Classical French Literature

Short thought. There's an anecdote about Celine that I wonder about. The anecdote in question is that Louis-Ferdinand Céline one day during the Nazi-German occupation of France had dinner with German offiseres, and that he during the dinner yelled out the words: "Adolf Hitler is a Jew".

Sounds like a typical "cock-and-bull story" (that was the phrase I got from a dictionary), what could make it credible is that Céline was known both as an anti-Semite and as a hardcore anarchists. Call me naive, but I do not think a hardcore anarchist should like Hitler, even if the anarchist is an anti-Semite.

Centre d'études du 19e siècle français - Joseph Sablé - Centre for 19th Century French Studies, University of Toronto, has lots of stuff on archive.org! Free!

(x-post to corinthe

A middle-aged mediæval historian, fond of troubadours, trouvères and François Villon, and in 19C literature, Gérard de Nerval and Victor Hugo, among others. (My icon is from an old paperback of Notre Dame de Paris: one of my all-time favourite tormented tragic heroes!)

(Why I Hate Anthony Burgess' Adaptation of Cyrano)

Are Apollinaire's program notes for the "Parade" (where he presumably first mentioned the word "surrealism) available anywhere on the web either in English or in French?

- Cranford (16)
- The Count of Monte Cristo (17)
- The Queen's Thief (4)
- Misc (23)
Total: 60


How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm.

Fans of popular French classwics might be interested to know that we are now entering the 100th anniversary year of Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera)! The original novel by Gaston Leroux was first serialised in a French newspaper (Le Gaulois) between September 1909 and January 2010, prior to publication in book format by Pierre Lafitte in February 1910.

To celebrate this milestone achievement, a brand new Phantom Twitter stream has been launched to spread the word of the centenary and the latest news and developments concerning the Opera Ghost. Eventually it is hoped the stream will be used to release exciting new ongoing research currently being undertaken into the novel and all its subsequent adaptations in areas never previously explored. It'll also be a sort of starting point perhaps to test the viability of bringing fans across the world together in 2010. 

The more fans who join the stream, the better, so we can spread word of the centenary to the wider world and draw attention to all things Phantom! The Leroux estate is also aware of the feed, so it would be good to show Leroux's descendants just how beloved this story remains across the globe!

Please follow by following @fantomedelopera on Twitter ( http://twitter.com/fantomedelopera ), or, alternatively, going to http://phantomslair.com for further details. 

Possibly a curious thing with which to attempt to poke this long-dead community, but I made a few icons from illustrations of various parts of Balzac's "Comédie Humaine" (all found via Wikipedia). If anyone feels like expressing themselves through those, feel free to take them.





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I’m looking into the authorship of Louis Aragon. The bad new is that only Le Paysan de Paris and Le Con d'Irène is translated to my first language Swedish, and I don’t read French. It seems a little strange to read a French author in English, but that’s what I have to do. Anyone who has any tips on which books are good to start with (except the two that’s translated into Swedish)?

Hi everybody!

For those of you who read Italian, I just opened apuntate, a community where we read and discuss books together chapter by chapter.

The first novel running is The Count of Montecristo, Alexandre Dumas père’s most famous novel (starting today!), an engrossing story of love, betrayal and vengeance… if you’re interested, feel free to join us and spread the word! :)