My name is Claudia and I am an English teacher in France. I am originally from Singapore, a little country in Southeast Asia and have been living in France for 4 years, since 2016, in a little town called Orsay, 30km away from Paris.
This podcast is about the bits and pieces of my life in France. Through this podcast, you can learn things about Singapore and view France from a new perspective - from the eyes of a Singaporean.
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My name is Claudia and I am an English teacher in France. I am originally from Singapore, a little country in Southeast Asia and have been living in France for 4 years, since 2016, in a little town called Orsay, 30km away from Paris.
This podcast is about the bits and pieces of my life in France. Through this podcast, you can learn things about Singapore and view France from a new perspective - from the eyes of a Singaporean.
Next to my reading lamp on my bedside table lies a stack of books. The make-up of the stack of books may vary every few weeks, but the stack is a permanent fixture in my bedroom.
8-Inch Tall Stack Of Books
The current stack stands 8-inch tall, put together by 7 books. It is propped up by the thickest book, a 2-inch thick, English translation of War and Peace paperback by Russian Leo Tolstoy. I lugged this book from Singapore to France during my last year’s visit back home. Since my book collection in Singapore had been left to gather dust for many years, my father decided to give some of the books away. In the last visit, he wanted me to go through the books to pick out the ones I wanted to keep. When my glance fell on War and Peace, still in minted condition, a wave of guilt crept into me. It is one of the classics that I have promised myself that I will read, and that particular promise made ten years ago in Singapore was still unfulfilled. With a renewed promise, I packed the hefty paperback in my luggage and flew it with me to France.
My current bedside RIP books—8-inch tall, comprising of 7 books.
War and Peace was purchased ten years ago when I was still living in Singapore. Ten years have passed, and I have barely made a dent in this weighty tome. My only defensible excuse is that I wasn’t living in Singapore for eight of those ten years, and the book was neglected during the moving process. The reading of this classic is not made easier when the tome contains close to 1,400 pages, and each nearly translucent page is crammed with 40 closely spaced lines of small print. Since its arrival in France, I have ventured only few chapters which have barely scratched the sixtieth page.
Sitting steadily on top of War and Peace is the The Count of Monte Cristo (Volume 1) in its original language, by French Alexandre Dumas. Boosted by my self-confidence in my level of French after managing to finish the first volume of The three musketeers by the same author, I decided to try my hand on The Count of Monte Cristo last year, Dumas’ other famous novel. This book, compared to War and Peace, is more manageable with its slightly bigger fonts printed on the 1000-page paperback. I am one third into the book. With luck, I would be able to finish it by the end of this year.
The remaining five books of this stack, a mixture of French and English, are less formidable in appearance and contents. Lain gingerly on top of The Count of Monte Cristo is Émile Zola’s The Ladies Paradise, followed by Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Grey…
Hold on. I am not an intellectual snob who reads only classics. The other three books were written by contemporary authors—The House of Mr. Biwas by British VS Naipaul, Perfume: the story of a murderer by German Patrick Süskind and Trois jours et une vie by French Pierre Lemaitre. Two books are my recent purchases, having been in my acquisition for about a year. One of them is a book borrowed a few months ago from Silviu, my husband.
RIP Books
These seven books are not the only books that are reading-in-progress (RIP). These are just seven out of the numerous RIP books in the apartment. Most of our books are lined on the white 3-shelf bookcase in the hallway.
Why does it take me such a long time to finish one book?
Singaporean living in France
My name is Claudia and I am an English teacher in France. I am originally from Singapore, a little country in Southeast Asia and have been living in France for 4 years, since 2016, in a little town called Orsay, 30km away from Paris.
This podcast is about the bits and pieces of my life in France. Through this podcast, you can learn things about Singapore and view France from a new perspective - from the eyes of a Singaporean.
