Nothing to do but read

It's been five months now that I've lived in metropolitan France, and also the most literary five months of my life. True, my legal status prohibits me from having a full-time job yet, which gives me ample time to escape my newly French-dominated world through some good old English classics, or better yet classics in English. Among my favorites have recently been Dostoievski (in English), Albert Camus (in English), Oscar Wilde, and Alexandre Dumas (in English). A good, hearty set of classic prose. But as I'm trying to better my level in French, I thought I should give English a rest and start diving into some versions originales.

So last week I toured around the Left Bank, popping in and out of bookshops trying to hunt down the perfect French-novel primer. One advantage (and vice) of bookshopping in Paris is that books seem to be so astoundingly cheap, and every bookshop always recycles a huge selection of paperbacks selling downwards at $3 or $4, prize-winning authors and littérateurs included. So when I ascended the five floors of the Gilbert Jeune bookstore at the Place St. Michel to find the largest paperback collection I've ever seen, I wasn't surprised to find the complete volume of Hugo's Les Misérables on sale for only $9.

Before I go on with my little story, I have to admit I was forewarned by the assistants at Shakespeare and Company that reading unabridged Hugo in French was like talking to the "information" booth people in the metro. It drags on about nothing, and in a completely incomprehensible way. And it was true, because when I flipped through the first book of Lés Miserables at Gilbert Jeune I found myself stumbling on every fifth word and wanting to tear the pages from their binder, just as you want to tear the heads off the information-booth people. So my search went on and I was redirected by the owner of another French bookshop to the San Francisco Book Co., located on the Rue Monsieur Le Prince (yes, that's "Mr. Prince") in the sixth arrondissement just north of the Luxembourg Gardens. Booksellers in Paris are a clubby sort, it seems, and they know their competition better than their inventories. So when I asked for a store selling simple French novels for relative beginners, the old French bookshop owner (I forget its name and location) gave me the typical French and expressionless nod in the direction of my destination.

A cavernous and musty place of no more than thirty-or-so square meters, the SF is actually a used-English bookshop, kind of like Shakespeare & Co. but even mustier. Also like Shakespeare, the owner of the SF had no idea what he had on the shelves. But like a good American expatriated to France, he warmed to discussion and assumed the French personal touch, and was soon recommending to me a juicy line of crime and mystery novels by Georges Simenon.

So now in front of me is one of Simenon's "Maigret" series fictionalizing a sharp crime inspector from Paris. It was only $6, and perfectly suits my needs. It has simple French of a non-Hugoian influence, and there's plenty of dialogue. Someone also told me that Simenon was so into his writing that he used to sweat profusely at his desk, changing his shirt at least twice a day (c. 1950s). If this is true and the rumors are accurate, I could easily find myself completing my first French novel, which would be a huge, huge milestone, and hopefully without breaking a sweat.