French February: A Classics Club Event.

Adam and Allie reminded me (when I was eavesdropping on their Twitter conversation) that February looms, and I still hadn't posted my French February Event for the Classics Club! According to the events page, there's plenty going on (I'm really looking forward to Fanda's Dickens event), but I hope some of you can join me for this one.

Plans? Two options for you (pick both or one, up to you):

Firstly: a group read of Les Liasons Dangereuses by Pierre Ambroise Choderloc de Laclos. This has been on my to-read pile for far too long. It was actually published exactly 200 years before my birthday, on the 23rd March 1782, and the storyline is familiar to a great many (partly because of Cruel Intentions). It is said to be a wonderful depiction of the French aristocracy and the Ancien Régime prior to the French Revolution in 1789. There is sex, love, revenge, perversion, and idle cruelty: tell me what more would you like for the most miserable month of the year? And it's an epistolary novel divided into four parts (my copy has 432 pages, if you're interested) so I'm thinking reading one part per week would be a good way of approaching it (however, again, that's up to you).

Secondly: pot-bouille ('Pot Luck', and I don't mean the Zola novel). Read one, two, three, or four plus novels by French authors. Here's a selection to give you some inspiration, should you need it. I'll divide it into centuries, but I'm not suggesting (as I did for the Gothic Event) that you pick one per century.

18th Century

•  Denis Diderot - The Nun (1780 - my review is here)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Confessions (1782 - 1789)
• Voltaire - Candide (1759)

19th Century

• Honoré Balzac - La Comédie Humaine - a staggering number of novels, such as Old Goriot (1835), Cousin Bette (1846), and Eugénie Grandet (1834): I have named three of about ninety! Here's a list on Wikipedia.
• Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo (1844 - 1845) and The Three Musketeers (1844)
• Gustav Flaubert - Madame Bovary (1857), Sentimental Education (1869), and Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881)
• Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831)
• Stendhal - The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
• Émile Zola - Oh, Zola. Here's a list of novels from the 'Rougon Macquart' cycle (1870 - 1893), which I'm working through. There's also Thérèse Raquin (my review here) and various others.

20th Century

• Albert Camus - The Stranger (1942)
• Colette - The Claudine Books: Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, Claudine Married, and  Claudine and Annie (1901 - 1903)
• Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera  (1909)
• Marcel Proust - Remembrance of Things Past (1913 - 1927) - the longest novel written! Honestly, I wouldn't recommend reading this within a month, but it is divided into seven books so it could be a good start to pick one or two of those!
• Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse (1954). 

So... what do you think? Join me? What do you want to go for? For me: I'm reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and I'm thinking of re-reading Candide, and if there's time, The Three Musketeers. And, of course, a Zola. I reckon I'll be up to The Sin of Abbe Mouret by then!

I hope you can join me, and I'm sorry this is a little last minute! Also, this event will be unmanned between 5th and 8th February - I'm going to Paris then, such is my commitment to this event! But, when I'm back, expect pictures and a very long update!

Here's the sign up: either link to your webpage, or directly to a post announcing your intentions.