Life with Levy

I've recently launched an effort I like to call “Operation: Read More Books in French.” I've been in France for a year and a half and have read exactly three books in French. Two of the books I've read are Pierre Bellemare books made up of two-page unsolved mystery type stories. The other book, I learned (much to my chagrin), is a translation of an already existing English book. So, not only am I gaining no new French vocabulary words (with the exception of fouiller. The policemen in Bellemare's books are perpetually fouiller-ing through other people's things), I'm also learning nothing about French culture.
So, this past week, I decided to aborde that problem (oh wait, look at that: another new French word) and start reading a novel by France's most widely read author, Marc Levy. Levy, on a side note, wrote the novel that was adapted into Reese's Witherspoon's movie, Just Like Heaven. So, I started with Levy's La Prochaine Fois, a book that looked reasonably short. It's the story of two people on a mission to find a toile. Problem: I bought the book at a book stand in the train station and started reading on the way home. I didn't have a French dictionary with me and couldn't figure out what a toile was or why these two would-be lovers were looking for one. Eventually, I asked my fiancé, had him read the back and explain the premise of the book to me, and all the puzzle pieces fell into place. (“Ohhhhh...they're searching for a missing painting...”)
Ever since I've started reading Levy, I've felt a certain camaraderie with Marc Levy readers everywhere (and believe me, they are everywhere). My first day reading La Prochaine Fois, I noticed a woman in the train reading a Levy book. She smiled at me, held her book up so I could see the cover, and I nodded politely but cooly, as if to say, “Nice, but no big deal. I read Marc Levy all the time.”
My entry into the Marc Levy world also seems to gain me entrance into the normally very closed and private French life. I was taking a class in Nogent last week, and a women from class picked me up from the train station. She saw La Prochaine Fois in my hand and said, “Oh, such a good book. Really helped me through a messy breakup.” She then proceeded to give me all the details of that relationship gone wrong.
And Marc Levy has expanded my vocabulary—not only from reading his literature, but also from discussing his books with people around me. A friend of mine saw the book sitting on my desk in class and said, “Marc Levy, huh? He's interesting but his stories ne sont pas trop Catholiques.”
His stories aren't too Catholic?
I looked up the phrase pas trop Catholiques in my dictionary, and found that the expression means a little bit fishy, not quite right. Apparently the phrase can be applied to foods, to actions, and to Marc Levy plots. So, I've started using the phrase as often as possible.
At lunch the other day, the cook brought out slabs of sausages rolled inside zucchini. I leaned over to the girl next to me and proclaimed the meal not too Catholic. When listening to a friend describe an interaction with the civil servants at the prefecture, I assured her that their behavior wasn't too Catholic. And later, I was reading in an old newspaper about some scandalous activity between monks and nuns. This too I deemed not too Catholic.
But now, I've finished La Prochaine Fois, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), my library just got a shipment of Lorrie Moore books in English. So, I might have dropped “Operation: Read More Books in French” for the moment. Although, on my way home today, I saw the cover of Levy's Toutes ces choses qu'on ne s'est pas dites, and I think it's time to get back into Levy mode. No one in France seems to know Lorrie Moore. And frankly, I miss the friendly Levy-lover faces on the train.