L'étranger, by Albert Camus

One more book I borrowed from the library. Half through the novel, I realized that I had actually already read it. It must have been during high school.

In any case, I love it. I love the style, I love the content. Of course, it is sometimes frustrating to see what the character does, but I like the ideas, the position towards the justice system, towards religion, what it says about communication and understanding another person. Nothing pretentious in this book. I really appreciated the tone.

I think I'll buy the book one day. And I definitely want to read more from Camus. I might have read "La peste" (the pleague ?) but I don't remember well.


Oh. I wanted to add a citation, that I really like. Although I doubt it is the most philosophical part of the novel, I totally relate to it (and I won't risk any translation mistakes, so here you go, in French):

"Avant de quiter le bureau pour aller déjeuner, je me suis lavé les mains. A midi, j'aime bien ce moment. Le soir, j'y trouve moins de plaisir parce que la serviette roulante qu'on utilise est tout à fait humide : elle a servi toute la journée. J'en ai fait la remarque un jour à mon patron. Il m'a répondu qu'il trouvait cela regrettable, mais que c'était tout de même un détail sans importance."

[Wikipedia article in French], [Wikipedia article in English]

The Valkyries, by Paulo Coelho

Borrowed from the library in Münster. I had rather high hopes for that book, as I read "At once a modern-day adventure, a metaphysical battle with self doubt and fear, a true story of two people striving to understand one another, and a supernatural encounter with angels, The Valkyries is ultimately a story about forgiving our past and believing in our future."

If it had less biblical references, I might have enjoyed it, but as it is, it was rather a pain to read the book. I have to say that I am allergic to religion these days. I am not against spiritualism though, and I had hopes that this would be a purely spiritual book. I might have to read it again later.

The plot was OK, with some exotism but not too much (more like not enough). The story about forgiving our past and believing in our future is presented heavily. The road to the encounter with the angels is oversimplified, so that the readers can feel a connection and be involved in the story. Exotic words and themes are put together with basic notions, but it didn't do it for me. In the end, I found the book superficial and pretentious.

We'll see if I like it better if I ever read it again.

[Wikipedia article about the author (in French)],[Wikipedia: The Valkiries (English)]

Die Windtänzerin, by Adèle Geras

Borrowed from the library, attracted by the nice cover. I've always been attracted to stories of dancers. As it was in the "women" isle, I thought it would be an easy book to read. I can't speak German, so I really need easy books. This was quite a nice story, with a surprise element that I hadn't guessed until they make is more than obvious. That made the whole book come up one rank in my mind. It is possible that I underestimate the book's value because I didn't get the details though. I am far too lazy to look up all the words I don't get in the dictionary. It would meet checking 3 words out of 4. I don't understand how it is possible, but I still understood the story, laughed and nearly cried at times.

[The author's website] -- Made me realize that she wrote a huge amount of novels ! As I quite liked that one, I'll look for some more :)