Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Cambrioleur (Gentleman-Burglar), by Maurice Leblanc

Bonjour, mes amis!  Autrefois, pendant cet hiver passé en fait, j'ai donné un cours de français où on lisait un roman ensemble:  Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Cambrioleur.

Did you catch that?  Si oui - très bien, je vous félicite.  Sinon - well, don't worry about it. 😉

Translation:  Hello, my friends.  Awhile back, during this past winter actually, I taught a French class where we read a novel together:  Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Burglar.

As both of you know, I am a French teacher.  I teach college/grad level content for an international (though non-accredited) institution, mainly for people who simply love to learn.  It's a great gig and I love my job.  We have three annual "school year" sessions that meet weekly and, during the Winter Session, I like to either read a novel or watch a TV series together, discussing various chapters/episodes each week in class.  At the request of a regular student of mine, we read this novel together - and it was a lot of fun!

For those of you not familiar with the character, Arsène Lupin is the star of his own series of short stories by Maurice Leblanc.  Set during the turn of the 20th century, Lupin is a criminal mastermind, a charming, rakish thief who makes his way around the world (usually Europe, but he comes to the US at least one time), mainly stealing jewels and baubles and money off of the wealthier classes.  Sometimes he is bested, but he always works his way out of it with his wit and a crew of faithful followers.  A master of disguise with a laundry list of aliases, Lupin has no shortage of tricks up his sleeve to change his appearance and identity, as he often does.

Maurice Leblanc penned his stories slightly after -and also contemporaneously with- the publication of stories starring another turn-of-the-century mastermind: Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  In fact, Arsène Lupin crosses paths with a one "Herlock Sholmès" on occasion.  They are rather each other's opposites (one being a thief, the other a detective), but share a great deal in common (brilliant minds, a love for puzzles, bleeding narcissism).  Of course, as the creator of Arsène Lupin, author Maurice Leblanc favors his own brainchild and Lupin bests "Herlock".

While the stories certainly have a similar feel to those of Sherlock Holmes, the anti-hero reigns supreme here.  Some stories are humorous, others less so.  Lupin is definitely not a "good person", but he does have redeeming qualities and a backstory that elicits empathy from the reader.  He rather calls to mind the image of Hercule Flambeau from the BBC series Father Brown.  (From my understanding, the character of Flambeau is portrayed rather differently on the series from his original version in the G.K. Chesterton books of the same title.  Lupin reminds me somewhat of a younger version of the TV portrayal of Flambeau.)

Hercule Flambeau, Father Brown on BBC

The edition we read together in class was a dual-language one, featuring the original French text alongside its American-English translation.  We quickly learned that the translation was not spot on, much to our annoyance.  Still, for readers of a second language, having quick-access reference to translations can be useful as it does not disrupt the flow of reading as much as having to seek a dictionary translation would.

All in all, Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-Cambrioleur makes for a fun, escaping read.  It isn't high brow or particularly difficult, but fun all the same for lovers of the genre.

Bonne lecture!

Discovering French Nouveau! Textbook Series

NERD ALERT!!!!  

I am reviewing a textbook.  This is an official broadcast into how boring I am but, before you shut it down, hear me out.  I am a teacher and this is something of an obligatory post.  Plus, it's technically a book that I read and finished this year (albeit not for the first time), so it deserves a fair shake.

I have taught in various capacities for over 20 years.  To date, I have been teaching French for my local chapter of the Alliance Française (AF) for 11+ years. During that time, I have taught dozens of classes from at least as many textbooks, beginner through advanced. I have developed curricula, put in hundreds of hours writing lessons, developing presentations, and planning ancillary activities. And I have loved all most of it.

When I began teaching for the AF in 2012, I inherited some really crappy textbooks and zero curriculum whatsoever. It was bad. Without any criteria or measurements of progress, the education department had no direction at all. After reconnecting with my own high school French teacher over a summer tutoring project, I recalled just how good the textbooks that I'd used myself in her classes were. So, I integrated them in our program and our student body increased exponentially.

When it comes to French language manuals, nothing beats the Valettes. A French-born husband and American-born wife duo, Jean-Paul and Rebecca Valette have dominated the scene with their Discovering French Nouveau! textbook series, including Bleu 1, Blanc 2, and Rouge 3. (The increasing skill level books are cleverly named after the colors of the French flag: blue, white, red.)

