Howards End - Edward Morgan Forster

Although many, many themes appear in this novel, to me it was a tale of an evolving society, of the big changes that happened a century ago; the spreading of the use of motorcars, the growing of London, the beginning of a social awareness, and more importantly, the slow emancipation of women.
Margaret and Helen, the very contrasting Miss Schlegels, both strive to love, and to a certain extend to freedom, but use different strategies. While Helen is unrestrained and free-spirited, refusing any compromise, Margaret, the oldest, shows very early on the insight and the knowledge of a grown woman, and uses understanding, compassion and quiet talk to reach the same objective: a better harmony within her family, a better life for her and her sister. They very much resemble a modern version of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in that respect.
However, men in this novel aren’t really appealing; Charles Wilcox is aggressive, Tibby Schlegel useless, Paul Wilcox a coward, Leonard Bast a poor tortured soul, and Henry Wilcox the most patronising man ever heard of. Yet the female characters live around and love these men, and one ends up wondering why.
Is it the need to “connect”, to live together, to respect the other no matter what ? Why do these women bother at all ? Is it their heritage from centuries of brainwashing, or do they have some insights into human nature that is lost on a 21st century woman like me ? What is the message here ?
All's well that ends well, for sure, and Margaret was right all along – she’s tamed Henry, conquered the other Wilcoxes, created a happy place for Helen, and both can even remember Len with fondness. A true heroin.
And although this is a clear triumph of the gentle “womanly” way, the subtle level-headed manipulation over the loud and impatient self-righteousness struggle, Margaret did eventually need to pick a fight, the only fight of her life, to come to this satisfactory outcome.
So this is a tale of choosing one’s battles wisely.
And it feels very patronising for the Helens of this world (me included).
On a totally unrelated note, although the audiobook from librivox was beautifully read, the reader thought it was okay to use an over the top German accent when cousin Frida was speaking. This is so offensive that it got my blood boiling. Probably my Helen Schlegel side.

Note for later: try to like the men, or to at least find some quality in them. They can’t all be that bad.

le fauteuil hanté - Gaston Leroux

J'avais dit qu'on me m'y reprendrait plus, qu’un duo de Rouletabille m’avait définitivement découragé, et que le style d’écriture de Gaston Leroux était trop daté, passé, poussiéreux et maladroit.
Mais une fois de plus, je n’avais rien à écouter au labo, et beaucoup trop de plantules à aplatir et de cotylédons à découper pour y faire face sans une histoire dans les oreilles.
J’avoue, cette fois-ci, le style est… hallucinant. Je n’ai pas d’autre mot. Poil au dos. Parce que oui, Le grand Loustalot, c’est de cette façon qu’il répond, poil au menton. Je pensais que c’était un truc d’enfant, une manie de mes 8 ans, poil aux dents. Mais non, c’est de la littérature, poil à la confiture.
Hallucinant.
L’histoire en elle-même est loufoque, et les noms des caractères absolument truculents, entre le secrétaire perpétuel Hippolyte Patard, Gaspard Lalouette et le sâr Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox.
Je suppose que le contexte historique explique beaucoup de choses, que l’Académie française et ses immortels ont ennuyé Gaston Leroux d’une façon ou d’une autre, et qu’à l’époque (1909), bien des rires ont du répondre à ce roman, au ridicule de l’Académie, et à l’humour pas toujours subtil de l’auteur.
Mais c’était rigolo, j’admets.
Et la lectrice du livre audio, téléchargé sur librivox, est parfaitement superbe.
Un gentil petit récit décalé.
Sous influence, le père Leroux ?

Note pour plus tard: ne pas relire. C’était drôle une fois. Passé la surprise de l’extravagance loufoque, ça ne le sera plus.

le Comte de Monte-Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (et Auguste Maquet)

