Le mystère Henri Pick (French Edition) Kindle Edition

This is a fun novel for a French class to read. It is good for intermediate or advanced French class.A novel is discovered which turns out to be a blockbuster in France. The author is dead. Did the deceased really write the novel? Or did someone else?Lots of eccentric characters populate this humorous book. They are one of the chief charms of the story.Our French class read this novel and enjoyed it immensely.

L'auteur nous ballade tout au long du roman et ce n'est que dans les dernières pages qu'il nous jette au visage la solution - complètement inattendue - ... C'est une histoire toute simple haletante comme le meilleur des suspense.

Very original book with depth and a lot of humor. Easy to read in the original French. (There is no English translation, alas!) One event creates a cascade of consequences to a horde of characters. The "mystere" keeps you reading until the very end. Satirizes the power of marketing in affecting our rationality and judgement. A very special book!

Extremely well written, enjoyable to read no matter the plot or subject. But it so happens that the plot is also very enjoyable. In my view, those who saw the movie probably enjoyed a great movie, but missed out on an outstanding book.

It was supposed to be a book taped on CD. I think the item was shipped from London and their format simply doesn't play on ours. I'm unable to listen to the book. I have not returned it, don't want to go to the trouble to ship it back (French version)

did not like it

The book was offered to me. I liked it very much. The style is simple to read and yet conveys a lot. It deals with passion for litterature and stories of loves. It also tells a nice and exciting story.

I have given this an extra star in the original French, because I like the style of the dialogues and description of the characters' thoughts, even if the substance is a bit lacking.Ambitious young Parisian book editor Delphine Despero falls for moody young writer Frédéric Koskas, but despite her efforts in getting his first novel published quickly amid much hype, it proves a flop. On a visit to her parents in Brittany, the couple are intrigued by the local bookstore to which writers bring novels rejected for publication, where they discover a literary masterpiece written by one “Henri Pick”, who turns out improbably to be the recently deceased manager of the local pizza restaurant, recalled by his wife and daughter as neither a great reader nor known to write more than an occasional shopping list. The publicity storm created by this threatens to blow off course if not capsize the lives of all concerned.At first, I found this book lightweight and contrived, and was motivated to read on only by the fact it was my book group choice, which at least served to improve my French. I was mildly irritated by the unnecessary footnotes which interrupted the flow, but more so by the pretentious tendency to write knowingly about the world of publishing, the pain of the writing process, and to name-drop shamelessly writers and books which a reader needs to be excessively “well-read” to appreciate. I suppose some of the Wikipedia-swallowing digressions are interesting, as in the poignant description of the real-life photographer Vivian Maier who worked for a year as a New York nanny, producing and storing thousands of Cartier-Bresson type photographs, sometimes without even developing the film, which remained undiscovered and unrecognised in her lifetime.I am also uneasy about authors who, far from denying that characters bear any resemblance to living persons, actually include very much alive celebrities in their books – including in this case Jean-Paul Enthoven who by chance ironically figured in the press over his rejection of his Raphael’s overly autobiographical novel the day before I encountered him in this quirky novel.Although my initial reaction has not fundamentally changed, at some point the whimsical humour did strike a chord with me – I think at the point when a character is dumped by his lover for scraping her Volvo car not once but twice, and thereafter is obsessed with Volvo cars, which he discovers are all without exception scratched. Foenkinos also succeeded in arousing my curiosity as to who really wrote the masterpiece.I realised eventually that it is unimportant that “The Last Hours of a Love Story” somehow linked to the death of Pushkin sounds pretty unlikely to become a bestseller, and is probably intended to parody the publishing world’s hyping of often mediocre books. “The Mystery of Henry Pick” is really a series of psychological studies: the vitriolic book critic who finds himself friendless when he loses his job and comes to realise that he has been venting his own frustration over his inability get published; the woman whose impulsive affair with a stranger helps her to see how she has allowed her life to go awry. It is all about how and why people manipulate situations, fail to communicate with each other, or at some point come to take stock of how they have lived, all this conveyed through often humorous insights.With talk at one point of “making a Biopick”, this novel lends itself to be made into an entertaining film, as has been the case. The setting in Crozon on the west coast of Brittany must also have boosted its tourist trade.

C'est mon premier roman de cet auteur, pendant toute ma lecture je me suis demandée si David Foenkinos était vraiment comme son roman...une force tranquille. C'est ce qui se dégage de ce roman. Ses personnages sont tous "bons", il ny a pas de méchants et ils ont tous une raison très humaine et simple d'agir comme ils le font. On les suit on les apprécie mais en même temps il n'y a pas de suspense intense ou d'attachement particulier à ses personnages. Tres souvent au cours du roman on voit les choses venir et se passer comme en effet elles se passent... jusqu'au dénouement joliment ficelé qui m'a fait tendrement sourire et auquel on ne s'attend pas du tout. David Foenkinos écrit avec finesse et intelligence même si je préfèrerais un peu plus de fougue et d'action, de passion quoi. Je suis curieuse de découvrir d'autres romans de cet auteur.

L'idée de depart est originale, et malgré quelques longueurs au début (de longues pages concernent le lancement du livre) on ne s'ennuie pas car les rebondissements sont nombreux. De plus la psychologie des personnages est soignée et malgré un ton léger et souvent drôle, l'auteur aborde des sujets de fond intéressants tels que la manipulation médiatique, l'dolâtrie ridicule dont sont l'objet certains ecrivains, la solitude dans le couple entre autres... un bon roman qui donnerait une excellente comédie au cinéma. A bon entendeur...

Bought for use in our French conversation group

Le style est absent de ce livre – la syntaxe de certaines phrases étant même fautive –, mais l’intrigue est bien ficelée et il se lit avec un certain plaisir grâce à cela. Les rebondissements, surtout le dernier, sont inattendus.Il faudrait que l’auteur cesse complètement d’utiliser son tic dans les dialogues qui consiste à écrire « – … » pour signifier qu’un des interlocuteurs se tait. Pour le grand critique et académicien Angelo Rinaldi, utiliser cela ne serait-ce qu’une fois est la preuve que l’on ne sait pas écrire. Or Foenkinos l’utilise quasiment à toutes les pages, le pire étant quand il l’utilise deux fois de suite « – … / – … » ou cette perle du grotesque : « ‘Tu ne dis rien / – …’, confirma Joséphine » !