the Normandy Review of Books

Le client est roi, mais... le roi est mort.

2011-11-18T13:26:00.001+01:00

This excerpt is from the eight lessons about the French by Elain Sciolino, the former New York Times correspondent in Paris.

Execution of Louis XVI.

Anyone who has lived in France can testify that after sales service and, generally, customer relations is a horror area of French life. Often worse than people-state relationship in the country.

3: The Customer Is Always Wrong

It is hard for French merchants to admit they are wrong, and seemingly impossible for them to apologize. Instead, the trick is to somehow get the offended party to feel the mistake was his or her own. I’m convinced the practice was learned in the strict French educational system, in which teachers are allowed to tell pupils they are “zeros” in front of the entire class.
A doctor I know told me he once bought a coat at a small men’s boutique only to discover that it had a rip in the fabric. When he tried to return it, the shopkeeper gave him the address of a tailor who could repair it — for a large fee. They argued, and the doctor reminded the shopkeeper of the French saying, “The customer is king.”
“Sir,” the shopkeeper replied, “We no longer have a king in France.”

Audrey Tautou on English Men

2011-08-15T12:30:00.000+02:00

Audrey Tautou thinks English men are more 'elegant and gentlemanly' than French men.

And listen to her on on today's Woman's Hour. The actress is England promoting her new film Beautiful Lies.

The Parallel Worlds (DSK)

2011-07-19T11:35:00.000+02:00

Ever since the outbreak of the Strauss-Kahn affair I’ve been puzzling: why the press in France had no qualms about publishing the name and then the photos of the charwoman who is the main witness, and the victim, in the case against the former IMF chief, while the media in America and Britain have refrained from doing so on ethical grounds. And with that, the French are lambasting the Anglo-Saxon media for their treatment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn himself.

I was glad to find that I am not alone in this puzzlement. In comparing the way Anglo-American press treats the Strauss-Kahn affair with the situation in France nothing is more startling than France24, the news and analysis TV channel. It has both English and French language versions. The English is run according to 'Anglo-Saxon' standards, but the French follows customs of the country's press.

(read the full post on Tetradki)

Learning by Rote. A French Example.

2011-03-30T15:16:00.009+02:00

Read an English version the song here on the Tetradki blog.

The French education system puts too much emphasis on learning by rote, they say.

Maybe, but it works, at least for some purposes. Just watch how Gilbert Bécaud, the legendary chansonnier, teaches the German audience about Remembrance. The song is about the death of a poet, when everybody cries for him. The bleuets, which appear in the last line of the song, are cornflowers, the French equivalent of the English poppy used at Remembrance ceremonies. But bleuets are also the national flower of Germany – die Kornblume.

Gilbert Becaud - Quand il est il mort le poete par Leroidukitch

Quand il est mort le poète,
Quand il est mort le poète,
Tous ses amis,
Tous ses amis,
Tous ses amis pleuraient.

Quand il est mort le poète,
Quand il est mort le poète,
Le monde entier,
Le monde entier,
Le monde entier pleurait.

On enterra son étoile,
On enterra son étoile,
Dans un grand champ,
Dans un grand champ,
Dans un grand champ de blé.

Et c'est pour ça que l'on trouve,
Et c'est pour ça que l'on trouve,
Dans ce grand champ,
Dans ce grand champ,
Dans ce grand champ de bleuets.

Photo by Böhringer Friedrich.

Blonds, Blondes and Manuals

2011-02-12T06:38:00.000+01:00

Catherine Deneuve

I've just snooped a piece of advice on how to stop a husband looking into his wife's mailbox – mark it 'Instruction Manuals'. Why, of course! It's beneath a man to check the manual.

And it's equally easy to attract a man's attention. Another writer in France suggested to her husband who had been trying in vain to get his boss's attention to an important proposal: put on the file a large label saying 'Blondes'.

Don't we underestimate our women?

And while I was scribbling this I also discovered another difference between British and American – their attitude to blondes. Here is what Oxford English Dictionary says:

USAGE The spellings blonde and blond correspond to the feminine and masculine forms in French. Although the distinction is usually retained in Britain, American usage since the 1970s has generally preferred the gender-neutral blond. The adjective blonde may still refer to a woman’s (but not a man’s) hair color, though use of the noun risks offense (See that blonde over there?) the offense arises from the fact that the color of hair is not the person. The adjective applied to inanimate objects (wood, beer) is typically spelled blond.

Photo by Georges Biard

Thanks for advice, Kirsten Stroud and Nadya Pommier

This post also published on Tetradki blog

New Books: The Somme Stations, by Andrew Martin

2011-01-02T15:43:00.002+01:00

Andrew Martin has published several detective novels with Jim Stringer, a railwayman reassigned to the North Eastern Railway police in Edwardian England, as the main character. Jim, nicknamed the Steam Detective, has quite a following and readers will be looking forward to his new adventures in France during the Battle of the Somme, especially where there is an unusual twist. Here is what the publishers say:

On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival – even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead.

During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself . . .

Andrew Martin is also known for his non-fiction How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.

The Somme Stations is released in early March 2011, book web-sites take orders now.

Some of the links here take you to Amazon.com. If you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges.

Vikings, Normans and the English Vocabulary

2010-12-26T10:23:00.001+01:00

Johnson is the Economist newspaper's (magazine's) language blog (named after Dr Samuel Johnson). It is produced by a team of writers-linguists and deals with everyday language matters with great authority.

Johnson recently gave a good thrashing to Stephen Fry – and others – who like to boast that English language has the richest vocabulary in the world. If you heard such claims, or repeated them, or argued with your French friends about the subject, I suggest you read the Johnson take on the topic to have a clearer idea of what we are talking about:

STEPHEN FRY, whom I always enjoy, makes a claim (at about 6:10 of the video) [English] certainly has the largest vocabulary ... by a long, long, long long, way. Rather as China is to the rest of the world in population, English is in the population of its words. Is that true, a friend e-mails me to ask?

There's a longish answer. For the summary version, skip to the end. For the really short version, though, the answer is "Sorry, Mr Fry." English is certainly rich in vocabulary, but this claim is nearly always made by enthusiastic lovers of English who don't really know how the many varieties of language beyond English work. It's not that another language has more words. The comparison simply can't be made in any agreed apples-to-apples way.

