Haut Cinq by Jessica Anya Blau

Cinq Books Originally Written in French that You Should Read in Whatever Language Pleases You:

Molloy by Samuel Beckett

Beckett was Irish but wrote in French to avoid "style," he claimed. Molloy was the first in a trilogy (Malone Dies and The Unnamable were the other two) and is the smoothest read of the three. It is odd and un-definable in that way that Beckett is. There is one great chunk of this book that is entirely devoted to the narrator sucking stones by rotating them from pocket, to mouth, to pocket again.

Candide by Voltaire

This book was banned by the Catholic church for many years. It skewers religion, politics, colonialism, and even death. I read it years ago, then recently reread it and laughed even harder the second time. It reminds me of an extended Saturday Night Live skit in the way that it takes each idea to the ridiculous end and then flogs it over and over again.

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse was published in 1954 when Mademoiselle Sagan was a mere 18 years old. The novel takes place mostly during the narrator's summer at the sea with her father who is considered a playboy. It's a sometimes sad, mostly fascinating trek into a time and place few of us have been fortunate enough to view firsthand. I can't help but see Sagan herself in the narrator, Cecile. Sagan went on to have a successful writing career, two unsuccessful marriages and a string of affairs with men and women, all of it punctuated with cocaine, car crashes and a coma.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Emma Bovary's attempts to escape provincial life and the boredom of a dependable doctor husband feel as modern today as I imagine they did when the book was published. Flaubert was acquitted of obscenity charges shortly after the book was serialized in La Revue de Paris in the mid 1850s.

L'Etranger by Albert Camus

A dreamy, existential romp through a death, a murder, and a trial. L'Etranger certainly contains one of the best first sentences in any French novel: "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." Translated literally it reads: "Today, Mama is dead. Or perhaps yesterday, I don't know." Depending on which edition you read, the opening will be translated differently. For the best experience of this book, read the first sentence in French then skip to any translation you'd like!