Discovering French Nouveau!  Bleu 1 (2007 Edition)

Discovering French Nouveau!  Blanc 2 (2007 Edition)
*My personal favorite of the three!*

Discovering French Nouveau!  Rouge 3 (2007 Edition)

I love these textbooks, their accompanying workbooks, and A/V materials. The Valettes have covered everything, leaving teachers free to teach! Collating lessons and activities no longer requires reinventing the wheel and scouring scattered materials to complete a lesson plan. The Valette package is the "all inclusive resort" of French language learning. The lessons are clear, organized, concise, and include meaningful practice exercises. Plus, there are loads of pictures!!!

Now, before you laugh off this comment about pictures, consider this: any linguist will tell you that one hurdle that language learners encounter is the transition to thinking in the target language. Our brains often involuntarily translate our thoughts into our native tongue. We might not always realize this is happening, but it does. So, instead of seeing a pineapple and immediately thinking ananas, our brain sees the pineapple, thinks pineapple, then ananas. For you visual folks, think of it this way:

Our brain does this:

 >>> Pineapple >>>  Ananas

When learning a new language, we want it to do this:

  >>>  Ananas

The idea is to get our brain to skip the middle step, causing us not only to speak the new language, but to think that way, too.  This phenomenon leads to higher proficiency in the target language.  It's the same as when we learn to speak as infants.  When a child learns a new word, they aren't shown the word in a different pattern of writing.  Using the pineapple example, we might show our children a picture of a pineapple, point to it, and say "pineapple".  Our child might touch, taste, smell, or see a real pineapple, reinforcing the word pineapple in his/her brain.  The brain, in turn, associates the word pineapple with the object itself.

To circle back around to the textbooks, using pictures isn't just about improving the dry, boring textbook aesthetic, although that is certainly an added bonus. Within the Discovering French Nouveau! series, both Bleu 1and Blanc 2 especially use imagery as a focus for introducing new vocabulary. This is magnificent for both retention and word-object association. Sadly, it happens less in the Rouge 3 book; I'm not sure why this is.

Another great advantage to this series of manuals is the incorporation of both reading and cultural activities. Learning a new language isn't just about memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules. To truly learn, one must also experience culture, history, and geography. All three of these textbooks include excellent culture lessons, both embedded within the lessons themselves and as inter-unit readings/activities. In addition to these, there are excerpts from literature, poetry, history, and music from around the Francophone world. All of these readings and activities are presented with increasing complexity to mirror a student's developing skill level.

Unfortunately, the series is no longer in print (the most recent editions being from 2007, pictured above) and neither are the web resources. Still, the content continues to be relevant, and used versions are always available on Amazon. For French language learning, I can offer no better recommendation that Discovering French Nouveau.

FIN

La Steppe Infinie, by Esther Kautzig

A decade or so ago, a fellow French teacher in my area was retiring and she bequeathed me a carload full of materials.  Literally, I hauled the contents of her trunk -full to the brim- up three flights of stairs to my tiny one-bedroom apartment.  It was a treasure trove of novels, books, CDs, and so on.  I have since then shared the wealth with my own students, keeping a few novels for myself.  There are still a handful of them that I have yet to read, but one that I stumbled across a few weeks ago was La Steppe Infinie, by Esther Kautzig (b. Rudomin).

Originally published in English under the title The Endless Steppe (1968), I had somehow never heard of Esther (Rudomin) Hautzig; her story wasn't even remotely familiar to me.  A Polish Jew during WWII, La Steppe Infinie is something of a coming-of-age story that calls to mind The Diary of Anne Frank.  Equally true, Hautzig shares her story with us through the lens of hindsight, putting pen to paper about 20 years after the events she describes.  (Yes, she survived.  Spoiler.)  The result is a fascinating memoir of shock, tragedy, loss, hope, desperation, courage, and survival.

