May 2025

Anna Burns, Milkman
Entertaining novel with experimental qualities.
Alexandre Dumas fils, The Lady of the Camellias
Highly readable story of one man's love for a dead courtesan.
David Foenkinos, La Délicatesse
Strong romantic comedy set in and around a Paris workplace.
Pascal Lainé, La Dentelliére
A reworking of Adolphe, but presents more of the female view before her story is captured and twisted after her death by the male aristocrat.
Andre Gidé, La Symphonie Pastorale
The self-deluded narrator, a cleric, selfishly destroys the happiness of the object of his love, a girl he rescued, and his marriage.
Jean Cocteau, The Holy Terrors
Extremely strong, crystal clear story of the incestuous relationship of an orphaned brother and sister. Some unique trains of thought are pursued.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of the Solitary Walker
A few of these walks contain interesting ruminations (one on lying), but for the most part are fairly dull.
Valéry Larbaud, Childish Things
Excellent stories of childhood.
Dorrit Cohn, Transparent Minds
Literary theory, critiqued by Genette in Narrative Discourse revisited.
Three Renaissance Travel Plays
Fairly readable.
Aeschylus, The Oresteian Trilogy
Excellent.
Henry James, Selected Tales:
The Private Life
Excellent short story about two contrasting characters, one wholly private and the other wholly public.
James Joyce, Dubliners:
The Sisters
No memory of what this was about.
An Encounter
Again, cannot recall any of this.
Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami
Excellent, if extremely cynical novel, charting the rise of its charismatic and brutal male protagonist, through his manipulation of a series of women, to the French aristocracy.