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AU REVOIR, TRISTESSE

Name: AU REVOIR, TRISTESSE
Author: Viv Groskop
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4298-9

LESSONS IN HAPPINESS FROM FRENCH LITERATURE

by Viv Groskop ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2020

An exuberant yet superficial celebration of French classics.

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A Francophile learns about life from French novels.

Growing up in rural England, comedian, journalist, and podcast host Groskop wanted desperately to escape the conformity and dullness that surrounded her. Being French, she decided at a young age, “represented something so exciting for me: dynamism, energy, heat.” She studied French in school, went to France on school exchanges, and had French-speaking pen pals. As she boasts repeatedly in this breezy, enthusiastic riff on 12 canonical (white, mostly male) writers, she learned to speak and read the language fluently, and she diligently immersed herself in Frenchness, “snorting up every little croissant crumb of culture and language I could find.” Acquiring Frenchness brought her joy, she writes, and reading French literature has been “meaningful and life-changing.” However, her attempt to show “the intersection between Frenchness and happiness” by glossing over works by Proust, Hugo, Camus, Flaubert, Balzac and others is unconvincing. From Françoise Sagan she learns that the French version of happiness is “being young—or stubbornly young at heart” and “living in the moment.” From Colette’s Gigi, “a slightly messier Cinderella story,” she learns that “we can’t all be born with agency and choices” but still can end up content. From Victor Hugo, she discovers that “personal happiness is intimately linked to having a clear conscience.” Cyrano de Bergerac “is about body positivity”; like Gigi, Cyrano’s “overall philosophy is this: make the most of what you’ve got and play to your strengths.” From Guy de Maupassant, who, though a literary star, suffered from syphilis and tried twice to commit suicide, Groskop learned “that life is actually played out in a haze of different shades of gray.” Stendhal teaches her “about the tempestuous nature of desire.” There seems nothing particularly French about these life lessons, and, in the end, the author admits that her Francophilia came from needing “a pretend foreign identity in order to feel happy”—a need she has happily outgrown.

An exuberant yet superficial celebration of French classics.

Pub Date: June 9, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4298-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.