/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2429769]

So I'm a pretty entry level French fag, I just started learning about two years ago and I'm at about a french 4 or 5 level. I've been working through textbooks for the grammar shit and watching french movies now and then to immerse myself and shit. Just finished reading LPP, didn't find it incredibly taxing but it definitely took some work. Where do I go from here? No textbook will be able to help me from here on out, so can you guys recommend me some easy-to-read french books that are slightly more difficult than LPP?

Here's a chubby for your consideration.

[Anonymous No.2429784]

The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, all of them by Camus.

In Search of Lost Time by Proust.

[Sebastian Lyons !tEapFcFYdE No.2429805]

bump

[Anonymous No.2429814]

>>2429805
Don't bump, read the books he recommended then you can bump

[Sebastian Lyons !tEapFcFYdE No.2429849]

>>2429814

I have, but that is beside the point, French literature never gets discussed on /lit/. Who said you make the rules or should be so presumptuous anyway?

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2429867]

Frenchfag here if by LPP you mean "Le petit prince"?
Maybe I misunderstood your post but if you are looking for easy french stuff to read you should not go with Camus at first.
Camus is one of my favorite but from LPP to the plague there's a huge step.
The guy who suggested In Search of Lost Time by Proust is a fucking moron, even french people find it incredibly hard to read. Tell me about your tastes in lit and i'll definitely give you some advice. Will monitor the thread for awhile.

[Sebastian Lyons !tEapFcFYdE No.2429880]

The great thing about Camus is that if you really need to you can read his - quite accurately translated - books in English first. Which I found was a great way of expanding on my existing French, as you are not struggling with the plot so much, you pick up the vocabulary that goes along with the plot and pace you are already aware of.

[Anonymous No.2429945]

Marcel pagnol.

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2429986]

NOOOO! Pagnol, seriously?
Okay officially dumping worth reading french lit that is easy to read.

Micromégas -Voltaire ( short philosophical story )
Huis-Clos -Sartre ( existentialist short play )
Les Catilinaires -Nothomb ( very cool story, mainstream )
L'élégance du Hérisson -Barbery ( incredible )
L'Automne à Pékin -Boris Vian ( absurd, funny as hell better than catch-22)
Fables -La Fontaine ( classic you must read it if you like french )

IF your level improves reading those books, then you can aim god-tier french lit.

Les fleurs du mal -Baudelaire ( epic poetry, wow! )
Le procès Verbal -Le clézio
Le discours de la méthode -Descartes
Pensées -Pascal
La nausée -Sartre
Essais -Montaigne
Anything wrote by hugo, balzac,zola even though i find them overrated.
Some other authors ( Rabelais, chateaubriand , Alain Robbe-Grillet, Ronsard, Moliere, Racine )
Voila, ignore les autres posts. My shit is way better, crois moi!

[Anonymous No.2429994]

>>2429986
Why is Les Fleur du Mals above Boris Vian in difficulty? In fact, above most of those?

I can't remember any poems that were particularly difficult. Might be diferent editions or something tho.

[Anonymous No.2429997]

I wish I stuck with French. I stopped caring after the second year of French because my teacher was a bitch. OP did you teach yourself or did you go through the schooling system?

[Anonymous No.2430018]

>>2429986
Not OP, but I'm in a similar situation. Merci.

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2430025]

>>2429994

If you read it in English it doesn't seem difficult because the translation slaughters the text plain and simple. French & English poetry just don't work the same way.
If you read it in French and found it simpler you just missed a lot of tropes, schemes etc..
A good comparison is Shakespeare's poems. Imagine reading them without understanding iambic pentameters for example, the text would not be that great right? Well in french poetry there is no strict equivalent of iambic penta so when i see french people reading Shakespear in french and commenting on the "musicality" of the text i laugh my ass off because they just cannot get it and they repeat dumbly what others say.
Boris vian's books are more based on characters and story so translation doesn't kill off the soul of the texts.

[Anonymous No.2430110]

>>2429867

OP here, what the fuck is with all these fags claiming to be me? Anyway, I'm really into mythology/fables and shit like that, so anything like that would be amazing. Theater is also intriguing, and I love sci-fi but I fear the Verne's writing would be to taxonomically in depth for me to translate with purpose and productivity, if you get what I'm saying.

[Anonymous No.2430120]

>>2429997
Self taught, worked through textbooks for the grammar learned vocab with quizlet till I got good enough to watch movies with shoddy comprehension, then I decided to read Le Petit Prince and now I'm here. Only took two years to get here and I was working at this less than two or three hours a week.

[Anonymous No.2430131]

>>2430120
I was going to download Rosetta Stone and do that whole thing. Surprisingly I never heard of quizlet so I will use that for now. Thanks.

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2430188]

For OP:
Théatre:
Huis-clos -sartre
Les fourberies de Scapin -molière
Fables:
Les Fables -la fontaine
Mythologie:
Les métamorphoses -Ovide ( this is not french lit but if you want to read french and like mythology you'll jizz in your pants reading this. Be sure to buy a "simple" edition ( for students ) of this given that the original text is loooong

And you ought to try jules Vernes, I remember reading all his books when i was little; He is one of the authors that made me love literature so I am forever indebted to him for that.

