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Downtime Books-National News Sophie’s Choice December
| Sophie’s Choice December |
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| Tuesday, 09 December 2008 | |
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Chimera, Sophie’s English-language bookshop at Montcuq, stocks a wide choice of literature, biography, travel and art, both new and old, as well as children’s books and greetings cards. Open from Tuesday to Saturday and also on Sunday morning for the well-established Montcuq market. 13 faubourg Saint-Privat, 46800 Montcuq 05 65 22 97 01 Red Princess A Revolutionary Life by Sofka Zinovieff  The biography of a Russian princess, Sofka Dolgorouky, written by her granddaughter. It is an account of her flight from revolutionary Russia beginning a lifetime of upheaval in which Sofka is obliged to adapt to every situation in which she finds herself. She arrives in post-war London in the charge of her grandmother, who regularly tires of her surroundings and, just as Sofka settles into a country and culture, moves again. This unsettling way of life combined with unaccustomed poverty no doubt forged Sofka’s character and helped to provide her with the resilience necessary to survive the horrors of the Vittel internment camp, in which she is held during the Second World War. Sofka Dolgorouky is an attractive, promiscuous bohemian who absolves herself from parental responsibility and conventional behaviour in a sometimes shocking manner. However, Sofka Zinovieff’s description of her dramatic background and turbulent life enables us to understand her and her reactions to people and events. A well-researched and compelling story of struggle, survival and immense courage. Granta Books, 2008, 346pp, 16 Euros Speak the Culture: France Be Fluent in French Life and Culture  An ambitious subtitle, but you will not be disappointed. This book is divided into eight chapters which cover art, literature, food and drink etc., starting with “Identity: the foundations of French culture”. You will find the answers to all of your questions and references to the most famous and important figures, historical and contemporary. It is one thing to understand a language, but “Speak the Culture” provides an invaluable aid to understanding the French. It describes the regions, history and language, followed by the artists, writers, philosophers and musicians, and finishes with modern life. This is a comprehensive background to the major movements in music, art and literature and you will be inspired to learn more about “the French experience”. Thorogood Publishing, 2008, 295pp. 23 Euros How to Start and Run a B&B in France by Deborah Hunt  This is the revised and updated second edition of Deborah Hunt’s excellent guide. It gives sound advice on every aspect of running a B&B, includes useful glossaries and is richly illustrated with the author’s line drawings. The sensitive and thoughtful advice prepares you for every eventuality that you might meet while welcoming visitors in a foreign country. Anyone contemplating living in France should read this book, whether they are planning to run a B&B or not. Most readers will learn from the ‘tip for improving French’ at the end of every chapter, and the suggestions for successful integration. If you are considering starting a B&B you will find this book invaluable, and will benefit from the author’s ten years of experience related in a clear and sensible way (with dry humour where applicable). Deborah Hunt’s book is as well organised and carefully planned as her own B&B must have been. How To Books, 2008, 212pp 27 Euros The Olive Tree  This is the second part of the author’s fascinating quest to trace the story of olive oil production from ancient times to the modern day, takes her round the countries bordering the western Mediterranean. Carol Drinkwater travels, over five months, by bus, train or car with guides she knows little or nothing about. The ability to stray from her itinerary to pursue possible clues illustrates her tenacity, courage, insatiable curiosity and, above all, passion for her subject. Travelling south through Spain, she learns that the staggering increase in demand has brought about super-intensive production. Because of the liberal use of pesticides and herbicides and reckless over-watering, the short-lived trees produce great quantities of poor-quality olives. In the heart of Morocco, Carol spends time among the Berbers and visits the ancient Roman city of Volubilis that had once been ‘a liquid goldmine … one house in four had its own olive press’. For a lone woman crossing Muslim countries, far