Yesterday I read the play Jacques et son maître: Hommage à Denis Diderot en trois actes. The play was written (in French) in 1971 by Czech writer Milan Kundera. It is a «variation – hommage» on a novel that I haven’t read, Diderot’s Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, which was started in 1765 and published in installments from 1778 to 1780. The novel is apparently a series of philosophical dialogues between a servant and a master, including numerous digressions, bawdy stories, and presentations of new fables (e.g. La Gaine et le Coutelet).
The play is much the same, although Kundera fiercely corrected anyone who called it an “adaptation” of the novel. Instead, it honors Diderot’s original but uses modern theatrical devices like breaking the fourth wall from the opening lines, having characters openly question the talent of the (absent) playwright who is scripting their lines, and staging multiple plays-within-a-play. For all that, though, it remains light-hearted and easily accessible, more entertainment than social commentary. At a guess, it has updated the dialogue of Diderot and dropped most of the philosophy.
The original Diderot
To the extent that is philosophical investigation remains, it centers on whether our destinies are our own to shape, or whether «ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas est écrit là-haut». If our fates are already written, then what sense does it make to hold others responsible for their actions, good or bad? In the case of Man and God, this question has one import, but of course Jacques and his master consider it in the context of Character and Playwright, where the answer is (perhaps?) more clear. However as his master asks, «est-ce que tu es un salaud parce que c’est écrit là-haut ? Ou est-ce que c’est écrit parce qu’ils savaient, là-haut, que tu étais un salaud ? Quelle est la cause et quel est l’effet ?» Kundera doesn’t offer much by way of answer, but the audience doesn’t really care.
The bulk of the play is telling and retelling variations of the same story of love triangles (well, really lust triangles) gone wrong: man dallies with woman, then manipulates his friend into marrying his pregnant mistresses; woman is spurned by man, then manipulates her former lover into marrying a disguised prostitute; man offers to help friend hide a secret tryst with a woman, then sleeps with her himself; man offers to arrange a night of debauchery for his friend, then tips off the authorities to expose friend in compromising position. Throughout it all, Jacques tries to tell his master the story of how Jacques lost his virginity, and how that lead to his falling in love with a different woman. There’s lots of ribald details about the sizes of the women’s breasts and butts. It’s a little cringy, but the women are triumphant and the men ruined often enough that it’s still possible to produce this play in 2021 (Théâtre Montparnasse) without attracting too much opprobrium.
The play reminded me a bit of Fin de Partie by Beckett, which was written 14 years earlier. Each has the central dynamic revolve around a servant and a wheelchair-occupying master. Each has a lot of recurrent bits of dialogue and stories that are lengthened each time they are told. And each questions what controls and is controlled by the world we see on stage. But Beckett’s work is far more brooding and gloomy while Kundera’s is whimsical and ironic. None of Kundera’s characters take themselves all that seriously. Moreover, the Kundera dialogue is far more familiar and free than Beckett’s, which is turgid and formal. Perhaps it’s just easier for a Czech to write in French than an Irishman?
Some Vocabulary I Learned
There were a number of words and colloquialisms I learned while reading the play:
faire la noce – faire une partie de plaisir ; mener une vie de débauche.
un bambocheur – Personne qui aime faire la fête.
se toquer – Avoir brusquement un vif engouement pour quelqu’un ou quelque chose
un ardillon – Pointe de métal d’une boucle de courroie, de ceinture.
un tendron – Très jeune fille (d’âge tendre).
une grue – Populaire. Femme de mœurs faciles et vénales ; prostituée.
se fourrer – S’engager dans (une situation embarrassante).
une crécelle – Moulinet de bois formé d’une planchette mobile qui tourne bruyamment autour d’un axe.
voix de crécelle – aiguë, désagréable.
une raclée – Volée de coups.
filer (= donner) une raclée à qqn.
pouilleux – Misérable et sale.
une jante – Partie circulaire à la périphérie d’une roue de véhicule.
un essieu – Pièce transversale d’un véhicule, dont les extrémités entrent dans les moyeux des roues.
Now that I’m done with Camus, I can catch up on some back issues of L’avant-scène théâtre. Last night I did a quick read of their July 2021 issue, which featured the play Un prince by Émilie Frèche. Weighing in at just 21 pages it’s barely more than an extended scene, an unbroken monologue by a single character (“un homme”) played by Sami Bouajila. The play first made an appearance at théâtre d’Antibes in November 2020, then had a much delayed and then abbreviated run at the same theater in July 2021. I had heard of Antibes, but didn’t really know where it is until I looked it up on a map (it’s in the far south east of France, between Cannes and Nice, just 60 miles from the Italian border).
The play shows a French man of Algerian descent, now homeless (as the the French say SDF = sans domicile fixe) and living in an abandoned construction site. The man’s father moved from Algeria to France in search of a peaceful life with economic opportunity, but the man’s own life didn’t work out that way. After 20 years of growing up poor and another 20 years of working at low wage jobs, he finds himself destitute after the factory he spent years at relocates to Algeria (!) in search of cheaper labor. The man sits among the piles of sand and gravel, somewhere between half- and fully-deluded about the nature of his situation, speaking of his goats and his fields of agranier.
