≡ Descargar A Year in the Merde Stephen Clarke 9781582346175 Books

A Year in the Merde Stephen Clarke 9781582346175 Books

Download As PDF : A Year in the Merde Stephen Clarke 9781582346175 Books

A Year in the Merde Stephen Clarke 9781582346175 Books

I worked in France as a consultant in the late 80s and I friend recommended this book. This is so funny and accurate and to tell the truth, it made me homesick for the place. I love the food, the culture, the history and have been working around French people for years, but Stephen captures the moment of being a "free man in Paris" but also the quirky things that make Americans and Brits so different from the French. For anyone who has just recently visited or someone who has spent time in France, you must read this book. As a writer, I say, Bravo. You are funny Mr. Clarke.


Tags : A Year in the Merde [Stephen Clarke] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Based on Stephen Clarke's own experiences and with names changed to avoid embarrassment, possible legal action,Stephen Clarke,A Year in the Merde,Bloomsbury USA,1582346178,Europe - France,British;France;Fiction.,Paris (France);Fiction.,Tearooms;Fiction.,British,FICTION Humorous General,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-ActionAdventure,France,GENERAL,General Adult,Humorous - General,Humorous fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Non-Fiction,Tearooms,Travel,Travel Europe France

A Year in the Merde Stephen Clarke 9781582346175 Books Reviews

Hilarious and great for anyone who's going to live abroad. I read it after i returned from living in Berlin and was cracking up as many of experiences were the same... funny now but at the time were painful- wish i had known about it earlier. I also just bought for a friend moving to France!
This book was fun to read. The story line is quite plausible as are the players. One suspects there might be actual experience somewhere.......It was also fun for the life and places of France and Paris. The book had been languishing in my library for several months. Once I picked it up I had a difficult time putting it down.
I bought the edition of A Year in the Merde and read it in my spare time over two days. It was a pleasure to read and was very well written. All those who gave the book negative reviews due to the "ignorant" or "inaccurate" nature of the story are missing the point entirely. Mr. Clarke is a Brit who caricatures not only the French (particularly Parisians) but also the British. He doesn't approach the subject of the French with contempt or arrogance as some reviewers would have you believe. This is a piece of fiction, not a memoir of an actual person; if you're offended by the amount of sex/vulgarity involved or by the way Clarke portrays the French, I suggest you get over yourself. It's all used humorously and adds to the picture Clarke paints of the British and the French, exposing the differences in culture when it comes to such matters. A Year in the Merde is extremely entertaining and endlessly witty. Unless you're just uptight and overly defensive about the French, you'll enjoy this book.
Read this before and during a trip to France. I highly recommend it as both an entertaining read and as advice for a future trip to Paris. I ended taking pictures of pages that gave tips and tricks for being a tourist in Paris. From how to order coffee to what parks are great to relax at. It was told from the viewpoint of a British contract employee for a tea company and it was really fun reading about the differences in cultures; working, living, dating, etc.
A laugh out loud semi-biographical look at a Brit's year working for a French company. He is hired to market and launch a series of British Tea Rooms for a company whose current purpose is to provide meat for "fast food" restaurants. Although initially smitten and enthusiastic, the difference between the two cultures eventually leads to a series of misadventures as he tries to maneuver his way through the bureaucratic and social maze, while also trying to find romance with local women.
Stephen Clarke obviously is an experienced connoisseur of France and the French way o life. Hence, I was puzzled why, on the other hand, the narrator and protagonist of the story, Paul West, is a young man with indefinable education, a rudimentary knowledge of French and whom, not exactly, somebody can't wait coming home. Yes, he is witty, subtle, humorous, sharp-tongued and occasionally makes you laugh out loud. But then, at times, Paul's story suddenly becomes dull and tasteless, like when he elucidates, that "Gynecologist is someone who is staring between women's legs all day long".

Paul, by no means a Europhile, sometimes conveys admiration for French food, and especially, the cost of public transportation and restaurant prices. Sometimes, in an ironic manner he really hits a bull's-eye, for instance, observing that French farmers no doubt get subsidies for painting their pigs with the EU flag and that when visiting a doctor in France, admin always comes before health.

Spending only nine months in France, Mr. West manages to go through almost all realms of French daily routine. He looks for an apartment for rent and visits one, where the last resident was a certain Monsieur Dracula. He goes through ordeal at prefecture getting his carte de sejour at the boot six - "boot of death" and later almost buys a house from his boss lawyer-friend, who is Dickens character, but recently had visited a modern clothes shop. Of course, inevitably, time-to-time, he steps into merde on the dirty Paris streets, which bothers him a lot.

In Paris, Paul doesn't feel lonely. He makes friends with several carefree girls (including his boss' daughter) and almost inevitably hits home runs on the first night. Willy-nilly, one gets an impression that Paul has looks of, if not of Alain Delon, then Hugh Grant beyond doubt. He is always long awaited in a nearby pub by his buddies Bob, Ian and Dave (who seem to be living there). One night his mates wait for him with girls, one of whom, it occurs, gave him a fellatio last time, which he, of course, didn't remember, because was hammered. Finding this out, his buddies and girls almost roll on the ground laughing and Paul is a star of the night.

But all in all, a couple dozen pages of insipid jokes like these is only a fly in the ointment. One has to put up with it, realizing that the book is aimed to widest possible audience. I will definitely pick up Clarke's next book "In the Merde for Love", hoping that Paul in his dialogues with his, certainly, numerous girlfriends will be as witty as he is in his observations.
I first read his book "1000 Years of Annoying the French". That was funny ! So I was anxious to read this.

He's a British expat in Paris for a year. He struggles to mesh his work style with the French style. There's some funny stuff. Then it degenerates into a young, homesick horny guy looking to get into the pantalets of an equally young sexy French girl.

There's nothing wrong with that. I believe that's what all young men want ! But I missed all the funny nuances between cultures as he simply wanted to "get some" for the rest of the book. It became formulaic rather than a funny contrast between two cultures.

I recommend his other book "1000 Years......" rather than this one.
I worked in France as a consultant in the late 80s and I friend recommended this book. This is so funny and accurate and to tell the truth, it made me homesick for the place. I love the food, the culture, the history and have been working around French people for years, but Stephen captures the moment of being a "free man in Paris" but also the quirky things that make Americans and Brits so different from the French. For anyone who has just recently visited or someone who has spent time in France, you must read this book. As a writer, I say, Bravo. You are funny Mr. Clarke.