Paris in July!

I am super excited to announce that I will be participating in this year's Paris in July blogging event, hosted by Thyme for Tea and Bookbath!  (Thank you for hosting!  You are awesome!)  Paris in July runs from July 1st through the 31st and during July I will be posting numerous things about Paris and France.  I've already got a lot of fun things planned, including reviews of French books, reviews of books that take place in Paris, posts about French food and music, and so much more.  I am beyond excited, if you can't already tell. 

Tamara at Thyme for Tea has asked participants to post some recommendations  before Paris in July officially begins in July.  So I've decided to post about a wonderful French singer who I've just recently discovered, named Leo Ferre.

I discovered him quite by accident (or not totally by accident because I was googling French poet Arthur Rimbaud who I'm a bit obsessed with) and discovered that this French singer from around the 1960s put a bunch of Rimbaud's poetry to music.  I needed it.  Itunes has plenty of Leo Ferre, but not what I was looking for.  So I checked ebay and found the 2 volumes of the record and finally have them at home with my new turntable and was finally able to take a listen! 

Leo's voice is gorgeous, and mixed with Rimbaud's beautiful poetry, it's enough to make me melt.  For real.  The album I have is extremely hard to come by, at least in the USA.  Perhaps it's more readily available in France?  Anyway, Ferre's music is so beautifully and typically French that I'm a bit obsessed and am on the lookout for more of his records.  You can find him on itunes (just not the Rimbaud/Verlaine stuff like I said).  Here's a youtube video I found of Ferre doing a song to the words of Baudelaire's "Albatros", one of my favorite poems ever.  It kinda shows his style, but my album is a bit more "jazzy".

I can't wait to share more fun French stuff with you all once july comes around!

Review: Les Femmes Savantes by Molière

Les Femmes savantes is a hilarious play that Molière wrote in the last years of his life.  I really want to review it, but I am all Molièred out, so this will probably be a really short review.  I loved this play, possibly even more than I loved Le Tartuffe.  Henriette, the youngest of two girls, wants to marry Clitandre.  Her older sister Armande, who claims to care only for learning and philosophy, basically shoots her down and says it's not going to happen because Clitandre still loves her.  Clitandre does, in fact, want to marry Henriette, and he goes to her father to ask for permission.  Chrysale immediately says yes, but everyone is concerned.  They want him to speak to his wife, Philaminte.  She wears the pants in the family and Chrysale is afraid to go against her.  She wants Henriette to marry her friend Trissotin, who loves bragging about how smart he is.  Throughout the play, the 2 sides are trying to marry off Henriette to the man of their choice before she can marry the other.

The title indicates that there are some smart ladies in the house.  That is true, but it's more making fun of them than praising them.  Philaminte, Armande, and Bélise (Armande's aunt and Chrysale's sister) are the "smart women".  They are very intelligent, but they don't learn because they enjoy learning.  They learn so that they can brag about how smart they are to everyone.  There is a hilarious scene where the cook runs to Chrysale saying that Philaminte wants to fire her.  When Chysale confronts his wife, her reason for wanting the cook gone is that she doesn't speak with proper grammar (and at that time, the French language was just beginning to be codified and grammar/pronunciation rules put into place, so to say that someone isn't using proper grammar is just funny since the "proper" French wasn't wide spread yet).

One of the morals of the story is that learning for the sake of learning is great, but learning just so you can flaunt your intelligence in front of everyone is stupid.  And believe me, it is.  When "les femmes savantes" think they are talking very intelligently, they sound hilarious.

I'm sure this play has taken a lot of flak over the years from people claiming it's anti-women because of it's subject matter and title, but I honestly don't think that Molière was "trying to put women back in their places".  Just because the people in the wrong in this play are women doesn't mean that Molière doesn't want women learning and wants them to only stick to household chores and having babies.  He was very close to the women in his life, and the co-founder of his theatre troupe was a woman.  If you look at the bigger picture, you'll see that the underlying moral of the story can relate to both women and men.

Have you read or seen this play?  If so, what are your opinions of it?

