which of these le clezio books should i read first?

y'all is no help

yeah, i dig those covers too. very nice. i dunno, just read one. start with The Giants. it's about a giant supermarket! everyone loves those. well, maybe this guy doesn't. but i do!

thomp - apparently I already had Le procès-verbal (The Interrogation) in my to be read pile(!) for a year, discovered when trying to order it tonight, so I guess I'll start reading it tomorrow. I know, still no help. Maybe you should just read them all, then report back to us.

desert is one of his more famous ones, but i haven't read it. i read some le clezio in french back when i studied in france, but i don't remember them that well. i remember liking the book of flights a lot, as well as fever. my favorite is "the round and other cold hard facts." it's a book of short stories.

there's a really cool edition of le proces verbal available from amazon.fr or chapitre.com that is profusely illustrated by a french graphic novelist named baudoin. it's not *too* terribly expensive, although that's always a relative term... a good gift for the literati in your life who has everything.

If the author is old enough to have done so, and if I have any doubts as to where to start when getting to grips with a someone new I go for something published in the 70s, which means 'War'.

'The Flood' sounds really great tho'.

What's the hit rate for Nobel prize winners? Looking at the list now...

t.l.s., 1796: he's a bit french

typographical folderol = hurrah!

"The chief named characters are Tranquillity, a slave worker, Dumb Bogo, a mute Hyperpolitan parasite, and Machines, a trolley attendant" = hm!

"Hyperpolis itself is a naive conception: in The Space Merchants Pohl and Kornbluth with a far more primitive technique managed a much more complex forecast of commercial trends" = haha what

for k. amis in 1950-summat, too, that book was the height of sci-fi's acheivement. i don't really understand it.

there are few nobel winners i shouldn't like to read. a fair few of english-language winners seem v. much "gosh, who reads HIM nowadays" — i wonder how true this is of, say, roger martin du gard, who i have never heard of.

You're missing one from that list: 'Terra Amata', which I'm reading now, which is really good, except for occasional outbreaks of tedious self-indulgence (such as three pages written completely in a made-up language, etc).

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0141191414.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

is it you that has the blog? the blog with the book covers? the book cover blog?

Yes, that is me.

Should add that, having read more of it, 'Terra Amata' also includes two pages written in Morse code, and a number of other such odds and sods.

are they nicely typeset?

i am hedging between 'the giants' (most stupid-sounding), 'the interrogation' (best cover), and 'terra amata' (because i like that kind of stupidity. there's a children's novel by alan garner where to figure out the ending you have to crack a coded message written on the endpapers! this is one of my favorite things)

Gotta warn you, I'm about a third of the way the The Interrogation and I'm not sure how much further I can go. It's a really fucking boring young man kind of book.

that's okay, i got the giants upon recalling (see review above) it also featured "typographical folderol". it appears to be the '75 translation.

it actually reminds me of 'stand on zanzibar' more'n 'space merchants', but i have only read abour four pages. it failed the paper test

Finished The Interrogation - I thought it was awful. Actually surprised I made it to the end, because of all the long, boring, crazy rants, nonsense, and tedious, over-long sections of the book. Of particularly distasteful note is the dispassionate, approximately twenty page long section spent describing how the main character slowly and semi-methodically kills a rat by throwing pool balls at it.

^^ sounds better than 'the giants' : /

Anyone left? ;-)

Goddam I'm 70 pgs into 'The Flood' and totally digging it. Its Ballard with a Roman-esque twist which is just, you know, my kind of thing. Maybe I shouldn't like it so much now I said that. Resist...

Love the cover. A few people on the train like it too, I get glances at it.

Of particularly distasteful note is the dispassionate, approximately twenty page long section spent describing how the main character slowly and semi-methodically kills a rat by throwing pool balls at it.

'Terra Amata' has a similarly long, nasty section where the protagonist kills insects while pretending to be their god. Charming.

Will try 'The Flood' next.

Isnt 'Desert' translated into English? Or does it have a completely deifferent title?

anyone manage to like this guy in the end?

Not yet. Unwisely bought 6 of his books in one hit, and have read only 2 of them. I'll give him one more shot, I guess.

Hey I liked the one bk I read by him...

http://sta✧✧✧.g✧✧✧.c✧.uk/Guardian/books/gallery/2008/oct/09/nobelprize/GD9143✧✧✧@-FILE--French-writer--7✧✧✧.j✧✧

eh?

http://sta✧✧✧.g✧✧✧.c✧.uk/Guardian/books/gallery/2008/oct/09/nobelprize/GD9143✧✧✧@-FILE--French-writer--7✧✧✧.j✧✧

well, nevermind.

Lock thread!

Has anyone read The Flood (Le Deluge)? Any thoughts on the long and difficult introductory chapter?

"Managed to like him"?! I'm reading War right now and it's slaying me, though also making me wish I could read it in french. I also thought The Flood was great, but apparently it didn't find many fans here.

man all the descriptions make him sound far better than i remember him being