Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

--- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>
> I've never trusted the Bescherelle. But everything
> you're saying won't
> change the fact that this expression is unknown to
> me and to probably 95%
> of the French population. That's the only important
> thing.
Much is unknown to 95% of the population. For ex, the
difference between "censé" and "sensé" is unknown to
about 99,5% of the population, including teachers,
journalists, editors, authors and correctors. The
difference between infinitive, imperative, indicative
and passé composé for the verbs of the 1st groupe
(avancer, avancez, avancé, avancés...), is unknown or
at least unclear to a wide majority of the population,
which doesn't prevent them from eating, sleeping and
voting normally.

>
> Another French author which used the same kind of
> "invented French
> language", but is considered more "literary" by the
> intelligentsia, is
> Boris Vian. I have "l'écume des jours" here. A great
> book. But with Vian,
> not only the language but the world where the
> characters live has little to
> do with reality as we experience it ;)) .
Vian's main romans are very poetic (L'Ecume des Jours
is probably the most famous; but also L'Automne à
Pékin, L'Arrache-coeur, L'Herbe rouge...).

But Frederic Dard's romans are also totally
unrealistic, and he himself claimed it so. In most of
his books, the story has so to say no importance at
all and every event related is totally unbelievable
(except maybe in his first ones, still a little
conventional). So after a while, you don't try any
more to understand anything about what happens, and
you concentrate on the style and the language (and the
apartes to the reader); and so you really enjoy them.
This I discovered for the first time when reading "En
avant la moujik !" (And now for the mujik !), which
made me read about 100 or 150 more of them later. I
remember that at a moment, I stopped trying to follow
the thread, and just started reading for pleasure. And
when I closed the book, I thought with astonishment:
Oh, so it IS possible to write and publish books like
that ? It was a real discovery. (Another discovery,
later, was Joyce, of course).

Vian is poetic and imaginative, but his romans are
consistent, there is a story in them, albeit
irrealistic. The attitude of Dard is more literary
engaged I think. He very often says in his books "oh
surely, if I was a great prized author I would write
this and that, but, see, I decided not to be and to
write exactly how I feel like"; or "OK, you paid for
this book, so you expect action, sex and fun, all
right, don't move, I'll give you what you paid for,
and even more". Usually he insults the lector a great
many times through a book, too.

Both Vian and Dard are among my favourite French
authors of the XXth century.



=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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