Ma Vie En Francaise

I've been dreaming in French again, which is a really lovely experience to have, except for the fact that I don't actually speak French. The last time it happened was while we were living in Berkeley where one of my neighbors and dearest friends there was French. Since she spoke only French to her children, just spending time with her meant that I started to pick up on some very basic commands. Adding to that, there were also three other French-speaking families in our building, so on any given day there was a lot of conversational French (and fabulous food!) taking place in the little outside common area. Let's just say, if I ever visit France and someone tells me to point to my nose, find the cat, get the ball, come with mama, be gentle with the baby, change my pants, look over there, listen to me, and eat the bread and cheese, .....I think that I'll be ok.

So thanks to that mini-immersion, I started having a few dreams in French. Don't worry however, this was no miracle of tongues because, of course, it wasn't actually real French. It was proably more like the kinds of conversations that Isabel is currently having with me. She carries on and on in her English with absolute certanity of her fluency--and, sure, I won't deny that there are plenty of "words" with appropriate inflection, and that there are even some recognizeable sounds, but mostly it's complete garble. And, alas, such is my French.

Well, it happened again. This time it's because we recently watched the movie La Vie En Rose, an incredible (which, if my French can be trusted, you should prounce as "een-cred-ee-bleh", if you don't mind) movie about the true story of Edith Piaf, the famous French singer who lived in the early 2oth Century. And I was so taken with the story and the music that I started listening to the many of Edith Piaf's recordings thanks to our online music subscription. And I mean listening straight....for days on end.

Then...I read the equally een-cred-ee-bleh book, Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The book is made of two short novellas, the first about Parisians who are fleeing the city on the eve of the German invasion in June 1940, and the second is about a month in a small French town under German occupation. The stories and characters themselves are rich and compelling, and the writing is tremendous, but what makes it even more incredible is that the author wrote these stories concurrent with this history taking place and all while she was in hiding in Southern France since she was born a Russian Jew. Her book was never finished as she was taken to Auschwitz where she died later that year.

And then......since I was leading the discussion on this book for our book group last month, I did a little bit of reading up on French political and military history during and after WWII to get some clarification. (And incidentally, Adam and I also recently re-watched Cassablanca, which, call me stupid, but it now makes soooo much more sense. Phew.)

So, now I'm thinking that I'd better start planning for how I should celebrate Bastille Day this year. Any suggestions?

Addendum: You can't miss the post Anna did for me on her blog in response. Spot on. Merci, mon amie!

Addendum part deux: Per Adam's request, I have made a link of my search results of French military history. It's a good laugh....if you're not actually French, that is.