Des chèvres dans un arganier.
We learn in bits and snatches the story of the man’s father, his own childhood, his life as a young married person, his economic dissipation, and his multiple refusals to accept help from the French social services. In the end the man concludes that France is not a land of peace at all, but one of constant economic warfare. Throughout the tone seems wistful rather than harsh, and at times a bit playful.
The solo actor Sami Bouajila is apparently quite famous; he’s appeared in over 50 feature films since 1991 and garnered 2 César awards, including the 2021 prize for Best Actor in the film Un fils. I’ve never seen him in film, but you can get a small taste of his stage performance from this teaser promotion for the July 2021 production of Un prince.
https://vimeo.com/596663608
Not a bad play, and one which I would have enjoyed more live than reading. But nothing that makes me want to go seek out more by this playwright.
Sometime around four o’clock this morning I read the final pages of Albert Camus’s La Peste, a 1947 existentialist novel that chronicles a city’s year-long battle with bubonic plague. I had aimed to finish it over the weekend, but some combination of the day getting away from me and my having trouble sleeping meant that I was up in the middle of the night and figured there was no better time to swallow what I hope will be my last helping of depressing philosophy for some time.
I started the novel 51 days ago, and I’ve got to say that it was a slog. Although it’s only 350 pages, the writing is difficult with sophisticated vocabulary, elaborate grammar, and sentences reaching nearly half a page in length. The work is recognized as a classic, with lots of subtext and many analogies to World War II and Europe’s occupation by Nazi Germany (“the brown plague” according to remarks by Camus outside the novel). You can read good summaries of the book here and ici. It enjoyed a revival in popularity with the arrival of Covid in 2020, and I acknowledge that the observations Camus makes about the human spirit and condition in the context of a long epidemic response hold up reasonably well today. This conversation with philosopher Robert Zaretsky is an example of folks finding renewed relevance in the book.
La Peste was hard to read on many levels. I was interested in it for the first 100 pages or so, but it became oppressive from there. One central theme is human impotency, an idea which always sours my disposition. The characters lack any depth or warmth, as we learn almost nothing about them. And the book contains lengthy digressions as the author delivers polemics against the Church or the death penalty. But completing it felt like an accomplishment to be proud of, so I stubbornly plowed ahead, 10 pages at a sitting, until I was done. Hooray ?
One bonus outcome is that I noted unfamiliar vocabulary words as I went, so I now have a collection of some 400+ words that I can study. I might start a running series of posts sharing some of them here. I am curious to see upon reflection how many of these are fairly common words that had escaped me to date, and how many are obscure words that I am likely not to come upon outside of high literature. Stay tuned …
Over the weekend I watched the film Beaumarchais, l’insolent, a light-hearted picture of the historical figure Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799). The central character is played by Fabrice Luchini, which is how I happened upon the work, as I was searching for more Luchini films to watch online after Le Mystère Henri Pick and Un homme pressé. The real Beaumarchais is best known as the author of the trilogy of stage plays The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Guilty Mother. The first two of these were adapted into even more well known operas (the central character Figaro is also the namesake of one of France’s major newspapers).
In addition to being a playwright, Beaumarchais was a member of the Court of Louis XV and was a spy in the king’s secret intelligence service. He was also an outspoken republican who supported the American Revolution actively, both with his own funds and those of the King. The tension between these three identities – royal spy, budding revolutionary, celebrated author – is what provides the movie with some semblance of a theme and coherent plot. But mostly it’s a fun romp through colorful episodes in the life of a late 18th century personality.
I liked the film. The language was largely accessible to me and I liked contrasting the younger Luchini with what I’ve seen of his modern career. The dialog was funny and the costuming pretty to look at. There were several scenes of gratuitous nudity which conforms to some French stereotypes. About 20 minutes of the film prominently features the historically real character Charles d’Éon de Beaumont, a French spy / diplomat / army officer best known today for being an overt transvestite. D’Éon has an interesting story all on its own.
In all, an enjoyable way to learn of some notable events and personalities in the closing days of France’s monarchy.
Translating English language children’s stories into French is an interesting challenge. My latest foray is a 600 word story named Grizzwold written in 1963 by author and cartoonist Syd Hoff. Hoff contributed many titles to the “I Can Read” series, whose name highlights the translation challenge. The books in this series aimed to provide reading practice for early-stage readers, kids aged 3 to 7 or so, while still telling engaging stories. So when translating the text, I tried to keep three questions in mind:
Is the translation faithful to the original meanings, connotations, and narrative voice?
Could a young child comprehend the translation when read aloud by an adult?
Would a young child have difficulty reading the words aloud from the page?
The first consideration is universal to all translation, but the second and third impose additional constraints. For example, when the wild bear Grizzwold visits a circus and fails in his attempt to do some of the tricks that the circus bears perform, he observes “I guess it takes practice.” The trained bears reply “It sure does”. How should their reply be translated?