Après les trois mousquetaires, j'avais promis: plus de Dumas.
Je n’avais pas aimé, vraiment.
Et puis bon, n’ayant rien à écouter pendant la journée, et ayant des tonnes de jardinage à faire dans les chambres de culture au labo, j’ai changé d’avis : le Comte de Monte Cristo et ses 117 chapitres en livre audio, pourquoi pas. Et puis, écouter un livre et le lire ne sont pas le même effort : j’ai donné à Dumas une nouvelle chance.
J’ai bien fait.
C’était superbe.
J’ai vécu dans la vie d’Edmond Dantès pendant plusieurs semaines.
J’avoue, à écouter le livre plutôt qu’à le lire, on se perd un peu dans les personnages. J’ai cru plusieurs fois qu’il y avait des erreurs, des oublis, des inexactitudes. J’ai surement tord. Mais j’ai au départ un peu confondu Danglars et Villefort, Eugénie et Valentine.
Mes chapitres préférés : la vie de Dantès (numéro 34) et de l’Abbé Faria (numéro 27) au château d’If, la découverte du trésor sur l’ile de Monte Cristo, les amours de Maximilien Morrel et de Valentine de Villefort, ainsi que celles d’Eugénie Danglars et de Louise D'Armilly. D’ailleurs, Eugénie est vraiment un caractère à part, un cliché de lesbienne, mais sûrement la seule femme libre du roman.
Il y aurait trop à dire pour raconter cette histoire, il y aurait trop à décrire, trop à se remémorer. Et j’ai hâte de l’oublier pour pouvoir m’y replonger – ce livre a totalement réussi à m’emporter dans un monde parallèle. Un vrai plaisir !
Maintenant, je retournerai bien au château d’If de mon enfance marseillaise…

Note pour plus tard : à lire plutôt qu’ à réécouter – trop de détails savoureux m’ont échappé cette fois-ci.

William Walker's first year of marriage - Matt Rudd

This may be a horror story, but it's a very, very funny one. So funny that it got me laughing times and times again.
Out loud, for real.
And I am not easily amused.
Imagine Bridget Jones' diary written by a newly married guy - that's exactly what it was, and it was excellent.
I kept thinking while reading this "Gosh ! I need to read this to the boyfriend, that's SO spot on !" and then thinking to myself "Errr... actually, no, let's make him believe that I'm not *just* a woman..."
It's not often that i start a book and that i don't want to put it down. I mean, no, that's not totally true, i often end up reading books through the night because i'm hooked, but for this book, i even refused to watch my favourite trashy TV shows, i even couldn't concentrate on anything else, because i was just loving the story, and the way it was told, and i didn't want to do anything else but read and laugh.
I guess being in a long standing relationship where i definitely wear the trousers, i could totally identify with Isabel, the wife, and feel for the poor William. I have to say, he even made me see the boyfriend in a slightly different light, thinking that maybe i should tell him more often that he's really a nice guy.

Note for later: do not let the boyfriend read this book - he could realise that i'm just a crazy over-dominant woman. And he could rebel. With sugar.

the case of the missing boyfriend - Nick Alexander

I like chic-lit. I really do. I sometimes feel a bit guilty when reading some though, as if i was somehow wasting time, because let's face it, the stories don't often stay in my mind once read. And it's probably because it's always the same: a woman with a powerful job, a great home, and a desperate need for a new man. And by the end, of course, she's found her happily ever after. This is just the modern day fairy tale really; while little girls have Cinderella, us women have Sex and the City. And all its derivatives.
I had a pre-conception for this book, and i really don't know why. Maybe because of the cover, which looked different from your average chic-lit cover, or maybe because it was written by a man, and had a title that could lead to a different sort of story - somehow i thought that it would be a detective fiction for girls.
But it wasn't.
It was nothing new really.
There were amusing bits though, a lot of lovely gay guys and a lot of clubbing in London. And i really liked the concept of "framily", those friends that become part of your family. But i didn't think the painting of the main character, CC, was realistic at all. I don't see how one can reach 39 and have so much drama in their life without wising-up and maturing a bit more. Or maybe that's just me.
Thus said, there was a few very good observations. Including this one: "And I suppose that in the end, that's what a shrink is. A friend who is paid to listen to things that are too painful or too personal for anyone else". Although the shrink in the book is über-clichéd, i guess this reflexion at least was spot on.

Note for later: some books are both entertaining and life-changing. They are very rare and to be cherished. Some books are only entertaining. That doesn't make them less precious - so many books out there are not even that. So stop the drama-guilt-trip about reading chic-lit and enjoy.

