French Short Stories 1: Parallel Text [French]

by Various

Book Overview

Originally written to entertain, move or chill, the eight short stories in this collection accompanied by parallel English translations now also help students gain deeper insights into French literature and life.

Arranged in approximate order of difficulty, the range of stories is wide, from the stylized wit of Raymond Queneau to the beautifully written ambiguities of Philippe Sollers, from Pierre Gascar's exploration of childhood as a background...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: French
• ISBN: 0140023852
• ISBN13: 9780140023855
• Release Date: June 1966
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

French Short Stories 1

I am trying to brush up my French language skills. I think this Parallel text is very helpful. It has the advantage of immediate reinforcement, without having to look up every word that I can't remember. I liked some of the stories better than others, but that is to be expected in any book with multiple stories.

Modern French Fiction/New Wave Cinema

This anthology offers an excellent sampling of modern trends (1940s - 60s), not contemporary trends, in French literature (and art-house cinema), from Robbe-Grillet's purposeful tedium in tediously recounting French social rituals (noteably rendered in Last Year at Marianbad) to Marcel Ayme's brilliant mixture of realism and wrenching fantasy (a la Red Ballon) to Philippe Sollers's apologia for pristine solipsism (here, an unintentional parody of a French intellectual's grapplings with the mind-body problem; Maitre Woody Allen does Eric Rohmer)--do dust off your past subjunctives. The translations are excellent: Norman Denny's rendering of Ayme's story deftly combines fantasy and urban reality; and Jean Stewart's rendering of Sollers's fluidly conversational, academic French is imaginatively intuituive. Essential reading for the intermediate to advanced student of French literature.