Belle Famille - updated to chapter 29

Starting with the prologue, which will possibly be edited as I think of more elegant ways to translate some of it. My thanks to Frencheuropean for sending the original to me. She has also now sent resumés of the first three chapters, which I shall get to as soon as I can.

The Prologue

I don't believe in the truth. Like the human spirit, it has its moods. It has its humour. You think you can grab it by the tail. Then it shies away, forcing us to dream. That is all the writer is doing: dreaming the truth. In his way, he changes it: like the soft caramel produced by the 'white aprons' on the streets of Brittany.

The novelist's basic approach is not all in his head. It floats around him. Those are tears. Those are stories. Some, almost invisible, like those in a provincial canard, some too imposing, like a column in a national.

Magritte painted a man looking at an egg, painting a pigeon.



I am grabbed, cautiously, by this egg. I have emptied it. From inside, I have poured new life.

Like the man with the pigeon, I only succeed with one of the possible ways of reality. Among many thousands. Apart from the rays of the sun and the wind off the sea, a quick calculation of probabilities subsequently induces me to confess that everything is false. Save for my opening of the shell, any resemblance to real people and situations, past or present, can only be attributed to what Louis Aragon called the eternal rights of the imagination.

The writer is never faithful to the truth. He prefers her little sister, possibility. Forgive him this allegiance, because you must agree that a pike, a snake or a seagull lies more comfortably in an egg than three hundred and thirty Bengal tigers.

Thanks Anna

(I bet the phone was ringing as soon as CR opened their offices this morning)

ETA: Thanks french european aswell

margaret wrote:Thanks Anna

(I bet the phone was ringing as soon as CR opened their offices this morning)

nah margaret they will have them as part of friends and family =bt

Many thanks AnnaEsse and french european

Anna and French European Many, many thanks for your work!

This is what makes this forum so worthwhile. Well done!

T4two wrote:This is what makes this forum so worthwhile. Well done!

It is! There's team work going on here. Frencheuropean has bought the book and has sent me the prologue and now I have her resumés of chapters 1 - 3.

AnnaEsse wrote:

T4two wrote:This is what makes this forum so worthwhile. Well done!

It is! There's team work going on here. Frencheuropean has bought the book and has sent me the prologue and now I have her resumés of chapters 1 - 3.

Excellent!

My pleasure and bravo to Anna : the prologue was very difficult to translate.
The broadcast on Radio Classique with A.Dreyfus interview today was interesting because he is someone very original and talented.
His mother is a singer, a doctor and a writter.He has a very good relationship with her.
Asked by the journalist why he wrotte "Belle famille", he answers that he wanted to writte a book on the motherhood, because it's the story of a mother who doesn't like her children, is obsessed by her social status of mother and that happens in the society but it's taboo.
He says that his hero, Madec, is a child different, alone, with a lot of sensibility, and he follows him when he explores the life, till his death.
Asked by the journalist if he ( the journalist) is allowed to quote the tragic case that is the basis of the book, A.Dreyfus says that it's not a probleme.
The journalist underlines the fact that , very often in litterature, great writters wrotte books from facts taken from the real life.
A.Dreyfus summarizes the events of the 3.may: Maddie nice blond girl sleeping alone in the flat, the parents in restaurant, and after they return, she was gone, nobody saw anything, no DNA. He was fascinated by this extraordinary case because never in a child kidnapping before, one could see a Public Relation so soon appointed, 10000 euros gathered, celebrities contacted, even Jean-Paul 2. He was particurlarly interested by the frenetic and often grotesque way the medias covered the story. He was interested by the ideal culprit, a former repentant pedophile , innocent and with an alibi but crushed by the medias. He says he was the ideal culprit and after, the mother was suspected, and she was the unthinkable culprit.
And this piece of news became a novel about the general way a mother loves her child and also about the way a child deals with his sexuality.And that's all what he wanted to say about his book.
.........................................................................................................................................................................

I have finished the chapter five which is the end of the first part that follows the child in the discover of life. The second part beginns, one year after the beginning, with the departure in Italie for the hollidays. It's really a novel of fiction(a very good one) with , of course the story of the Mccann as background,but with the own fascinating universe of the writter. Nevertheless, one couldn't invent some precise events or quotations that are striking.

A suivre.

Many thanks to Anna and frencheuropean!

I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

Who says we, and I mean WE as the mccanns have NEVER searched for Madeleine...have to talk or breathe searching 24/7?


Can't we talk about other things....?

kitti wrote:Who says we, and I mean WE as the mccanns have NEVER searched for Madeleine...have to talk or breathe searching 24/7?


Can't we talk about other things....?

