This is Etienne. I met him on a train in France. The book is in fact a play, L'Avare, by 17th century French satirist and playwright Moliรจre (real name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin).
With his English and my French, we had about three coherent sentences between us, but I gather from the gist of our halting conversation (which included the art of mime) the story is about a tyrant who is in love with his son's lover, and whose children want to escape from his household and run off with their lovers. I think. Don't ask about the miming.
Note the sleepy head behind Etienne. In her defence, this is not her best angle. She's an opera singer, travelling with two colleagues, on her way home to Birmingham from a performance in Paris the previous evening.
I know this because I was practising an exercise I learnt in my writing class. (Some would call it eavesdropping. I call it creative listening.)
I was very happy with my seat selection - three English-speaking musos to creatively listen to and one hot man studying a classic play - who knew train travel could be such a rich cultural experience?
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