Human Relations and French Literature

Dear Visitor:

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you will find this blog entertaining. I also hope we can start a dialogue and, as a result, get to know one another a little better. Perhaps in time, we can even become friends.

This is a new experience for me. I have never blogged before, so I ask for your indulgence. My marketing advisor and very dear friend, Kelly Wallace, has encouraged me to start one because it is an excellent way for an author to keep in touch with his/her readers. I certainly agree with Kelly, but there may be some rather awkward passages over the next few months until I reach my cruising speed and have a better idea of the direction in which I'd like to go.

For the indefinite future, my blog will deal mainly with the issue of human relations. This is not at all surprising since I am Professor Emeritus of French literature. French writers throughout the ages have practiced a very introspective kind of writing. They have provided us with stunning insights into the complexity of our human nature, and they have excelled in analyzing the permutations and combinations that take place when individuals form relationships. I sensed this as an undergraduate. My impression was confirmed when I did my Ph.D. at Yale in the literature of France and decided to concentrate on the Classical Period, i.e., the 17th century.

The great writers of that time like Molière, Racine, and La Fontaine made statements about the way people interact with one another which are as meaningful for us living in the 21st century as they were for their contemporaries over three hundred years ago. In fact, they combined depth of perception with elegance of expression to such an extent that they became an artistic gold standard for me. I eventually moved on to many other research areas, but the lessons of truth and artistic beauty they taught me have remained with me to this day.

Believe it or not, my first novel, Getting Enough, has been profoundly influenced by these 17th-century masters. For one thing, the action concentrates on a crisis and, specifically, a marital crisis. Secondly, my text probes into the hidden, often unconfessable motives of my main characters. Their emotional clashes move the plot forward. Thirdly, as the great Franco-Swiss writer, M. Michel Goeldlin, was kind enough to observe, I have striven to tell this story in a pure, sober style, despite the more than occasional use of coarse language.

In my next posting, I will explore the attraction-repulsion relationship that marriage can imply, using my novel as an illustration of this. I look forward to welcoming you back to my website.

Until next time, my friend...