Peut-être (FICTION) (French Edition)

This book must have played an important part in defining Gary's sense of humour, but it's too far removed from his other more mature writings for me to enjoy. So 2 stars it is. Feb 09, P. Apr 09, Faustine rated it it was ok Shelves: Infernal afterlife humour and adventures of corpses in the underground world of a cemetery. Well-crafted and therefore really enjoyable. Sheds light on a different side of Gary. Nov 27, Hristo Simeonov rated it really liked it.

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Teks skaityti ir kitas R. Sep 20, Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was ok Shelves: I found this book of normally entertaining Romain Gary to be mostly unintelligible and hard to appreciate. The idea of a guy falling into a graveyard and trying to get out is original if quite macabre, but his personality was not very precisely drawn so I had little sympathy for him. As for the various cadavres and skeletons he meets, they are obviously caricatures of people that annoyed or repulsed the author in real life.

The dialogs really screaming matches were hard to decypher and despite I found this book of normally entertaining Romain Gary to be mostly unintelligible and hard to appreciate. The dialogs really screaming matches were hard to decypher and despite the Celine like text, I found myself skimming paragraphs to get to the end. Which are just more beautifully written with black but not macabre humor. Mounia Hajji rated it liked it Oct 30, Sabrine rated it really liked it Aug 16, Ania Ould Lamara Kaci rated it liked it Apr 28, Tita rated it did not like it Jan 13, Milda rated it it was ok Sep 17, Stargirl rated it liked it Feb 21, Ivan Merdzhev rated it it was amazing Sep 05, Valeria Ribarska rated it did not like it Apr 08, Barahir Gray rated it it was ok Apr 26, CE rated it it was ok Sep 18, Mikkel Clausen rated it it was ok Jun 10, Olga rated it liked it Nov 05, Oriane rated it it was ok Jul 07, Daria rated it liked it Jan 18, Johannes rated it it was amazing Jun 09, Samuel Piedagnel rated it it was ok Jan 31, Dogra rated it liked it Mar 06, Evgenia rated it really liked it Jan 18, Redsnapp rated it did not like it Aug 11, There are no discussion topics on this book yet.

Born Roman Kacew Yiddish: His father, Arieh-Leib Kacew, abandoned his family in and remarried. From this time Gary was raised by his mother, Nina Owczinski. When he was fourteen, he and his mother moved to Nice, France. For the plot moves along the rivalry between the Butcher and Fishmonger ladies.

Other people may prefer to move ahead and read the counter on cheeses and butters over and over again. I certainly belong to that group, and if I could only put one update for this book, it would be this glorious passage. But then, I am a lacto-addict. And even if the book first pays attention to the vegetables, it may be of interest to leave that section to read at the end.

I always liked the French custom of eating salad at the end of meals. No matter, his vegetables sparkle like colourful jewels. But not everything is the food. There is history too. Although I have read a fair amount of Zola in the past, for its literary appeal, I was now drawn for its documentary value. And I have not been disappointed.

This novel can be read as an intense social, economic and political document. Although published in , when France had installed the Third Republic, the novel is set in the early years of the Second Empire when the population of Paris had doubled in just a few decades. This was the time of the Haussmannization of the city, and amongst other projects, the Central Market of Paris was rebuilt in a structure of glass and steel pavilions to accommodate the provisioning of the city.

Balzac had already been fascinated by the logistics required for the supply of food for the daily consumption of Parisians. Reading his Ventre de Paris one feels the compulsion to google all kinds of data relating to Les Halles of Victor Baltard View all 20 comments.

Sep 02, Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing Shelves: Zola leaves us with a timeless description of Les Halles as it was before the current 20y construction mess that it has become. For several centuries, this area in the center of Paris was a thriving marketplace for all Parisians and this novel was a magnificent tribute to the various people that made their living here - both for good and for not so good purposes. It is an unforgettable story and for me perhaps the best book that Zola wrote.

