Passé Simple

J'ai horreur du passé simple.  Translation: I absolutely hate the simple past.

The simple past, or passé simple, is a verb tense in French used mainly for literature or extremely formal  speech.  When I was learning the basics of French in high school, my professeur told us that we didn't really need to learn it because it wasn't used in everyday speech.  Little did she know that I would go on to live in France and want to maybe, sorta, kinda read a book in French someday.

Marianne knows I've tried, but I just cannot get through an entire book in French because of the stupid, stupid, stupid passé simple.  It sounds NOTHING like the French I know and I just can't get into a story when I'm constantly trying to remember that this or that verb is actually an action in the past.  

My Very Parisian Friend has given me books to try - itty bitty books by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, that should be easy to get through, but nope. nada. can't do it. Passé simple.

I'd like to improve my French, especially with all of the English that is spoken in the Cannes Cannes household upon Copain's request, but this whole not being able to read a full novel in French situation has really put on damper on my goals.

However, ever since last week, I think there's as glimmer of hope for me....

I was killing time on Grands Boulevards, poking around the Virgin Mega Store waiting for friends to show up to a theatre performance, (yes, I saw How to Become Parisian in One Hour for the fifth time), when I happened upon a familiar author...

I felt a wave of happy wash over me and all of my childhood reading came flooding back - Matilda, The Witches, Boy, Esio Trot, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, The BFG...and of course, James and the Giant Peach. And here is was, in French - James et la grosse pêche.

I had to have the book! What better way to get over my issue with passé simple, than to read one of my childhood favorites? I knew the story, so I would only need to focus on the language. For the first time in a long time, I was excited to go to bed and cuddle up with a book. 

So far I'm on page 36 - a vast improvement compared to my other failed attempts to read a book in French. I love Roald Dahl! And while the passé simple is still not making this book challenge easy for me, reliving a moment of my own past makes it much more simple :-)

I Love " My Life in France" (and I love my life in France :-)

Remember the adventure with books that I began this summer thanks to Amy and Neither Here Nor There? (and my Moomala who bought the books bien sur!)

Well, I finished one of them!  My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme (don't you love how French his name is?!) was hard to get into at first.  I couldn't quite accept Julia's "voice" or her writing style.  It also kind of bothered me that while it was started before her death, it was published afterwards by her husband's, grandnephew, Alex Prud'homme. I felt like it was choppy and I couldn't quite follow where she was going in each chapter. Was this Alex's voice or Julia's?

Despite the rocky beginning I eventually fell in love with Julia.  I looked forward to going to bed so that I could read, I neglected by blogs (just as I suspected) and I felt a cosmic connection to Madame Child and her love for France, her "spiritual homeland", as she called it. Comme je la comprends....


I loved that she was from California (comme moi!), that she loved to eat (comme moi!) and that she could complain about France and sing its praises all at the same time (oui, moi aussi).  I never knew my grandmothers and I can only imagine that Julia would have made an amazing one for me...

She laughs about all her mal-entendus with the Frenchies, her fight to pass her diplôme at Le Cordon Bleu and her dedication to the creation of her now famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Her relationship with Paul Child is nothing less than incredibly special and somewhat quirky - what other couple sends Valentines with a photo of themselves in the bathtub?!

I was fulfilled when I finished the book but also triste that there wasn't more to read.  I've started a few books since then but nothing has pulled me in quite as quickly or completely as My Life in France.


Alors, merci Julia - j'ai adoré! et comme tu dis, toujours bon appetit!

My Moomala snapped this pic while I was reading by the pool back home in California.

A special merci to Neither Here Nor There for a great reading suggestion!

La Vingt-Sixième Liste

List 26: Books I'd like to read this year...

I think I may have already divulged this little tidbit (embarrassing tidbit I might add) : I have not read a full book since Copain left for the states back in July 2010.

I've spent a lot of time wondering how a book-lover like myself could go so long without so much as getting through the first chapter of a book, but somehow I have managed to do just that. I even have a Moom who sends me books from the states that she thinks I'll like and even then, I just can't swing it! Well, my friends, I have a theory and the theory is this:

I blame the blogs.

I read WAY too many blogs.  I always want to know what happens next - and so, my morning and nightly rituals involve going through my blog roll and catching up with (mostly) people who I don't even know!

I don't really get it either.

There's nothing I want more than to be so enthralled with a book that all I want to do is get home, jump into bed and read a new chapter - or better yet, read the entire thing in one sitting because that's how good it is.  


I'm not gonna lie, I'm really bummed about this situation. What's a blog-obsessed girl to do???