My ear tells me to use the single word « Évidemment. » This has the right feel of agreeing while also gently accusing Grizzwold of naive foolishness. How could he have thought otherwise? In a book for adults I would use « évidemment » without hesitation. But is that a word young French children hear often and understand at age 3 ? The direct English analog is “evidently”, which is not a word I think most kids have mastered by age 7, let alone age 3. « Évidemment » is very common in French, so maybe it works in a children’s story read aloud. However, it’s a long word with a double letter and three different sounds for the letter ‘e’. In the end, I went with the expression «Bah ouais». It has more or less the same meaning, is a bit less formal, and uses only short, simple words. These kinds of choices came up throughout the story.
An interesting counterpoint to preferring simplicity is that my translation uses the passé simple conjugation throughout. Passé simple is typically thought of as a literary tense, never used in conversation, and often replaced by the passé composé in more contemporary writings. But children’s stories, like fables and fairy tales, have a very formulaic style in French, just as they do in English. You would never say “Once upon a time …” without being fully intentional about announcing to your listener that you are going to tell them a story. In the same way, both classic and modern French stories for children use this tense. It has all kinds of odd-ball endings like -èrent and -âmes. And it interacts even more oddly with the subjunctive mood, giving rise to the almost-never-used subjonctif imparfait. But according to my French-native teacher, French children are routinely exposed to this kind of language in their story books and readily intuit its meaning, even if they will never speak that way and will not learn to produce that tense in writing for another decade. So, I’ve followed convention and used the passé simple where called for. The story has a lot of dialog as well, so I got to employ the normal conversational tenses as well. All in all a great learning exercise.
I’ll have more to say on individual words and expressions after the story.
Version française (traduite par David Miller, éditée par Virginie Bordier)
Il était une fois un ours qui s’appelait Grizzwold qui habitait dans le Grand Nord. Grizzwold était si grand que trois lapins pouvaient s’asseoir dans ses empreintes. Quand il pêchait, la rivière lui arrivait à peine aux genoux. Les autres ours entraient dans les grottes pour dormir sans problème. Grizzwold se faisait toujours coincer. Il lui fallait dormir en plein air. Mais ça ne le dérangeait pas. Il avait une fourrure épaisse pour rester au chaud. Aucun animal n’osait le réveiller.
Un matin, il y eut un grand bruit dans la forêt. Tous les autres ours s’enfuirent. Grizzwold alla voir de quoi il s’agissait. Il vit des bûcherons qui abattaient des arbres. « Gare à vous ! » hurlèrent-ils. « C’est quoi l’idée ? », demanda Grizzwold. « Qu’est-ce que vous faites à ma forêt ? » « Nous sommes désolés », dirent les bûcherons. « Il nous faut envoyer ces bûches à la scierie en aval de la rivière. On les transformera en papier. » « Je ne peux pas habiter dans une forêt sans arbres », dit Grizzwold.
Il chercha à s’établir dans un nouveau lieu. « Savez-vous où se trouve une jolie forêt ? », demanda-t-il ? « On ne trouve pas cela là en-haut, » dit un chèvre de montagne. « Savez-vous où se trouve une jolie forêt ? », demanda-t-il ? « On ne trouve pas cela ici », dit un loup des prairies. « Savez-vous où se trouve une jolie forêt ? », demanda-t-il. « Waouh ! Vous avez perdu le nord », dit un lézard du désert.
Grizzwold chercha jusqu’à ce qu’il vît une maison. « Que puis-je faire ici ? », demanda-t-il. « Vous pouvez être un tapis en peau d’ours », dirent les habitants. Ils le laissèrent entrer chez eux. Grizzwold se coucha au sol. Les gens le piétinèrent. « Aie ! Je n’aime pas ça », dit Grizzwold. Il sortit de la maison.
Grizzwold vit un réverbère. « Je vais grimper dans cet arbre », dit-il. « C’est déjà occupé », dit un chat. Il chassa Grizzwold. Grizzwold vit un chien [à côté d’un panneau qui avertissait « Attention au chien. »] «Vous ne savez pas lire ? », demanda-t-il. Il chassa Grizzwold.
Grizzwold vit des gens qui allaient à un bal. Les gens portaient des masques. Grizzwold alla au bal aussi. « Vous ressemblez à un vrai ours », dirent les gens. « Merci », dit Grizzwold. Les gens commencèrent à danser. Grizzwold commença à danser aussi. « C’est le moment d’enlever les masques », dit-on. Tout le monde enleva son masque. « Vous aussi, enlevez le vôtre », dirent-ils à Grizzwold. « Je ne peux pas », dit-il. « C’est mon vrai visage. » « Vous n’avez pas votre place ici », lui dit-on. « Votre place est au zoo. »
Grizzwold alla au zoo. Les ours quémandaient pour des cacahuètes. Grizzwold aussi quémanda. « Ne reste pas là, s’il te plaît », dirent les ours. « Nous avons besoin de toutes nos cacahuètes. Présente-toi au cirque. » Grizzwold alla au cirque. On lui fit porter des patins à roulettes. Patatras ! On lui fit faire de la bicyclette. Vlan! On essaya de lui faire faire le poirier. Il n’y arriva pas non plus. « J’imagine qu’il faut s’entraîner », dit Grizzwold. « Bah ouais », dirent les ours bien formés.