A ten-year-old daughter of a wealthy family, Esther is the only child of two educated and refined parents living in Vilnius, Poland (now Lithuania).  Esther's family occupies an apartment in the much larger mansion-like home of her paternal grandparents.  Hers is a privileged life surrounded by the aunts, uncles, and cousins who have the same living situation.  Fancy dresses, beautiful toys, gardening with grandpa, extravagant parties and outings, a private governess (nanny? teacher?), everything a girl her age could want...is all suddenly torn from her life as two Russian soldiers burst into her family home, arresting her grandparents, parents, and her for being capitalists (read: successful business owners) in 1941.  At gunpoint, they are given just moments to gather their belongings before being transported to some clandestine location.  At the station, Esther's grandfather is separated from the group and sent to a work camp.  After an abrupt and tearful goodbye, the remaining four are loaded into cattle cars -along with some familiar faces from around Vilnius- and their long journey to somewhere begins.

After weeks of living in squalid and claustrophobic conditions on board the cattle cars, Esther's family and the rest of the surviving passengers finally arrive in BFE Russia.  Because they have long since passed the Ural Mountains, they know that they are somewhere in Siberia.  Observing the arid landscape around them, the plateau seems vast, strange, and frightening.  Almost immediately, everyone is put to work in the gypsum mines.  Fortunately, they have arrived in summer, before the fabled Siberian winter sets in, but winter is never far off in Siberia.  Even under the scorching sun with the warm winds whipping around and the flies biting, winter is on everyone's minds -including the locals'- because summer farming means winter survival.  As such, Esther is put to work in a potato patch.  At the end of the day, she rejoins her parents and grandmother in the barracks they share with the rest of the Polish slaves.   Indeed, they are the lucky ones, because they haven't been sent to the Nazi work camps like many of their family and friends.  

But the tides of war change and, with it, the allegiance of the Red Army.  No longer an ally of Nazi Germany, Russia has joined with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, along with others.  But Poland remains occupied by Nazi forces, and the Rudomins must remain in Siberia.  While they and their fellow Polish exiles are no longer prisoners, they must now adapt to living as refugees until the unknown end of the war.  Or death.  Whichever comes first.

Their exile ultimately lasts for five long years, during which the Rudomin family experiences both the unimaginable and the mundane - often at the same time, somehow.  Esther goes through puberty and, as she herself states [my translation from the French, back into English], "The heart of a young girl is indestructible.  In spite of the cold and the hunger, in this land of exile, mine beat wildly.  I had fallen in love for the first time."  In short, Esther experiences her first crush, reminding us that the everyday still happens, even when you're starving and freezing in Siberia.

No detail appears to be withheld in this candid account of life on the steppe.  Scares with the Russian secret police (YIKES!), hunger, cold, fear, and longing are abundant in this story, but humor is found in strange places.  A mesmerizing read, La Steppe Infinie was a difficult book for me to put down.  I appreciate Hautzig's straightforward and direct narrative style (especially when I'm reading in a different language), and her story -while moving and unbelievable- is a simple one that will remain with me for years and years to come.

Les Contes de Perrault, by Charles Perrault

When we think of classic fairy tales, those of us in the U.S.A. often conjure up images of Disney movies, Shrek, or even the Grimm's Fairy Tales we heard as children.  While these are certainly relevant sources, we often leave out Charles Perrault, who delivered Mother Goose herself to the 17th century.

Like most other fairy tale writers, Perrault did a great deal of "collecting" of common fairy tales of his day.  Oftentimes, these stories were shared orally, and were passed through the generations by way of storytelling.  This would obviously lead to problems of continuity; it is thanks to fairy tale "collectors" like Perrault, the Grimm brothers, and Andrew Lang that we have many of these stories with us today in the ways we have come to commonly recognize them.

That being said, I would argue that many fairy tales lack a single, obvious, original author.  Beauty and the Beast, for example, has elements that appear as far back as ancient Rome in accounts of "a feast that served itself".  While we all can recognize that scene in a snap, the rest of the story as we know it would have been entirely different in the ancient world.  It wasn't until the mid-18th century that the modern version of this fairy tale (of movie acclaim) would be penned by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.  Even since that time, the story has evolved into something new and different.  Guys, there are songs now.