[Anonymous No.2430240]

>>2430188
And I forever indebted to you, thank you so much!

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2430295]

to >>2430120 and anyone who wants to learn a language:

Took me less than 2 years to learn English, how? I am Glad you ask->
Watched every fucking movie in english, at first with english subs in order to establish a link between gibberish i was hearing and the actual words, then without. ( subtitles in your 1st language is not a good idea )
Idem with tv shows ( all seasons of the wire, sopranos, prison break, the office, big bang theory etc.. )
Then i started reading. Sherlock Holmes stories were my first books. Very hard indeed, but the massive amount of vocabulary i acquired made the horrifying experience of searching every fucking word on the dictionary worth it.
At that point, i could understand English natives and converse fluently with them.
I tried to rap Eminem's songs to improve my diction, worked like a charm. It even allowed me to understand iambic pentameters thus a lot of shakespear's writings. Yep, thanks to the rhythm of "amityville" ( eminem )
People, you have to expose yourselves to the culture of the country you want to learn the language. Do not embarrass yourselves with vocab books & shit like that. Pick a book, watch a movie and take notes. The journey is hard but so interesting!
Sry for the bad writing, but how could i improve that? By writing more, hence my presence on lit and my attempts at inking my thoughts on the notebooks i bought.

There is only one rule: Do NOT give up. Don't be a faggot ^^

All of that just to say: don't try to estimate the height of the cliff you're standing on, just jump. ( into french that is, cuz if you live near a cliff i would feel bad )

[Anonymous No.2430611]

>>2430295
Thanks a lot man. I wanted to read French for years and now with that advice I think I will try tomorrow since I have nearly the complete filmography of Godard already.

[Anonymous No.2430618]

more of the girl?

[Anonymous No.2430628]

>>2430295
>Idem with tv shows ( all seasons of the wire, sopranos, prison break, the office, big bang theory etc.. )

any shows in french you'd recommend for doing the opposite?

and shit man, the wire? i'm a native english speaker, and i have to use subs whenever it's the street gangs talking.

[Anonymous No.2430735]

>>2430628
This. What is a good show to watch in French?

[Anonymous No.2430749]

OP should go ahead and get some of those English-French dual-language short story anthologies where there's 1 page in the original French and the other page is an English translation. They certainly helped me.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/French-Stories-Dual-Language-Wallace-Fowlie/dp/0486264432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8
&qid=1330064866&sr=8-1

I've also seen a similar version of Fleurs du Mal around. Much recommended.

[Anonymous No.2430768]

>>2430749
To add to that one I found one for Rimbaud
http://www.amazon.com/Rimbaud-Complete-Selected-Letters-Bilingual/dp/0226719774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&a
mp;qid=1330065637&sr=8-1

[Anonymous No.2430781]

I'm not sure how difficult he is to read in French but what about Patrick Modiano?

You could do what this guy >>2429880 suggested, find a good english translation, familiarise yourself then try the originals.

My mum (who is native French) is writing a book on his works for university, i decided to read some of his translated work and Rue Des Boutiques Obscures (or Missing Person) is pretty cash.

[The Internet !!3gXLsG3WAvU No.2430809]

Very surprised to not see

>tumblr_0500.jpg

in the file name

[| Olivier, c'est Moi! | No.2430937]

French tv shows, now I am fucked! 90% of what airs in France are American/British shows and as for the other 10 percents they are utter crap. I really cannot emphasize the word crap enough.
Nevertheless, scarcely, a jewel shines buried deep into the shitty amount of what French tv producers come up with.
Kaamelott ( fucking hilarious this one is...wow )
Caméra café ( same this to die for )
H ( Yep, that's the name )
Culture Pub ( Short documentaries that analyze adds, really interesting)
Zone interdite ( news-magazine )
But seriously apart that you should just switch to your American shows with French audio track, plain and simple.
French cinéma: Now we are talking,
Godard ( le mépris, A bout de souffle, Bande à part etc...)
Truffaut ( Les 400 coups, jules et jim, etc..)
Chris marker ( La jetée )
Alain Resnais, Cocteau and then some..There are plenty of other "classics" wikipedia is your friend.
For more recent stuff ( because not everybody likes old dusty stuff ) I strongly recommend:
La haine , Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le dîner de cons, Un prophète, Tais toi!, Mesrine : L'Instinct de mort and Mesrine : L'Ennemi public n° 1, L'Arnacœur, L'auberge espagnole, La cité de la peur, La Môme, Dobermann, La tour Montparnasse infernale, Ne le dis a personne, Entre les murs OSS 117 ( 1 et 2 ), Des hommes et des dieuxCarlos, Indigènes
I forgot about newspapers and stuff, that is important because if you watch a bunch of movies, read a lot, you're going to be exhausted. A newspaper allows you to continue practicing a language without diving head first into a long read.
Le monde ( THE french stuff to read ) L'équipe ( for the sports geeks ) Courrier international ( this one is great, analyzes the shit out of the world we live in ) Charlie hebdo ( satirical ) Canard enchainé ( satirical )

[Anonymous No.2430941]

>>2430937
Merci, Monsieur!