To All the Books I’ve Read Before IV
Heartfelt letters to my most cherished companions
La Vie dont nous Rêvions (Everything We Keep)
Cher La Vie dont nous Rêvions,
I’m usually quite picky with the books I choose to read. I’m a busy girl, you see, so I usually make a list of “Want to Reads” on Goodreads and follow it religiously. You were a rare book that I picked up on instinct after a professor pushed you into my arms. I can’t say I’m one for romantic mysteries, but you were free and, more importantly, French.
I began delving deeper into learning French not because I thought it would bring me any personal advantage, but rather because I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about my love for the sound of the language. When I changed my Netflix settings to la langue d’amour, I delighted in watching the actors purr and hiss like kittens on my screen. The next logical step in my journey after my Le Monde newspaper subscription ran out was to move into larger texts. To be able to turn the sound of coos in my brain into actual sensible images excited me, but it also scared me.
My first attempt at a French book was Le Petit Prince, which I stumbled through over several months. I was used to tearing through books in English; turning over to French made me feel like a kindergartener sounding out my words again. Now, that wasn’t an entirely negative feeling. A kindergartener sounding out their words is a new reader, and if you’ve ever been to a children’s library you’d know that new readers can be the most passionate and rapacious ones. I was desperate to get my hands on more, but my English Goodreads app lacked in the French language department. Even if I could find good recommendations, my library’s excuse for a French section consisted of one (!) comic book.
Enter you, in your drug-store novel glory. I’ve read 1,400 page novels before, but your 350 pages daunted me like they would a second-grader. Over an auspicious quarantine, I picked you through with my trusty WordReference nearby. I became quite acquainted with the phrases hausser les épaules (shrug the shoulders), faire l’amour (make love), and amnésique (spoiler alert, I mean, amnesiac) that you repeated quite too often. When I finally found Goodreads reviews of the English version Everything We Keep, I realized that most people believe you are full of yourself and cheesy as a French gougère. I probably would have never picked you up if I had to read another book about hip young lovers in English. Somehow, being in a new language, with new metaphors to learn and structures to follow, I had felt captivated. At least from my perspective, I felt like I had found something new.
In addition to giving me a rush of discovery, you also bolstered my confidence in the new language I loved so much. When reading you, my brain no longer demanded a simultaneous English translation- it just knew. I walked away from you with the awareness that I just read my first novel in a language other than English. When I look back to freshman year, when I was tripping over “Bonjour,” I get an immense sense of accomplishment. You gave that to me, and if you weren’t lying in a box my professor had marked “Please take” our classroom, I probably still would be lacking such an experience.
Au revoir!
Ellie Rose Mattoon
You can order the English version, Everything we Keep, on Amazon here and purchase the French translation here
