Archive
Wednesdays with Romain Gary – Part Twelve
Les oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou. 1962 English title: Birds in Peru.
Les oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou is a collection of short stories and a film directed by Gary himself, starring Jean Seberg. The film is notoriously bad, so don’t bother. I picked this quote from the first short story of the collection:
Il faut espérer que l’âme n’existe pas : la seule façon pour elle de ne pas se laisser prendre. Les savants en calculeront bientôt la masse exacte, la consistance, la vitesse ascensionnelle… Quand on pense à tous les milliards d’âmes envolées depuis le début de l’Histoire, il y a de quoi pleurer. Une prodigieuse énergie gaspillée : en bâtissant des barrages au moment de leur ascension, on aurait eu de quoi éclairer la terre entière. L’homme sera bientôt entièrement utilisable. On lui a déjà pris ses plus beaux rêves pour en faire des guerres et des prisons.
Let’s hope that the soul doesn’t exist, it’s the only way for it not to get caught. Scientists will soon compute its exact mass, its consistency, its rate of climb… When you think about the billions of souls that have ascended since the beginning of times, you have good reason to weep. Such a tremendous amount of energy wasted: if we had built dams at the moment of their ascent, we would have had enough energy to light up the entire planet. Humanity will soon be entirely usable. Their best dreams have already been taken away from them to start wars and build prisons.
Translation reviewed by Erik McDonald.
For me, this quote shows two of Gary’s obsessions. The first one is that everyone should keep their part of mystery. It’s not necessary to know everything, to explain everything with science or rationally. We live better if there’s room for dreams and imagination in our lives. Love isn’t that magical if you think of it in terms of hormones.
The second idea is that humans can’t be disposable goods. He rejects the trend considering that anything is marketable. Not everything is marketable. Humans are not. Wilderness should be protected and also everything related to art. Not every human activity should be evaluated according to its return on investment or its usefulness. I wonder what he’d think of surrogate mothers, fights to exclude films and books from international trade agreements and in general of how money has become the unique compass to assess someone or something’s worth.
Wednesdays with Romain Gary – Part Four
Hello,
Wednesdays With Romain Gary is back! This week I want to share with you a quote from Lady L. which was first written in English before a French version was made. It was published in 1963. Gary’s first wife was the British writer Lesley Blanch (Lady L., like Lesley?). 1963 is the year he divorced Lesley to marry Jean Seberg. I read Lady L. a long time ago and what I remember most about it was an incredible style and a furious sense of humour. It is is told from the point of view of the said Lady L. who is now quite old and sees life through a curious and rebellious lense. I loved that character, probably because of her nonconformist mind. She doesn’t like weaknesses, see what she thinks of tears:
| Les larmes sont des filles faciles et soixante ans d’ironie, d’humour glacé et d’Angleterre n’avaient pas encore appris à ces trotteuses indécentes un peu de retenue. | Tears are loose women and sixty years of irony, ice-cold humour and England had not yet taught these indecent wanderers the least bit of restraint. (translation reviewed by Erik McDonald) |
I have a copy from 1963 and the blurb is actually a word by Gary himself about the book.
