Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Louis Aragon

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, two of OK Magazine, and an issue of The New Yorker.


I also read the complete works of Villiers de l'Isle Adam, the Edgar Allan Poe of French literature. I was struck by how effective his Night Gallery type stories were, how much they held my interest and how entertained I was. Some are poorly written -- the great title came with no money as his father spent millions before he was born, and though his parents always lived together his mother asked for the legal separation of their finances so he could blow the money she was to inherit, so he wrote for the rags -- but others are wonderful.

I then read two more novels and some short stories by Louis Aragon, whose last volume of complete works came late. His extremely long novel about the defeat of France, Les Communistes, is extraordinary. It is hard to read because it is burdened with lots of descriptions of military events best left to a historian,but like Life and Fate (Vassily Grossman, a great classic), it contains unforgettable moments: the announce of the defeat on the radio, where all the women instinctively take the hands of the men, who are bound to leave soon; the head doctor complaining about his field hospital, interrupted by a Stuka.