FRENCH MOMENTS LITERARY CLUB
© Copyright 2010. French Moments
Club Littéraire Français - NEW BOOK STARTING JULY 2010!
TERM 3 book: “Le Petit Nicolas”
For advanced students who enjoy French literature...
In September 2009 we started our French Moments Literary Club where every month, lovers of French literature get together for a 60 minute session on Saturday mornings over croissants where we talk (in French!) about a chosen book. Vocabulary and study notes are included and sessions are structured so that themes and language skills are developed.
To join the French Literary Club:
It’s easy and you can join per term. The club is meeting 3 times from July to September 2010 with the book “Le Petit Nicolas” then will resume in late October with a new book:
Le Petit Prince, published in 1943 in New York in French (and in English under the title The Little Prince), has been translated into 150 languages and dialects so far and more than 80 million copies have been sold worldwide.
The narrator is a pilot who was forced to land somewhere in the Sahara Desert. While trying to repair his wrecked plane, he encounters a little prince, who - against all odds - asks him to draw a sheep. As they start chatting, the little prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult.
The author
Born on the 29th June 1900 in Lyon, Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint Exupéry became one of the most famous French writers of his generation and still inspires millions of readers today, throughout the world.
He was a successful commercial pilot before World War II before joining the Free French Forces. He vanished on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944, a year after the publication of The Little Prince.
Session 1: Saturday 31/07, 9-10am
Session 2: Saturday 28/08, 9-10am
Session 3: Saturday 25/09, 9-10am
$100* for Term 3 2010
*light breakfast included in price.
Contact us if you have any questions about the French Moments Literary Club or to register for the ongoing Term 3 2010 sessions covering “Le Petit Nicolas”.
Our journey
Over the 3 sessions, we will discover how the author’s personal events are essential in understanding the context of Le Petit Prince, this through Saint Exupéry’s personal style of writing. The most distinctive style of Saint Exupéry is the figurative expressions of ideas which are extremely preeminent and important. The choice of the lexical register used by the author throughout his literary works is linked to his life experiences and his feelings. Even if Le Petit Prince is mainly famous for being a children’s book, it is also very relevant to us, the “Grown-Ups”, as it deals with profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature.
“The best is to do nothing… in order to have nothing with which to reproach oneself!” Fritz Kobus, who inherited the wealth of his late father, a respected judge, is a connoisseur of the good things in life. Resolved to live without working or marrying, Fritz wishes to make the best of life, of good meals and wine, among the company of friends that he regularly meets at the Grand-Cerf brasserie. He had been true to this philosophy of his for many years, despite his friend Rabbi David putting pressure on him to marry, until one day when Fritz learns about the engagement of Suzel, his farmer’s daughter. The beginning of love in the heart of confirmed bachelor Fritz is great cause for rejoicing. The story unfolds, set against the backdrop of the 19th century in a little Alsatian town complete with its political and social tensions ...
The authors
Erckmann-Chatrian is a pseudonym combining two novelists born in Lorraine: Emile Erckmann (1822-1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890). Their common works united the ‘dreamy nature’ of the first with the joviality of the other, and describe the Alsatian customs with accuracy and fondness.
Our journey
Over the 4 months, the study of this book led us on a journey back in time in the French province of Alsace. L’ami Fritz is set in a fictional little town in Northern Alsace, called Hunebourg, where local gastronomic specialities, friendship and beautiful local customs offer a delightful illustration of the story written by Erckmann-Chatrian.
With historical clues, we were able to set the town of Hunebourg North to Wissembourg, in the Palatinate, possessed in the middle of the 19th century by the Bavarians.
PREVIOUS BOOKS STUDIED IN THE LITERARY CLUB
These set out our commitment to you and the basis on which we provide teaching services to our students.
Terms and Conditions.pdf.zip download
TERM 4 2009 “L’ami Fritz” by Erckmann-Chatrian (1864)
TERM 1 2010 “Le Petit Prince” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1943)
This illustrated book written by Goscinny (Astérix, Lucky Luke) and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé is set in the 1950s.
The novel includes 19 shorts stories which follows the life of a little boy in his urban environment: Nicolas.
The themes developed throughout the book focus on childhood (mateship, arguments, relationships with the headmistress, and also first love affairs!) as well as the more complex world of grown-ups (relationships between neighbours, between the boss and the worker, with the in-laws, education and other family arguments...)
TERM 3 2010 “Le Petit Nicolas” by René Goscinny and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé
The authors
René Goscinny (1926–1977) was a French author, editor and humorist. He is famous for creating the comic book Astérix with illustrator Albert Uderzo and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris.
Jean-Jacques Sempé, (born 1932), is a French cartoonist known for his posterlike illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities.
Our journey
Over the 3 sessions, we will discover the context around the writing of “Le Petit Nicolas”, the background of its authors.
For many critics, “Le Petit Nicolas” is an illustration of an ideal childhood and a nostalgic memory of the 1950s.
This children’s book written by the popular Sophie Rostopchine, comtesse de Ségur, is set in the second half on the 19th century.
Two young peasant boys, Gaspard and Lucas Thomas, have two very different personalities. Lucas likes working in the fields and does not enjoy school. Gaspard, on the other hand, finds working at the farm a nightmare and is only happy at school or when reading his books.
Thomas, their rought and violent father wants his sons to help him at the farm and mistreats Gaspard in order to force him to help him with his chores. When Gaspard wins all the academic prizes at his school, he is noticed by a wealthy industrialist and his life is about to change...
TERM 2 2010 “La fortune de Gaspard” by the Comtesse de Ségur (1866)
The author
Sophie Feodorovna Rostopchine, Comtesse de Ségur (1799, Saint-Petersburg - 1874, Paris) was a French writer of Russian birth. She is most well-known today for her children’s novel Les Malheurs de Sophie ("Sophie's Misfortunes").
The Comtesse de Ségur wrote her first novel at the age of 58 and, like the books that followed, was dedicated to her grand-children.
Our journey
Over the 4 sessions, we will learn more about the emerging Industrial Revolution in France and the combat between the mindsets of the farmers versus the acquisition of knowledge provided by the school system of the 19th century.
The novel is based around the transition between the rural and the industrial worlds through the development of education.
For many critics, “La fortune de Gaspard” is not an appropriate book for younger children and therefore goes against the flow of her other children’s books. Throughout the story, the Comtesse de Ségur makes a case against the industrialisation and the nasty rich people of the time. Her opinion of the industralisation process echoes that of William Blake in his poem “Jerusalem” (1820) in which he mentioned the “dark satanic mills” spreading throughout the English countryside. For other, “La fortune de Gaspard” shares some resemblance to Balzac’s style.
The novel leads us to the fact that instruction alone is not enough to make oneself an honest man.
