SWEET(s)!
OMG, I’m FINALLY done with Nana:a novel of about 500 pages on the most self-centered and decadent prostitute who ever lived (well, in Emile Zola’s imagination) and who serves as an allegory for the Second Empire under Napoleon III. If Zola weren’t so damned brilliant, I’d light the book on fire and dance around it half-naked with my face painted, sacrificing it to a heathen god just for fun (well, that and if I didn’t have to do a presentation on it in a few weeks). This semester is helping me develop a deeper appreciation for 19th century literature, though I’m not sure anything besides the absence of these draconian deadlines can make slogging through this insanely long books any more enjoyable.
I think, in all fairness, that is really is the deadlines that is making me loathe my reading material at the moment as the works are actually quite brilliant. Pluie et vent sur Telumée Miracle, for example, is very well written and portrays some very important historical themes from a somewhat uncommon perspective (not that Frederick Douglas and Harriet Beecher Stowe didn’t both already do that more effectively hundreds of years earlier, but what are you going to do?). At least this book had voodoo priestesses in it. If I had been able to savor this book over a week or so instead of gobbling it down all in one afternoon, giving myself considerable intellectual indigestion, I think I might have actually enjoyed it. Likewise, I think that’s why I’m not getting that much out of the other books I’m cramming down my gullet as quickly as possible. Le ugh.Does anybody have any literary Maylox?
On a less whiny note, Hayden (one of my friends and coworkers in the program) sent me a link on Facebook that has me pretty excited! You know how Ben & Jerry’s has Free Cone Day every year? Well, Pierre Hermé, one of the fancypants macaron bakers (super light, almost meringue-y cookies with incredible fillings) has a free macaron day! They ask that you give a small donation at the door to help a charitable cause, but you get three free macarons from a seemingly endless array of flavors, so it seems pretty fair. Who knew there was free stuff in Paris?! If you’re interested, here’s the link.
My goal today is to 1) get over this stomach bug that’s had me watching what I eat for a few days so I can actually go out with Kate tonight in Montmartre as we’d planned and 2) to get through L’Exil selon Julia, another book from the French Antilles that I can’t actually say I’m looking forward to. This weekend, it’s Treblaypalooza 2010 and some serious rattrapage (catching-up) in L’Education sentilentale by Flaubert which is, thankfully, the last giant 19th century book I need to conquer before break. If I can keep all this literature down, I’ll be sitting pretty at the start of April vacation. If not, I’ll be in the toilet, puking metaphor and synecdoque all over the place.
To cleanse your palette after that rather unsavory image, I leave you with “Heavy Cross” by The Gossip, a song which I greatly enjoy and is playing all the time here in France. Enjoy!