Title: Les Femmes savantes
Author: Molière
Date of Publication: original in 1672, my copy is from the 1990s
Number of Pages: 185 (5 acts)
Genre: play, comedy
Source: Personal Copy

Review: The House on Tradd Street

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White is a fun, chick lit-esque ghost story/mystery set in Charleston, South Carolina, one of my most favorite places ever!  (for numerous reasons.  Though my family is probably recalling as they read this my "Mr. Hottie" chronicles....but that's a whole nother story and it's kind of too embarrassing to share on the internet.  But I digress....)  Melanie Middleton is a middle-aged woman who has a very successful career as a realtor.  Her specialty-old historic houses.  So when she suddenly inherits an old house with a ton of history on Tradd Street, you'd except her to be ecstatic.  But there's a catch.  Melanie has the unique ability to see ghosts, and she doesn't like it at all.  That's why, while she sells beautiful old homes, she prefers to live in a brand new, plain white condo.  With her inheritance, she must restore and live in the old house for at least one year, and she's not happy about the ghosts she keeps seeing in it.  With the help of historical real-life mysteries writer Jack Trenholm, Melanie reluctantly starts to uncover the house's secrets.  One major problem-one of the home's ghosts doesn't want her digging around in the past.  What will Melanie uncover?

I truly loved The House on Tradd Street.  It's such a fun book.  It's light-hearted yet serious at the same time.  This was my first experience with Karen White, and I really enjoyed it.  I'm really picky about my ghost stories, but this one was perfect.  The ghosts were mysterious and creepy, but no so involved in the story that they stopped acting like ghosts.  I also enjoyed Melanie's psychic abilities.  She really hates seeing ghosts, but sees them so often that it's normal to her.

Melanie herself was a really likeable character.  She can be a complete bitch and is extremely stupid at times, but she's also very insecure and afraid to face her own emotions.  She is almost 40 but acs like a child when she's with her parents because of the tension between them.  I really loved how Melanie kept denying to herself her feelings for Jack.  All of this made Melanie seem real.  Her friends were all great too, and they were very funny.

One thing that annoyed me (in a good way though-not in a "OMG I need to stop reading this book" kind of way) was Melanie's relationship with the mysterious Marc Longo.  He is the grandson of Joseph Longo, who the former owner of the house on Tradd supposedly ran off with.  But there's much more to that story.  Priceless diamonds and money problems are involved, and I kow Melanie was smarter than she acted, but I think she just wanted to make Jack jealous.  I kept thinking, and so did Jack, that Marc was up to something, and Melanie just would not believe it.

I highly recommend The House on Tradd Street.  Even though it deals with ghosts and an old mystery, it feels like it's a really story that could happen to any of us.  I think that's because the characters all seem so real and the setting is in a place I'm familiar with and love.  It's a heartwarming story about timeless love, loss, and uncovering the truth.  A great book to bring on vacation or read in a hammock, you won't want to put it down.  I can't wait to read the next book with Melanie Middleton, which also takes place in Charlston, The Girl on Legare Street. 

Title: The House on Tradd Street
Author: Karen White
Date of Publication: 2008
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Graduation!!!! Yayyyy!!!!

So I graduated from college on Saturday!!  Yay!  It was kind of embarrassing walking across the stage because there was this huge screen that showed each student as they walked.  But I did fine.  My friend from French was worried the whole time that her cap was going to fall off as she walked across the stage, and then, it did.  And I had to try really hard not to die of laughter as I  walked across the stage.  I would LOVE to know why they even bother to have us put the phonetical spelling of our names for pronunciation purposes if the guy announcing our names doesn't even bother to read them anyway and mispronounces both mine and Twin's last name.  Seriously??  And he was Twin's minor advisor, so he totally knows how to pronounce it.  Oh well.....

It was a rainy day, but it stopped raining just long enough for my mom to take some photos on Buff State's campus.  The first one is of me and Boyfriend (but shhhhhhh!  He might not like that I'm posting a photo of him.  What he doesn't know can't hurt him.  Isn't he adorable?!)

The second one is of me and Twin :)  We don't look very much alike in it because I'm wearing glasses and her heels were way higher than mine.  We were kinda making funny faces because we wanted to hurry up and take the photos because people were trying to walk past us but had to wait until my mom took the photos.

So now I'm a graduate with way too much time on my hands.  I desperately need a big girl job with more than 4 hours a week.  Because that's all I'm working this week and it sucks.

More reviews coming this week!

Review: Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo

Pray for Silence is the second novel Linda Castillo has written with character Chief of Police Kate Burkholder as the main character.  Not much happens in the small community of Painters Mill, where many inhabitants are Amish.  Kate and her colleagues are shocked when they find a whole Amish family gruesomely murdered in their own home.  Why were they murdered?  And what secrets did the family have that could have led to their deaths?  Kate puts herself in harm's way to find the person who committed the heinous crime, and she is joined by State Agent John Tomasetti, her boyfriend who has some problems of his own to deal with.

I picked up Pray for Silence thinking it would be a nice no-brainer to read during the semester.  I figured it was a murder mystery, and it couldn't be that intense, right?  Wrong!  The book was fast-paced and extremely gruesome, and it kept me wanting to read more.  Surprisingly, it took me almost the whole book to figure out who the killer was, and I loved all the new suspects that kept popping up.