from the tourist track, danger lurks round every corner. The temptation to turn back seems, at times, overpowering, but Carol is determined to carry on. In Algeria, where deforestation is at a critical level, state subsidies encourage olive farming: the roots of the tree attract humidity back into the parched earth. When bombings nearly force her to leave, she entrusts herself to a network of bee-keepers who spirit her away. In Sicily she meets Bernardo, the deputy police chief, who also runs a syndicate of organic olive farmers. In Tuscany, the sour-tongued Attilio is convinced the future lies with grafted trees that can fruit within five years. A highlight of the adventure is when the young Sardinian, Antonio, takes Carol to ‘meet’ a 3,000 year old olive tree: a tree with a face and eyes that appeared to follow her. It is an ancient and extraordinary lifeform with a story to tell and a divine presence that reaches out to touch her spirit and stir her soul. As Carol says, “If you live your life surrounded by nature, working with it, looking at it in every mood and light, this is not such an extraordinary concept to take on board.” by Carol Drinkwater Weidenfeld & Nicholson reviewed by Sue Barber Afghan writer wins France’s most prestigious literary prize The 2008 literary prize season, with its usual harvest of surprises and disappointments, is over. It has been controversy-free, unlike the 2006 vintage, when American Jonathan Littell’s ‘Les Bienveillantes’, an unrepentant SS officer’s view of Nazi Germany, won both the Goncourt and the Académie Grand Prix and kept the media debatingfor weeks. So far, the only prize-winner hitting the Top 20 lists is Prix Fémina winner Jean-Louis Fournier, with his droll yet heart-rending true life story ‘Où on va, papa?’ (Stock) dedicated to his two handicapped children. But even in a calm year, booksellers look forward to the pre-Christmas boost in sales all those hurried reprints with the eye-catching prize-wrappers can bring. Small publishing houses have been successful this year. Traditionally, the fight is between the heavyweights, Grasset, Gallimard and Flammarion. This year, they are absent, bar Italian novelist Sandro Veronesi for the Fémina Étranger prize. One consolation is that Goncourt-winner POL, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is now a Gallimard imprint. The Goncourt, awarded to ‘Syngué Sabour, Pierre de Patience’, is the first novel in French by 43-year-old Afghan novelist and film director, Atiq Rahimi. After fleeing Afghanistan in 1984, and seeking asylum in France, he had continued to publish in his native Persian, but his schooling at the prestigious French Lycée Istiqlal in Kabul, where the Afghan élite is educated, enabled him to take the plunge into his second language with his third novel. Moving over to French, says Rahimi, “gave him more freedom of expression”. His heroine, a young Afghan woman, left alone to care for her comatose wounded husband, also finds freedom at last to express her feelings and frustrations about their relationship. Rahimi has managed, in this short novel, and with stark cinematographic techniques, to put himself in the skin not only of war-torn Afghan women but of women the world over. His gripping and haunting first-person narrative shows remarkable intuition of the feminine condition. Rahimi’s award is not the first time that the Goncourt has gone to a foreigner writing in French. Before Littell, Russian novelist Andreï Makine won the prize in 1995, for ‘The French Testament’. This year has also been good for la francophonie, the French-speaking world. Guinean novelist Tierno Monenambo won another important prize, the Renaudot, with his novel, ‘Le Roi de Kahel’ (Le Seuil). Atiq Rahimi’s prize announcement coincided with another, by French Minister for Immigration Brice Hortefeux, that a group of more than 50 Afghan migrants held in Coquelles, the detention centre near Calais, were to be repatriated in a joint French-UK chartered plane. Rahimi made an impassioned plea for them to be allowed to stay and to enjoy the chance he was given. Both countries have now abandoned the idea, in the light of the present uncertain political situation in Afghanistan and after consultation with the UN High Commission for Refugees. by Jacqueline Karp Prices for Sophie’s books include p&p to mainland France To order : Please send cheques made out to ‘Chimera’ to Chimera, 13 faubourg Saint-Privat, 46800 Montcuq AUTHORS & PUBLISHERS : If you would like Sophie to consider a new book for a review on this page, please send a copy to the address above. |
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