Ayme, Franco, Queneaux, Behn

Since my last post, I've read one issue of The Economist, The World in 2010, Vanity Fair, Utne Reader, National Examiner, The New Yorker, Eclectic Reading, Hello! Canada, and two issues of The New Scientist. I've also finished Raymond Queneau, although I'm waiting for the second volume of his novels. I also read a biography of Reconstructing Aphra by Angeline Goreau, that put me more in the picture of this writer. I also read, as well as a book about Veronica Franco, The Honest Courtesan, by Margaret Rosenthal.

I'm halfway through the second volume of Marcel Ayme. As has happened over and over again, I'm reading through novel after novel that don't come alive for me, and then suddenly I hit pure gold. Le vaurien is beautifully plotted and written, and the characters are vivid. I loved it. Same thing happened as I manfully plowed through his short stories: I just started reading one about a writer who kills off all his characters before the age of thirty -- I suspect he is referring to Roger Martin du Gard -- when one of the characters' wives walks into his study to plead for his life. Wonderful. Ayme is witty -- this collection of short stories all have characters called Martin in them: a writer, a schoolboy, a farmer...