Sporting novels in French

In the French context, sport is a more open concept than in the UK I guess.   At www.alevelfrench.com/home we are only covering one title currently which covers climbing, "La neige en deuil",  a short very characterful novel by Henri Troyat where two brothers living in the Alps undertake a very different kind of mountaineering expedition as the focal point of the story.

The novel pits the brothers against the worst conditions nature could throw at them as well as opposing good and evil.    Set against a period when it was becoming more and more difficult for a younger person to consider the peasant lifestyle as acceptable we look at the period with nostalgia as before long the hippy generation would be looking to emulate the "idyllic" circumstances of the mountain hamlet.   Self-sufficiency in abundance.

With the younger brother wanting to get out and start a new life down in the town, the older brother formerly a top mountain guide who has flashbacks to a fatal accident in which he was involved holds a torch for the old ways.   This clash, central to the novel is beautifully written especially as it is also brings in a foretaste of globalisation in the shape of the aeroplane crash which catapults the modern world into the brothers' environment.  And this in an age when the whole village huddles around a radio to listen to the news.

It is hard to believe that a novel with such pedigree is not more widely read.  It would certainly be very interesting to study alongside a geographical study of the Alps, surely a worthy area to investigate.  To find out more about the alevelfrench.com resources on this novel go to http://www.alevelfrench.com/home/mod/book/view.php?id=962&chapterid=341     

The other novel of this kind which relates to climbing is Premier de Cordée by Frison-Roche which also traces a mountain expedition.  Written in Vichy France it involves a guide escorting an American climber up the mountain.  It was intended to pit a traditional eternal French life style with the metronomic, time is money approach of the American.  

The other novel which I've not read recently but need to revisit is 325 000 francs by Roger Vailland, a communist writer.   It traces the efforts of a racing cyclist to earn enough money racing to pay the deposit on a café.    This is an interest ambition for the period when it was written as it equates to the kind of reward levels of professional footballers of the day.