A gastronomic extravaganza for all carnivorous turophiles, the third novel in the Rougon-Macquart series is an impeccably translated parleyvous into the prickly purlieus of mids Paree, starring more big-bosomed bitchy fishwives than a Shetlandic wharf. The naive Florent is our luckless hero, plopped into the capital post-wrongful imprisonment, a thin man caught up in a bustling bourgeois world of respectable market traders—a coterie of carping chaffers keen to slap down the prosperous meat- A gastronomic extravaganza for all carnivorous turophiles, the third novel in the Rougon-Macquart series is an impeccably translated parleyvous into the prickly purlieus of mids Paree, starring more big-bosomed bitchy fishwives than a Shetlandic wharf.

The naive Florent is our luckless hero, plopped into the capital post-wrongful imprisonment, a thin man caught up in a bustling bourgeois world of respectable market traders—a coterie of carping chaffers keen to slap down the prosperous meat-slinger Louise, who offers our hero shelter, lardons, and bouillies.

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Zola gives us both sides of the famous food markets in Paris, the sublime to the disgusting, and sometimes in the space of one sentence of his flowing prose. The descriptive passages are so visual they are like viewing paintings. At times they seem to almost literally soar: The vendors seem to become what they sell, from fish to flowers. I was reminded of Dickens at several points, and Balzac at another. As muc Zola gives us both sides of the famous food markets in Paris, the sublime to the disgusting, and sometimes in the space of one sentence of his flowing prose.

As much as I liked this novel, I felt its central conceit fell flat by the end. View all 7 comments. It is Zola's intent to demonstrate the gluttony of state by juxtaposing it against the misery of the working poor; in both cases, I became queasy with despair, for there is never a just answer to the injustice of life. While the contrasts worked well in the broader context of outlining the inherent sins of the Second Empire, 3.

While the contrasts worked well in the broader context of outlining the inherent sins of the Second Empire, it did not work all that well in procuring enough sympathy for the right side -- for it seems Zola lost himself in the very descriptiveness of gluttony. Rather than portraying it as a disease, he almost became the disease in an ironic twist of descriptive excess, revelling in the very lechery of his language.

Page after page after page of endless descriptions of food became the nausea of the book. I found it to be quite a slog, at one point, and almost gave it up. The irony not lost on me is that I should be reading this throughout the days of Lent. Even as a recovering catholic, I feel the weight of the purple shroud on my shoulders at this time of year. See what I mean? Now I'm doing it too -- indulging in the excess of language. It's really such a weighty book, and leaves no room for the imagination.

Overcome by the sights and smells of Les Halles, I could not even summon the requisite sympathy for Florent, our hapless would-be protagonist.

His story is overdone as well -- the luckless hero who walks right back into his own worst nightmare, pulled along more by inertia than determination to seek true justice. This character befuddled me utterly because he doesn't seem to fit, at all, into Zola's master plan: Instead, he comes across as a dejected and already-defeated malingerer.

I, in turn, was quite -- defeated -- by this novel. Someday I may return to it, and work my way through it again to see if it comes across more clearly. Perhaps I would have more luck if I sipped it accompanied by a pure broth. As other reviewers have noted, this story has been done better by Dickens and Hugo. In Dickens, for one, it is a far, far better tale, told with less indigestion.

If there had been less food for thought, it might have merited a 4 star rating. View all 8 comments. Jul 03, Alice Poon rated it really liked it Shelves: I was on the verge of giving up when I reached Chapter Three. I think I will avoid eating cheese for a long time to come. Notwithstanding, I did slog along to reach Chapter Five, whence the action started to pick up steam, and by the time I finished the novel, tears filled my eyes.

It seems to me that somewhere beneath all the stomach-turning descriptive lexicon, Zola wants to express just one thought in this novel, which is what the painter Claude says in exclamation at the very end: One of these was a practice where bijoutiers peddled leftover food scraps from the large restaurants, the royal households and state ministries to the underprivileged class for a few sous per portion. Another was that the fattening of pigeons was done by specially trained laborers called gaveurs , whose job was to force-feed the pigeons.

