Review: Alexandre Dumas’ La Boule de Neige

    This book was excellent.  Glad to have found another Dumas book to listen to.

I listened to this book, The Snow Ball, read by a very nice older lady from France, either on librivox or litaudio, I forget which, now.   Many of the readers, as it turns out, are on both platforms, which are both free.  Littaudio has no commercial breaks, but tends to drop off at the end of each chapter, making it hard to pick back up where one left off listening.  /  J’ai écoutée boule de neige lu par Saperlipopette sur soit librivox soit literatureaudio.

     I just listened to the book, although I had to grit my teeth in the early pages due to the comments on ‘Asiatics’ and the supposed French cultural superiority, which I later understood to be actually rather tongue in cheek on the part of Dumas.  /  Je viens d’écouter ce livre, même si j’avais eu me serrer les dents aux premiers pages pour ces commentaires un peux fâcheuses sur les “Asiatics” et le présumé supériorité de la culture française.

     It took me a while to get up the energy to write this review after the excellent listening experience, due to other things going on in my life, but I urge anyone who can do so to read or listen to this book.  It really is a fascinating work.  And an excellent set of critiques of rich people, given in that excellent humor that Dumas has.

     Excellent, really excellent protag, to save a city:  a man who is furious with that very city!  I was surprised to listen to Dumas, as the author, speak at times directly to the reader.  /  Bonne, très bonne protagoniste pour sauver une ville : un homme qui est enragé contre la ville ! J’écoute le livre , ou Dumas parle parfois directement aux lecteurs.

Really? Asians need a Joseph (Biblical reference to Joseph when he interpreted the dreams for Pharaoh, of the famished cows eating the fat cows…) to explain a coming famine?  French disdain had, and may still have, no limits.

“Do not look at women belonging to other men, and do not listen to yours.  /  Ne regarde pas les femmes des autres ne l’écoute pas la tienne.”

Seriously, this, along with the rose that lasts for a day and the thorn that lasts for a lifetime, not great for women, right…  /  Ça avec la rose qui dure un jour et l’épine qui dure toute la vie , c’est bien mince pour les femmes n’est-ce pas…

Wow:

“…drought is the mother of famine, and famine is the mother of warfare… and… the rich people helped the poor against their will…  /   …la sécheresse est la mère de famine et la famine est la mère de la guerre… Et… Les riches avait aidé les pauvres malgré leur gré…”

And even worse, yet still true in our times and throughout the world, it seems:

“The poor worried for their lives, and the rich, for their pocketbooks…  /  Les pauvres troublés pour leur vies, les riches pour leur bourses…”

Will mankind ever change??  /  Est-ce que l’homme ne changera jamais ??

     The French still seem to have no respect for Asians.  To call their holidays childish, I find is just as bad as when they, or rather Dumas himself, claim that every young girl of 16 dreams of finding love.  It is incorrect.  /  Les Français n’ont aucune respect pour les orientaux. Dire qu’ils sont infantile avec leurs fêtes, c’est, je trouves si mauvais que quand il dit que toutes les jeunes filles, à 16 ans, revêtent de l’amour. C’est faux.

..

Shira

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Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

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