Sucrée-salée

Lovely swim first thing -- there were only three of us, but a whole bunch of people turned up later. The water is warm enough now that a cold shower on getting out is required.

Another day mostly indoors hiding from the heat. I finally finished Catalan author Mercè Rodoreda's novel La Plaça del Diamant (In Diamond Square in English), set in Barcelona during the civil war period. It's well known in Catalonia, with Gabriel García Marquez describing it as "the most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War". I wasn't up for reading it in Catalan, so after developing an intense dislike for the English translation (see link above for why), I decided to have a go in Spanish. It looks like a short novel, but with its dense prose it took me weeks to read it. Worth it though: beautiful writing, and strangely it reminded me of Anna Burns' Milkman.

In the evening we spent an hour or so at our neighbours' wine-tasting aka copious apero before going to tonight's show in the amphitheatre. It was unusually well attended, featuring local duo Sucrée Salée. Advertised as chanson française it was in fact a bit of a mishmash, featuring songs from Cabaret, Abba, Barbara Streisand, and a brief blast of Gloria Gaynor as well as more conventional French ballads. 

T and I caused great outrage to to French friend S last night by saying we don't like chanson française -- she took it as an insult to all French musical culture. Anyway, it is definitely not my favourite genre, so I didn't enjoy their choice of songs (apart from a couple of Michel Legrand songs) but there's no doubt they are both good musicians and have an excellent rapport with each other and their audience (extra). It went on a bit too long (nearly two hours), but I got the requisite photos for Facebook so job done!