La Fontaine

As you know I'm now reading La Fontaine's "Fables". I remember reading some of these stories while I was learning French at school. Those were written in contemporary French, in prose. I suspect it was a simplified version, a bit like the books of the Bible or Shakespeare for children. Anyhow I'm currently reading it in the original.

The first thing I was surprised to see it was that it was written in poetry form. I'm being struck by what a difference the change of form makes. Poetry, of whatever language, requires a precision & concision not normally found in prose. The stories seem shorter but in some ways more pointed.

I'm also being the struck by the need to read them out loud, to hear the sound of them, after I've read through & made sure I've understood the words - a dictionary is always at hand for this purpose.

The other thing about them as poems is that they make short tasters rather stories you can sink into for a good read. It is difficult to go from one story immediately onto the next. They are too powerful to do that.

My vocabulary of animals is increasing as I read the story of "La Cigale et la Fourmi" (the Grasshopper & the Ant), "Le Corbeau et le Renard" (the Crow & the Fox), "La Grenouille qui se veut faire aussi grosse que le Boeuf" (the Frog who wanted to become as big as the Bull), "Les Deux Mulets" (the Two Mules). Some words I'm picking up I can't see I will have much use for in everyday conversation, & will probably be quickly forgotten again. For example I can not see me having much use for the word for a "hair shirt"  (le celice) or "salt tax" (la gabelle). 

Salt tax instantly took me back to our holiday in the Jura when we visited a 18th century saltworks at Arc-et-Senans.It is a remarkable example of industrial architecture using Classical principles. It is now a UNESCO Heritage site.


I have to confess I'm enjoying these stories & the challenge of trying to understand them. It makes a change. 

The excitement of the coming holiday has gone up a step with a phone call from the travel agent to ask us to go in to collect all the documentation for the property, air line tickets & boarding passes. We will go in some time next week. 

France, here we come.