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/lit/ - Literature

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10899494 No.10899494 [Reply] [Original]

What are essential French works?

Going on holiday there for 5 weeks and I want to immerse myself in French literary culture for a couple of months prior

>> No.10900619

>>10899494
Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo
Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire (poetry)
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal
Le Comte de Monte Christo and Les Trois Mousquetaires, Alexandre Dumas
Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant
Candide, Voltaire
Voyage au Bout de la Nuit, Céline
Germinal, Emile Zola (I hated it, but it's a French classic)
Le Père Goriot, Honoré de Balzac (probably the most overrated French writer)
A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, Marcel Proust (extremely long book !)
Les Fables, Jean de la Fontaine (don't read if you have read Aesop)
Some Molière if you like theatre (Dom Juan is his most famous work, but imo none of his plays really stand out, they are all good)
Le Cid, Corneille

>> No.10900893

>>10900619
>Corneille and not Racine
>Balzac being overrated
>not recommanding Les illusions Perdues instead of Goriot
But other than that, pretty fair list. It lacks of XXth century novels though.
Some colonial stuff
>Un barrage contre le pacifique drom Marguerite Duras
A little scifi too
>Ravage, from Barjavel
And some WWII for good mesure
>La place de l'étoile, from Modiano

>> No.10900980

>>10899494
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon

>> No.10900991

>>10900619
Which would you recommend for someone who is learning french?

>> No.10900998

>>10900991
tintin and asterix

>> No.10900999

>>10900991
Alexandre Dumas is not too difficult from what I remember, but its kinda dates French. I'd go with the classics from Camus, like La Peste and L'étranger

>> No.10901139

>>10900991
Alphonse Daudet, Letters from my windmill, is absolutely lovely and not hard at all. Short stories about peasants and such from the heart of the Provence

>> No.10901303

>>10900991
>Which would you recommend for someone who is learning french?
None if your level is insufficient, all of them if your level is sufficient.
You could try something short, like Un Coeur Simple (Flaubert), Boule de Suif (Maupassant) or Claude Gueux (Hugo), to see if your level in French is enough.
Otherwise, try reading something easier, like Jules Verne, L'Etranger, or even children's books (or some "bandes dessinées").
If you have a kindle, you have a quicker access to definitions and translations, it might help you.

>> No.10901372

>>10900991
Les Petit Prince est accessible et court si tu cherche quelque chose de simple.

>> No.10901390

>>10900991
a workbook
petit nicolas
harry potter or something
houellebecq

depending on your level

>> No.10902543

>>10899494
I just finished a happy death by Albert Camus, it was fucking wonderful and whimsical and the allegories to the sun were the best fucking part. And it's enlightening. So, read either that or the L'entranger.

>> No.10902951

>>10900619
Pretty decent list but I would add:
Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
J'irais cracher sur vos tombes, Boris Vian
Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Chauteaubriand
Essai, Montaigne
De L'esprit et des lois, Montesquieu
Discours de la servitude volontaire, La Boétie
Dialogues des bêtes, Colette
Paradoxe sur le comédien, Diderot

>> No.10902963

>>10902951
>>10900619
Why can't you just post the title in English?

>> No.10902990

>>10902963
because muh authenticity.

>> No.10903013

>>10902543
Just curious but why did you write The Stranger in French like an absolute faggot, but not A Happy Death? Seriously, you guys need to fuck off with this. Writing the title of a French book in French does not make you cool, it makes you a faggot because it is also The Stranger. The most entry level fucking book there is.

>> No.10903023
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10903023

>>10902963
Because OP asked for french litterature

>> No.10903027

>>10903023
He asked for it in English though, you dumb pretentious fuck.

>> No.10903048
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10903048

>>10903027
J'ose m'enorgueillir de présomption à l'effet que vous auriez du sable dans le vagin.

>> No.10903142

I read a bit of Balzac and almost died of boredom, is he worth persistence?

>> No.10903160

>>10899494
jean genet

>> No.10903209

>>10903142
nah, everything he did Flaubert did it better

>> No.10903232

>no one has mentioned Une Saison en Enfer

>> No.10903235

Les Chants de Maldoror.

>> No.10903242

>>10903232
Because people under 18 aren't allowed on this board.

>> No.10903244

>>10903232
He said "good"

>> No.10904787
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10904787

>>10899494

>> No.10904794
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10904794

>>10900893
>modiano
>>10903242
>>10903244
Rimbaud is bad

>> No.10904806
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10904806

>>10899494
picture triggered me so i'll just say i fucking hate this book store so fucking much. literally inferior to any barnes and noble, and you don't have to sniff the back of every disgusting frenchmen in Paris while you struggle through its tunneling interior, hoping not to knock over vast swaths of dense and senselessly arranged books. fuck memespeare and company.

>> No.10904810

>>10904806
>caring about a tourist trap / hipster den

>> No.10904815

>>10904810
>caring about me caring about a tourist trap / hipster den
very impressive