Grizzwold essaya de se reposer au bord de la rue. « Défense de stationner », dit un policier. « Je trouverai un lieu où rester », dit Grizzwold.
Il courut jusqu’à une jolie forêt. « Je suis très heureux d’être ici », dit-il. « Nous aussi, nous sommes très heureux que tu sois ici », dirent des chasseurs. Ils le visèrent. « Ne tirez pas ! », dit un garde forestier. « C’est un parc national. Défense de chasser. » Les chasseurs partirent. « Merci », dit Grizzwold. « Vous serez en sécurité ici », dit le garde forestier. «On ne peut pas tirer sur des animaux ici. On ne peut que tirer leur portrait. »
Tout le monde voulait prendre la photo de Grizzwold. Il était l’ours le plus grand qu’on ait jamais vu. « Merci de poser pour nous », disaient-ils. « Voici la vie idéale pour moi », dit Grizzwold. Il était vraiment heureux.
Version Originale (par Syd Hoff)
In the far North lived a bear named Grizzwold. Grizzwold was so big three rabbits could sit in his footprints. When he went fishing, the river only came to his knees. Other bears had no trouble going into caves to sleep. Grizzwold always got stuck. He had to sleep out in the open. But he didn’t mind. He had a nice coat of fur to keep him warm. No other animal dared wake him.
One morning there was a loud noise in the forest. All the other bears ran away. Grizzwold went to see what it was. He saw men chopping down trees. “Timber!” they shouted. “What’s the big idea?” asked Grizzwold. “What are you doing to my forest?” “We are sorry,” said the men. “We have to send these logs down the river to the mill. They will be made into paper.” “I can’t live in a forest with no trees,” said Grizzworld. He went to look for a new place to live.
“Do you know where there is a nice forest?” he asked. “You won’t find one up here,” said a mountain goat. “Do you know where there is a nice forest?” he asked. “You won’t find one here,” said a prairie wolf. “Do you know where there is a nice forest?” he asked. “Boy, are you lost!” said a desert lizard.
Grizzwold looked until he saw a house. “What can I do here?” he asked. “You can be a bearskin run,” said some people. They let him into their house. Grizzwold lay down on the floor. The people stepped all over him. “Ow! I don’t like this,” said Grizzwold. He left the house.
Grizzwold saw a light pole. “I’ll climb that tree,” he said. “I was here first,” said a cat. He chased Grizzwold away. Grizzwold saw a dog [under a sign saying “Beware of Dog”]. “Can’t you read?” asked the dog. He chased Grizzwold away.
Grizzwold saw people going to a dance. The people wore masks. Grizzwold went to the dance too. “You look just like a real bear,” said the people. “Thank you,” said Grizzwold. The people started to dance. Grizzwold started to dance too. “It’s time to take off our masks,” said somebody. All the people took off their masks. “Take off yours too,” they said to Grizzwold. “I can’t,” he said. “This is my real face.” “You don’t belong here,” said the people. “You belong in the zoo.”
Grizzwold went to the zoo. The bears were begging for peanuts. Grizzwold begged too. “Please don’t stay,” said the bears. “We need all the peanuts we get. Try the circus.” Grizzwold went to the circus. They put skates on him. He went FLOP! They put him on a bicycle. He went CRASH! They tried to make him stand on his head. He couldn’t do that either! “I guess it takes practice,” said Grizzwold. “It sure does,” said the trained bears.
Grizzwold tried to rest. “You can’t park here,” said a policeman. “I’ll find a place to park,” said Grizzwold.
He ran until he came to a nice forest. “I’m very glad to be here,” he said. “We are very glad you are here, too,” said some hunters. They took aim. “Don’t shoot!” said a ranger. “This is a national park. No hunting allowed.” The hunters left. “Thank you,” said Grizzwold. “You will be safe here,” said the ranger. “People cannot shoot animals here. They can only shoot pictures.”
All the people wanted to take Grizzwold’s picture. He was the biggest bear they had ever seen. “Thanks for posing for us,” they said. “This is the life for me,” said Grizzwold. He was very happy.
The French Channel, a branded bundle from the streaming service Roku, is featuring one movie each day during the month of December, conceived as an Advent calendar of French film. What the heck, I figured, I can try watching a film each day. Turns out that their editorial tastes and mine do not exactly align, shall we say. I could only bring myself to watch one of the films all the way to the end, and that one I later learned was roundly panned by the critics (in fairness, there’s another film from the week which I expect is quite good, but I skipped for lack of time). Still, an interesting expansion of my awareness of what the French film industry has been churning out for the past 30 years. Moreover, the exercise provided a good opportunity to exercise my vocabulary for negative criticism. Here’s an 800 word review of the collection that I dashed off in a bit over two hours.
Un calendrier de l’Avent du film
Il y a quelques mois, on m’a appris que le service de streaming Roku a lancé une nouvelle proposition: « France Channel ». Pour huit dollars chaque semaine, je pourrais regarder sans limite une sélection de films, séries, et reportages. Je me suis vite abonné, mais ne l’ai pas beaucoup utilisé. Pourtant, pour le mois décembre France Channel a composé un calendrier de l’Avent du film français: un film pour chacun des 25 jours amenant à Noël. L’idée de regarder un film par jour m’a attiré, donc j’ai démarré ce projet cinématographique.
