45) Answer Me This 46) L'Homme aux cercles bleus

45) Answer Me This by Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann

I got into the Answer Me This podcast last year while living in France, after my friend's anecdotes from it caught me interest. The book is very funny, as is the podcast; it's based on the very simple format of Helen and Olly answerinf people's questions, but the way in which they go about this is very funny and clever. I was also pleased that the answers in the book are not exactly the same as those in the episodes that they've been taken from; a lot of them have been edited to make them more snappy or more comic, with the result being that the book is fresh and enjoyable even if you're already a fan of the podcast. My favourite part has to be their interpretations of flags, for example Tonga:

"We've got a first-aid kit. But Switzerland has got a bigger one."

Classic banter! While I read the book cover to cover (with my fiancé reading over my shoulder), it's also a great one to dip in and out of or flick through- the perfect toilet tome!


46) L'Homme aux cercles bleus

 This book was much more serious but no less enjoyable. It's another one for my course Blindness and Vision in French Culture and it's very readable. Interestingly, when seeing the title for the first time, which translates literally as The Blue Circles Man, I assumed that the blue circles were referring to a blind man's eyes, while the reality is in fact very different. In this detective novel you keep thinking that you've got it worked out and then your expectations are undermined. I found it a bit hard to get a handle on the characters, but I think that's the point.

Charles, a blind man, takes a vicious pleasure in offering to help sighted people cross the road.
Mathilde, a marine biologist, enjoys studying people as well as fish.
Adamsberg, a measured man, has an incredible ability for finding out the truth.
Clémence, a lonely lady, looks to replace the love she once lost.

What do all these people have in common? How will the Chalk Circles Man bring them together, and who is he? 

43) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 44) Des Aveugles

A couple of people have asked if I managed to read fifty books by the end of December. Just to let you guys know, I'm still doing this blog- I started it in June, not last January, so I've still got six months left! I read the books that I'm blogging about now back in December, so I should be putting up another post soon to get me up to date.

43) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

 This is another book for my course The Girl in the Book. It's a strange book. The Brodie set are children, children who are part of an adult world that they don't understand, led by the intriguing Miss  Brodie. It reminds me of The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley in that the girls, like Leo, are very naive, but are gradually forced to leave that naivety behind by the mature situations in which they find themselves. Unlike some of the other books on the course, where sexuality is quite implicit (eg Alice in Wonderland, Frost in May), this book contains several sexual relationships/ experiences, both concerning the girls and Miss Brodie herself. Mr Lowther and Mr Loyd are the two main male figures among a sea of girls, and they spark a lot of interest (pun completely unintended) in pupils and teacher alike. The strict censure of society is contrasted with Miss Brodie's casual lessons spent lounging outside in the shade of an elm tree, and Miss Jean Brodie seems to be depending on her pupils to keep her young, to keep her in her "prime". She begins living vicariously through them, the question is, is she helping them to live their lives, or forcing them to live her own?


44) Des Aveugles by Hervé Guibert 

I am studying this book for my module Blindness and Vision in French Culture and find it very interesting. I didn't like the first few pages, as I found them very confusing, (I later found this out to be deliberate on Guibert's part; we as readers are supposed to experience disorientation from trying to visually understand the world of blind people), but after that I got into it. There were quite a few words that I didn't know, but these tended not to interfere with my understanding too much. Notably, this is the first book on the course that doesn't make blindness into a big issue; it's not about blindness, it's about Josette, Robert and Taillegueur, and their complicated relationships. Effectively, because all of the characters are blind, none of them are blind; none of them are "different" because of their blindness, and this allows us to focus on their personalities and behaviour, without ocularcentric bias.