title: Something to Declare: Essays on France
author:  Julian Barnes 
description: Novelist Barnes's latest collection of haute musings on France and things French is rather like a ride in a creaky Citro n: at first, it kicks and gurgles in a scattered path, but once it gets started, it's a charming and nostalgic way to view la belle France. Barnes, author of nine novels (Love, Etc., etc.), a book of stories and a collection of essays, offers here an amalgamation of pieces, many previously published in the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books. The collection begins with meandering yet tellingly accurate critiques of popular culture phenomena, such as the Tour de France, the films of Truffaut and Godard, and singer Jacques Brel. Barnes's assessment of culinary writer Elizabeth David's thoughts on nouvelle cuisine (it means "lighter food, less of it, costing more") are at once witty and dead-on. After sharing these lighter, whimsical thoughts, Barnes shifts into a higher gear and delves into a study of the French and Francophile literary establishment, from Edith Wharton and Ford Madox Ford to Henry James and George Sand. He saves many of the book's later chapters for his favorite subject, Gustave Flaubert. Throughout, Barnes integrates his commentary with detailed, intriguing bits of history. Devotees of Madame Bovary will thrill to read his ruminations on the masterpiece (e.g., what if it had been written for the screen rather than as a book?). Serious yet self-deprecating, Barnes's prose is perfectly tuned to its subject. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct. 7) <br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  The Present Literary Situation In France
  
  
  This page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  # The Present Literary Situation In France
  
  
  ### By Henry James
  
  
  This page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
      
  
  EText by Ian Hillman
  
  
  THERE are as many reasons just now, I dare say, as can well be
  
  
  pointed out for a certain sense of difficulty on the part of those who,
  
  
  caring for the things of the mind, desire, as the century draws to it's
  
  
  end, to accompany it's last steps with some acknowledgment of a great
  
  
  particular debt. We have all owed so much to the France of the past
  
  
  fifty years, that we should fail of common good manners were we to
  
  
  neglect the right moment—-as this might naturally be deemed—-for
  
  
  putting our gratitude on record. The difficulty I just spoke of is,
  
  
  however, that the right moment happens, by a shocking perversity and
  
  
  just in time to disconcert us, to have assumed every appearance—-every
  
  