For example:

Moreover, many languages habitually build long words from short ones. German is obvious. Are compounds new words? Given the possibilities for compounds, German would quickly outstrip English, with new legitimate German "words", which Germans would accept without blinking, coined every day. Just one quick glance at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's home-page finds Abschiedsvorstellung ("leave-taking performance", about South Africa putting on a display for the departing French in the World Cup), Weltmarktführer ("world market leader"), Stromtarifrechner ("electricity bill calculator") and so on. There's no reason to say "it's incredible how the Germans have a word for 'leave-taking performance'," because to create such words ad hoc is banal in German. This is even truer for Turkish. So Turkish and German and a host of others like them have "more words" than English.

And, giving the summary, Johnson comes to us, Normans:

We could go on in this vein for quite a while, but that will do for now. If I had to give a short answer to the question "does English have the biggest vocabulary?," I'd say "Who cares?" English is a rich and beautiful language, not least because England has been conquered by Vikings and Normans, and has happily been open to foreign influence through its history. We know more of its wonderful rare words because English has been written for over a thousand years, and its many dialects are well described. That's good enough for me. We shouldn't need it to have the biggest vocabulary—which can't be defined in any sensible way—to enjoy it.

And here is Blackadder trying to rewrite Johnson's dictionary with the help of Baldrick:

A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler

2010-12-24T09:15:00.000+01:00

Ten years ago, oh happy day, shopping in Tesco's (that isn't the happy bit), I spotted a new book with Jeremy Paxman's comment on the back cover; 'I was bowled over... I finished the book wishing it had been twice as long'. Paxman impressed? This had to be worth reading! Conclusion: Anne Tyler is brilliant.

AT washes gently over every day issues (relationships, expectations, temptation, the dependency of old age...) and gives them a normality – life is like that. She writes with such acute observation and insight that the minutiae are like moments of revelation. Her protagonist Barnaby Gaitlin lives in a dark shadow of disapproval, cast aside by his parents, particularly his caustic mother. His old, wealthy Baltimore family set up the Gaitlin Foundation, patronizingly dispensing compassion (which doesn't extend to Barnaby). Ironically, through his 'menial' work with elderly people, Barnaby discretely personifies the compassion for which his family so publicly stands. In spite of strained family relations, a broken marriage, a faltering father-daughter relationship, he is generous, funny, curious, sometimes profound and importantly to the plot, trustworthy.

Anne Tyler provokes an appreciation of the ordinary and unremarkable and shows everyone has the potential to offer something extraordinary to the patchwork of life. This is the Pulitzer prize winner’s 14th novel and if you haven’t yet discovered her this is a good book by which to make her acquaintance.

review by ©Marie Hayward

Faux Amis

2010-10-17T11:10:00.000+02:00

With the French bemoaning the English invasion of their language and the English sniggering at Franglais, it is important to show how much it is the other way round – how deep is French penetration into English. There is a huge overlap in words, phrases and notions, but there is also a mass of faux amis, words that sound or look the same, but have different meaning.

Ellie Malet Spradbery put together a delightful little book False Friends – Faux Amis based on her own experience of traveling in France. I recommend it to anyone who has a lust for all things French, and it should be a must have book for Brits who settle in the old Angevin Empire - from Normandy to Poitou to Dordogne to Provence.

The book is not an academic study of how words travelled from French to English and from English to French acquiring different meanings, nor is it a dictionary. It is rather a fun collection of language curiosities picked on the move. And it reads as such, which makes it really enjoyable.

Apart from faux amis there are sections with current French idioms to enliven your vocabulary and lists of trees, fruit, fish, animals, vegetables and flowers, all handy when you go shopping in France or chat to you neighbours. In fact, the book is published in a format fit for a handbag or a large pocket, and has wide margins where you can scribble down your own favourite pickings of faux amis or just useful words and expressions.

The publishers' note sent to me suggests that Faux Amis is an ongoing project and the book is to be expanded and improved. Spradbery runs a blog at elmalet.blogspot.com, so I hope anyone can go there to offer their own finds.

A few nitpickings.

I wish there was an alphabetical index of all the words, English and French included in the book. It would be better if it had more examples of how the words are actually used - or misused by both the French and the English. And of course while spelling may be the same, pronounciation is very different. Coin is not pronounced as coin in English, but koo-ehn. At a vide-grenier the other day, an Englishman was trying to attract buyers to his stock of 'crocodile' flip-flops by shouting all day 'trois yoo-rohs' (euros). Euro in French sounds more like Ero from Eros. There is very little, if any, help on how to say words the French way which is a pity.

One of my own favourite faux amis are cheminee (fireplace) and chambre (bedroom). You can see French estate agents describing property in English as 'three-chamber with chimney' (three-bedroom house with an open fire). This is not in the book.

Another one, demand (request, in the book) slips into English-in-France so quickly, many stop realising they are different. And every time I see the sign deviation on the road I go mad trying to remember the actual word used for the same purpose in England – diversion.

Here are a few more, some not in Spradbery's book:

Defense - not allowed - Defense de fumer (no smoking), Defense de stationer (no parking), Defense de uriner (no urinating, yes, there are many of these too)

Donjon - keep of the castle, not dungeon.

Sensible - is sensitive in French, English sensible is raisonnable

Special - difficult (character)

Mouton - sheep, not mutton.

Send in your own favourites to put here or on Ellie's blog.

Asterix surrenders to McDonald's

2010-08-19T10:33:00.000+02:00

Gerard Depardieu played Obeliks

McDonald's has signed up cartoon star Asterix the Gaul in its latest marketing campaign in France. The tiny French warrior is to replace Ronald McDonald next year, it is reported.

The new Mac-do campaign is to start at the time the movie Asterix and Cleopatra is released.

Leader of the French green movement José Bové led an attack on a McDonald's restaurant near Millau, southern France, in 1999.

Asterix is France's favourite cartoon character. About 300 million Asterix comics have been sold since 1961 when it first appeared.

Depardieu played Obelix, Asterix's giant mate in the 1999 film
Astérix et Obélix contre César. (Asterix and Obelix Take On Ceasar)

Photo by Georges Biard

'Appel du 18 Juin', 70 years since

2010-06-18T18:41:00.001+02:00

General De Gaulle made his famous appeal on BBC Radio 70 years ago. Even though few people in France heard the general, the day is considered as the beginning of French Resistance to nazi occupation. Almost single-handedly De Gaulle saved the honour of France. He urged the French to fight on.

