I’m writing an essay about Camus’ novel L’Étranger, which has sent me off on delightful tangents. I was up till 5am this morning polishing off André Gide’s Strait is the Gate. I read it years ago, but sometimes you have to learn to be a better reader before the full charms of a text become available to you. Then I found this site, and was further cheered to discover how many of these books I had actually read, including the great Breton novel pictured above. I read that last autumn.
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France has consistently maintained its place as one of the most active hotbeds of literature. Like many other countries, its cultural sphere is devoted to understanding and challenging social mores, and novelists like Balzac, Zola, Flaubert, Camus and Sartre have blended their art with politics, philosophy, sociology. Here is a list of some of the most influential French novels from the past 350 years:
Read the rest via Le Mot Juste: 25 Classic French Novels | Qwiklit.
typo alert – “Straight is the Gate” not “if”… – great book though I liked “The Counterfeiters” even more.
Thanks, Satch. Much obliged.
For the sake of argument – it’s missing Nathalie Sarraute! Though she was born in Russia and that might have precluded her inclusion…