J’ai sauté le film initiale Le Père Noël (2014), parce que j’ai entendu dire que le père Noël est une ordure, ou du moins il l’en était en 1982. Le deuxième film c’est Tout Le Monde Debout (2018), dans lequel Franck Dubosc incarne un gaillard qui prend l’occasion de la mort de sa mère pour séduire une auxiliaire de vie (Alexandra Lamy) en se faisant passer pour un paraplégique. Après avoir souffert pendant vingt minutes les répliques de l’écrivaillon responsable de ce navet, je l’ai abandonné.
Le troisième film sélectionné est Un Homme Pressé (2018)avec Fabrice Luchini. M Luchini joue le rôle d’un PDG d’une grande société qui est frappé par un AVC, face à Leïla Bekhti, qui joue son orthophoniste. À la surface il y a des possibilités, mais les chroniqueurs du Masque et la Plume de France Inter ont jugé le film « pitoyable et médiocre », l’un d’eux disant qu’il est « désolé pour la carrière de Fabrice Luchini ». Heureusement, j’ai regardé l’intégralité du film avant de me renseigner sur les avis des experts, et je l’ai trouvé un bon challenge à comprendre. En conséquence de sa crise, le personnage de Luchini fait beaucoup de lapsus. Il dit « au revoir » pour « bonjour », il dit « épouser » pour « écouter », et il dit « cermi » pour « merci ». Même le générique de fin continue cette blague, affichant « magie » pour « image » et « mistique » pour « musique », etc. La comédie tient, mais avec Luchini j’aurais espéré quelque chose de plus classique. Peut-être qu’on gagnerait à l’intituler Le parleur de verlan malgré lui.
Le quatrième film est Les Malheurs de Sophie (2016). C’est la troisième adaptation cinématographique d’un roman du même titre du XIXe siècle par Comtesse de Ségur, dont les essais précédents datent de 1946 et 1979. Sophie, incarné par Caroline Grant, est une môme de quatre ou cinq ans qui doit être la fille la plus sou-surveillé du monde. Elle habite dans un grand château et reçoit tous les jours, peu importe qu’elle est méchante, menteuse, et désobéissante. Comme elle est mignonne ! Comme elle est adorable ! Est-ce que j’ai mentionné qu’il y a une écureuil animée ? Apparemment une vraie écureuil aurait été trop chère ou trop effrayante. Où peut-être le syndicat des écureuil empêche ses membres de jouer avec des petites-filles de peur que les gamines ne tirent pas la queue. En tout cas, ce film sans aucune intrigue vaut le nom m’a ennuyé après 30 minutes et je l’ai mis à côté.
J’ai sauté le numéro cinq (La Gloire de mon père(1990), une classique d’après l’oeuvre de Marcel Pagnol) pour ne pas basculer ce défilé d’échecs. Je ne l’ai jamais vu, mais j’imagine qu’il doit être dû qualité. Je n’ai pas non plus regardé le sixième service de ce repas douteux, Le Jumeau (1984). Il s’agit d’un coquin qui se trouve dans un casino avec deux jumelles, une paire des Aphrodites américaines, riches et charmantes. Pour séduire tous les deux, ce gaillard invente un sosie qu’il déploie comme nécessaire pour masquer ses infidélités. Ou bien, c’est ce que je comprends du synopsis. J’ai trop de respect pour mes yeux de les faire l’épreuve de ce film.
Enfin, pour boucler la première semaine des films terribles, on nous propose Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose (2003). C’est un film dans le tradition de OSS 117 : Le Caire, nid d’espions (2006) et ses suites, sauf que le premier film d’OSS 117 a paru trois ans plus tard. De plus, Pamela Rose se situe aux États-Unis et nous montre deux agents du FBI, un pitre qui se sent « cool » et un vieux professeur de l’Académie du police nationale qui n’a jamais travaillé sur le terrain. J’ai regardé les vingt premières minutes du film, puis capituler au conclusion inéluctable: les éditeurs de ce calendrier d’Avent du film pour French Channel ne mérite qu’un morceau de charbon dans leurs chaussettes de Noël. Quant à moi, je dois annuler mon projet de regarder tout ces films pour que je ne crève pas mes yeux.
I’m only about a quarter of the way through reading La Peste by Albert Camus, but I like it very much so far. It’s quite different in style from Les Justes and also from what I remember of L’Étranger (which I last read some 35 years ago). So far it’s got a straightforward narrative style, chronicling the imagined events that follow the return of bubonic plague to Oran (Algeria’s second largest city) in the 1940s. Bubonic plague still exists in the world today, but it is easily treatable with antibiotics if identified early enough. However antibiotics like penicillin were not in widespread civilian used until the mid- to late-1940s, and so far they don’t factor into the story.
