In the Fall of 1923, Théodore Monod traveled from Port-Étienne (now Nouadhibou) at the northernmost edge of coastal Mauritania, south to St. Louis, just across the border in Senegal. Maxence au désert is an account of that journey, published many years later when Monod's son found it among his archives.
I like travel literature, and have been particular interested in desert travel, though I don't really know why. That puts this book right up my alley. On the other hand, Monod was a naturalist, and he filled his travelogue with descriptions of obscure plants and other biota, using Arabic names as often as French. This made the going somewhat difficult. I did learn some new vocabulary, including phacochère (warthog), though, and you never know when that will come in handy!
I enjoyed the book in spite of the challenges it presented. I finished it during the flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit on our way to Oklahoma City for Christmas. I welcome more books in French in the future, as they help me keep my language skills sharp, although that news is probably only really relevant to Tanya, and I think she already knows.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Maxence au désert by Théodore Monod (1995)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I wrote this book review yesterday, but didn't post it because I couldn't get the image out of Bookcase, because it wasn't working. . . . I figured out the problem a few minutes ago, and now things are back to normal. I would usually alter the date on a draft that I was publishing, but I don't see the point this time.
Glad you enjoyed it and can't wait to hear you try to use "phacochère" in a conversation next time you're in France!
Post a Comment