Wallace Fowlie (1908–1998)

This book contains 10 stories (or in some cases, selections from a larger work), each by a different, relatively well-known French author. Big names known worldwide, such as Voltaire, Baudelaire, and Camus, are placed alongside authors of somewhat lesser renown like Claudel, Mauriac, and Ayme. Unsurprisingly for a book published in 1960 with a male editor, all of the chosen authors are male. Still, there is an element of diversity in terms of different philosophies, styles of writing, and of course time periods presented in the book. The book's selections, which progress chronologically, cover from the 18th century through the 20th century.

The book begins with a short foreword from the editor. Each story begins with a brief 2-page note about the author, including the teeniest of biographical information along with some editorial thoughts on the author's writing style and the particular work featured. The stories themselves are presented on the left side of each spread in French and on the right side in English, allowing students of the language to have a side-by-side comparison. Supplementary materials include some endnotes (oddly only marked in the French text though), discussion questions (only in French, and of varying degrees of meatiness - i.e., some are as simple as 'describe such-and-such character' while others plumb for deeper meanings), and a glossary (even though every word is already translated in the main text, I suppose this could be helpful for the serious French learner).

The stories themselves, like any anthology, were of varying interest to me. I really enjoyed Voltaire's satire in the style of Jonathan Swift, Balzac's Victorian melodrama, Baudelaire's grittily realistic prose poems, Ayme's magical realism flight of fantasy, Mauriac's reminiscences of his early life, and even Claudel's religious imaginings (that actually seemed more anti-religious to me). Flaubert's violent Oedipus Rex-like story was the most difficult for me to get through and the remaining stories were just sort of "eh" for me; this may be in part because some were indeed not short stories but instead excerpts from longer pieces.

My French is not very good, but I did happen to notice at times that some of the translations seemed a bit off (for instance, using "similar" as the translation of "egale" rather than "equal," which changes the meaning of the passage a bit). Nevertheless, I could see this book being a helpful tool for those are serious about learning French. My aim was not really to read the book in both languages (or only in French with some help from the English side); rather, I was interested in reading the selection of French literature as I feel there is a large gap in my reading history there. I felt this book helped to fill that gap a little and steer me in the direction of French writers that I'd like to read again more in depth.… (mer)