10 of the best novels about France – that will take you there - MW

   I have been writing about Dharma to the Guardians for over a decade and have been visiting longer: ever since I was an au teenager and then a language student. I love it primarily because of food and wine, but also because of my attitude to fighting politics, love of living well, elegant city and many lands and seas. We can still access it through the pages of literature. So, here are my top 10 novels for the indispensable saver of the country the nearly nine million Britons visited last year.

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

  Go on a French literary road trip with this black satire by the former restaurant critic Observer. The story is about diabolist Tarquin (not his real name) - a snob, francophile, snobbish and worse enemy - driving from England to his home in Provence, with a diversion through the food of Normandy and Brittany. What he later said about his gastric-history-psycho-autistic dishes, organized into seasonal menus. He warned early that this was no ordinary cookbook. There, he was hosting a barbecue for his unfortunate victims: A drop of juice fell from the sea bass and splashed on white chariots. I could hear the incomplete jingle of bubbles in our crystal champagne flutes. Now then, I say. ‘This is very pleasant. Currently No deception, nothing pleasant about this delicious novel.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

  This Pulitzer-winning novel seems to be designed specifically for these days. The title mentions a teacher comment in the book about how our brains, locked in a skull without a ray of light, build us a brilliant world. And today, we, in the case of being locked, can rebuild in our imagination in the 1940s in Paris and the outdoor fortress of Cameron's city of Saint-Malo. We do this in part through the thought of young Marie-Laure, blind since she was six years old, who figured out how to use the scale model that her great father built for her. The characters in the occupied Brittany come alive, and his heart readers go to Marie-Laure and the young German colleague Werner as they face a world of hate and horror with charm and integrity

The Française Suite by Irène Némirovsky

  Némirovsky, a French-Ukrainian French writer, planned a series of five novels set in the background of France occupied by Nazi Germany. The first two, in tiny handwriting in a leather notebook, survived her arrest and murder in Auschwitz. Preserved - but not yet read - by her daughter, they languished for six decades before being published in an episode in 2004. Suite Française offers a great behind-the-scenes story and a paw look truth about Dharma and Dharma. The first part, Storm in June, involved a group of Parisians fleeing Paris when the Germans invaded. However, the second part, Dolce, may evoke memories of small stone towns where we enjoy dinner and summer walks, but we know it will be a stuffy nightmare when live - because the fictional town Bussy is for Lucille, sharing a home with her frustrated mother-in-law. The square where village girls talk to the soldiers might be Place de la Mairie in a hundred villages from Normandy to Provence.


Perfume by Patrick Süskind

  This 1985 masterpiece takes us to a very different Paris than the City of Light today. In the 18th century, France reigned in the city a stench that was incomprehensible to modern men and women. Even the king was wrecked, like a lion, and the queen was like an old goat, summer and winter. Around this cruel world stalks the talented and hideous Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, with her killer olfactory sense. However, people familiar with this city can follow in their minds when he has smelled the smell of the neighborhood between Saint-Eustache and Hôtel de Ville that he can find in there by the dark night. dark. The Grenouille then left Paris and traveled south through the hills of Massif Central. The final chapter of the book is a few miles away from Côte d'Azur - among the lavender fields of the world's perfume, Grasse.


Muriel Barbery's hedgehog elegance

  Set in modern-day Paris, this 2006 novel by a philosophy teacher will appeal to those who need a dose of Gallic's high-class culture, with an unexpected heroine in human form. thought to be stupid Renée. Echoing Jane Eyre hung, poor, obscure, simple and small, Renée is a widow, short, ugly and plump, and as such, she feels she has to hide her philosophical and literary interests from outwardly thorny. So, while pretending to like junk and junk food, she read Proust and philosophical episodes from the university library, watched rich movies and cooked exquisite dinner for her friend Manuela. There is a keen eye for humor while it dissects the snobbishness of France, the rich and poor, the purpose of the arts and more, all while gently wearing its intellect.

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

  This 1954 classic of an early 18-year-old girl takes us to the sunlit wetlands, where the lazy and selfish 17-year-old Cécile is on holiday with his widowed father and his newest girlfriend. ta. The glow of summer goes hand in hand with shady morals, when Cécile conspires with his older boyfriend to see off the new woman in her father's life, one who will find a way to curb pampering herself and even made her go to school. . It's all terribly wrong, but we still have doubts as to whether Cécile flying will learn anything from her first experience with tristlie. I see a delicate pink and blue shell on the bottom of the sea. I pigeons for it, and hold it, smooth and hollow in my hand all morning. I decided it was a lucky occasion, and I will keep it. I was surprised that I didn't lose it, because I lost everything. Today it was still pink and warm while lying in my palm and made me feel like crying.

The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers

  Taking A11 towards Brittany and Vendée, many tourists stop at Chartres, with its churches, medieval houses and small bridges. Spend hours of fun in this picturesque location by the River by diving into this almost fairytale story by a therapist novelist who became the Vickers therapist, whose books show tender 'to those who stray. The protagonist is the mysterious Agnès Morel, who cleans the church every day and does odd jobs for the people living nearby - until he meets an accident. Her unraveling of her troubled past takes the reader to other historic French towns - Évreux, Rouen and Le Mans - before reaching a conclusion of salvation.

Jean de Florette of Marcel Pagnol

  The fierce sun of Provence beats the novel about life and the intrigues of this country. Indeed, the clear blue skies and cloudless days that many Brits go to the south feel like a curse to Jean, the hunchback, who tries to plant and rabbits on his land, unaware that The intriguing neighbors tried to stop his only source of water - but reading the next section, Manon des S Source, to see everything - eventually - turned out to be OK. The scent of Provençal herb and description of the farms located on the rocky mountains with the open view of Med will bring holiday memories.

Seeds are ripe using Colette

  Endless summers in another popular destination with UK travelers - Brittany by the sea - are evoked in this short story coming this age. Phil and Vinca went on holiday here with their respective families as long as they could remember, enjoying the sunny days, sandy limbs and sponges dancing helplessly to the edge of the dominance man. treatment. But now in their teens, they can't go back to childish ways and can't find a new relationship. When a stylish older woman showed up, the fierce atmosphere and strong winds on the noisy Atlantic coast rang out the pain of adulthood. (Colette was always nicely writing what she knew - had a relationship with her stepdaughter as a teenager, then married a man 16 years younger than her.)

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow of Faïza Guène

If you prefer the harsher roads than the gentle hills, the humorous story of an immigrant life on a city estate by another early development writer (Guène was 19 years old when it was published) will match the bill. Imagine one of the wise heroes, Jacqueline Wilson, a little older, implanted northeast of Paris. The narrator is Doria, 15, living in a high-rise building with her mother, her father returned to Morocco to find a younger, younger wife. Teachers are people who do not work effectively; Her employer is widely racist. The book argot Street is translated into the wonderful reliable urban English by translator Sarah Adams. A classroom nerd is called a pizza-faced bacteria, homosexuality and the whole ego trip. The Muslim community is constantly saying inshallah - Islamic But, this is, you can know when God God will be willing or not, as opposed to Doria. The city of very good drizzle is the city as if God is spitting at us all.

MW