"Is defeat final? No! De Gaulle was saying.
"Believe me, I who am speaking to you with full knowledge of the facts, and who tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that overcame us can bring us victory one day. For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can align with the British Empire that holds the sea and continues the fight. She can, like England, use without limit the immense industry of the United States."

Here is a recording of the appeal made four days later, on the 22nd. On the 18th the BBC didn't record the speech. However the word spread in France after 18th and on the 22nd many more listened. And on the 28th Churchill's government recognized De Gaulle as 'leader of all the Free French'. 'This was vital, but it laid him open to accusations of being a British puppet, ' write Robert and Isabelle Tombs in their brilliant book on Anglo-French relations, 'That Sweet Enemy' ('Cette Exquise Ennemie'). Not only few heard, initially, even fewer joined the General.

'Petain's authority and ambient Anglophobia blighted de Gaulle's efforts to rally support. ... Those who did join de Gaulle were not only adventurous, but junior and often rather unusual... This gave the Free French a reputation for extremism and eccentricity. De Gaulle was no more successful among permanent French residents in London, of whom there were about 10,000: only 300 volunteered. Civilian refugees, like those in uniform, mostly wanted to get home.'

(from 'That Sweet Enemy')

Full text of the appeal is here in English and here in French.

On the same day Churchill spoke in Parliament of the coming 'Battle of Britain'. It is that speech which is remembered by the rousing words, in a thousand years, men will still say: 'This was their finest hour.'

President Sarkozy is in France today for commemorations of l'Appel de 18 juin:

The Birds. A Fair Distribution.

2010-05-23T11:03:00.001+02:00

The Big Bird count today starts in France - take part if you're not heading for the beach.

We're absolutely swarmed with little birds. Tits, finches, starlings, wrens, swallows - everywhere. Open windows - and they start flying in and out of the house! At times it's a bit like in Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds. At least they are not (yet) attacking us.

One swallow got into the kitchen and couldn't find a way out. I threw a tea towel over him and gently let him go outside.

Which reminded me of a passage from Henry Thoreau's 'Walden. Life on the Golden Pond'.

November 9, 1857

Mr Farmer tells me that on Sunday he went to his barn, having nothing to do, and thought he would watch the swallows, republican swallows. The old bird was feeding her young, and he sat within fifteen feet, overlooking them. There were five young, and he was curious to know how each received its share; and as often as the bird came with a fly, the one at the door (or opening) took it, and then they all hitched round one notch, so that a new one was presented at the door, who received the next fly; and this was the invariable order, the same one never received two flies in succession. At last the old bird brought a very small fly, and the young one that swallowed it did not desert his ground but waited to receive the next, but when the bird came with another, of the usual size she commenced a loud and long scolding at the little one, till it resigned its place, and the next in succession received the fly.

Some of the links here take you to Amazon.com. If you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges.

A Tireless Lover Who Reduced State Deficit and Instilled Tolerance

2010-05-18T12:40:00.000+02:00

France has found a new political pin up: a charismatic leader who reduced the country's deficit by a third and embodied the legend of the tireless French lover - Henri IV (see the Daily Telegraph article).

Henry IV was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and (as Henry III) King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Before his coronation as king of France at Chartres, he changed his faith from Calvinism to Catholicism. "Paris is worth a Mass", he declared. In 1598, he enacted the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants and thereby effectively ended the civil war.

He cut the state deficit by 30 per cent and increased state revenues by 50 per cent while barely raising taxes

One of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign, Henry showed great care for the welfare of his subjects. Henry was nicknamed in France 'le bon roi Henri' ("the good king Henry"). He is perhaps best known for promising all French workers the "means to have a chicken in the pot every Sunday". (See a recipe for poule au pot).

He was assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, François Ravaillac, in Paris 400 years ago (May 14, 1610.) The anniversary spurred a wave of national nostalgia, with his prowess being feted across the country with a series of books, exhibitions and articles. Henri was a success for France in every sense – politically, economically and romantically.

His right-hand man, the Duke of Sully, managed to cut the state deficit by 30 per cent and increase state revenues by 50 per cent while barely raising taxes. All this has turned him into a national icon.

Henry IV is the eponymous subject of the royal anthem of France, "Marche Henri IV". Here is a video of the song:

And below is a Russian song about king Henry IV from the film 'The Hussar Ballad' (1962, music by Tikhon Khrennikov, events relate to Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812)

German Humour and American Shooting

2010-05-07T18:12:00.004+02:00

8-9 May 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe

Brits - and many others - think of the Germans as a rather humourless lot. Antony Beevor's book D-Day: The Battle for Normandy dispels many myths about the Allied landings in France and the subsequent fighting. Among them is the myth that Germans don't have a sense of humour.

Beevor cites this German joke that was circulating among the Wehrmacht soldiers.

'The almost total absence of the Luftwaffe to contest the enemy's air supremacy continued to provoke anger among German troops, although they often resorted to black humour. 'If you can see silver aircraft, they are American,' went one joke. 'If you can see khaki planes, they are British, and if you can't see any planes, then they're German.'

The other version of this went, 'If British planes appear, we duck. If American planes come over, everyone ducks. And if the Luftwaffe appears, nobody ducks.' American forces had a different problem. Their trigger-happy soldiers were always opening fire at aircraft despite orders not to because they were far more likely to be shooting at an Allied plane than an enemy one.'

I highly recommend the book. Even if you are not a history buff, soldiers' stories Beevor collected would liven up any of your tours to D-Day sights and memorials.

Tip: if you are buying second-hand, check that the first 17 pages of the book are not missing. Last year, as the 65th anniversary of D-Day was approaching and publishers were rushing the book to sellers part of the circulation came out without them.

And if you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges.

Below is a fragment from the war epic 'The Battle of Britain'. Goering asks his pilots how he can help them. 'Give me a squadron of Spitfires,' one of them says.

'Address Unknown' in Caen

2010-05-03T21:07:00.004+02:00

poster from www.ultimachamada.fr

Please also read this post on 'A Russian Review of Books'

8-9 May 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe

Tomorrow, 4 May 2010, in Caen-Mondeville the French theatre troupe Ultima Chamada performs a stage version of 'Address Unknown' (Inconnu à cette addresse or, in German, Adressat Unbeknownt), a super-bestselling story by American Kathrine Kressman Taylor, based on true events leading up to the Holocaust. Tragic as it is, it's also extremely funny. And if there is one holocaust story everyone should read, this is the one.

