Clotilde Dusoulier has a posting on Emile Zola's Belly of Paris: Le Ventre de Paris which is about life in Les Halles market in the late 1850s. I didn't realize Zola wrote a whole cycle of novels about two families; this is the third novel in his twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. I took it out of the library and started reading it (in English, not French) and she is right that it is written "in Zola's style of intricate and lavish descriptions." We might say it has too much description but that is good if one is reading it to get a feel for the period and the city. One of Clotilde's favorite passages is a description of "the preparation of blood sausage in the charcuterie's kitchen", so maybe Fernando should read it too.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Books and Bookstores
Every blog leads you to another blog and so I came across a guide to "Lo-Fi Paris", which appears to be a compilation of Parisian locations that the blogger, an Asian living in London, particularly enjoys. The accompanying photos are of variable quality but she has a section on the Marais and also mentions La Maison Rustique, a bookstore specializing in gardening books, and La Librairie Gourmande, specializing in gastronomy books. And a librarian can never pass up a bookstore.
Clotilde Dusoulier has a posting on Emile Zola's Belly of Paris: Le Ventre de Paris which is about life in Les Halles market in the late 1850s. I didn't realize Zola wrote a whole cycle of novels about two families; this is the third novel in his twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. I took it out of the library and started reading it (in English, not French) and she is right that it is written "in Zola's style of intricate and lavish descriptions." We might say it has too much description but that is good if one is reading it to get a feel for the period and the city. One of Clotilde's favorite passages is a description of "the preparation of blood sausage in the charcuterie's kitchen", so maybe Fernando should read it too.
Clotilde Dusoulier has a posting on Emile Zola's Belly of Paris: Le Ventre de Paris which is about life in Les Halles market in the late 1850s. I didn't realize Zola wrote a whole cycle of novels about two families; this is the third novel in his twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. I took it out of the library and started reading it (in English, not French) and she is right that it is written "in Zola's style of intricate and lavish descriptions." We might say it has too much description but that is good if one is reading it to get a feel for the period and the city. One of Clotilde's favorite passages is a description of "the preparation of blood sausage in the charcuterie's kitchen", so maybe Fernando should read it too.
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