Reader Reviews for French Stories / Contes Français (A Dual-Language Book) (English and French Edition):
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Too Literary for the Living
Comment: The stories chosen for this book are deadly boring, with one exception. Of all the stories of
Maupassant from Madame Fifi to The Diary of a Madman, he has chosen a precious bit of descriptive
banality called Menuet. It depends on your taste. This book made me yawn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great way to brush up on your French
Comment: The English translations are not much to brag about, but they are there to serve a specific purpose: enabling us to read the original French. When we are engaged on such a project, we actually do not care about the beauty of the English translations: we need a trot, pretty much.
What matters more, I think, is whether the short stories are worth reading, and here Wallace Fowlie has scored a major triumph. Maupassant's "Menuet" and Balzac's "La Messe de l'Athee" are simply superb, and I look forward to reading the rest!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Perversion
Comment: The translations needlessly deviate from the French, idiomatically and semantically and stylistly and syntactically, and the selection indicates a weird religious bent. So, as a teaching tool, this book best serves intermediate students of French, persons who can recognize the deviations. It could derail the progress of beginners.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Voltaire, who cares?
Comment: When I was in college I was fluent in French. I have lost some of that ease in the ensuing years, but can still read French. I decided to get some dual-language books to polish up my reading skills. I discovered however, that I can read and understand Voltaire, but really don't enjoy the stories. Perhaps a book with more current literature would have been better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Boss is enjoying this book gift
Comment: My boss, who has been taking French lessons, is enjoying this book and it arrived promptly and in good shape.
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