La Peste reminds me a bit of Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain, though of course Camus got there a couple decades earlier. But where Crichton went for medical techno-babble (which even by the 1980s hadn’t aged very well), Camus focuses on the human reaction to the slow-motion realization that the Black Death has returned. These age very well, I’m afraid, and resonate quite all to accurately with modern human reactions to Covid. I’m also told (though I hadn’t noticed it on my own yet) certain parallels with other calamities that struck the world in the 1940s.
I wrote up some musings on Camus and Covid (700 words) for this week’s French lesson. Here’s the text after some light revisions with my teacher.
Camus, covid, et l’avenir
Je viens de recevoir un email qui annonce les dates du festival d’Avignon 2022, qui a lieu d’habitude les trois dernières semaines de juillet. Je dis «d’habitude», mais en fait les dates précises sont plus aléatoires que prévisibles. Cette année on commence le 7 juillet, mais pendant les derniers dix dernières années le jour J variait du 4 juillet au 7 juillet sans modèle. Quelquefois on commence le jeudi, autres fois le dimanche, le lundi ou le mercredi. Et la date de fin est aussi arbitraire que la date du commencement. Et le festival 2020 a été totalement annulé à cause de la crise sanitaire de Covid-19. J’aurais bien voulu réserver un logement pour le festival il y a trois mois (car les hébergements au centre ville et bon marché sont rares), mais sans savoir les dates c’est trop aléatoire. Maintenant, avec l’arrivée d’omicron, le nouveau variant du virus, c’est encore possible que l’agenda du festival 2022 soit bouleversé. J’oublie quel petit malin a dit «La prévision c’est difficile – surtout quand il s’agit de l’avenir».
Ah, l’avenir, l’avenir. Pour moi, c’est incontournable – au moins, je souhaite accueillir l’avenir dans quelques années, sinon soit lui soit moi serons morts. J’ai passé ma jeunesse à jouer aux échecs, une entreprise ou on reste presque immobile pendant plusieurs heures en ne contemplant que l’avenir, où chaque coup est évalué en fonction des contre-coups possibles. Un peu extrême pour un gamin, j’admets, mais la fascination pourc l’avenir est un trait inné chez tous les humains. Le psychologue Daniel Gilbert écrit dans son livre Et si le bonheur vous tombait dessus : «Ce qui différencie l’homme de tous les autres animaux, c’est qu’il pense à l’avenir.» Pourtant, il y a souvent un manque d’imagination parmi ces penseurs de l’avenir. Mon beau-père, bien muni en adages qu’il estime sages, dit souvent «L’avenir n’est pas simplement une extension du passé». Bien que cela me peine de l’admettre, j’ai peur qu’il ait raison.
La tendance à fouiller le passé pour prévoir est évidente sur la page Wikipédia qui concerne La peste, roman d’Albert Camus qui est paru en 1947. Après les parties typiques pour un tel article (historique du roman, résumé, personnages), on découvre une toute petit note au-dessous du titre Augmentation des ventes en 2020: «En 2020, avec la pandémie de covid-19, le livre connaît un regain d’intérêt, notamment en France et en Italie, en raison de la ressemblance entre ce que le livre raconte et ce que vivent des populations dans de nombreux endroits du monde». Sans doute, l’auteur anonyme de cette page (un Bourbaki moderne) a totalement raison, car il peu probable que j’aurais commencé à lire ce premier chef-d’œuvre de Camus si la pandémie ne s’était jamais passée.
J’ai pris connaissance de La peste pour la première fois cette année après avoir entendu un entretien à la radio avec Marylin Maeso, qui a écrit un livre La fabrique de l’inhumain. Elle revisite La peste et le prend comme un point de départ pour parler des phénomènes sidérants et variés: la guerre, la torture, le terrorisme, etc. Elle constate nos incapacités à les confronter avec l’humanité, et cite les observations de Camus sur le désaccord entre l’échelle humaine et la taille des fléaux:
« Les fléaux, en effet, sont une chose commune, mais on croit difficilement aux fléaux lorsqu’ils vous tombent sur la tête… pestes et guerres trouvent les gens toujours aussi dépourvus. Quand une guerre éclate, les gens disent : «Ça ne durera pas, c’est trop bête. » … Nos concitoyens [étaient] humanistes : ils ne croyaient pas aux fléaux. Le fléau n’est pas à la mesure de l’homme, on se dit donc que le fléau est irréel, c’est un mauvais rêve qui va passer… Ils continuaient de faire des affaires, ils préparaient des voyages… Comment auraient-ils pensé à la peste qui supprime l’avenir … ? »
Albert Camus, La peste
Je trouve ces phrases de Camus, écrites il y a soixante-dix ans, vraiment effrayantes. L’annonce d’Avignon arrive et je me hâte de réserver les billets d’avion, en imaginant que l’achat lui-même pourrait éloigner de la France cette peste contemporaine. Ça ne durera pas, ça fait déjà dix-huit mois. Y en a marre de l’incertitude, je déclare que c’est le Covid qui est annulé pour 2022 et pas le Festival d’Avignon.