| J’ai toujours été fasciné par un certain côté terroriste de l’humour anglais, cette arme blanche froide qui rate rarement son but. On rencontre souvent dans l’aristocratie britannique une sorte de tolérance universelle non dépourvue d’arrogance et que seuls peuvent se permettre des gens que rien ne saurait menacer. Dans Lady L., je me suis efforcé d’explorer ce thème et de faire en même temps le portrait d’une très grande dame qui a bien voulu me faire quelques confidences. Je me suis permis également de me peindre moi-même sous les traits de son compagnon et souffre-douleur, le Poète-Lauréat, Sir Percy Rodiner. Et comme les idéalistes m’ont toujours paru être, au fond, des aristocrates ayant une très haute et noble conception de l’humanité, cette autre très grande dame, l’histoire d’Armand Denis et de son extraordinaire amour ne pouvait manquer de m’intéresser. J’ai essayé de la raconter en respectant dans toute la mesure du possible la vérité historique. A ceux qui seraient un peu choqués par la façon dont finit mon récit, je dirai d’abord que je n’ai rien inventé et ensuite que le terrorisme passionnel a toujours été jugé chez nous avec indulgence. Humanité, humanité, que de crimes on commet en ton nom ! | I’ve always been fascinated by a certain terrorist side of the British sense of humour. It’s a cold knife that rarely misses its target. One often meets among the British aristocracy a sort of universal tolerance not lacking of arrogance and that can only afford people to whom nothing can happen. I tried to explore this topic in Lady L. I also wanted to portray a great lady who confided in me. I also indulged in portraying myself under the traits of her partner and scape-goat, the Laureate-Poet Sir Percy Rodiner. Since I’ve always thought that idealists are aristocrats who have a very high and noble opinion of mankind, this other great lady, the story of Armand Denis and his extraordinary love couldn’t fail to interest me. I tried to tell this story and respect the historical truth as much as possible. To those who might be shocked by the ending, I’ll say that I didn’t invent anything and that love terrorism has always been judged with indulgence here. Humanity, humanity, how many crimes are committed in your name! (My clumsy translation) |
Just typing and translating this makes me want to read the book. Used copies are available in English and it was been made into a film directed by Peter Ustinovn, starring Sophia Loren and Paul Newman. I haven’t seen it. Perhaps the second semester of 2014 should be dedicated to Gary’s books made into a film. What do you think?
Love autopsy
Contempt by Alberto Moravia (1954) French title: Le mépris
Contempt was our Book Club choice for December. (I know, this billet is late) It managed to push Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh out of my list of favourite books for 2013. Here is the opening paragraph of the book:
During the first two years of our married life my relations with my wife were, I can now assert, perfect. By which I mean to say that, in those two years, a complete profound harmony of the senses was accompanied by a kind of numbness –of should I say silence?—of the mind which, in such circumstances, causes an entire suspension of judgment and looks only to love for any estimate of the beloved person. Emilia, in fact, seemed to me wholly without defects, and so also, I believe, I appeared to her. Or perhaps I saw her defects and she saw mine, but, through some mysterious transformation produced by the feeling of love, such defects appeared to us both not merely forgivable but even lovable, as though instead of defects they had been positive qualities, if of a rather special kind? Anyhow, we did not judge: we loved each other. This story sets out to relate how, while I continued to love her and not to judge her, Emilia, on the other hand, discovered, or thought she discovered, certain defects in me, and judged me and in consequence ceased to love me.
This is Riccardo speaking and analysing the end of his marriage to Emilia. Contempt a first person narrative and it never switches to another point of view. Riccardo and Emilia have been married two years when their relationship starts to deteriorate. Riccardo is an aspiring playwright and he’s been doing odd jobs to support his wife. At the beginning of their marriage, they were renting rooms in a house as they couldn’t afford more expensive accommodation. Now, Riccardo has just bought an apartment, which changed Emilia’s status from aspiring to official housewife. She’s delighted with the new flat and her ambition is fulfilled.
When the novel opens, Riccardo has just landed an interesting contract to write a screenplay for the film director Battista. It comes as a relief since he’s struggling financially to pay the mortgage of the apartment. Just when he can stop worrying about money, Emilia’s behaviour towards him changes. Without any obvious reason, she starts distancing herself from him. He feels that she no longer loves him but he doesn’t understand why. His first move is to pressure her until she acknowledges that she fell out of love with him. Then he wants to figure out what changed her heart and he will not let go until she eventually blurts out that she despises him. He would have recovered better if she had slapped him.
Everything goes downhill from there. Relocating from Rome to Capri to work on another screenplay for Battisti won’t help. Riccardo knows that Battisti is attracted to Emilia, it was clear from the first evening they had diner together. How does his presence in their lives influence their couple?
Moravia is a fantastic writer. He combines Proust’s analytical skills with Maupassant’s style and lucidity. There is something of Swann and Odette, of the Narrator and Albertine in this relationship. Like Swann and the Narrator, Riccardo is a cerebral who feels too much. He over analyses everything, pays attention to tiny details and elaborates theories to explain Emilia’s behaviour. He breaks down her every move, her words and tries to decipher what she meant exactly and why she said this or that. As Riccardo describes Emilia, it becomes clear that they have very different interests and ambitions in life. Riccardo is an intellectual. Emilia loves her home and is content with taking care of the house. She isn’t interested in Riccardo’s job. She’s pretty, he loves her but they don’t seem to have much in common. After the honeymoon stage, how can this relationship blossom?
