Whatcha readin'? Week 12
- Le Nerd Librarian
- Mar 24, 2019
- 4 min read
Spring is finally upon us, and I'm reading about... sports?! Yes, well, it's homework.
Who would have thought I'd ever read a single sentence about soccer? And enjoy it?? Yet, here I am, polishing my skills about who won what, where & when, so as not to look like a total doofus when former L'Equipe journalist Gérard Ejnès joins us at school in a few days to give a talk about his career.
So, ever the dutiful librarian, I sat in the teachers’ lounge and forced my colleagues to stop me from going home before I knew everything there was to know about the 1998 and 2018 French victories.
So here it goes:
Bleus 98, de l’enfer au paradis : L’histoire d’un triomphe
[Comic book, in French]
Gérard Ejnès. Jungle, 2018.
I actually enjoyed reading this. To be honest, I didn’t really care about who scored against whom and quickly lost track of what was happening, as most of the events of the time were unfamiliar to me. However, a certain feeling a nostalgia crept up as famous names were slowly coming back to me. The magic operated!
I liked:
- the mise en abîme about how L’Equipe covered the World Cup and the impact that it had on the field (the pitch? The green? Who-knows-who-cares). I did not expect sports journalists to be so influential in the decisions of team managers. Apparently, it’s called the “Paul Dupont effect”: when a journalist predicts that a player's career will go downhill, but said-player makes it her/his mission to prove everyone wrong and surprises everyone by making a strong comeback. Anyway, I like the commentary about sports journalism. Moving on.
I did not like:
- the illustrations, by Faro. The players are hardly recognizable (even I know what Zizou looks like!). Here, he could pass off as a Dalton brother. Also, the players’ wives look like bimbo clones (surprise surprise), and I’m over this.
So, all in all, I’d say it’s nice enough, although definitely too difficult to follow for younger soccer fans: the commentary on the impact of sports journalism will go right over their heads.
Coupe du monde 2018, le livre d’or
[Non fiction, in French]
Gérard Ejnès. Solar, 2018.
No commentary on the role of journalism here. Just soccer. Names and numbers.
I mean, it’s very nice, and I can definitely see this being a hit birthday present, but I’m not the target audience. The intro has some interesting points on World Cups and national cohesion, as well as the part that social media played the second time around.
Althea & Oliver
[Fiction, in English]
Cristina Moracho. Viking Press, 2014.
NO. OH HELL NO.
THIS BOOK MADE ME MAD. Why?
1) It strings you along, and the reasons why the characters act the way they do are never made clear. Althea and Oliver quickly become unbearable, and I ceased to care about what would happen to them after the first 100 pages or so. It’s a lot of "telling", about how they feel, what they do, etc., but at no point did it make me feel anything other than ostracized. And frustrated too, because nothing exciting happens and you get zero sense of closure.
All of this, I can get past, however.
2) But what elicits a HELL-TO-THE-NO from me is that this novel is VERY problematic in the way it deals with the topic of CONSENT. The message is ambiguous, AT BEST. There is no “meta” level here. No social commentary. No “food for thought”. I have half a mind to tell my local library to take it off the shelves.
It’s not really a spoiler to say that this YA novel is about RAPE. It happens pretty early on. YET the message seems to be that:
- if a “beautiful” (I quote) girl does it to a boy (WHO EXPLICITELY TOLD HER NO),
- and/or if the rapist is in love with the victim,
- and/or if the rapist thinks it will happen eventually,
- and/or if the rapist reaaaally wants it to happen,
- and/or if the victim is SLEEPWALKING, his body functions "functional",
then it’s OK. Somehow this does not qualify as rape.
Let me quote “not-rapist” Althea here: “Oh no? […] Do you think I held you down and made you do it?”. WHAT?! And Oliver’s friend to comfort him with this little gem: “You fucked your beautiful best friend. What the hell are you doing here, man? Go find the girl and screw her brains out! And this time you will remember!” Pour la poésie, on repassera.
Had the roles been reversed, I’m pretty sure that this book never would have made it to the printer’s.
Especially since the rest of the story is more or less dedicated to persuading us that, in this specific instance, sex without consent is perfectly fine. The worst part is that, even I, an adult, got confused a second. I had to go back and reread the scene to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.
It's a no.
Fake Fake Fake
[Fiction, in French (translated from German: Edvard, mein Leben, meine Geheimnisse)]
Zoë Beck. Milan, 2016.
This is hilarious! I picked this up at the library because I thought the cover was cute. It’s kind of a random story about a catfishing scheme getting out of hand, squatters’ rights, and cliché hipster parents, on top of typical teenage angst. The characters are definitely types, but it didn’t bother me, because it passed the laughing-out-loud-to-myself-on-the-bus test!
Aiiight, that’s all for this week! Happy readin’!
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