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Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

eBrain
User since 2009
Posts: 613

22 May 2012

I've just finished reading this book and a nice description of Paris by an anglo-american author. A good one, to my opinion for the 3/4 and then a pirouette, just perhaps because he didn't know how to go on. The book can be read without a dictionary (my GG level is definitely under 5 ;) )
Wiki :"The Woman in the Fifth, the story of a beleaguered professor who falls in love with a strange woman who isn’t the person she seems, was also adapted into film, and was released in France in November 2011, starring Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas". What do you think of it ?

11 comments

  • User since 2012
    Posts: 288

    23 May 2012

    I haven't read the book, nor have I seen the movie, but you make me feel like reading it.


    And you gave me an idea, that I was going to call good, but let's see first what you will think about it :
    we could exchange books in english, between whoever fellow-learner interested in reading. I have always kept the book in french I liked, so I could read them a second time or lend it to friend and so on. But books in english are less likely to be lent, and would have a better life if they were readen by several people instead of getting dusty in bookshelves.
    It wouldn't be an economic deal, because of the the shameful prices the french post takes for delivering anything else than letters, but it could be nice to share what we enjoyed reading with others.


    Sorry EpsilonBrain because I diverted your post...


    Does this seem interesting to some of you ?
  • User since 2009
    Posts: 613

    24 May 2012

    No, no problem at all, Pimpanella, I do think it's a good idea, indeed ;-) cheers.
    I just tell you why , for myself, I cannot exchange my books : at the end of 2012 I'll retire and I'd like to participate to (or create) a club of readers of english books where I'm living. So I need my old books already read. I've a bad habit : I underline the words I don't know, and have them translated if needed for the story or let them untranslated untill... Perhaps I'll take time to learn them ;-)
  • User since 2009
    Posts: 613

    24 May 2012

    During the course of a book-signing session in Paris recently, I was approached by a woman who told me: “In the course of reading your new novel I realized that I wasn’t alone . . . that my doubts, my fears, my griefs, were shared ones.” I informed this woman that this was the nicest compliment imaginable—because we all read to discover that we aren’t alone.
  • User since 2012
    Posts: 288

    26 May 2012

    Wow, we're just talking about Douglas Kennedy, and yet here is he, among us ?!?
    Does it work with any writter else ? ;)
    Is this has something to do with a nickname ?
    Anyway, we would be pleased to accept you in our book exchange club, wich today reckon only one member, but that we hope will grow up fast !
  • User since 2012
    Posts: 288

    26 May 2012

    I just checked, I should have wrote "writer" with one t.
  • User since 2012
    Posts: 288

    26 May 2012

    And also : I should have writen, not wrote !
  • User since 2008
    Posts: 499

    27 May 2012

    "I should have written" (two t's for past participle). I'm sorry for pointing that out, but I thought it might help.


    Let me also correct the first sentece:


    "Wow, we*re just talking about Douglas (that part is perfectly correct), and yet here [b]he is[/b], among us"


    and


    "Has this something to do with a nickname?"


    "reckon" is not the right choice here, because "to reckon" has the meaning of "to estimate", "to believe", "to gauge". A more appropriate choice would be "to amount to":


    [b]"Anyway, we would be delighted to accept you to our book exchange club, which today only amounts to one member, but let's hope this number will grow fast/quickly."[/b]
  • User since 2012
    Posts: 288

    28 May 2012

    Thank's a lot Spoiler, of course it helps, as I don't want to make the same mistakes all my life !
  • User since 2009
    Posts: 613

    29 May 2012

    Confessions are always so fascinating—especially if the narrator has a certain self-awareness and an ability to see, retrospectively, the errors that she/he made which, in turn, helped form the trajectory of her/his life. One of my favorite philosophical aphorisms comes from Kierkegaard : “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” That statement underscores all literary confessions—or, at least, the ones I write.

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