Like Swann and the Narrator, Riccardo is well-aware of Emilia’s limits. She’s not well-read, she’s a bourgeois and her mind bears the marks of her upbringing. But, as Riccardo says There is in love a great capacity, not only of illusion but also of forgetting.
Like in Notre Coeur by Maupassant, Moravia shows how difficult it is to love someone who doesn’t love you back or not enough. More than unrequited love, Moravia pictures the damage done by contempt. It destabilises Riccardo because it nibbles his self-esteem. Losing Emilia’s love is painful but that kind of wound heals, eventually. Arousing Emilia’s contempt shatters his peace of mind. He wonders what he did to deserve this and more importantly if she’s right.
Contempt is a fascinating read on several levels. Moravia’s style is close to perfection, lucid, matter-of-fact and yet full of emotion. He manages to build a bridge between opposite notions. The reader reads with detachment and yet reaches out to Riccardo’s pain. He explains everything with logic and yet stirs an illogic sense of dread. He’s analytical and warm. Riccardo explains:
I have noticed that the more one is overcome with doubt, the more one relies on a fake lucidity in the hope to clarify though reasoning what emotions have muddled.
He’s centred on Riccardo’s turmoil but doesn’t neglect to picture the beautiful landscapes of Capri. He manages to connect the reader to Riccardo’s inner mind and to his surroundings.
We were quickly driving down the hills to the sea among pine trees and magnolias, the blue gulf as a setting. I was feeling drowsy and exhausted like an epileptic whose body and soul have been wrecked by a violent and uncontrollable convulsion.
Very Proustian, this to-and-fro between the scenery and the emotions of a character. It reminds me of A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs when the Narrator rambles about Albertine and her girlfriends and the landscapes of Balbec.
The construction of the book is impeccable. Moravia builds the tension masterfully and plays his score of words like a gifted pianist. Cherry on the cake, his take on the place of scriptwriters in the film industry was interesting. This is a short book, my copy is only 152 pages but it encapsulates universal and profound notions in the unique story of two indivuals. As the cover of my copy recalls us, Contempt has been made into a film by Jean-Luc Godard.
Highly recommended.
PS: The opening quote is translated from the Italian by Angus Davidson. I’ve read the book in French and I translated the other quotes myself from the French. At least you have the rather long first quote to sample Moravia’s wonderful prose.
PPS: I find the English cover a bit creepy.
Stormy riders or when I read my first western
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. 1912. Not translated into French.
An’ I’d like you to see jest how hard an’ cruel this border life is. It’s bloody. You’d think churches an’ churchmen would make it better. They make it worse. You give names to things—bishops, elders, ministers, Mormonism, duty, faith, glory. You dream—or you’re driven mad. I’m a man, an’ I know. I name fanatics, followers, blind women, oppressors, thieves, ranchers, rustlers, riders. An’ we have—what you’ve lived through these last months. It can’t be helped. But it can’t last always. An’ remember his—some day the border’ll be better, cleaner, for the ways of ten like Lassiter!”
I have to confess that all I know about westerns are clichés. When I was a child, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV at night and I missed the opportunity to see the most famous ones. As an adult, I have trouble watching films on DVDs and on TV. I tend to fall asleep or be distracted. I find it difficult to be absorbed in a movie seen on a television screen. For me, cinema means going out to see a film in a dark room among strangers and if you pick the right films, you might even avoid the pop-corn munchers. This explains why I have seen so little old movies and thus have not caught up with all the westerns I should have seen at my respectable age. But back to the book.
