MashReads Podcast: Manic Pixie Dream Girls go to Paris
Could you just not, French literature?
This week on the MashReads Podcast, we dive into the realm of the existential with In The Cafe of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano, written in 2007 and recently translated by Chris Clarke. The book is the portrait of a woman named Louki, and a cafe in Paris in the 1950s, as seen by four narrators.
Though a beautifully-written tribute to its location, the book unfortunately falls straight into the tropes of what we now decry as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl -- a shallow, undefined female character that exists largely as a fantasy and/or device for growth for male protagonists.
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Join us as we talk about In the Cafe of Lost Youth, manic pixie dream girls and and how that trope has evolved.
Then, inspired by the book's vivid depiction of Paris, we discuss our favorite books where the setting is as much a character in the story as the narrator and other people we meet.
Next week we're talking about The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Read along with us now!
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Bonus: The MashReads Team discusses the books that we re-read again and again
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Topics Books