la carte et le territioire - Michel Houellebecq

J'ai fini ce livre il y a déjà plus de 2 semaines, et je n'ai pas pris le temps d'en parler ici. Mais - oh que j'ai aimé !
Et surtout, cette fois-ci, je n'ai pas été déçue.
Tellement de Houellebecq se finissent en queue de poisson, me laissent sur ma faim - prenons "la possibilité d'une ile": le meilleur début au monde, je me souviens m'être totalement exaltée en lisant la première moitié. Et puis tout à coup, le futurisme à 2 sous, même si vivre en photosynthétisant, certes, ca aurait du me plaire. Mais quand même, non… ou ce doit être mon manque d’imagination, je ne suis après tout qu’une chercheuse en biologie moléculaire végétale.
Ceci dit, cette fois, rien de tout ca. Enfin très peu. Et même pas de partouze. Une histoire folle mais cohérente, sans rupture vers des délires bizarres. Tout le style Houellebecq est là, avec ses descriptions précises et son héros à mi-chemin entre la loose et le génie, avec le vieux père qui n'en fini plus de ne pas mourir et l'art comme leitmotiv, et bien sûr, le coup de maitre, la mise en scène de Houellebecq lui-même - le vieux dépressif alcoolo, auteur torturé et au bout du rouleau.
Houellebecq est-il face obscure de Jed Martin - ou Jed Martin est-il la face lumineuse de Houellebecq ?
Et Michou le bichon stérile, l'"enfant" chéri, fils de Michel le premier bichon, qui est-il celui-ci ? Est-ce que tous les personnages, du vieux commissaire à son chien, du peintre à succès à l'écrivain quasi-autiste, du père d’un autre âge à l'amante aimée et aimante, sont-il tous autant de faces de l'auteur ?
Ce livre est à lire et à re-lire, et à re-lire encore. Absolument superbe.

Note pour plus tard: vérifier si Houellebecq aura réussi à se faire inviter a l'université de Louvain-la-Neuve pour y animer un atelier de creative writing en Avril 2011 !

when God was a rabbit - Sarah Winman

I spotted this book quite a while ago, sometimes in January, while i was looking for something to read.
It wasn't released yet, and everything about it got me really excited - the plot, the comments, the reviews, the promotional advert, everything told me i was going to love this book, and so i wanted to read it NOW.
But i had to wait.
And eventually, suddenly, it was out.
But i was in the middle of the 3 musketeers, and knew that i would never finish their story if i started something new. So i bought "when God was a rabbit", stored it on my kindle, and forced myself to forget about it and read through d'Artagnan's adventures.
With so much anticipation though, i was a bit worried. What if i was disappointed ?
Well, i wasn't.
This is my kind of book, where life unfolds, sometimes abruptly, sometimes gently, where families are the core, the centre of one's universe, where childhood is respected, yet not re-invented. I didn't want to reach the last page, i just wanted to stay with them, with all these characters that you can't help but love, despite their flaws, because of their kindness.
The author described her novel as primarily "a love story between a brother and a sister", and although i see what she means, obviously, it wasn't what touched me the most. Probably because this feeling of having a witness to your life, someone whith whom you're linked forever is a given to me; i have a brother. I was more in awe of everything around them: the relationship between Elly and Jenny Penny, between Joe and Charlie, between Arthur and Ginger, between Nancy and them all. And this willingness to include everybody within one family tree, to adopt stray characters and to give them a family; i guess the strenght of the story lies with Joe & Elly's parents, with their kindness and acceptance, and with their will to be open, to welcome in.
There was so much in this book, histories following History, life as we know it and life as we've heard of it, and a gentle benevolent feeling that kindness can make up for loss.

Note for later: if i ever write a book one day, i'd like it to be this one.

les trois mousquetaires - Alexandre Dumas (et Auguste Maquet)

J'avoue, j'avoue, j'ai mis du temps à venir à bout de ce livre. Presque 30 ans. Et presque 1 mois. C'est qu'il est long. Et dense. Et ne s'arrête jamais.
J'avoue aussi, j'ai écouté quelques chapitres au labo pendant mes longues séances de jardinage; c'était juste trop long, j'avais vraiment envie d'en finir.
Je connaissais l'histoire des ferrets de la reine, comme tout bon téléspectateur français, et je croyais du coup connaitre toute l'histoire des 3 mousquetaires - quelle erreur ! Il a fallu en passer par le siege de la Rochelle, par un autre voyage en Angleterre, et surtout par d'innombrables maitresses et tromperies, duels et grands discours, avant de percer à jour le secret d'Athos - et le secret de Milady.
Pas de sentiments en demi-teinte, pas de caractere détaillé; du sang, des maitresses, des manipulations, une femme démoniaque, une autre toute frêle et constamment en danger (d'oú le prénom de Constance ?): c'est un livre d'homme, sans aucun doute.
J'ai quand meme un sentiment de devoir accompli: je ne mentirai plus quand je dirai "oui, oui, j'ai lu les 3 mousquetaires, évidemment !". Ceci dit, je ne voudrais pas avoir à m'y replonger: il se peut que le "de cape et d'épée" ne soit pas pour moi.

