La chatte, Colette
Thérèse Desqueyroux, François Mauriac
RD350R01 Mondays 7:20-8:50pm (April 5–June 14)
Level B2
Instructor: Marie-France
Noiré
Price: $360
These two novels from the nineteen thirties bring tales of impulsive and dramatic gestures but in two different atmospheres and treatments.
Young Parisian and newly-wed Camille watches as the cat Saha steals her husband's attention away from her and turns into a rival. Saha ignites in Camille a jealousy which brews to the point of destruction. This novel, in which a cat becomes the third party in a marriage, comes to life through Colette's talent in communicating her deeply intuitive understanding of animals with a colorful style.
Inquisitive by nature, Thérèse feels uneasy about the distance separating her from her boorish husband and the absence of meaningful communication between them. So, when circumstances appear that threaten her husband's life, she moves from being a spectator to becoming a leading actor in a criminal role. The reader views her actions with clarity though she does not understand her own motivations. Mauriac weaves a taut and spellbinding atmosphere where the complexity of Thérèse's inner search combines with visions of the foggy swamps and moors of the Landes region.
Indiana, George Sand
RD350R02 Wednesdays 5:40-7:10pm (April 7–June 16)
Level B2
Instructor: Marie-France
Noiré
Price: $360
Indiana is the first and stunningly successful novel by Aurore Dupin, and
her first under the pseudonym Georges Sand. In this novel she
addresses a matter close to her heart and one of universal concern: the
plight of women, whose lives in the 19th century were determined by
men and choked by social rules, customs, and law.
Young Indiana, raised in the Ile Bourbon, (modern-day Ile de la Réunion), has
wed old and irascible Colonel Delmare. She lives with him near
Fontainebleau and has a country life filled with boredom and reveries. Her only
companion is an uncommunicative cousin, Ralph, and her sole friend, Noun,
her Creole servant.
In this timely novel we watch Indiana evolve from her traditional role as a
wife who endures her domineering husband's temper to a woman awakened by her passions and who courageously struggles for what she believes and values.
L’éducation sentimentale, Gustave Flaubert
La danse de Gengis Cohn, Romain Gary
RD450R01 Wednesdays 10-11:30am (April 7–June 16)
Level C1 / C2
Instructor: Yvette Trodel
Price $360
"Je veux faire l'histoire morale des hommes de ma génération" a dit Gustave Flaubert de L’Éducation sentimentale. Roman d'amour, de passion de sentimentalisme.
Drame qui se situe sur fonds de la révolution de 1848. Nous parlerons de cette année de tourmente européenne et de la rébellion en France de cette même année qui devait culminer dans la prise de pouvoir de Louis Napoléon Bonaparte et la création de la deuxième république.
La danse de Gengis Cohn de Romain Gary est un roman tragi-comique écrit en 1967, que se veut être une analyse psychologique de la brutalité humaine. Ce drame revient sur la difficulté durant les années 60 de confronter la culpabilité d'un régime et qui peut-être en prétendant oublier refuse de se souvenir.
Du côté de Guermantes, Marcel Proust
RD450R02 Thursdays 5:40-7:10pm (April 8–June 17)
Level C1 / C2
Instructor: Beatrice Puja
Price $360
UN CHEF D’ŒUVRE !
Dans Du côté de Guermantes, le narrateur succombe aux attraits de la vie mondaine, dont il livre de longues descriptions. Celles-ci sont essentiellement consacrées au salon de la duchesse de Guermantes, fine fleur du faubourg Saint-Germain. Son observation des us et coutumes des milieux aristocratiques le conduit à de savantes comparaisons dans l'art du salon, dont celui de la duchesse ressort comme le plus élaboré grâce à la personnalité dont aime faire preuve Oriane de Guermantes. Toute la différence se fait entre un respect scrupuleux des règles sociales et l'audace d'une appréciation personnelle de la situation, dût-elle la conduire à se placer en retrait des conventions. Le pire ennui pour Mme de Guermantes serait d'ailleurs de se contenter de s'y conformer.
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