Riders of the Purple Sage opens with a typical western scene. We’re in 1871 at the border of Utah. A young Gentile* man, Bern Venters is about to get whipped in the sage for befriending Jane Withersteen, a Mormon young woman. Tull, the Minister of the Mormon Church in Cottonwoods wants to whip and exile Venters and intends to marry Jane. She’s the richest person of the village; she owns a ranch, herds and the only source of water. She’s a catch. Jane refuses Tull and Venters is in a desperate situation when Lassiter shows up and drives Tull and his men away. This dramatic scene is the start of everything. Lassiter, a well-known gun-man arrived at Cottonwoods to understand what happened to Milly Fern. His interfering in Jane and Venter’s business will break the peace. Tull now craves for revenge and will do everything in his power to ruin Jane, morally and financially. The neighbourhood is also hunted by rustlers led by Oldridge accompanied by his Masked Rider. They steal cattle and nobody knows where the animals are led. When Jane’s red herd disappears, Venters heads for Deception Pass, where the herds vanish, decided to avoid Tull and discover where Oldridge and his riders hide. His encounter with Oldridge’s men is violent and he almost kills the Masked Rider, only to discover that he’s a she, Bess.
The novel follows two story strands, one with Jane and Lassiter in Cottonwoods and another one with Venters and Bess in the sage. Their paths cross, they help each other as they’re on the same side. The four main characters have to go through their personal journey and the events unravel before our eyes. The four of them are tortured souls, for different reasons. The four of them will have their epiphany.
Jane Withersteen is a very pious woman. She was raised a Mormon, she has a deep faith and she respects her bishop and her minister. When she refuses Tull, here’s what she’s told:
Marry Tull. It’s your duty as a Mormon. You’ll feel no rapture as his wife—but think of Heaven! Mormon women don’t marry for what they expect on earth. Take up the cross, Jane.
Isn’t that cheerful and awfully tempting? The American version of “Close your eyes and think of England”. I found Zane Grey extremely hard on the Mormon community in Cottonwoods. They are Christian zealots who preach a message they don’t practice. Women are oppressed and churchmen take advantage of their spiritual power to keep a hold on the population. Gentiles are discriminated. Jane is brainwashed and doesn’t see them as men with flaws but as churchmen, better men than others, by definition. The events force her to acknowledge the truth and Lassiter will be the messenger.
Lassiter is also a broken soul. He’s driven by his quest: what has become of Milly Ern? It makes him relentless and lonely. He has everything of the ragged hero hiding a heart of gold. Jane will force him to reconsider his lifestyle and his goals in life.
Venters the Gentile was a pariah and his encounter with Bess will change him. He will find his true self in the wilderness and the passages of his exploration of the canyons and the valleys are simply beautiful. They echo his stormy inner mind and he becomes one with his surroundings:
When he gained the cover of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then he saw how the trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying in depressions, wearing deep round holes. There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautiful cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if growth were torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old. Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange sympathy for them. This country was hard on trees—and men.
Venters discovers a secluded valley that be baptises Surprise Valley. Its description is like a time machine, bringing back Venters and Bess to Paradise before the fall. Grey pictures striking landscapes inhabited with lively fauna:
Out of his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue morning sky; and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of gray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They were mocking-birds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst their throats.
I wanted to go there and see everything with my own eyes. He has a gift for cinematographic descriptions. There’s a superb scene where Venters chases after another rider. It’s gripping, the ride described so precisely I imagined I was on horseback with Venters. He also knows how to build tension, like here when Venters is in a critical situation:
Perceptions flashed upon him, the faint, cold touch of the breeze, a cold, silvery tinkle of flowing water, a cold sun shining out of a cold sky, song of birds and laugh of children, coldly distant. Cold and intangible were all things in earth and heaven. Colder and tighter stretched the skin over his face; colder and harder grew the polished butts of his guns; colder and steadier became his hands as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face or reached low to his gun-sheaths.
Can’t you imagine him? This book also came with a mental soundtrack. I know I should have been hearing music by Ennio Morricone when I was reading but all I could think about was the haunting Riders on the Storm by The Doors. Add to the mix that I had reached the page of Red River Valley in my piano textbook and there was no room left for classic western soundtrack. I was all with riders and cowboys. Sorry.
