he is one of the few living writers of whom I've read every single novel - some with enormous pleasure - except for his debut work, Grimus. I simply had to undertake that two-hour drive to meet the man behind the books.

Besides, meeting Rushdie will always have an almost mythical allure, due to the horrendous fatwa which forced him to live in hiding for so many years. He still seems to attract controversy, whatever he does, wherever he goes. When he received a knighthood from Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in 2007, a Pakistani government minister promptly declared that this knighthood justified the Islamic world's practise of suicide bombing.

My partner suggested that I take all my copies of Rushdie's novels along and request him to sign the whole lot. 'While you have the chance.' I was convinced he would refuse because it would take too much time - and even if he was kind enough to agree, his publisher or bookseller might be more bloody-minded. These people often insist that high-profile authors sign only their latest novel, or those bought at the event, to increase sales figures. Finally I stuffed about six novels in a bag - not enough to hold up a queue behind me for too long - and decided I would buy the latest novel at the book festival and, when asking him to sign it for me, casually mention that I've read all his others novels... and brought some of them along... right here in this bag under my arm... and would he mind...?

So there I was, travelling to Aix with mixed feelings, excited about the prospect of encountering such a controversial figure while mentally preparing myself for yet another disappointment.

It turned out to be a delightful day. It was fun watching a documentary film about Rushdie in the presence of Rushdie and his family, stimulating to hear him speak about his life and his work, fascinating to see his interaction with an enchanted French audience. He even spoke a little French to them. I also listened to the French translator of The Enchantress of Florence talking about the challenges of translating such a novel, and to a well-known French actor reading excerpts from the translation. I bumped - literally bumped - into Rushdie's young son and ex-wife in the cafeteria. Talk about close encounters.

But the highlight was when he signed my books. Yes, all of them. With a smile. Maybe he was just relieved to hear someone speaking English among all these French fans. But I was so ready for a refusal that I was rather flabbergasted when I met no resistance. Like shouldering open a supposedly stuck door and then landing on your face when it opens with the greatest of ease.

As a result I've had to adjust my harsh opinion of the aloofness of internationally famous writers. And since I'm living out here in the sticks, it will probably be quite a while before my next encounter with an author quite as famous as Salman Rushdie. So, for the time being, until the next disapointment, that is, I can say that I really don't mind meeting writers whose work I admire.