[auctionlover]

Philippe Delerm's La Premi?re Gorg?e de bi?re et autres plaisirs minuscules (1997), translated as The Small Pleasures of Life (1998), is a fascinating collection of 34 generally unrelated two- or three page observations on such subjects as: the first mouthful of beer; Sunday evenings; motorway driving at night; the moving walkway at Montparnasse station; kaleidoscopes; learning how to play boules; a new pullover for the cooler months; reading on the beach; or the architecture of a banana-split.

One special event is mentioned, and is held in the narrator's memory - as we all freeze such memories - at the very time that he or she is performing a particular action. Here, what is recalled is not the assassination of Kennedy or Lennon, or the 9/11 massacre, but the death of Jacques Brel, heard on France Inter on the car radio. For the narrator, Brel will always be associated with where he or she was at the time: on a motorway, speeding down a charmless valley somewhere between Evreux and Mantes-la-Jolie.

Delerm's gift for writing often transforms the experience of the commonplace into something striking - even haunting - by his use of metaphor, such as in his description of the 'alligator jaws' of an escalator, or wet espadrilles represented as 'a complete shipwreck'.

Sometimes, these brief pieces remind me of other writers, as in this description: 'Shelling peas is easy. Thumb pressed on the slit along the pod and, obediently, it opens its offerings. Some, not as ripe, are more shy - an incision with the index fingernail allows the green to be torn and we can then breathe in the moisture and the thick flesh'. It's not the sensuality of the language that I find particularly interesting here, but the detail of it, and I'm reminded of Nicholson Baker's paper clips and shoelaces in Mezzanine. Unlike Baker, though, Delerm doesn't deliberately labour the detail: shelling peas is just briefly mentioned as a simple pleasure, and no more.

'The Motorway at Night' reminds me of Craig Raine's A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), especially the poem of the title. In Raine's poem, we see everyday objects with fresh eyes, such as the car, of which he says 'a key is turned to free the world /for movement, so quick there is a film / to watch for anything missed.' In 'The Motorway at Night', Delerm compares the car to a spaceship, and then says 'In solitude's padded silence, it's rather as though we're in a cinema seat: the film passes before our eyes'.

This is my first taste of Delerm, and I look forward to his latest novel, Quelque chose en lui de Bartleby.

Dr Tony Shaw

[Vomephems]

I'm sorry but i won't follow you there Tony.I found is collection of moment artificial,a fack good idea.
The first swallow of beer is just a dissection of what a good novel is made of.A collection of postcard,well chosen and clever,but like the first swallow of beer,quickly fading away.
Great literature incorporate sensitive descrition of moments of life,close to us all,true,well felt, in a general story.Truce is the gooze pipple material of literature,it's link with us.
Delerm extarct them to show as items,and everyone in France was shouting "genius",as it was but an artifice,a hat trick.
Another thing is,most of his "moment" are nice and clean and lack humour or humm....darkness? sex?
It's French catho fun,T?l?rama if you are familiar with France.

And more than everything,he has a son who sing(well whisper more like) who make me feel like break something each time i hear him.A pure,indiluted,self-importantant,poseur of an asshole.
I blame the father for it.Can't be a proper writer with a son like this.No sir.

[auctionlover]

I'm sorry but i won't follow you there Tony.I found is collection of moment artificial,a fack good idea.

That's not a problem at all, Thomas, although I'm not too sure what you mean by 'artificial', as all writing is artificial, so what's the problem? Ah, all right...

The first swallow of beer is just a dissection of what a good novel is made of.A collection of postcard,well chosen and clever,but like the first swallow of beer,quickly fading away.

But you do say it's clever, and the French excel at clever.

Great literature incorporate sensitive descrition of moments of life,close to us all,true,well felt, in a general story.

Dunno. I wouldn't even attempt to define such a wild animal as 'great literature', as the more you know about literature as a whole, the more you understand how little you know. It's endless.

It's French catho fun,T?l?rama if you are familiar with France.

Yeah, I am familiar with France, and I know what you mean, but The Small Pleasures of Life - which I think is a bad title, but the English-speaking world is stuck with it, I suppose, so we'll leave it - is interesting, shows promise, and as this is my first Delerm, it leaves me wanting to read more. OK, I'm already well into Enregistrements pirates (2002), which is similar in structure but much more psychologically incisive. This is all I've read of the guy so far, but from what I have read, I'm quite impressed with. OK, I'm not having multiple orgasms, but from what I've read so far, this guy stands up very well at the side of his very more conservative English counterparts.

Can't be a proper writer with a son like this.No sir.

Genetics is a pretty dodgy subect, of course . Now my father, long dead now... no, assholes can dump their shit where they will, but not near me.

Through all this, look at the literature that comes from England, and then the literature that comes from France. Think about it: if Delerm is bad, wouldn't that make English literature (from England, I mean, of course) much badder?

Dr Tony Shaw

[iceleliewBync]

I don't understand the despair about British literature. You have excellent writers like M John Harrison, Adam Roberts, Graham Joyce, China Mieville, Iain Banks...really I could go an on. These are some of the best stylists and storytellers today. It's just that they tend to be locked away in the spec fic ghetto.

What doe M. Delerm's son sing, Salliotthomas? It sounds as if it will be somewhat like a Coldplay rip-off!

[Vomephems]

What doe M. Delerm's son sing, Salliotthomas? It sounds as if it will be somewhat like a Coldplay rip-off!

Compare to him coldplay belong to the Pavaroti section of voices.He mumble/ talk absurde stuff on his piano.
He is so bad he make you want to brake thing,planting hatred in the sweetest personne(my mum!).I believe he works incognito for the evil side.

[Zugaxxsn]

What doe M. Delerm's son sing, Salliotthomas? It sounds as if it will be somewhat like a Coldplay rip-off!

to me saliots description sounded more like Benjamin Biolay...

[Vomephems]

to me saliots description sounded more like Benjamin Biolay...

Spot on.
A French shamefull speciality of aphonic singer,male and female.
Why do you think i lived abroad so many years.