November 2025

Colette:
The Patriarch
Extremely brief story, no plot, just recalls the life of the brother, a country doctor, of the female narrator. Contrasts the innocent sexual relations of doctor and "patient" and a widower whose daughters mysteriously keep giving birth.
Armande
Excellent story about a diffident doctor finally achieving, inadvertently, his heart's wish.
Green Sealing-wax
Charming story that begins with the narrator's love of 'desk-furniture' and slowly develops another tale that forms a tangent of this passion.
Patrick Modiano, Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue
So-so novel from a Nobel Prize winner. Very basic level of French required to read this.
Boileau-Narcejac, L'Ombre et la proie
Rather disappointing policier from this crime-writing duo. The detective didn't manage to catch any of the killers or prevent any of the murders, instead putting things together only after the bloodshed had ended.
Cristina Fernández Cubas, Hablar con Viejas
Recalls one of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, a shocking and unpleasant short story.
Jules Verne:
Le Chateau des Carpathes
A Gothic novel from 1892, set in Transylvania, with the flavor of a Sir Walter Scott novel, along with echoes of Poe. Quite enjoyable.
Les Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum
Interesting novel that works through the trauma of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Two men, one French, one German, split a fortune and establish rival cities in Oregon. The German, modeled on Bismarck, seeks world domination and builds a doomsday weapon he tries out on France-Ville. His plans are foiled by his overreach and the bravery of Marcel, from the ceded Alsace-Loraine, who penetrates the City of Steel and learns its secrets. Plenty of imagination and humor on display, and the concluding sequence is proper adventure fare, with walls being scaled, fisticuffs, shoot-outs, and a final, shocking discovery.
Three editions of the Arabian Nights...
Keith Vaughan, Journals
Thoughtful, if at times downbeat, journals of artist and writer, Keith Vaughan.
Homer, Odyssey
Translated by Robert Fitzgerald