«Ce qui différencie l’homme de tous les autres animaux, c’est qu’il pense à l’avenir.» Pas seulement penser à l’avenir, mais défendre l’avenir, insister sur l’existence de l’avenir. Avec mon cerveau de joueur d’échecs, je vois clairement la possibilité de la résurgence de la crise sanitaire. Et je vais attendre quelques mois avant d’acheter les billets pour Avignon. Mais en même temps, je vais identifier les spectacles auxquels j’irai, je vais faire des recherches chaque semaine pour des logements disponibles au centre ville, et je vais informer mon patron de mes dates de vacances en juillet. Je ne suis pas prêt pour que le Covid supprime l’avenir.
I imagine I’ll have more to say once I’ve finished the book. Meanwhile, I spent several hours yesterday planning my trip to Avignon in July. One can hope …
Things I Learned
For the beginning and end of a multi-day event, use la date de commencement and la date de fin. The phrases date initiale and date terminale aren’t strictly wrong, but are clunky.
Speculatif is used for financial dealings or for way-out-there scientific research. For an action taken with a lot of guesswork, the outcome is better described as aléatoire.
Un variant, une variante have subtly different meanings and domains of use. The masculine form is reserved for the context of biology and genetics. The feminine form is for music, art, language, and chess openings. Roughly speaking, une variante corresponds to the English “variation” (“theme and variation”, “Queen’s Indian defense, Nimzowitsch variation”), while un variant corresponds to the English “variant” (“omicron variant”).
Malin can be used as an adjective or a noun. It has a range of meanings along a spectrum from pretty negative (“evil”, “wicked”, or “demonic”) to moderately positive (“smart”, “astute”, “clever”). Ideas like “sly” and “crafty” are in between these two poles. However the phrase « petit malin » is more along the lines of “smart alec”, “wise guy”, or “slick character”.
On passe son temps à faire quelques chose. I would have thought it was en faisant qqch, but that’s not grammatical.
Fascinating: the proper locutions are être fasciné par or avoir la fascination pour. Choosing the right preposition in French is one of my enduring challenges.
Inné means “innate” or “inborn”, and here again choosing the preposition trips me up. In English, a characteristic or ability is innate to a person. But in French, there are multiple possible prepositions following inné. The most common is inné chez qqn, but you can also use inné en qqn, inné dans qqn, or inné à qqn. I haven’t been able to discern if there are rules of when to use which preposition, or if it is purely a stylistic choice.
One of my favorite authors of books for very young children is Arnold Lobel. I’m exploring the nuances of French by translating his award-winning collection of fables. This week’s effort: The Bad Kangaroo (see the full series of translations here). As before, I did the first round of translation on my own (with reference works), and then edited it with the help of my teacher.
Version française (traduite par David Miller, éditée par Virginie Bordier)
Le méchant Kangourou
Il était une fois un petit Kangourou qui était méchant à l’école. Il posait des punaises sur la chaise de la maîtresse. Il lançait des boulettes de papier à travers la classe. Il allumait des pétards dans les toilettes et enduisait les poignées de colle. « Ton comportement est insupportable ! » dit le directeur. « Je vais rendre visite à tes parents. Je leur dirai que tu poses vraiment problème ! » Le directeur rendit visite à M et Mme Kangourou. Il s’assit dans un fauteuil dans le salon. « Aîe ! » s’écria-t-il. « Il y a une punaise dans ce fauteuil ! » « Évidemment », dit M Kangourou. « J’aime bien insérer des punaises dans les chaises. » Une boulette de papier heurta le nez du directeur. « Pardon », dit Mme Kangourou, « mais je ne peux jamais résister à en lancer ces machins-là. » Une détonation tonitruante émana de la salle de bains. « Soyez tranquille », dit M Kangourou au directeur. « Ce sont les pétards que nous stockons dans l’armoire à pharmacie qui viennent d’exploser. Nous adorons ce bruit. » Le directeur se rua à la porte. Aussitôt, il fut collé à la poignée. « Tirez fort », dit Mme Kangourou. « Toutes nos poignées sont enduites de colle. » L’instituteur se libéra en tirant d’un coup sec. Il se rua hors de la maison et se précipita dans la rue. « Comme il est charmant », dit M Kangourou. « Je me demande pourquoi il est parti si vite. » « Il devait avoir un autre rendez-vous », dit Mme Kangourou. « Peu importe, le dîner est prêt. » M et Mme Kangourou et leur fils savourèrent leur repas du soir. Après le dessert, ils se lancèrent des boulettes de papier à travers la table à manger.
L’attitude d’un enfant est le reflet du comportement des parents
Version originale (par Arnold Lobel)
The Bad Kangaroo
There was a small Kangaroo who was bad in school. He put thumbtacks on the teacher’s chair. He threw spitballs across the classroom. He set off firecrackers in the lavatory and spread glue on the doorknobs. “Your behavior is impossible!” said the school principal. “I am going to see your parents. I will tell them what a problem you are!” The principal went to visit Mr. and Mrs. Kangaroo. He sat down in a living-room chair. “Ouch!” cried the principal. “There is a thumbtack in this chair!” “Yes, I know,” said Mr. Kangaroo. “I enjoy putting thumbtacks in chairs.” A spitball hit the principal on his nose. “Forgive me,” said Mrs. Kangaroo, “but I can never resist throwing those things.” There was a loud booming sound from the bathroom. “Keep calm” said Mr. Kangaroo to the principal. “The firecrackers that we keep in the medicine chest have just exploded. We love the noise.” The principal rushed for the front door. In an instant he was stuck to the doorknob. “Pull hard,” said Mrs. Kangaroo. “There are little gobs of glue on all of our doorknobs.” The principal pulled himself free. He dashed out of the house and ran off down the street. “Such a nice person,” said Mr. Kangaroo. “I wonder why he left so quickly.” “No doubt he had another appointment,” said Mrs. Kangaroo. “Never mind, supper is ready.” Mr. and Mrs. Kangaroo and their son enjoyed their evening meal. After the dessert, they all threw spitballs at each other across the dining-room table.
