Friday, February 24, 2012
French wars
I did eventually finish the first pass of 'L'Art français de la guerre', noticed on 12th and 27th of December last, but ran out of puff on the second pass. Bookmark has been at page 63 for some time now, so not clear that I will ever get to checking all the words that I do not know - and perhaps making a bit more sense of the thing.
All in all, in so far as I made any sense of it, rather an odd book, odd in some of the same ways as the Goncourt winner of the year before, 'La Carte et le territoire'. The same rather chunky plot: there is a connecting thread but one would not be surprised to learn that some of the material had been published separately as short stories or something of that sort. The same tendency to focus on the plumbing side of life and on violence. Full frontal rather than soft focus. Perhaps either the French or the Goncourt jury go in for that sort of thing. Maybe we do; I do not read much contemporary English fiction.
Subject matter rather different though, being mainly to do with the various nasty wars the French were involved in between 1940 and 1960. I suppose the up side is that the French are facing up to the nastiness. Granted we had rather less nastiness (not being invaded certainly helped), but we do not care to dwell on it. On the other hand, we are rather fond of tales of mainly decent chaps doing deeds of derring-do behind the lines - 'The Guns of Navarone' would be a good example - and we are rather fond of fairly anodyne costume drama - 'Foyle's War' would be a good example there. We - Spielberg on D-day for example - might go in for full on violence, but not generally of the nasty sort, the sort of thing that colonial powers got into when trying to suppress determined nationalists. Proper soldiers fighting other proper soldiers in the open, in uniform, more or less keeping to the rules of war. But my knowledge of such matters is very patchy: maybe a proper survey of the field would reveal that French tastes in war film are not so very different from our own.
As it happens, one of the patches was picking up at the library for £1 a DVD called 'Glorious 39', a costume drama come thriller set in a tale about those in England who in 1939 and 1940 were all for cutting a deal with Hitler, a tale which I would like to think has little connection with what actually happened. OK, so there were such people about but they did not go in for murdering people with whom they disagreed. The film was a reasonable watch but nothing like as good a film as 'The Remains of the Day', a film set in a similar tale of appeasement.
PS: talking of checking words, we had occasion to check 'roan' last night. I had always rather vaguely thought that a roan was a horse which was some kind of red or brown in colour. But checking reveals that I have been wrong all these years. A roan is an animal in which the prevailing colour is thickly interspersed with another. So a strawberry roan is a roan in which the prevailing colour is strawberry. Generally but not necessarily a horse. Roan is also the name for a sort of cloth that used to be made in Rouen. Two other meanings listed.
All in all, in so far as I made any sense of it, rather an odd book, odd in some of the same ways as the Goncourt winner of the year before, 'La Carte et le territoire'. The same rather chunky plot: there is a connecting thread but one would not be surprised to learn that some of the material had been published separately as short stories or something of that sort. The same tendency to focus on the plumbing side of life and on violence. Full frontal rather than soft focus. Perhaps either the French or the Goncourt jury go in for that sort of thing. Maybe we do; I do not read much contemporary English fiction.
Subject matter rather different though, being mainly to do with the various nasty wars the French were involved in between 1940 and 1960. I suppose the up side is that the French are facing up to the nastiness. Granted we had rather less nastiness (not being invaded certainly helped), but we do not care to dwell on it. On the other hand, we are rather fond of tales of mainly decent chaps doing deeds of derring-do behind the lines - 'The Guns of Navarone' would be a good example - and we are rather fond of fairly anodyne costume drama - 'Foyle's War' would be a good example there. We - Spielberg on D-day for example - might go in for full on violence, but not generally of the nasty sort, the sort of thing that colonial powers got into when trying to suppress determined nationalists. Proper soldiers fighting other proper soldiers in the open, in uniform, more or less keeping to the rules of war. But my knowledge of such matters is very patchy: maybe a proper survey of the field would reveal that French tastes in war film are not so very different from our own.
As it happens, one of the patches was picking up at the library for £1 a DVD called 'Glorious 39', a costume drama come thriller set in a tale about those in England who in 1939 and 1940 were all for cutting a deal with Hitler, a tale which I would like to think has little connection with what actually happened. OK, so there were such people about but they did not go in for murdering people with whom they disagreed. The film was a reasonable watch but nothing like as good a film as 'The Remains of the Day', a film set in a similar tale of appeasement.
PS: talking of checking words, we had occasion to check 'roan' last night. I had always rather vaguely thought that a roan was a horse which was some kind of red or brown in colour. But checking reveals that I have been wrong all these years. A roan is an animal in which the prevailing colour is thickly interspersed with another. So a strawberry roan is a roan in which the prevailing colour is strawberry. Generally but not necessarily a horse. Roan is also the name for a sort of cloth that used to be made in Rouen. Two other meanings listed.
# posted by Jim @ 12:24 AM 
