4:39 a.m. - 2012-02-05
long book
I'm reading La Chartreuse de la Parme, which represents some sort of major success for me -- I have had the book for years and never tackled it because I didn't know what the hell a chartreuse or a parme was so I figured 700 pages of tiny print would be pretty impregnable (sp). As it turns out a chartreuse is a small country cottage or butchershop (or a couple of other things I don't know what they are in English); Parme is an imaginary town in Italy; and the book is actually quite readable. The words I have had to look up, like "chanoine," are words ("canon" e.i. a church title)that are fairly obscure in English as well.
I'm fine without a dictionary, though.
I've also been watching a lot of French crime shows, "Zone Interdit" and "Faites entrer l'accuse," and following them fairly well. I've discovered that if I try hard to catch every word, I don't do as well as if I just watch.
European shows make you realize how many languages there are out there to learn; I find this inspiring but not intimidating. All those years of M refusing to even learn a few phrases in French made me feel like my dream of becoming multi-lingual was probably impossible, because M. is a very bright guy. If he couldn't learn to say a few sentences in French, how could I learn a few more languages?
I think I thought that way because I was willing to do just about anything to make him happy, and I guess I assumed the reciprocal was true -- and that if he wasn't able to learn French, knowing how much I want to live in Paris again (it was sort of a condition of our relationship when we first met) then it was because he COULD'T learn French.
Now I realize he simply didn't want to. What I wanted never mattered to him very much.
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