A child’s conduct will reflect the ways of his parents.
Things I Learned
I did this translation a while ago, so have forgotten many of the particulars I learned along the way. Here’s a few, though.
Maîtresse ou enseignant ? In elementary school, the word for teacher is maîtresse, and that is how the students address their teacher. In middle school and high school they are called professeur. In middle school the students apparently tutoie their teachers and even call them by first name. In high school they vouvoie the professors, call them by last name or title. There’s also a statutory distinction in the bureaucracy between maîtresse and professeur, with salary implications.
Directeur ou instituteur ? The modern name for the principal of a school is le directeur or la directrice. I picked up the word l’instituteur from the play / film La femme du boulanger, which has a character by that name. But the word l’instituteur is now considered old-fashioned and obsolete.
Poser problème is a common and familiar expression meaning “to be problematic”. But the expression is explicitly out of favor with l’Académie Française because the article “un” is missing. Poser un problème is the correct phrase, but the un is dropped so often that pedants routinely warn against it.
A noisy noise annoys …: there are lots of great words for describing noises in French. There’s a whole unit in Vocabulaire Progressive dedicated to the topic. I had a number of choices for the sound of firecrackers exploding. I chose tonitruante, but considered vacarme, tintamarre, cacophonie, and boucan.
Freedom! The word affranchir is best used for legal or political freedom of a slave or independence a colony. For a person freeing themselves from a physical entanglement or trap, the better word is libérer.
Donner un coup sec literally means “to give a dry blow”, but in English we would say “a sharp blow” or “a sudden jerk”.
Une armoire à pharmacie is a medicine cabinet. Of course un cabinet medical is a doctor’s office, but I knew that already.
Hmm… October has come and gone, and I seem to have fallen out of the habit of posting a weekly language learning log. Some mix of travel, work, illness, and pursuing other hobbies has disrupted my daily routine. Also, reading and writing takes up a lot of time, crowding out exercises and listening. Here’s an incomplete list of what I’ve been up to this month.
J’ai fait…
VPdF Niveau perfectionnement: 13 exercises on words for exemplars and comparison.
GPdF Niveau perfectionnement: 9 exercises on past participle agreement with être and avoir.
I was sick for several days in October, and took the occasion to binge watch one of the 2017 French series available on Netflix, La Forêt. It’s got a few things going for it: it’s in French. It has gorgeous footage of European forest. And did I mention it is in French? Unless you are bedridden and looking to work on your listening skills, or if you really, really like Broadchurch knock-offs, I wouldn’t recommend spending you time on watching the six hour-long episodes that are the entirety of this series.
The show is a modern-day polar set in a French village near the Belgian border, right at the edge of the Ardenne forest. Three teenage girls are up to something and get in trouble, one turns up murdered, the other two disappear. Naturally the mother of one of the girls is the second-in-command lieutenant of the village police force, which has just acquired a new chief. The lieutenant has lived in the village all her life, while the new chief arrived from Paris and the army. The investigation turns up one dark secret of village life after another, and also gives the director a chance to show off their arbitrary inclusivity (“This character is Black! That character is Jewish! This one is lesbian! Why? Er, no reason really …”) I don’t object to representation on the screen, but the writers make a big deal of these distinctions but then don’t do anything with them. They also don’t do much with various other plot elements: a phantom wolf in the forest; a hermit living in the forest; somebody slaughters game animals and is careless with a lot of blood. The school teacher who likes to wander naked through the woods.
One thing that is clear: the French don’t seem to think much of conflict of interest. The lieutenant is allowed to fly off the handle countless times as she lets her grief over her missing daughter drive her to violate procedure at every turn. The chief scolds her each time, but nothing comes of it. I don’t think there was ever a second season of this how, but it would actually be interesting to see her play a police officer in a case that does not involve her own family.
One of the weirdest facts about this series is that the station that aired it originally, France 3, partnered with an online gambling company Winamax to allow viewers to put real money bets on the identity of the murder. Winamax built a second-screen experience that would update the odds on each bet in real-time during the nights that the show aired, adjusting them as the plot played out. It was a successful marketing gimmick that attracted a lot of attention on both mainstream media and social media, and in turn a lot of viewers. The series was translated and marketed in Spanish, English, and German, though I don’t know if the betting campaign was Europe-wide or France only. I haven’t heard of any examples of this dynamic being recreated, so perhaps it was a one-time campaign. But it might explain why the writing was so poor …
