France in Native Fiction

France on Friday

Sidewalk Cafe, France

Book: France, A Traveler’s Literary Companion, Edited by William Rodarmor and Anna Livia

Whereabouts Press serves a narrow niche of the traveling public–those who want to read literature written by the locals–in bite size form.  To me, the books are similar to books like Art Guide to Italy–a 101 survey course meant to whet one’s appetite, and perhaps entice one to follow up with more in depth reading of authors that appeal.

I do not mean to imply that [amazonify]1883513189::text:::: France: A Traveler’s Literary Companion [/amazonify]is insubstantial.  It is packed with short stories and excerpts from longer stories by excellent writers. The selection of authors includes best sellers, traditionalists, post-modern stylists, comic and serious. Do not look for history here. You do not find Balzac or Flaubert or Zola. Colette makes it in, but most are contemporary writers. These are names you may not have heard of, but then, isn’t that the point–to introduce you to today’s French literature.

The translations seem to be excellent. I say seem to be, because if you can’t read the original in the native language beside the translation–how are you to know? But from the English-speaking reader’s point of view, they read smoothly, and reflect vast differences in the authors’ styles.

The stories are not selected with the tourist in mind, but rather with presentation of the best in French literature as the goal. Don’t look for obvious depictions of scenery, historic sites, or even present day cultural traits that help a traveler understand a place–although each of these are present in various stories.  These project a more subtle picture of the concerns and life of the people of France. The stories, in other words, are not travelogues.

The selections are arranged by region of the country, which created for me a kind of game–could I discern the similarities in one region, or the differences in various regions?

If I were to quibble about anything, it would be that each author gets one story only.  Surely the judgment should be based on best stories–not just best authors–in which case some authors might have more than one story in a book. Also, the tiny space allocated to author information left me wanting a great deal more. Finally, it surely would not detract from the literature to have a short discussion of the region and its literature at the head of each section?

A discussion of what books serve the traveler best–those written by travel writers, or those by local literary figures, first broke out at Perceptive Travel.  Antonia Malchik reviewed Whereabouts Press’ book on South African literature. She argues that we need literature written by travel writers in order to truly understand a place.

The Whereabouts Press blog replied, and if you read Antonia Malchik’s comment on that blog, it seems there is not a whole lot of distance between the two. I came down firmly in the middle. While I would certainly not limit my pre-trip reading to A Traveler’s Literary Companion, it is definitely the kind of thing that I might read to expand my understanding of French culture. Knowing what literature people read and revere certainly tells you something about the place that you are going.

I read travel guides before I go, and generally try to read locally written literature while I am there. At the Whereabouts Press web site, you can see the list of their 21 present titles, and coming attractions (Turkey and India are scheduled in 2010).

I do hope that you will read both of the arguments linked above, and post your own opinions about travel writing vs. native literature below in the comments section.

More Than You Want to Know The Press supplied me with a review copy of this book. The lovely photographs used in this post come from Flickr with Creative Commons license, with the help of my terrific plug-in called Insights. Click on the picture for more information about each.

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Tags: A traveler's literary companion, Antonia Malchik, BlogSherpa, France, travel books, travel literature