It seems to me that every culture worldwide has some type of Cinderella story.  In China alone there are differing versions but, perhaps the best known is that of Beauty and her one evil stepsister, Pockface.  (I know.)  The Algonquin people have the story of The Rough-Face Girl, whose cruel sisters force her to stoke the fire day and night, causing sparks to permanently mar her hair and skin.  Ultimately, her inner beauty wins when the Invisible Being sees her for the kindhearted person she is and marries her, shaming her sisters and their inner ugly.

Even our own western tradition has different iterations of this classic tale.  The Disney movie is based on the version of Charles Perrault (France) while the Grimm version (Germany) is much more gruesome and violent.  Personally, I'm really glad that Cinderella's bird friends didn't peck out the eyeballs of her lying stepsisters in the movie.  It would have been a hard sell to the kids of the 1950s if the stepsisters cut off toes or heels to fit into the glass slipper while cute mice sang songs about making a lovely dress for Cinderelly.

[Side note: Cinderella gets her nickname because she sits among the cinders of the fire and is dirty as a result.  The nickname is similar in French: Cendrillon.  However, the nastier of the two stepsisters in Cendrillon actually calls her Cucendron, which could be roughly translated as "Cinderass".  This is my favorite thing in all of fairy tale bitchiness.]

The contes (tales) that I read in this particular publication appear in their original French.  I have listed them below in both their French and English titles.  You will likely recognize most of them, though many are not widely known to English speakers.

Les Contes de Perrault (The Tales of Perrault)

1. Cendrillon (Cinderella)
2. Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots)
3. Les Fées (The Fairies)
4. Le Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb)
5. Riquet à la Houppe (Riquet [proper name] with the Tuft [of hair, like a cowlick])
6. La Barbe Bleue (Blue Beard)
7. La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty [of the Woods])
8. Les Souhaits Ridicules (The Ridiculous Wishes)
9. Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood)

Common themes I have noticed throughout these nine contes would include what we often think of with fairy tales:  Things aren't always what they seem.  Kindness triumphs over cruelty.  Appearances don't mean everything (with a caveat, explained in a moment).  These are all good lessons.

We must, of course, make some allowances for fairy tales.  They are often, by nature, the antithesis of our modern values.  Take, for instance, the notion that nearly every happy ending takes place with a wedding between relative strangers who fall instantly in love.  Obviously, this is not realistic.  Critics would cite this as problematic, but I don't feel so quick to point it out as a flaw.  We are, after all, willing to suspend our disbelief enough to allow for a talking cat with boots (OMG ADORABLE!!!) or a young girl who can fall asleep for 100 years and wake up without bedhead or dragon breath.  

While I can swallow the weddings equating to happy endings, I do struggle with some of the blatant misogyny apparent in these stories.  Remember how we said that "appearances don't mean everything"?  Evidently, this only applies to inanimate objects.  Without fail, the victimized female protagonists are always beautiful, in spite of their trashy, poor people clothes.  Even the young princess who is known throughout the kingdom for being pretty but as dumb as a rock (Riquet à la Houppe) comes out on top.  Her smart (but ugly) twin sister is forgotten within a sentence of being labeled as jealous once the pretty sister becomes smart.  You see, the good fairy who was present at their birth said that the pretty girl could magically become smart...but there wasn't really anything she could do for the UGLY smart one.  I mean, gross.  Her magic powers can only do so much.  The happy ending?  The pretty (and now smart, too!) sister gets married to the protagonist.  The (always) smart sister remains ugly, and is therefore not an integral part of the story.  So, I guess that means that, for women and girls, value is determined by beauty.  But we musn't forget that appearances don't mean everything...right?  

Fairy tales like these Contes de Perrault are of their time.  They are typically written by men -sometimes women- who were willing to perpetuate the the untruths at the base of the patriarchy so pervasive to their respective cultures.  Nevertheless, while the stories we tell are greatly indicative of our values and world views, they also help to shape us.  I like to think that we can laugh at the absolute absurdity of a mother who intentionally "got to work quickly [having children], and didn't make less than two at a time" (Le Petit Poucet).  

Despite these frustrating nuances, I still love the classic princess fairy tale stories.  I am a product of the 1980s-1990s Disney Princess Explosion and, to this day, I thoroughly enjoy a poofy dress and a tiara, but you know I'll be wearing sensible shoes.