Some people don't like us to talk about other things when they do not put the McCanns in a good light.

platinum wrote:I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

It doesn't have any bearing on the search on the search for the truth.
Why does it have to have any bearing?

It is a novel of our times, a contemporary cultural artifact which reflects the interface between a tragic event and the mass media which shapes it.

As such, it is of great interest to us.

almostgothic wrote:

platinum wrote:I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

It doesn't have any bearing on the search on the search for the truth.
Why does it have to have any bearing?

It is a novel of our times, a contemporary cultural artifact which reflects the interface between a tragic event and the mass media which shapes it.

As such, it is of great interest to us.

Well said, and in the form of a novel, perhaps more people will start to question the events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance.

almostgothic wrote:

platinum wrote:I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

It doesn't have any bearing on the search on the search for the truth.
Why does it have to have any bearing?

It is a novel of our times, a contemporary cultural artifact which reflects the interface between a tragic event and the mass media which shapes it.

As such, it is of great interest to us.

Exactly

Thanks FE and Anna, Im sure most people who read or hear about this "novel" will believe it to be the McCann story AIMO.

AnnaEsse wrote:

almostgothic wrote:

platinum wrote:I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

It doesn't have any bearing on the search on the search for the truth.
Why does it have to have any bearing?

It is a novel of our times, a contemporary cultural artifact which reflects the interface between a tragic event and the mass media which shapes it.

As such, it is of great interest to us.

Well said, and in the form of a novel, perhaps more people will start to question the events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance.

Thank you almostgothic. Your explanation was comprehensive and understandable.

As for people questioning, Annaesse, I doubt it will reach many who have any interest in the case unless the author/publisher get it translated into English.

Really well I think there will be people questioning and showing a lot of interest in this book without it been printed in English......

Thanks to the likes of spudgun

http://spudgunsspoutings.blogspot.com/

platinum wrote:

AnnaEsse wrote:

almostgothic wrote:

platinum wrote:I am clearly missing something here.
How does this piece of fiction have any bearing on the search for the truth as to what happened to Madeleine McCann?
Can someone please explain?

It doesn't have any bearing on the search on the search for the truth.
Why does it have to have any bearing?

It is a novel of our times, a contemporary cultural artifact which reflects the interface between a tragic event and the mass media which shapes it.

As such, it is of great interest to us.

Well said, and in the form of a novel, perhaps more people will start to question the events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance.

Thank you almostgothic. Your explanation was comprehensive and understandable.

As for people questioning, Annaesse, I doubt it will reach many who have any interest in the case unless the author/publisher get it translated into English.

Moreover, outside the British empire, very few foreigners are able to read and writte properly in their own langage...

While acknowledging almostgothics statement about this contemporary cultural artifact and having read the spudgun interview I remain unconvinced as to the validity of this thread. Arthur Dreyfus is clear that its no more than fiction and his only knowledge of the McCann case if from the media. So the position of this entirely fictional piece in the Main Maddie News forum is a little ambiguous to my mind.

Chapter 1 - Resumé (Original French by Frencheuropean)

Granville is situated in Normandy, north of Mont St Michel. Granville's inhabitants live by trading in fruits de mer but are loathe, perhaps even frightened, for some obscure reason, to eat them.

In the bay, at the beginning of the century, high tides often carried away children who had gone to fish for mussels and since then children have had an obsessive fear of salt water instilled in them.

The mayor would like to tax those who harvest the fruits de mer at low tide, but the fishermen consider that it's the law of the sea that applies. A good many of the inhabitants support the mayor for financial reasons, except when their children bring back shellfish because then they have their doubts.

The dignitaries keep the best houses on the cliff for themselves and the fishermen's children never climb the hill where the residences are like forbidden Monopoly.

platinum wrote:While acknowledging almostgothics statement about this contemporary cultural artifact and having read the spudgun interview I remain unconvinced as to the validity of this thread. Arthur Dreyfus is clear that its no more than fiction and his only knowledge of the McCann case if from the media. So the position of this entirely fictional piece in the Main Maddie News forum is a little ambiguous to my mind.

English literature has always been a reflection of modern society, from Chaucer to Dickens and onwards. This might be a modern classic however we won't know until it is translated. Although the author is french, our Queen is German and her husband Greek whilst Gerry Mccann is Scottish, Kate Mccann is Liverpudlian and their daughter 'disappeared' in Portugal. So who are we to judge in this modern society?

platinum wrote:While acknowledging almostgothics statement about this contemporary cultural artifact and having read the spudgun interview I remain unconvinced as to the validity of this thread. Arthur Dreyfus is clear that its no more than fiction and his only knowledge of the McCann case if from the media. So the position of this entirely fictional piece in the Main Maddie News forum is a little ambiguous to my mind.

Don't read it then!