14 of My Favourite French Books (pour le 14 juillet)

1. Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

I am not embarassed to say it's my favourite book in any language and one of the books I've read most often. Yes I know how it ends, but my fascination with Edmund Dantes that started with reading Dumas' masterpiece under the covers with a flashlight continues. It's a powerful book disguised as a sort of adventure story. The count is one of the greatest characters to ever grace the printed page.

2. La Dame aux Camélias, Alexandre Dumas (Fils)
Written by the son of the writer Alexandre Dumas (see above), it was good enough of a story that Verdi turned it into an opera the world now knows as La Traviata (the second most performed opera in the world). Based on that information it's obviously a drama and quite a romantic one. Dumas (Fils) really knew how to write about love. Marguerite was based on Dumas' real life lover Marie Duplessis, a famous courtesan who hosted a popular salon. Dumas was dumped for Franz Liszt, and Duplessis died young of tuberculosis with two counts at her side (one from Sweden, the other French). La Dame aux Camélias is widely considered Dumas' best work and has been turned not only into an opera, but there are nearly a dozen films as well.

3. Quatrevingt-treize, Victor Hugo
I am a massive fan of Victor Hugo. He is the only writer that I went so far as to acquire a portrait of (I have his funeral announcement from the newspaper that has been in the frame since the day he died) and I have a massive multi-volume collection of everything he ever did (he was much more than just a writer). Still after all of that Quatrevingt-treize remains my favourite of his works. It was the last book Hugo wrote and in it many of his prior convictions have obviously changed. He is no longer a Royalist. He is obviously on the side of he people and he showed this change in politics by writing a brilliant book. If you want to know the facts about France during this time you can read plenty of books, but if you want to know the heart and soul of the people then you read this book.

4. Les liasons dangereuses, Pierre-Ambroise Francois Choderlos Laclos
Someone I know and who's opinion I trust once told me he thought this was the best example of French literature for its style and form. I didn't have the heart to tell him I loved this book because it was scandalous and quite easy to read even those it's a book of "letters". I've since given it a look and agree the writing alone is reason to read the book, but I prefer my reasons for adoring this masterpiece of French literature.

5. Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal
The first volume's epigraph "La vérité, l’âpre vérité" is in itself fiction. Julian Sorel enters into the Church after realising that under the Bourbon Restoration one can't advance one's prospects by pursuing a career in the military. He doesn't care much for religion beyond appearances and eventually through a few protectors he meets along the way does almost get what he most desires, but of course it ends badly.

6. Chéri, Colette
Any one who knows me Colette is in my eyes, perhaps the greatest female writer France has ever known. Not only did she write beautifully, but she achieved what any writer should strive for - to write simply but with great detail. This is in my opinion her real masterpiece. Colette wrote for men about women really and there is no better example than Chéri.

7. - 10. The Poets

Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire
Romances sans paroles, Paul Verlaine
Le bateau ivre, Arthur Rimbaud

If you want to read the best poetry France has to offer, you wouldn't be remiss in starting with Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud. I would have included Mallarmé on my list, but he is notoriously difficult to translate and is best read in French (although poetry and its translation are subjects well worth debating). I could have as easily swapped Le bateau ivre for Une Saison en Enfer and Verlaine's Romances sans paroles is a must read for any fan of Rimbaud's - but for me personally Les Fleurs du Mal is the great volume of poems ever published. The first poem I remember falling in love with was by Mallarmé, but even he was inspired by Baudelaire. When I told my father of this new poet he immediately pulled down some Baudelaire and from that day no other poet has ousted Baudelaire from his lofty perch in my esteem.

11. Les Fables de la Fontaine
If you want to understand a lot of French jokes and perhaps the soul of the French people, you have to read Les Fables de la Fontaine. As a child I knew it before I barely remember anything else. Read it in poetic form though, Fontaine was a genius.

Now you know that part in the feux d'artifices (fireworks) where the sky lits up like crazy, the finale? Well because I can no longer list books and separate the ones I most love from the ones I truly love here is a finale en livres:

L'etranger/The Stranger, Albert Camus
La vie de Gargantua et Pantagruel/The Life of Gargantua and Pantragruel, Rabelais
Moravagine, Blaise Cendrars (a favourite of Henry Miller & Borges')
La vie de mode emploi/Life a User's Manual, George Perec
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
La Ventre de Paris/The Belly of Paris, Zola
L'amant/The Lover, Marguerite Duras
A la recherche du temps perdu/In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust
Voyage au bout de la nuit/Journey to the End of the Night, Celine
Fin du Chéri, Colette
Les Enfants terribles, Jean Cocteau
Rene, Chateaubriand
Les Contes de Charles Perrault
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Contes du jour et de la nuit, Guy de Maupassant

I could keep going, but I have to prepare a nice meal to celebrate le 14 juillet. I've decided to go with some country cooking to keep with the spirit of the day so I'll be preparing a simple feast of crispy skinned roasted chicken rubbed with thyme, old bread stuffing, and some courgettes au gratin with good white wine from Alsace and fondant au chocolat.

Thanks to the brave Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who stormed the Bastille the rights of every French person were born. Joyeux quatorze juillet a tous!