Archive for Rabelais

lecturing in Collège

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2024 by xi'an

A few weeks ago I gave a seminar on ABC (and its asymptotics) in the beautiful amphitheatre Marguerite de Navarre (a writer, a thinker, and a protector of writers like Rabelais and of reformist catholics, as well as th sister of the Collège founder, François I) of Collège de France, as complement of the lecture of that week by Stéphane Mallat, who is teaching this year on Learning and random sampling. In this lecture, Stéphane introduced Metropolis-Hastings as one can guess from the blackboards above! The amphitheatre was quite full since master students from several Parisian universities are following the course, along the “general public” since the first principle of the courses delivered at Collège de France is that they are open to everyone, free of charge and without preliminary registration! (As a countermeasure to the monopoly of the university of Paris, following the earlier example of the 1518 trilingual college of Louvain). Here are the slides I partly covered in the lecture.

seule laTerre est éternelle

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 18, 2022 by xi'an


A few weekends ago, my wife (easily) convinced me to go watch a film in Paris. More precisely, an extensive interview, about Jim Harrison as the film was soon to be retired from cinemas. This was the first time I was going back to a cinema since Nomadland, last June. I am unsure the film, Seule la Terre est éternelle (Only Earth is forever) is shown anywhere but France as the film producer François Busnel is French (if the dialogies are in English). Anyway, this is quality time spent with Jim Harrison, a few months before he died, listening to him talk or mostly monologue about everything, from food to life and death, and World literature, obviously! In a very homely way, at his desk, driving (enormous) truck or around meals. In a way, there is nothing extraordinary about what he discusses, it could almost be the guy next seat in a remote pub or bar, going a wee bit sentimental after one drink too many. And the way the sessions are separated by long shots of sunset over Western landscapes and other terrific views is somewhat cheesy. Still, I enjoyed the time spent with him there, connecting with his books and the ever present spirit of wilderness and beauty, despite the often sorry live of his characters, suited to the It’s a good day to die motto. In an impressive bonhomie that hides his immense culture (as when he starts talking about Stendhal and Rabelais) and kind remembrance of others, except when expressing incomprehension at being sometimes compared with Hemingway (which is indeed absurd in their opposite relation to Nature, if not to drinks!). I’ve read that 75% of the film viewers (in France) have not read any of his books (but may some have watched Legends of the Fall), which I find harder to understand, but for his readers this is a treat. Plus, the long ride through the Western States, from Montana down to Arizona, was far from unpleasant as it reminded us of this great trip around Yellowstone we took ages ago.

do novel writers need to make exceptional beings of their characters?

Posted in Books, Kids with tags , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2013 by xi'an

In the French literature part of the baccalauréat exam my daughter (and 170,000 other French students) took on Tuesday, the essay was about the above. It was quite a congenial theme and she seems to have enjoyed the opportunity to review her favourite books to argue the point. (She however declined to write a shorter version for the ‘Og, even in French..!) I wish I had time to expand on this, as it is a fairly rich field for arguing both ways, from Rabelais’ Gargantua and Dumas’ D’Artagnan to Melville’s Bartelby and Raymond Carver‘s characters (who often even remain unnamed). Opposing Flaubert’s Emma Bovary and Maupassant’s Jeanne for instance. Although my daughter considered Emma was in the “ordinary” camp… And discussing the characters in The Grapes of Wrath since this was one of the included texts. In my conclusion, despite advices not to answer the question in a definitive manner, I would however lean towards the quantum physics analogy that writers impact on the exceptional nature of their characters, since they become exceptional if only by appearing in the novel… (Check a mediocre online correction.)