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.