Note pour plus tard: Je suis quand meme tentée de savoir ce qu'ils deviennent, 20 ans après... mais seulement quand l'histoire sera disponible en livre audio cette fois !

painless - Derek Ciccone

This book is currently ranked #1 in the free ebooks downloads on amazon.co.uk - in other words, without a kindle, i would probably never have read it. But since it was there, free to read, and with seemingly a good plot, well, i had to go for it.
I have to say, the central idea was quite good and peculiar: an american secret agency raising an army of CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis) kids to become fearless soldiers. And the story of a family whose little girl, who can't feel pain, is hunted down as a new recruit.
The book was a pleasant read. But some bits were not really credible; the characters were realy simplistic, there was no depth to their personality, no balance of goodness and evil, it was more a matter of either or, and more annoyingly, i could guess the next twist of the story well before it arrived, which made the whole thing a bit predictible. So much more could have been done with this storyline, with many questions that could have really enriched the book and the reader - what it is to be a mother, a father, what can a state sacrifice for the greater good, what's the most important between individual freedom and collective survival, etc, etc. Topical themes that were only superficially touched on in this book.
Yet it was still entertaining enough, which has to be the main quality for a novel. Just not life changing.

Note for later: an entertaining holiday read, full of action more than reflection - to keep on the kindle for those long winter nights when i'm bored.

room - Emma Donoghue

How bizarre was this book - i mean, not only that it was written from the point of view of Jack, Mr Five, a wee boy that has never seen anything else, lived anywhere else but in 'room'. His all world is room, the objects in it, Ma, and old Nick (nasty Nick ?). Everything else is TV.
And as we know, TV is not real.
But that wasn't the most bizarre. The weirdest thing is to get into his shoes socks, into his head, and look at the world as it would appear if we suddenly encountered it at five, being educated and literate, but totally ignorant, sensorially naive.
The weirdest thing is to feel for that boy, to understand and agree that life in room is so much safer, so less scary, so much more appealing in a way, that being 'scave' [scared and brave], that getting out of your comfort zone day after day is so hard sometimes. Bizarrely, life in the confinement of room doesn't seem so awful after all.
Freedom is scary, freedom hurts, crawling into wardrobe seem like the best option, if best is safest.
So, if Dora had a map to go through life, i guess the 2 first steps would be: safe (room), then scave (escape, encounter the unknown, step out). What comes next is probably... a middle way ? I don't know, i'd need to ask Dora, because since some TV is real after all, maybe she is too !

Note for later: it will be interesting to see whether the narration ages - there is a whole lot of references to current pop culture - how will it feel in 10 years time ?

a town like Alice - Nevil Shute

I've carried this book around for how ever long i can remember. It was in my dad's library when i was a child, and when i left home at 17, i hid this book in my suitcase - together with a few others and an old small family bible. I don't know how many times i have read this book - 5, 6 times ?
But now, for the first time, i've just read it in english. And i still love it just as much. And i've learnt many australian colloquialisms on the way, i sure did !
It's one of those books where so many things happen that you can't remember it all - and that's why every 3 or 4 years, i feel the need to re-read and remember.
It's such a perfect novel; it has everything: adventure, travels, inspiring lives, a touch of feminism (or should i say girl power ?) and a charming crocodile dundee lookalike pouring with testosterone and gentleness.
A proper novel, a classic.
Actually, thinking of it, Joe Harman reminds me of the little house in the prairie's Charles Ingalls. The pioneer with good values, the big-hearted hard-working Man with a big M. This probably taps into a lot of women's fantasy, and it surely does into mine, even if Joe would probably bore me to tears with his cattle talk, and Charles drives me mad with his god-loving streak.
Yet, being in Jean Paget's shoes - or bare feet - has been once again a very enjoyable read.
There are really 2 stories here, the march of those women, prisoners of the Japanese army, all around Malaysia during the 2nd world war, as well as the making of Willstown in Queensland, a town that becomes something bonza, just like Alice Springs was.
I don't know which part i like the best, and i've always wanted to go and see Kuala Lumpur and Alice Springs, just because of this book. Maybe one day i'll do just that, just like i was once in Tuba City, in front of the police station, imagining that i was soon going to catch sight of Joe Leaphorn or Jim Chee. I never made it to Shiprock though, and i'll regret it forever. (i didn't really make it to Grand Canyon either, but i didn't really care).
This is one of these books, the ones that make you want to take the trip, to retrace the steps, to see with your eyes what you've already seen in the text.

Note for later: I don't think i'll ever bore of re-reading this book. It is both entertaining and captivating. To keep high on the list of books to bring to a desert island !

