Saturday, March 05, 2005
Anatole France
Does anyone read Anatole France any more? Judging by how much of his work is available at Audible.com (where I get my audiobooks), no. There's exactly one title by this Nobel Prize winner, and I suspect it isn't his best.
Of course, there are a lot of Nobelists whom nobody reads today: Bunin, Lagerlof, Laxness, Maeterlinck, Tagore, Sholokhov, and Quasimodo all come to mind, and there are plenty more. (That's only the ones who are not read widely in America. I have no idea if they're in the canon in other countries.) Upstairs, in the anthology section, I have a book of short stories by the Nobelists, so I've read at least one story by a lot of the fiction writers (the book is thirty or forty years old, and could probably use an update), but that isn't the same as being familiar with their work. But at one time they were all considered pretty good, potentially timeless, so they ought to be worth a try.
That was what I was thinking when I picked up Penguin Island. Well, that and that it might have something to do with penguins. I like penguins, as some of you know.
The penguin connection is tenuous. A misguided and nearsighted saint, lost in the north (?), lands on an island inhabited by penguins and baptizes them. After a debate in heaven on the validity of the baptism, God settles the issue by making the penguins human, even though He knows nothing good will come of this. (The alternative is validating the baptism of animals, after all.) After that, it's a parody history of France.
And in that vein, it reminds me of Mark Twain, but with a clearer political leaning. (Twain, of course, is famous for saying, "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat," but Will Rogers actually said it.) France didn't have much sympathy for Socialists, but some for socialism, at least as far as it favored egalitarianism. He seems to have considered all politicians corrupt.
I suspect that the book would be funnier if I knew more about French history; it was probably even funnier if you read it within five or ten years of its composition. This is the problem with a lot of satire -- it doesn't stay topical over a long period. Even some of Twain's satire falls flat today. But some of Penguin Island is still funny, and the characters are interesting, if somewhat archetypal. I'd read some more France if the opportunity came up.
I'm still working on Phineas Finn and Agape Agape (that's pronounced a-GA-pay a-GAPE), and have now started listening to The Brothers Karamazov. My reading habits at home have gotten a bit stalled, but this is spring break, so maybe I'll get back on track.
dmh
Of course, there are a lot of Nobelists whom nobody reads today: Bunin, Lagerlof, Laxness, Maeterlinck, Tagore, Sholokhov, and Quasimodo all come to mind, and there are plenty more. (That's only the ones who are not read widely in America. I have no idea if they're in the canon in other countries.) Upstairs, in the anthology section, I have a book of short stories by the Nobelists, so I've read at least one story by a lot of the fiction writers (the book is thirty or forty years old, and could probably use an update), but that isn't the same as being familiar with their work. But at one time they were all considered pretty good, potentially timeless, so they ought to be worth a try.
That was what I was thinking when I picked up Penguin Island. Well, that and that it might have something to do with penguins. I like penguins, as some of you know.
The penguin connection is tenuous. A misguided and nearsighted saint, lost in the north (?), lands on an island inhabited by penguins and baptizes them. After a debate in heaven on the validity of the baptism, God settles the issue by making the penguins human, even though He knows nothing good will come of this. (The alternative is validating the baptism of animals, after all.) After that, it's a parody history of France.
And in that vein, it reminds me of Mark Twain, but with a clearer political leaning. (Twain, of course, is famous for saying, "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat," but Will Rogers actually said it.) France didn't have much sympathy for Socialists, but some for socialism, at least as far as it favored egalitarianism. He seems to have considered all politicians corrupt.
I suspect that the book would be funnier if I knew more about French history; it was probably even funnier if you read it within five or ten years of its composition. This is the problem with a lot of satire -- it doesn't stay topical over a long period. Even some of Twain's satire falls flat today. But some of Penguin Island is still funny, and the characters are interesting, if somewhat archetypal. I'd read some more France if the opportunity came up.
I'm still working on Phineas Finn and Agape Agape (that's pronounced a-GA-pay a-GAPE), and have now started listening to The Brothers Karamazov. My reading habits at home have gotten a bit stalled, but this is spring break, so maybe I'll get back on track.
dmh
