Le Livre Sur La Place

Since before arriving in France, Joe & I were excited about the amount of cultural activities we knew our town would offer. France loves a good community get-together, so moving into a town with one of the most well-known public squares in France meant coming into a full calendar of things to do.

We came in just as a film festival was kicking off, and we were too frazzled by figuring out our living situation to participate… so we were even more excited when we found out that the next big event in town would be Le Livre Sur La Place (something like a “Books in the Park”).

The event took up the whole square—filling the long stretch of trees-line grass just off the square with forums, short films, readings & book signings. We grabbed a list of the days’ offerings & set to work circling, starring & selecting the events we had to see.

The whole area was decorated with letters—huge, wooden letters, giant books, floral arrangements in the shape of letters—and there were lounge chairs along the grass to use while enjoying your new books. (This cluster spells NANCY!)

We drug ourselves out of bed, into the cold morning air & walked down to see a live radio broadcast. Le Fou du Roi is something we still don’t fully understand, & we weren’t quite sure who all was participating in the panel discussion they were having.

Stéphane Bern (sorry it's a French link...) is the host of the show, & we originally got excited about it because he was a guest on Mot de Passe, a French game show we watched in our hotel room while getting baguette crumbs all over our bed. We arrived early, thinking we would definitely get a seat. The doors opened at 10:30. At 10:45, the line was rushing from the Opéra (where they were broadcasting from) to the overflow room in the town hall. We spent the next two hours laughing with French couples (at an average age of 50) at jokes we didn’t really understand. At least we were setting our heads in French Mode.

I dedicated the afternoon to Amélie Nothomb. She gave a small talk at one of the stages, but I had a meeting to prepare class materials. I made it back in time to catch her book signing. When I walked into the bookstore (three tents of booths with authors signing books everywhere), I saw her line already spreading down one side of the tent. I got a sneak peak of Nothomb while I pretended to look at the books next to her, then dropped myself in line & came to terms with spending several hours this way.

Nothomb is a Belgian-born writer, now one of the top ten authors in France according to everyone I talked to at the festival. She has a huge following of young readers, as she addresses many issues still sharp & new for them—body image, gender roles, cultural expectations.

I first read Nothomb in a French literature class that focused on feminist writers from across Europe. Stupeur et Tremblement was one of my favorite books that semester—and it was a landmark for me: the first French novel I read & understood without continually underlining, circling or looking up words. I was moving through the book in a French-thinking mind instead of reading a sentence & trying to translate it to English as I went along.

It took a bit over an hour, but I’m so glad I made myself pretend to be patient. When I finally got to Nothomb & explained to her that she was one of the first French authors I had felt like I was truly reading, she was gracious & “impressed” by my willingness to take on the experience… she even said that my French was merveilleux—marvelous.

For more on our time at Le Livre Sur La Place, check out the Flickr pictures & get excited for the next “Two Euro Cents” from Joe!