I tend to forget this blog where I think and reflect over the books I read. For the moment I read La saga des émigrants the Swedish auttor Wilhelm Moberg's epic work on the Swedes who left for a better life in the United Staes of America in the mid 19th C. But this edition is in French. I got it from a dear friend of mine and I am happy that I have only read one of these novels before I got to read it in French. I find it so interesting to read it from another language angle and I get to realize a little bit of the prejudices people have about Sweden and Swedes in France, as well as in many other European countries.
One lovely fringe benefit of beeing a language teacher is reading a great a variety of books with different groups, in different languages and I get to do a lot of re-reading at the same time since I use "works that work" and, of course, I have to use books that are available in sufficient numbers of copies at our school.
Thus other novels that has had a great impact in my life lately are actually books I have read with my students such as Tove Janson's collection of short stories The Invisible Child I read it so often with my students and for each time I wonder over all the wisdom and humour in it. The inhabitants of the Moomin valley are modern fables that teach us how to be a decent person from so many different angles. The Divine Comedy was a good re-read as well. To read it together with a fan of fantasy literature was an eye opener. The last part, "Paradise", in particular where Dante and Beatrice, later St. Bernhard, travel through the universe from planet to planet.
It also gave me a new understanding of the novel my French niveau 4 et 5 read: Le Petit Prince. I realize that St.Exupéry must have thought about Dante's masterpiece as he placed different "sinners" on their own lonely asteroids in stead of the different levels of Inferno. Dante places only Petit-Prince characters on the planets but St.Exupéry places the Christ-like Prince as well as the self obsessed "grown ups" on the asteroids. This is probably something that others have known for ages, but for me it is a new "revelation" which adds a lot to the reading for me. My reflection deepens over both The Comedy and the Little Prince by parallell reading in two groups and languages at the same time.
Last but not least, I have read some short stories and a novel by Selma Lagerlöf, which always are poignant. The students understand and discuss so interesting things since Lagerlöf always is up to date when it comes to current issues like outsidership, making the right choices and accepting differences. Without Lagerlöf life as a language teacher would be much duller. The novel we read is Herr Arne's Hoard which also fits well as it is a ghost story; a perfect to read in late October and All Saints' /Halloween tide.
The students finish reading during this "Läs lov"="Reading holiday" as we currently have in Sweden, due to the old tradition of All Saint's day. But in stead of calling it All Saint's vacation it is now called "Reading Vacation" to stress the importance of reading since this is a skill sadly deteriorating in Sweden. Children and adolescents prefer You Tube and other video media on screen to reading , either on screen or in "real" books in codex format.
So : Have a Happy Reading Holiday!
