The notebooks of Major Thompson;: An Englishman discovers France & the French

By Pierre Daninos

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0006AU7PW
• Release Date: January 1955
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Adieu, M. Daninos, Farewell, Major Thompson

The papers report that over the weekend Pierre Daninos died in Paris at age 91. His masterpiece, Les Carnets du Major Thompson, will live forever as a witty, sophisticated look into a Henry Jamesian situation, the ultra-Englishman living among the French and trying to understand their ways (while trying to preserve his own heritage, hilariously staged by Daninos). When I was a boy we had to read this novel (in French) in high school French classes on Long Island. I was so bad at French that at first I thought the novel was taking place in a prisoner of war camp. It took me ages to work out the real locale of the book, but after that, my French picked right up, mostly due to the immense skills of talented M. Daninos and his gift for laughter and for sympathetic caricature. I always thought that this book would make a good film by Jacques Demy, a director with similar gifts and an open, lyrical style. (I have since found out that indeed this book did get a movie made of it, but it is one that NETFLIX does not carry.) I am sorry to hear of the death of Pierre Daninos, but would like to salute him from this side of the grave for giving so many generations of French and English speakers so much pleasure and insight over the years.

Dry Wit Double Filtered

Major Thompson is a rather stuffy Englishman who, because he is married to a French woman, makes his home in France. If you would like a mental picture of Major Thompson, just picture Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson in the many Sherlock Holmes films. A bit pompous, a bit of a stuffed shirt, well meaning, and above all, "veddy, veddy" proper as only an Englishman can be. That's our Major Thompson.But wait a minute, there's something wrong with this picture. Oh, I know what it is; this book, written in the first person (i.e. in the voice of Major Thompson) is really written by a Frenchman! So what we really have is a Frenchman, disguised as an Englishman, commenting on the foibles of the French and along the way, making "inadvertant" fun of the English.THE NOTEBOOKS OF MAJOR THOMPSON does not have a plot in the traditionsl sense of the meaning of plot. It is a series of observations purportedly from the notebooks of the title. A few observations from the book will show how successfully Danino, in his English persona, has skewered both cultures:"A Frenchman without a mistress is like an Englishman without a club.""When an Englishman passes a pretty woman in the street, he sees her without looking at her . . . .When a Frenchman passes a pretty woman in the street, he first looks at her legs . . . . then turns to have a better view, and eventually realizes he is going in the same direction as she is.And much more of the same.There is a chapter devoted to the problems involved in educating his half English, half French son. The Major wants him to have a "proper English education," and his wife, of course, wants a traditional French upbringing. This leads to sending him alternately to an English Boarding School and a French one. He gets totally contradictory views on every French/English conflict in history as well as Napoleon, Wellington, Joan of Arc, etc. Additionally, there is an attempt to have him taught in France by a live-in English woman named Miss ffyfe (with two lower case f's) who could have doubled as a drill sergeant in a very tough army training camp. This proves totally unsatisfactory. Finally a compromise is reached and the boy is sent to a Swiss boarding school.All this is written utilizing dry English wit filtered first through the French author, Daninos, then through his English creation, Major Thompson.This is not a book that will appeal to the reader who searches for extreme violence and/or sexual innuendos on every page. It is for the reader who appreciates subtlety and understated humor. I guess that I fall into this latter category because I really enjoyed the book.