If you can't make it, there is a clip of the performance on the compagnie's web-site.

And the book is available in most French mediatheques, because it was a huge bestseller in France in 1995 - the 50th anniversary of the liberation of nazi concentration camps. The second time it became so. Before that, in 1930s, it was one of the first stories to open eyes of Americans to show what was happening in nazi Germany. And the author Kressman Taylor, then in her 90-s, was happily signing copies and giving interviews. If you do buy the book, make sure you get the edition with her son's moving afterword.

The stage version is set to music by Gershwin, Bach, Bernstein and Kurt Weill.

Play at
Mondeville,
La Renaissance
4 May, Tuesday
starts at 20:30

Hair, Beauty and Body Care - in French

2010-04-24T11:21:00.000+02:00

Je voudrais un bronzage par brumisation - I’d like a spray tan...

Summer is coming which means it’s time to get fit, get waxing, book a pedicure, put some highlights in your hair and have a spray tan. From Hadley Pager’s great little series of topical, pocket-sized phrase books comes Hair, Beauty and Body Care with every word or phrase you could possibly need for a visit to the gym, spa, hairdresser, beauty salon or pharmacie.

Price £6, orders from Hadley Pager on 0044 1372 458 550 or via the website www.hadleypager.com

Also:

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald

2010-04-18T17:07:00.000+02:00

Hers are slim volumes that, by their very perfection, put wordier efforts to shame

In 1913 the journey from Moscow to Charing Cross, changing at Warsaw, cost fourteen pounds, six shillings and threepence and took two and a half days. In the March of 1913 Frank Reid’s wife Nellie started out on this journey from 22 Lipka Street in the Khamovniki district, taking the three children with her - that is Dolly, Ben and Annushka. Annushka (or Annie) was two and three-quarters and likely to be an even greater nuisance than the others. However Dunyasha, the nurse who looked after the children at 22 Lipka Street, did not go with them.

This is the perfect opening of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring, written with her usual talent for sparse, meticulous prose. Hers are slim volumes that, by their very perfection, put wordier efforts to shame.

In March 1913, Frank Reid's wife abruptly leaves him and Moscow for her native England. The children, wonderfully self reliant and precocious, only make it a couple of train stops before being delivered back into the hands of the Moscow station master and from there to their bemused father.

(by Miranda Ingram)

What is bocage? It's the Brave New World where we live

2010-01-29T09:38:00.000+01:00

I was leafing through a copy of Huxley's Brave New World and stumbled upon 'boscage', an English word rarely used these days.

It is in the dictionary, though:

boscage
A mass of trees or shrubs; a thicket.

The word comes from Old French 'boscage' and related to the word 'bush' - and also to 'bocage' - the word describing French pastureland divided into small hedged fields interspersed with groves of trees, or, figuratively, rural hinterland. That's where most Brits head when they move to France.

Huxley wrote Brave New World while splitting his time between England and France. So, perhaps, the bocage inspired him to use boscage in the book.

Grand Ouest Authors

2009-12-08T12:01:00.000+01:00

Steve Mansfield-Devine, a writer living in Normandy, has asked us to invite other authors to his group:

I'm in the process of setting up a writers group called Grand Ouest Authors.

The aim is to provide a network for anglophone authors who live in Normandy, Brittany and the Pays de la Loire. It's aimed at writers with books in print (via publishers or self-published) and those with book projects that they hope to get into print in the near future.

I've blogged about why I'm setting up the group here.

And there's a contact form for people interested here.

There's only a few of us at the moment, so I'm putting the word out as much as I can, as the more writers we can attract, the more mutual support we can provide. So if you did feel moved to blog about it, that would be great!

Websites for book lovers

2009-10-21T10:04:00.003+02:00

A few of our favourite book web-sites:

www.bl.uk/treasures/treasuresinfull.html - treasures of the British Library in zoomable detail: the Gutenberg Bible, Magna Carta, the first edition of Hamlet.

gutenberg.net - 20,000 out of copyright books in downloadable plain format text, digitalised by volunteers.

amazon.co.uk - “search inside” - not as pleasurable as browsing in a bookshop of course, but this feature allows you to dip into a book before you buy.

telegraph.co.uk/readings - authors read aloud to you online from their works or try librivox.org for whole texts read by volunteers, a sort of audio gutenberg.

bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/mayosbookpanel for lengthy samples of presenter Simon Mayo’s books of the month.

Send us your favourite sites or blogs about books, words or languages.

Do you have a book (fiction or non fiction) you would like to review?
Send 200-250 words for publication on the Rendezvous Readers’ Book Blog marked “book choice”.

Young readers list for British parents in France

2009-09-17T09:16:00.000+02:00

Getting the reading habit isn’t just important for children’s academic progress or, far more importantly, one of the most exciting things that will ever happen to them. What you have read is also part of your national-cultural identity and for British kids growing up in France really to feel British, especially if they go back to the UK, they need to have read the same books (yes, OK, and watched the same tv programmes) as their compatriots.

So, here’s a selection of classic and modern literature from the current UK school reading lists - books they should have read; books that are a joy to read.

Primary pupils:

reading age 5-7

The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss;
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond;
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd;
We’re going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen;
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

7-8
Charlotte’s Web by E B White;
The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog by Jeremey Strong;
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks;
Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs;
Mr Majeika by Humphrey Carpenter;
One thousand and One Arabian Nights by Geraldine Mccaughrean;
Ivan the Terrible by Anne Fine

8-9
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll;
The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo;
Beowulf by Kevin Crossley-Holland;
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner;
The firework-makers Daughter by Philip Pullman;
Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh;
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder;
Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry;
Stig of the Dump by Clive King;
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome;
War Boy by Michael Foreman

9-10
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens;
Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper;
Conor’s Eco Den by Pippa Goodheart;
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe;
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz;
Watership Down by Richard Adams;
The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

Make time for War and Peace

2009-08-16T14:00:00.001+02:00

All serious readers know that one day they should tackle Tolstoy’s War and Peace but many put it off: too long, complicated names, chunks of philosophical digression...

In fact, like Dickens’ novels, the book is just a soap opera, but choosing the right translation can make a big difference to your enjoyment. Although there are already more than a dozen in print, two new versions have been battling it out - with some hostility - in 2007.

Although British translator Andrew Bromfield’s “concise” version (Ecco Press) may sound more tempting, it is the Pevear-Volokhonsky version (published by Knopf) which is causing huge excitement with its bold approach to language. For example, the Russian kapli kapali which has always been translated along the lines of the descriptive “raindrops dripped from the trees” is here rendered as “drops dripped” hence conveying the compactness (yes!) of Tolstoy’s language and that this is a sound heard in the dark. The US-Russian husband and wife team Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky live in Paris and turned another Tolstoy great, Anna Karenina, into a best-seller when their translation was promoted by Oprah Winfrey.

You have time on your hands now you have moved to Normandy, the winter evenings are long - time to give it a go.

New translation by the acclaimed translators Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky:

'Concise' version with a happy end, translated by Andrew Bromfield (NOT the traditional text):

Pictures: Tolstoy barefoot by Ilya Repin (left) and Napoleon battling the Russians by Vassili Vereshchagin (right).

Paris American Bookshop closes

2009-07-04T14:20:00.004+02:00

Brentano's, the old shop at 37 Avenue de L'Opéra, whose customers included Mark Twain, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, was shut after its landlord, the BNP Parisbas bank, won a liquidation order for non-payment of rent. For some time, the store was locally owned, no longer part of the historic New York-based company which is now a brand in the Borders Group. The American bookstore has been a Paris fixture since 1895.

Charles Bremner's story is here

And a list of other English language bookshops in Paris is here

WH Smith in rue de Rivoli is still going.

Talking French: Hadley Pager's handy books

2009-07-03T16:46:00.000+02:00

Hadley Pager do a neat series of subject by subject phrase books which are small enough to slip in your pocket and also run the glossaries both English - French and French - English so you could, for example, hand the book backwards and forwards between you and the doctor rather than knowing what to say but not understanding the answer.

The medical phrase book covers everything you could possibly want to say or understand at the doctors, chemist, as a hospital inpatient or at the pharmacy.

Other themes include legal terms, garden and horticultural, renovations etc.

Mail hpinfo@aol.com or write to Hadley Pager Info, PO Box 249, Leatherhead, KT23 3WX for latest publication list and prices.
www.hadleypager.com

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

2009-07-02T16:42:00.000+02:00

Barbara Kingsolver is a brilliant writer, both gripping and thought-provoking. Nevertheless, I have had this on the shelves for ages because I never seemed to be in the mood to start a very long book set in the Belgian Congo in the fifties.

But with Kingsolver you are hooked from the opening line: We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

This is the story, told by the wife and four daughters of the appalling, bible-thumping, Baptist Nathan Price, of the family’s Mission to Africa. First, it is the tale of one family’s adventure into “the heart of darkness’, its dysfunction and ultimate destruction. As a family saga alone, the book is utterly satisfying.

But of course, as always with Kingsolver who tackles wide, moral themes through her stories, it is more than that. Set just before and after Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo, is assassinated, it is also the story of the Congo - whose troubles continue to make the headlines today.

And it is about America, cultural imperialism and, as Kingsolver says in her introduction, exploring the “great shifting terrain between righteousness and what’s right”.

Nathan is, above all, a man of certitude. He is observed by his family and his would-be converts. “Tata Jesus is bangala!” he shouts during his sermons, unwilling to listen to the fact that in Kikongo meaning hangs on intonation: bangala may mean “precious and beloved” but it when spoken in a flat; foreign accent also means the poisonwood tree, a dangerous local plant.

Later, having absorbed the American message that democracy is good, the inhabitants of Kilanga vote, in church, on whether Jesus should be their personal God. Jesus loses.
Kingsolver says she waited thirty years for wisdom and maturity to dare to write this book. It is warm, funny and haunting.

Miranda Ingram

A million ways of looking at France

2009-06-18T08:50:00.008+02:00

March Choice
A Place in Normandy
by Nicholas Kilmer
and
House of Peine
House of Daughters
by Sarah-Kate Lynch

The poet Wallace Stevens famously saw “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Thank goodness he did not attempt a poem about France for there must more than a million ways of looking this country. Two ways are revealed in this pair of books that could not be more different.

A Place in Normandy (published by Henry Holt & Co.) is the story of a house near Pont l'Evêque which has been in the hands of one American family for three generations. Now the author, Nicholas Kilmer, has to decide what to do with it. In one super-charged week he travels from his home in Massachusetts to France to view the house where his mother grew up and decide if he and his wife should take over ownership or put it on the market.

Kilmer is the author of a series of mysteries set in the art world and endeavors to cast this tale as another mystery: will they buy the place or not? What's happened to the old tray in the dining room? And where is the laundry? The only mystery that is not resolved by the end of the book is how Kilmer manages to accomplish so much in such a short period of time. He can get in a trip to the Landing Beaches in the morning, make an enormous lunch for guests, spend time painting, hike the woods and meet with a plumber or two in the afternoon and still get back into the kitchen in time to produce a gourmet dinner. (One other mystery: how did he get the plumber and carpenter there so quickly?)

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Kilmer is the scion of not just one, but two, illustrious American families. One grandfather, F. C. Frieseke, was an Impressionist painter, part of the colony of Americans artists who clustered around Monet in Giverny. He bought the house near Mesnil-sur-Blagny because of the beautiful light “found” in the Pays d'Auge. Kilmer's other grandfather was Joyce Kilmer whom every American schoolchild knows as the author of Trees, a poem that begins, “I think that I shall never see, A poem as lovely as a tree....” The elder Kilmer, like so many poets, it seems, was killed in the trenches of World War I and is buried in an American cemetery in the Marne.

At times, Kilmer overwrites, making the reader long to clear away the excess and get back to the story. Still, A Place in Normandy? How can we resist?

House of Daughters (House of Peine) by Sarah-Kate Lynch is a froth of a book, which is, undoubtedly, to be expected from a novel about a champagne house and the three women who inherit it. You may also find Lynch listed as the author of House of Joy (UK) and House of Daughters (US) - they are one and the same book, just different titles in different countries. Although Peine is the New Zealand title, I'm using it for the nice irony it gives French-speakers. All “three,” however, have been optioned for a movie, as have two earlier books by this New Zealand author. Now, for full disclosure. Lynch's book was given to us by a bookseller friend, and we soon discovered why. In the “acknowledgments” she credits Wine & War: the French, the Nazis and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure, the book I wrote with my husband, as being one of her inspirations.

Throughout the book I ran across scenes I knew very well, having already written nearly identical ones, like how to seal someone into a wine barrel in order to sneak him past German soldiers. Since it's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I'm not going to give this book a bad review! It's a cute book, a couple of steps removed from “chic lit,” but those two or three steps include fun information about champagne and how it's made, as well as nice descriptions of Champagne, its people and the passion of vignerons. The story centers around three vastly different daughters, how they cope with each other and the death of their unloved father. You get a bit of insight into French inheritance laws, too. It's a light-hearted read with plenty of twists and turns before the happy ending arrives leaving you might thirsty for a glass of champagne.

by Petie Kladstrup

Overlord by Serge Saint-Michel and Mister Kit

2009-05-16T13:50:00.002+02:00

If you have a son who is a reluctant reader (boys can be slow to get the reading habit) give him BD’s (bandes dessinées) - comic strip books which are hugely popular in France. Don’t worry - a friend who is now a publisher in Paris only read comics until well into his teens.

This one, first published for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, is unmissable. You can’t live in Normandy and ignore the Landings and all here should have a passing knowledge of the ensuing battle. Kids love this comic version with lots of guns and explosions. It’s not a bad potted version, either, for adults who could benefit from a quick overview of the Battle of Normandy.

Overlord by Serge Saint-Michel, pictures by Mister Kit, is available in French or English in most WW2 museums in Normandy or order it online from: www.memorial-caen.fr
or from Amazon.fr:
6th June - Overlord
or Amazon.co.uk
6th June 1944: Overload

The Lollipop Shoes Joanne Harris

2009-04-01T15:38:00.000+02:00

The Rendezvous Book Choice:

Generally, you either like an author or you don’t. You might prefer certain books to others but a favourite author is a favourite author. Joanne Harris, therefore, is a bit of an anomaly. I loved Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange but couldn’t get past the first few pages of Blackberry Wine and gave up Coastliners when I realised I couldn’t care less what happened to any of the characters. Others report a similar ambivalence to Harris’ books.

Her latest book, however, is a triumph. Rattling through some 460 pages, The Lollipop Shoes takes up the story begun in Chocolat and follows Vianne Rocher and daughter Anouk to the streets of Paris’ Montmartre where they open another chocolaterie and the mysterious Zozie breezes into their lives.

Weaving questions about the compromises of motherhood, teenage uncertainties, the nature of identity, learning to be different and the desire to conform into a story which races towards a satisfying conclusion, the Lollipop Shoes shows Harris maturing into a really fine writer.
Particularly poignant is her honest but unlaboured treatment of the relationship between a mother and growing child as well as the frightening glimpse into Anouk’s schooldays - Anouk, of course, has grown up beside Harris’ own daughter, Anouchka.

The story is both firmly rooted in the modern world - teenagers have iPods and digital cameras - but rendered timeless by that same whiff of magic, which is really only feminine intuition, we first saw in Chocolat.

The evocation of a wintry Paris and, of course, the hubble-bubble of the chocolaterie are delightful as are the vignettes of the regular customers.

A thoroughly enjoyable book, The Lollipop Shoes is both comforting and yet you might find it mightily unsettling. How much do we suppress the spirit - both our own and those of our loved ones - in order to cope with life?

Miranda Ingram

Desperate for English language books in France?

2009-02-20T20:48:00.000+01:00

Desperate for English language books in France?

Check out bookmooch.com, a free book exchange. You “sell” your own books for points which you then use to “buy” other members’ used books - the only cost involved is postage.

What is it about manga comics?

2009-02-16T16:02:00.000+01:00

Mangas are the latest teen craze, the black and white Japanese comic books read from right to left.

“Boys’” Mangas involve lots of duels and fighting while “girls’” mangas centre on love stories.

In both cases their literary value is approximately zero but if you long to see your kids with a book in their hand instead of a gadget, get them some Mangas.

Recently only available in specialist shops, now pick them up in supermarkets.

Picture below shows how mangas are 'read' - top to bottom and right to left.

Giving Children the Reading Habit

2009-02-12T16:47:00.001+01:00

Reading with your child is perhaps the greatest gift you can give them - and yourself: a moment of perfect, sweet intimacy.

Of course at the Spot Bakes a Cake stage, the books themselves can be mildly tedious but thanks, in part, to JK, (Rowling) we are now living in a golden age of children’s literature with a wealth of books that give as much pleasure to parents - and grandparents - as children.

In the quest-good-evil genre, which is of course the story of all literature, we have the Deltora Quest series by Emily Rodda for younger readers (6 yrs and upwards) and Philip Pullman’s utterly wonderful His Dark Materials series - “Harry Potter with brains” - for older readers (from 11yrs to adult).

Great news for addicts of Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series is that book four, Outcast, is out in time for Christmas. If you don’t know this series, which tells the story of Torak and his wolf-companion’s struggle for survival in the ancient world, discover it now - it is sheer delight. ( Reading aloud from 6-7 yrs. and read alone from 8-9yrs.)

Another book out for Christmas is the latest in the boy spy Alex Rider series, Snakehead, by Anthony Horowitz (familiar to adults from his tv Midsommer Murders) - a great series for getting boys reading - read aloud from 6-7 years and read alone from 8-9 yrs.

His Dark Materials series published by Yearling.
Deltora Quest series published by Scholastic Inc
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series is published by Orion.
Alex Rider series published by Walker Books

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

2009-02-10T13:57:00.002+01:00

The story of a modest dream. A widow, Florence Green, wants to open a bookshop in the small town of Hardborough, in which she has lived for ten years.

After the death of her husband she simply wants to make a living and be independent. However, the decision to open a bookshop without due attention to Mrs Gamart's aspirations proves to be Florence Green's downfall. The former is a well connected and ruthless woman with plans of her own. However, one senses her objection to the bookshop is less significant than her objection to the unyielding FG.

This brilliant little Booker-shortlisted gem shows the best and worst of parochial life. It illustrates how people can be easily swayed with little consideration as to principles. The humour (unintentionally provided by self-important people) and the tensions found in the politics of this small town dictates the tone of this tale.

FG has some significant allies, but disappointingly the majority go with the influential flow and at the end, with a Hardy-esque touch, her arch-defender unwittingly plays into the hands of her arch-enemy. This vivid chapter in the life of a kindly and courageous woman is, sadly, described with great credibility.

Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom

2009-02-04T15:57:00.000+01:00

The Rendezvous Book Choice:

If you are treating yourself to a great summer read you need a fat book and a page turner. And if - we can always hope - you are reading on the beach and/or under a scorching sun - there is, for me, something extra thrilling about being transported not only into a different era but a different climate.

Winter in Madrid is a superb thriller set at the outbreak of WW2 and the tail end of the Spanish Republican era and Franco’s victory. The story follows three English school friends and their different fates in Spain. Harry is a decent Englishman whose beliefs are shaken by both his Spanish experience and his presence at the humiliation of Dunkirk. Bernie is a committed Communist and International Brigader whose faith in communism is disturbed by Stalin’s pact with Hitler. The shady Sandy, a classic war-time-depression era black-marketeer, is out for himself.

Part love-story, part spy-thriller, the plot is terrific with fabulous twists and turns.
But it is the portrayal of a decimated, divided, authoritarian Spain, always one stop away from joining the war, which is truly masterful.

Sansom’s research is meticulous but never intrudes into the story which is set against the backdrop of real events: Hitler’s overtures to Franco and the British diplomats’ frantic attempts to keep Spain out of the war.

Indeed, Spain’s tenuous neutrality and absence from the war mean that late thirties-early forties Spain is a subject about which many of us know too little.

In the end Sansom admirably resists happy endings and the fate of the protagonists is exactly what they should be which makes this a satisfying read to the very last page.

If you enjoyed Sebastian Faulkes’ Birdsong and Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia you will love this book.

Winter in Madrid: A Novel

by Miranda Ingram

Lose Weight and Learn French: Bye, Bye, Bidon

2009-02-03T14:00:00.000+01:00

Lose weight and learn French with this fun exercise book for real women.

“Bye, Bye Bidon” is written by American Leisa Jean who has been teaching gym classes in Manche for 25 years and illustrated by Wendy Sinclair whose brilliant French life cartoons have been appearing in the Rendezvous.

See more pages and order at www.byebyebidon.com or send a cheque for 25€ to Leisa Jean, La Testuyère 50570 Le Lorey.

Published in the March 2008 issue of the Rendezvous magazine

Over Sea Under Stone by Susan Cooper

2008-12-31T10:34:00.000+01:00

Three children go to Cornwall to stay in a house rented by their mysterious Great Uncle Merry (Gum). During the course of their explorations they discover an ancient manuscript telling the story of King Arthur and which leads them into a quest for the Holy Grail. But they are pursued every step of the way by the terrifying Mr Hastings and his servants.

This is the first book in the compelling 5-part The Dark Is Rising series. And, like Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights series, the Harry Potter books or, indeed, much great literature, is about the battle between good and evil, light and darkness.

But although it was written in 1965 and the children have adventures in the style of E. Nesbit or Enid Blyton, there is none of the sexism (girls washing up etc.) you usually find in books of that era.

The series works on many levels - read aloud to young children as an adventure series or read them yourself aged 9-12 years to understand more about the moral battles.

by Vita Anichkina
Published in the November Rendezvous, 2008

The Seahorse by Tania Unsworth

2008-12-30T10:23:00.000+01:00

This hauntingly successful portrait of the mother-daughter relationship is a must for all grown up daughters and mothers of grown up daughters.

Following the death of her father, Vanessa West takes her mother Marion on a trip to Ashagiri in India, where Marion grew up. Vanessa is determined that visiting Marion’s childhood haunts will do her mother good and is exasperated by her mother’s failure to enter into the spirit of the adventure. Marion’s reluctance to be done good to is her quiet way of asserting her own identity.
In the end it is the efficient Vanessa who comes unstuck in India while her apparently dithering mother reveals an inner strength.

The Seahorse, American author Unsworth’s first novel, is a hugely intelligent exploration of the nature of memory, of identity, of our yearning yet inability to connect with others.
Where it excels, however, is in encompassing all the emotions that make the mother daughter relationship so powerful: the guilt, dislike, love, disdain, the best intentions, the longing to prove oneself, the misunderstandings. Marion and Vanessa are revealed in both their own eyes and each other’s. Each wants the trip to be a success for the other but without grasping what the other wants.

Unsworth achieves this with the slightest, deftest of strokes.

“Why are you being mean?”
Vanessa wasn’t sure, but she suspected that it had something to do with her mother’s handbag. It was large and rather shiny. Snakeskin with a jaunty silver buckle holding it shut....
“You just don’t take a handbag to India.” Vanessa regarded the neat nylon pouch strapped around her own waist with satisfaction. When she looked at it, it reminded her that she was, after all , in control.

He turned round and smiled at them. An ordinary sort of face, in Vanessa’s opinion. Pale, very English.
Marion beamed at him. “You must sit down with us,” she said, before Vanessa had a chance to prevent her with a look.
Did her mother have to be so... enthusiastic? As if this young man was saving them from a completely joyless evening.

“I can’t believe you brought a bed jacket,”. Vanessa said.
“I thought I might want to sit up in bed and read.”
Vanessa said nothing. She had to admit that the bed jacket, although bulky and somewhat ridiculous, was useful...Vanessa felt suddenly protective. How vulnerable her mother seemed. During the entire day, the much imagined day of their arrival in Ashagiri, she had recognised little but the dessert they had been served for dinner. It hardly seemed worth their journey.
“Tomorrow we’ll see the mountains,” she said . “We’ll find stuff. I know we will.”

Vanessa’s mother, however, does not want her daughter’s protection any more than she wants to be shepherded to her old school or family home. In the end it is Vanessa herself who needs protecting, not least from herself.

The appearance of one of Marion’s schoolfriends in Ashagiri provides the story with mystery and the host of secondary characters, from the local Indians to the inevitable back packers, are delightfully drawn and temper the emotional power of the novel with light relief.

by Miranda Ingram

Published in the November Rendezvous, 2008

Seras-tu là? Guillaume Musso

2008-12-01T12:42:00.001+01:00

Seras-tu là?
Guillaume Musso

Without doubt, the best way to improve already reasonable French is to read, read in French. A good idea is to browse the collège reading lists - the subject matter is stimulating enough to hold adult attention while vocab- ulary, syntax and texts are not overly complex. In the book pages, Vitalia Anichkina will be sharing her her recommendations with both fellow book-loving collegians and French improvers.

What if we could go back and change our life? What would we change? In what way?
Elliott, 60 is given a chance to do just that when he operates on a small boy from a lonely village. He goes back thirty years and meets his younger self - his younger self still with Ilena, the only girl he has ever loved.
When Elliott, 30, realises Ilena’s death is imminent he enlists Elliott, 60,’s help to save her. What will really happen to Ilena? And will either of them really live a better life for it?
At times unbearably sad, this is a book about love - and sacrifice.
It is also about how we can never tell what the consequences of our actions will be but nor do we know the consequences of the actions we didn’t take. There is no guarantee that the outcome would have been any better.
I was lent this book but loved it so much that I bought my own copy so I can read it again.

The Summer Book Tove Jansson

2008-12-01T12:32:00.000+01:00

Hang on to summer with this gem from Tove Jansson, the Swedish author of the Moomin books for children.
In a country which sees so many hours of winter darkness, summer is revered and this delightfully simple yet powerful story, one of the ten books she wrote for adults, is considered a modern classic and has not been out of print since it was published in 1972.
An elderly artist whiles away the summer with her six year old granddaughter on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. The girl’s mother is dead. Her father, the grandmother’s son, “works in his study” all summer, occasionally emerging to lay his nets.
Never sentimental, the book explores the unique friendship which can exist between the very old and the very young.
The two rub along, sometimes getting on each other’s nerves. Each is grappling with private fears: Sophia, the girl, as she tries to understand the adult world while her grandmother, often tired, confronts her encroaching senility.
Both are independent, honest, yet the bond of love between them is fierce and protective. They learn from each other.

One day Grandmother and Sophia decide to take the dory out for a little row and pass one of the other “summer islands”:
“...there was a large sign with black letters that said PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING
“We’ll go ashore,” Grandmother said. She was very angry. Sophia looked frightened.. “There’s a big difference,” her grandmother explained. “No well-bred person goes ashore on someone else’s island when there’s no one home. But if they put up a sign, then you do it anyway, because it’s a slap in the face.”
“Naturally,” Sophia said, increasing her knowledge of life considerably.
In the opening chapter, Sophia and her grandmother decide to go for an early morning swim. They sit with their legs dangling in the water.
“I can dive,” Sophia said….
”Do you believe I can dive without me showing you?’ the child asked.
“Yes, of course” Grandmother said . Now, get dressed”…
The first weariness came closer. When we get home, she thought, when we get back I think I’ll take a little nap. And I must remember to tell him this child is still afraid of deep water.
Nothing of consequence happens in the Summer Book. A visitor arrives. A boat spills its load. Father goes to the mainland for supplies. Sophia adopts a kitten.
It is based on Jansson’s own family experiences - of love and nurture, life and nature as well the family’s own summers spent on their “summer island”.
It is exquisitely written - beautiful, sad, funny, positive. Deceptively easy to read, the Summer Book is about the human experience.

Miranda Ingram

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald and Waiting by Ha Jin

2008-11-11T20:48:00.000+01:00

Book Choice:

In 1913 the journey from Moscow to Charing Cross, changing at Warsaw, cost fourteen pounds, six shillings and threepence and took two and a half days. In the March of 1913 Frank Reid’s wife Nellie started out on this journey from 22 Lipka Street in the Khamovniki district, taking the three children with her - that is Dolly, Ben and Annushka. Annushka (or Annie) was two and three-quarters and likely to be an even greater nuisance than the others. However Dunyasha, the nurse who looked after the children at 22 Lipka Street, did not go with them.

This is the perfect opening of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring, written with her usual talent for sparse, meticulous prose. Hers are slim volumes that, by their very perfection, put wordier efforts to shame.

In March 1913, Frank Reid's wife abruptly leaves him and Moscow for her native England. The children, wonderfully self reliant and precocious, only make it a couple of rain stops before being delivered back into the hands of the Moscow station master and from there to their bemused father.

Both The Beginning of Spring (shortlisted for the 1988 Booker Prize) and Ha Jin’s Waiting (winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction) explore the nature of long term relationships, the bizarreness of how one ends up in them and the sheer bafflement of men when called upon to understand the female species.

Ha Jin’s Waiting begins: Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. Together they had appeared at the courthouse in Wujia Town many times, but she had always changed her mind at the last moment when the judge asked if she would accept a divorce. Year after year they went to Wujia Town and came back with the same marriage license issued to them by the county’s registry office twenty years before.

Both books, written in precise, unpretentious prose, have a gentle comic element as well as a hint of sadness at what is left unsaid between the sexes.

But where they are both supremely powerful is in their historical setting. Neither Fitzgerald nor Lin make a single political speech or even direct reference to the tumultuous world which is the backdrop to their stories. And yet, politics ooze through the domestic settings and with the merest sleight of pen, we are absorbed into pre- revolutionary Russia and post-Mao China.

In The Beginning of Spring, Englishman Frank Reid is running a print -works in thriving, cosmopolitan, early twentieth century Moscow. Fitzgerald’s meticulous research into the tiniest details of daily life in the Russian capital in 1913 is extraordinary and whispers of the upheaval and instability which are brewing echo through the story of the Reids’ family life.

Lin Kong and his girlfriend Manna play out their romance at the tail end of the worst atrocities of Mao’s cultural revolution. The author, Ha Jin, spent six years in the People’s Liberation Army before leaving China for the United States in 1985. In his story, Kong is an army doctor and Manna a nurse. Back in his home village waits the wife that Kong’s family chose for him and who, to his eternal shame, has bound feet. Manna waits for Kong to divorce her. Politics intrude only in as much as they are relevant to our ordinary, not hugely political, protagonists’ lives and yet we are always aware of the arid communist puritanism which governs their eternal courtship.
Minor characters - Kong's wife, brother in law and the gossiping hospital nurses are deftly drawn and in Fitzgerald’s novel, the Reids’ accountant Selwyn Crane, Tolstoy devotee, self published poet and irrepressible do-gooder is simply a masterpiece.

These two tragi-comic tales dig deep into the human heart and explore what it is we want from love and, especially, marriage?

Miranda Ingram