Zola was a master of descriptive writing. In The Belly of Paris he creates scenes that the reader can see, feel, taste and, most impressively, smell the market, all of which are integral to the story. As in many of his stories, hypocritical, vicious gossip drives the narrative. The highlight in this novel is a scene in which Zola intertwines the voices of the women at the market with the stench of the cheeses surrounding them as their chattering sets off the events leading to a tragic, almost inevitable, conclusion.

Reading on, it was like a being in a constant, unbalanced state and compelled me to keep reading. The Belly of Paris is an unusual literary feat, a seeming polemic with a virtually hidden message. In prose that describes the food markets of the city in glorious and sometimes squalid detail, Zola introduces us to this specialized world that feeds the rich and poor of the capital city.

These descriptions are beautifully written and even the squalid details are often metaphorically lovely. Beneath that surface, however, is the battle of the "Fats" and "Thins" also an alternate title of the b The Belly of Paris is an unusual literary feat, a seeming polemic with a virtually hidden message. Beneath that surface, however, is the battle of the "Fats" and "Thins" also an alternate title of the book.

These are not simply to be taken as haves and have-nots. It's more complicated than that. The fat are somehow more acceptable, more successful, even if not financially so. To be thin is to be suspect. He has escaped and now is back, but for what purpose? The people of Les Halles, the produce market, live on gossip, spreading stories whether true or false.

The government sits in the background, watching all, making plans.

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But, admittedly, these descriptions were beautifully wrought. And, in the end, I found that they served a purpose toward the overall end. There was a message about the fruits of excess and the role of the state, not the message I might like but amazingly modern. And perhaps his technique mirrored that excess.

I will readmore of Zola in the future. View all 4 comments. Las verduleras, pescaderas, salchicheras, etc. Parece que Francia en el momento de la trama atravesaba una ola de prosperidad burguesa. Pero en ese fondo de prosperidad los valores humanos no han avanzado. It was as though the jewel-cases of some sea-nymph had been emptied there—a mass of fantastical, undreamt-of ornaments, a streaming and heaping of necklaces, monstrous bracelets, gigantic brooches, barbaric gems and jewels, I quote: It was as though the jewel-cases of some sea-nymph had been emptied there—a mass of fantastical, undreamt-of ornaments, a streaming and heaping of necklaces, monstrous bracelets, gigantic brooches, barbaric gems and jewels, the use of which could not be divined.

Feb 22, amy rated it it was amazing Shelves: Zola writes incredible, wonderful, sometimes overpoweringly detailed and evocative portraits of the market goods, from silvery fish to pungent cheeses to flowers to fruit to meat to The air is full of battling smells, raucous voices, flying rumors, and sexual tension.

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It's easy to emerge from one of Zola's descriptive bouts with a faint nausea and the inclination to lie down for a while with some ginger tea and a cold compress. The more Zola I read the more I just simply love his stories. I am seriously contemplating reading them in French just to see what its like in the original language. This 3rd installment of 20 in the Rougon-Macquart family saga. His descriptiveness reaches new heights in this book.

I felt I was walking through "Les Halles" market with every sentence I read. This is what classic literature is all about. I found his eloquent passages intoxicating I felt I was the paint at the end of the brush I missed not a word. I found the plot an afterthought to that. I kept an eye on it The politics I thought were thin.

There were no real power brokers in the cast of characters All were sometimes farcically, sometimes tragically, one in the machinations of power. A tale of divide and conquer. The descriptive was the ingenuity of this book The character of Les Halles was a living breathing structure View all 5 comments. A tale of two brothers: Which one benefits the public more, the political martyr or the epicurean? Jul 22, Victoria rated it really liked it Shelves: How do I begin to describe the feelings this book left me…. It left me feeling fully satiated and yet I am still starving to discover more about the mysterious world of Old Paris.

You know when you continue to eat after you are full because the meal tastes so good?