The very final thing on my list… Read a French novel.
I have actually read one or two before but this was back in the time when I was actually studying the language for A Levels and had a vague grasp of what the language was about. 5 years later, I’m struggling to remember what the subjunctive is in English let alone French.
I went back to an old favourite author of mine – François Lelord. He is a psychiatrist. Consequently, he writes about very interesting psychological things.
The first book I read by him was titled something like Les Voyages d’Hector: Le recherche du bonheur. It was about Hector, a young psychiatrist who was fed up with just fixing symptoms with drugs but wanted to find the route of the problem; he wanted to know what makes people happy. To find out he travels round the world to meet people who have their own ideas about the subject. Second to actually going on such a journey, reading this book is the greatest way to explore such a subject. With a perfect ratio between raw entertainment, provocation of thought and lingual improvement, I knew I had struck gold with this one. Thanks to my brother’s fiancé, Sophie, for this one.
So, looking for the sequel all these years on, I came across it: Le Nouveau Voyage d’Hector: À la poursuite du temps qui passe. It formed essentially the same set up as the previous title. Nice simple language – another key driving factor in me liking Lelord so much. An interesting story covering lots of international travel and forcing to query my current geographical location. Also, the subject really gets you thinking a lot deeper than normal life leads you to. And I like that a lot.
Hector introduces you to basic philosophical concepts, many of the ones I encountered for #60. He gets you to think about time. What is time? Does the future or the past exist? If tomorrow never comes are we not always in the present? But are our thoughts not always thinking in the future or the past?
This time subject was very apt for the end of the 61things project.
I realised that actually I have very little time left. I had given myself just a few days to see off about 10 things. Okay, some were doable and just needed the right up but others were ambitious.
Leaving myself just the 61st day to read 50 pages of a 236 page book in a foreign language. Ambitious.
Because when I read a French novel I am actually reading two books as I need to carry around my Collins Pocket French Dictionary at the same time. It was only on this last day that I truly mastered the art of reading with two books in my hands while surfing the Jubilee line and channelling energy and weight into either foot to maintain a sustainable position on the train.
But despite my best efforts during the commute, I still had 15 two sided bits of paper to plough my translating eyes through. And after completing three other things that evening I was giving myself precious little time to read about time.
But amazingly, thanks to an engrossing storyline and an improvement in my French vocabulary, my speed of reading was increasing. Furthermore, any words that my dictionary could not decipher for me were instantly explained on Google Translate. One notable word was ‘soudain’ which, as I assumed, translates as ‘all of a sudden’.
With 33 minutes until the 61things finally challenge was over, I glanced at the final full stop of the novel, bringing an end to all my challenges, interests and intrigues that have encompassed my life over the past two month.
Forgetting the significance of the point in time, it was a terrific book and I recommend it to any intermediate French reader of above.
