The Victim

Fernand VandéremProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 131K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.La victime by Fernand VandéremAuthor: Vandérem, Fernand, 1864-1939,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Mar 5, 2016

Editor's review

La victime is a French-language novel by the French author Fernand Vandérem, released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook and classified under French literature. Vandérem was active in Paris literary circles from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and his work often shows an interest in social observation and psychological portraiture. This book is short and tightly focused in its narrative, making it a good entry point to the popular French fiction and novel of manners of the period. For French learners, the relatively plain original language makes it useful practice material for moving from textbooks to full works; for literary readers, it offers a sense of how French society of the time viewed human relationships, moral dilemmas, and individual destiny. Readers should keep the period context in mind: the characters' assumptions and the narrative manner are distant from our own, and should not be judged simply by present-day standards. Overall, this is a minor work suited to leisure reading and to filling out a picture of French literary history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners with intermediate French reading ability who want to try an original French text.
Readers interested in French literature and social manners of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Casual readers looking for a public-domain French novel of moderate length that can be finished in a short time.

Not a good fit for

Readers with no French at all who rely solely on a Chinese translation.
Readers expecting a strong plot, genre-driven narrative, or a fast-paced modern novel.
Academic researchers seeking systematic biographical and critical material on the author and his work.

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then read a second time looking up unfamiliar words and background on the period.
Keep a French dictionary or electronic lookup tool at hand, and note recurring social titles and colloquial expressions.
After finishing, look up the author and the French literary context of his time to understand the work's place then.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this book without knowing French?

This is the original French text; the Project Gutenberg edition contains no Chinese translation. Readers with no French will find it hard to read directly. It is best to look for a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition first; if you only want the story, machine translation can help, but the literary language and period feel will be largely lost.

What level of French is this book suitable for?

Roughly intermediate and above: readers who already know basic grammar and common vocabulary and can work through long sentences with a dictionary. Beginners will stumble frequently and are likely to lose interest; more advanced readers can use it as short practice material for moving from textbooks to original texts.

Why read this not particularly well-known work?

Its value lies in offering a concrete sample of the French novel of manners from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. It is moderate in length and plain in language, making it a useful supplement to reading in literary history. For French learners, finishing a complete original work also brings a sense of achievement and helps build the habit of reading in the original.

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About the author

Fernand Vandérem Author · French · 1864–1939

Fernand Vandérem (1864–1939) was a French writer born in Paris, whose real name was Fernand-Henri Vanderheym; he published under the pen name Vandérem. A playwright, novelist and literary critic, he wrote both full-length and shorter works. Five of his books are held here, including the novels La Cendre, Les Deux Rives, La victime and Charlie, as well as Two Banks of the Seine, a narrative set against life on either side of the Seine. His collection of criticism, Le miroir des lettres, displays the ironic, incisive critical style that made him a distinctive voice in Belle Époque Paris. Public information is limited, but his surviving works show a coolly satirical eye for social manners, urban life and human weakness, leaving a personal mark on both fiction and criticism.