I really loved Kate and her ability to relate so well with the victims.  As a cop, she tries not to because it often makes things too emotional.  As she is the narrator though, readers get a look inside her head.  Growing up Amish heself and going through much of what one of the dead girls went through, Kate is determined to find the killer, even if she acts really stupid and risks her life to do so.

I thought Castillo did the whole Amish thing quite nicely.  I usually shy away from books about the Amish because they often seem kind of cheesy and fake.  This novel was different.  Perhaps it's because Kate herself talked about the Amish like it's a normal thing.  I'm not sure, but I liked it.

Castillo definitely knows how to write a good murder mystery.  This was definitely not what I expected, but in a good way.  Like I said above, I didn't figure out who the murderer was until the end, and I usually can guess long before then.  Another thing I loved is that you don't need to read the first Kate Burkholder book, Sworn to Silence, before reading this one.  There was enough background info given in this one that I knew what was happening, and it didn't have a super long summary of the first book in the first chapter, which was great because that can get annoying.

All in all, a great entertaining read.  Just don't pick it up if you're weak in the stomach!  I plan on reading Sworn to Silence soon!

Title: Pray for Silence
Author: Linda Castillo
Date of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 320
Genre: Fiction, murder mystery
Source: Personal Copy

Review: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Thank you Blogger for being a royal pain in the butt.  I definitely typed, saved, and posted this review on Wednesday, and I even checked afterwards to see if it was posted.  And when I just looked, it wasn't posted, nor was my full review saved.  The only thing saved was the picture.  *sigh*  At least recycling day isn't until Tuesday because I found my original hand-written review in the recycling bin and am now retyping it.  Better work this time!

Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is a frightening and dark story of a man hunt.  Set deep into the south of Texas in the 1970s, war vet Llewellyn Moss stumbles upon a mass-murder scene in the middle of the desert.  Nearby he finds a suitcase with a ton of money in it.  As soon as he makes the decision to take the money, he knows that someone will come after him.  Llewellyn takes off and throughout the story is persude by a really scary gunman, the local sheriff, and a bunch of other violent people.  This book is filled with violence, but it's one you won't want to pass up.

My first experience with Cormac McCarthy was his book The Road.  I was immediately drawn to his writing style.  I'd been wanting to pick up another of his novels ever since.  I saw the movie No Country for Old Men with Boyfriend shortly after it was released and loved it.  Realizing that the book was probably even better than the movie, I decided to give the novel a try.  I am so glad I did!

The moment I picked up the book, it drew me into its world.  McCarthy captures his characters and setting so well you feel like you are there.  I truly thought when I first saw how much southern dialect he wrote with that I'd get super annoyed and go crazy.  I usually hate it when authors mispell words when characters are speaking so that readers can hear how exactly they speak.  Usually, I have to read dialogs out loud just to understand them.  With McCarthy's style, I understood everything completely and actually loved it.  It's hard to explain because that deep Texan accent is definitely present in his writing, but it's not so insane that I have to read it out loud.  It added so much to the story and to the characters, and I don't think I've read anyone who does it as well as McCarthy.

I loved the characters.  The sheriff, because of the chapters that are in his point of view, becomes quite an endearing character, even with all his rough edges.  Llewellyn was a great guy even though he stole the money.  He wants it so that he and his wife can have a better life, and even when he gets violent, you can't help but cheer for him.  The bad guy, Chigurh, is probably one of the scariest people I've ever read about.  He is sneaky and just plain evil.

The only thing I'd warn readers about this book is that the chapters where the sheriff is speaking in present tense and are italicized can be confusing.  I had already seen the movie and I understood from that that those chapters are actually him speaking to a reporter after the fact.  Really though, the book makes no mention of this, and I can totally picture him sitting on a rocker on his front porch telling this story to whoever came by for a visit.  If you don't realize that it's the sheriff telling the story after it's all over and done with, it can be very confusing.

I absolutely adored this book and talked about it for weeks at home and at school.  My mom now has it sitting next to her chair in her "to read" pile.  Yes, it's violent and bloody, and disturbing, and dark, but it is so worth it.  I promise you won't regret reading No Country for Old Men.

Now for some favorite quotes:
Page 124: It is community and it is respect, of course, but the dead have more claims on you than what you might want to admit or even what you might know about and them claims can be very strong indeed.

Page 127: The face that lapped and shifted in the dark liquid in the cup seemed an omen of things to come.  Things losing shape.  Taking you with them.

Page 283: I've told my deputies more than once that you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go.  If there aint nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem.



Title: No Country for Old Men
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Date of Publication: 2006
Number of Pages: 271
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy