alexiacambaling's reviews
442 reviews

I'm not sure what to think of this book, although reading the author's backstory helped me understand the story better. There's a bit of a melancholy feel to the book and it's more literary fiction than romance. The romance is quite tragic and it does explore the age difference and the relationship between a young man and an older woman. It explores aging a lot and how scandalous the relationship is. 

The novel centers around the protagonist Cheri and his relationship with his older mistress Lea who was a courtesan and his mother's friend. It's a fraught relationship, but one Cheri couldn't let go of to his detriment. We see how much it affected his life and how he couldn't form a proper relationship with his young wife because of it. 

There is a sequel called La fin de Cheri and I'm not sure if I want to read it. Maybe at some point. I think I will read more Colette books, however. I think she's very interesting and the themes of her books appear to be about going against societal norms and pressures of the time which is something I always find fascinating. 

Overall, I thought Cheri was alright, but not exactly gripping. It does have a melancholic feel and explores the characters' psyche from the lens of a doomed relationship.

I like this much better the second time. I think that the original is (obviously) much better than the translation, but more than that, the original illustrations greatly enhanced the reading experience. Overall, it's a fun adventure.

This is the first work by Dumas that I read and I feel this allowed me to gain a perspective of his work different from his popular ones. Les Mille et un Fantômes and La femme au collier de velours are both not realistic, and more in the vein of subtly supernatural stories. La femme au collier de velours is the more realistic of the two and doesn't get overtly fantastic until the last chapter.

I originally decided to read Les Mille et un Fantômes because I read the last story as a novella, La dame pâle, which is the last four stories of the book. I do think that La dame pâle feels tonally different from the rest of the stories, partly because of the setting, and partly because it has vampires. Still, Les Mille et un Fantômes was a pretty good read because it does philosophize a bit about death and tackles the history of the French Revolution. The stories are a little sad and tragic, however. I'd say my favorite was the story about Solange, but thinking about it makes me feel sad.

La femme au collier de velours is a bit more realistic at the beginning, except that the protagonist is named after the German author, E.T.A Hoffmann. The first chapter was wordy and a little bit difficult, but explores French culture and literature. Charles Nodier and his works were referenced which made me interested in reading him. The first few chapters were a bit difficult for me to get through because it wasn't as interesting as Les Mille et un Fantômes but I pushed through it and it got more interesting. There's several ways to read this story, like is it a ghost story or is the character just losing his sanity? I feel like the legend of a girl who's head is attached to her body with a ribbon/collar is a staple of ghost fiction and I'd really like to know where it originated. I think I was about seven when I first heard a story along those lines. It's a love triangle of sorts without a happy ending which I think serves the main character right.

I did really enjoy both works and I'm looking forward to reading more of Dumas' works, including his most famous ones.

Alexandre Dumas is known for his long novels, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, but La Dame pâle is a novella and actually part of a longer collection. I thought it was okay. While written in simple language that even I, a learner could understand with some vocabulary lookups, it does well in building tone and atmosphere. It's a very recognizable Gothic novel. There's a noblewoman in exile, a castle in the mountains, two brothers, and vampires. While good, I can't help but feel that it'd be much better if it had been a bit longer. When I finished it, it was like, that's it? Still, it's a good tale and kept me hooked.

A classic Agatha Christie novel. I said I wanted to read books originally in French in French, but the translation is good and none of the atmosphere is lost. It works well due to the multinational cast and the setting of the novel. This is really one of Agatha Christie's best and maybe her best Poirot that I've read so far. Unlike with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, knowing the twist in the end didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book because upon rereading, it clicks and you realize that the backstory truly makes the book. 

This is the first book, well, short story collection I read in French. Some stories I struggled with and referred to a translation and I did have to use the dictionary a lot but I enjoyed it. Guy de Maupassant's writing style is fairly straightforward although the use of some old-fashioned vocabulary can make some stories a little difficult. Le Horla, which I read without a translation or a dictionary was the one I enjoyed the most. I felt like it's almost a shame most of the stories were more realistic.

Still, other than Le Horla, I enjoyed Sauvee and Le Signe, two stories featuring the Marquise of Rennedon and Baroness de Grangerie, as well as Au Bois and Le Rois. I enjoyed reading about the characters and the plots are simple, but interesting. I'll definitely be reading more by Guy de Maupassant as I continue learning French.