Tag Archives: Paris
The Vatard Sisters by J.-K. Huysmans
What a stroke of luck to come across another Huysmans novel. The Vatard Sisters is the second novel from Huysmans, and while it’s a great read, it’s also an interesting marker of this remarkable writer’s career. Huysmans is best known … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction, Huysmans, Joris-Karl
Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan
I came across the novel Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan thanks to Emma. The novel seemed to have a considerable impact on her, so when the book became available in English late last year, I was lucky enough to get a review copy. … Continue reading
Filed under de Vigan Delphine, Fiction
A Second Home by Balzac
“The fatal blunder of mistaking the enchantment of desire for that of love.” Balzac’s novella A Second Home (Une Double Famille) begins in 1815 with an impoverished mother and daughter slaving away as embroiderers and barely making ends meet. They live in … Continue reading
The Fairy Gunmother by Daniel Pennac
“You know what kiddo? Dragging myself up in Belleville for the last month’s at least taught me one thing: wrinklies can wander the streets at night, stark naked, with diamond studs in their navels and the family silver hanging round their necks and not … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction, Pennac Daniel
You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik
“Fear. That is what separates the hero from the common man. It’s crossing the room. It’s not complicated.” After concluding Alexander Maksik’s novel, You Deserve Nothing, I began to wonder just who the ‘you’ refers to. Could it refer to … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction, Masik Alexander
Death in Paris: A Sobering Thought
I recently read Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Occupied Paris by David King. Since writing the post, I’ve been dwelling on a passage that I didn’t add to the review. It’s a sobering section of the … Continue reading
Filed under King David, Non Fiction
Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Occupied Paris by David King
The soldier remembered one conversation about the morality of theft, Petiot arguing that it was perfectly natural: ”How do you think that the great fortunes and colonies have been made? By theft, war, and conquest.” “Then morality does not exist?” … Continue reading
Filed under King David, Non Fiction
Winter Thoughts on Summer Impressions by Dostoevsky Pt II
In part I, I mentioned that when I picked up Dostoevsky’s Winter Thoughts on Summer Impressions I anticipated reading a travel book. I was completely wrong; I see the book as primarily political but couched with satire. So while reading … Continue reading
Filed under Dostoevsky
Winter Thoughts on Summer Impressions by Dostoevsky Pt I
We are all familiar with the way in which DVDS are released with a certain packaging of special features to tempt us to buy a particular release (I’m thinking Kino or Criterion). This idea came to mind when I picked up my Oneworld Classics edition … Continue reading
Filed under Dostoevsky
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
“How easy it is to slip out of a harness. You just slip out of it, that’s all.” Author Cynthia Ozick seems to have had a tangled relationship with Henry James. James’s later novels were the subject of Ozick’s Master’s thesis, and at … Continue reading
Filed under Ozick Cynthia