Chéri - Colette

Je n'ai pas aimé ce livre. Euphémisme ou litote, je ne suis pas sure. Sous-estimation, sans doute.
Après 2 pages, je me demandais ce que je venais faire dans cette galère. Vraiment. L'indolence qui se respire à plein nez dans ces dialogues insipides, le jeune con inintéressant et coquet, il n'y avait rien pour me plaire. A part peut-être ce bout de phrase, au tout début: "Léonie Vallon, dite Léa de Lonval" - l'invention du verlan ! En 1920 ! Quelle découverte !
C'est à peu près tout.
Enfin pas tout à fait.
Comme je suis têtue, j'abandonne rarement un livre, même après quelques pages énervantes. D'ailleurs, le seul livre que j'aie jamais arrêté de lire comme ca, tout à coup, en plein milieu, parce que vraiment là non, je préférais encore me faire arracher une dent, c'est "au secours pardon" de Beigbeder. Et pourtant je l'aime, le Fred. Et son tout dernier "un roman français" encore plus que les autres. Mais vraiment, son histoire de poupée russe, je n'ai pas pu.
Bref, Chéri n'a donc pas fait exception à la règle, et j'ai continué jusqu'au bout. J'ai bien fait; j'ai fini par trouver quelques qualités au roman. Comme la dynamique du récit par exemple, la mise en miroir (déformant) des personnages, superficiels à en crever au début, réfléchis et grandis vers la fin, avec au milieu une zone de floue, comme un pont musical, Léa absente, Chéri à la dérive.
Je dois dire que la dernière partie du livre sauve un peu l'ensemble.
C'est peut-être que la relation quasi-incestueuse entre Léa et Chéri me dérange, c'est peut-être qu'elle m'agace voire m'ennuie, c'est peut-être que je préfère les hommes aux garçons. Le Chéri des dernières pages me donne moins envie d'envoyer des baffes. Et curieusement, sa relation avec Léa ne me choquerait plus du tout.
Il semblerait qu'il y ait une suite, "la fin de Chéri". Si quelqu'un me donne un résumé en 2 pages, je suis curieuse. Sinon, tant pis.

Note pour plus tard: ne pas relire. Chéri s'appelle Fred. Fred Peloux. On ne sait jamais, ca pourrait servir dans une soirée Trivial Pursuit.

last night in Twisted River - John Irving

Amazingly, there is a writer, a lot of New England, some larger and older ladies, and even a few bears. Not so much wrestling though, yet a little bit. Who would have thought ?
Thus said, it's like finding old friends, landmarks through a very long and enjoyable read, and i would have missed them if they hadn't appeared. And to be fair, although the elements seem to repeat themselves forever through John Irving's books, the actual narration is a new discovery every time.
I've been engrossed in this book for a bit more than 48 hours - reversing my sleep pattern because i didn't want to stop reading. Besides the storyline, totally addicting per se, the world that was opening before my eyes was for ever moving, for ever more complex, for ever demanding that i'd carry on reading.
Dominic & Daniel Baciagalupo, the kisses of the wolves, and Ketchum, whose name was reminding me of something (but what ?) all the way through (only after i'd finished, when i was trying to remember his name that was slipping away, did i think of ketchup - red, american, food, pioneer, not so bad finally).
I've also been wanting to eat all the way through this book - so much so that i made the boyfriend promise me that we're going to eat italian tomorrow. A fine crust pizza, with some honey in the dough, hopefully. And a green salad. No dessert - they're too french. With maybe something from China.
I do have to admit however that i found the first part a bit long - not so much the life on a river logging community - the roughness and violence of it - that got me quite hooked. But the technicity of the logs descending their way to the sawmills, the logjams, all that vocabulary i'd never heard of, either in french or even less in english - i made use of the dictionary a lot, hurray for the kindle. (to be honest, i made use of the dictionary function all the way through the book - which tells me that i'm far from being totally bilingual, and i've once again realised that there are so much more words with a very precise meaning in english than in french - it did remind me of reading Watership down in that respect).
I remember that at one point, when i was at around 30% of the book (kindle's progress bar, a new way of measuring things), i thought to myself that this book was SO good, i was glad i'd only read about a third of it; i had so much perfect-reading time ahead.
It makes me want to re-read 'the world according to Garp' and 'a prayer for Owen Meany' - i adored those novels as a teenager, and haven't read them since - and have totally forgotten their storyline as well. I had the exact same impulse after i read 'until i find you' - and instead i read 'a widow for one year' that i'd never read and that totally blew me away. But then i realised i had to stop. And so i will keep Twisted River with me for now, and look forward to read another John Irving soon, but not just yet.

Note for later: avoid reading 2 John Irving novels in a row, however tempting it is, as it would (1) be a waste, pleasure needs to be distilled through time, and (2) probably actually spoil the pleasure, as the recurring themes could get annoying and over repetitive instead of feeling like old friends, re-assuring landmarks. Tough, but true. But gosh i enjoyed reading this book.