Considering the time this book stayed in the Currently Reading box, you’d think it’s 800 pages long instead of 300ish. It took me ages to go through the descriptions of the landscapes, of the rides and of Vender walking in the canyons. I had trouble with the vocabulary related to herds and had to pause to imagine the men riding in the different paths. I paused to polish mental pictures of the scenes I was reading. I had also to deal with the spoken language with sentences like this “An’ they jest froze up—thet dark set look thet makes them strange an’ different to me.” or this “Wal, hev it your way, Bern. I hope you’re right. Nat’rully I’ve been some sore on Lassiter fer gittin’ soft. But I ain’t denyin’ his nerve, or whatever’s great in him thet sort of paralyzes people. I had to tell the words in my head to figure out what they meant and imagine the accent. Since I have a terrible French accent when I speak English, I’m not sure I really figured out how these men were speaking. However, I will always marvel at the elasticity of the English language. You can’t really do that in French; it’s hard to transcribe accents.
Although it demanded a tremendous amount of concentration to me, I highly recommend Riders of the Purple Sage. It has all the qualities of a great book. It’s gripping, well-written and well-constructed. I need to thank Max for recommending this novel to me. So thanks, Max, that was a treat and I didn’t know Zane Grey. I looked him up on Wikipedia, though. He was the first writer to become rich thanks to his books. His novels are currently out of print in French and that’s a shame. I suppose westerns aren’t fashionable anymore.
* All along the novel, Gentile will be used to define non-Mormon characters. Don’t ask me why. Lack of a better word?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick. 1968 French title: Les androïdes rêvent-ils de moutons électriques ?
I’m not a SF fan in general, so I’ve never read Philip K Dick –the guy has a name to write hardboiled, not SF, if you want my opinion. And of course, I haven’t seen Blade Runner, based upon this novel. My last attempt at reading SF was War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells –I abandoned the book. My last SF film was 2001 The Space Odyssey –I fell asleep just after the first images of the spaceship. Bad, bad track record. I wanted to read Do Androids Dream on Electric Sheep? because I found the title funny and intriguing. I had no idea what it was about before reading Caroline’s review of the novel. So, where am I after my first Philip K Dick? I have finished the book and I have no intention of watching the movie. That sums it up. Now the book.
We are in the future in San Francisco, after World War Terminus. Humanity has conquered Mars, where they have settled colonies with androids as the workforce. The planet Earth is polluted with radioactive dust; WWT has almost eradicated life on Earth and living critters are the most valued properties. The biggest the animal, the richest you are. Owning a pet is synonym of social status and some have electric animals that resemble real ones. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard is one of them. He owns an electric sheep and he dreads that his neighbours suspect it is a fake animal, although they most likely will be too polite to ask.
To say ‘Is you sheep genuine?’ would be a worse breach of manners than to inquire whether a citizen’s teeth, hair or internal organs would test out authentic.
This society works in a reversed way to ours. For us, it is valuable to own the latest electronic device or a beautiful car. We swat ants or spiders without second thoughts. For Rick and his wife Iran, finding a wild spider is a source of wonder. On Earth, the radioactive dust is so thick that nobody can see the stars anymore. Also, as a consequence of the radioactive dust, humans are checked up regularly to verify that their faculties don’t deteriorate. When it happens, they become second class citizens called Specials and referred to as chikenheads.
Philip K Dick doesn’t spend a lot of pages describing this devastated world. We don’t learn much about its political regime. Countries still exist, including the USSR. We don’t know how people entertain themselves, except that their Oprah Winfrey is named Buster Friendly. They have a new religion, Mercerism and people fuse with Mercer, the guru of that cult. The fusion allows them to share feelings and emotions.
Rick is on the police force as a bounty hunter; his job is to “retire” androids that would live on Earth among humans, which is totally illegal. As technology advances, androids resemble more and more to humans and the only way to differentiate a human from an android is to pass a test named the Voigt-Kampff profile test. It is based upon the assumption that only humans feel empathy for fellow humans or for animals. The test registers tiny reflex reactions to questions involving animals or humans in situations which would make a human flinch.
At the moment, a new generation of androids has been created, the Nexus-6 and they’re harder to find among humans. Rick has now a new assignment. His colleague Dave has been injured by an android he had to retire and is in the hospital, unable to finish the job. Rick needs to finish it and has to retire six Nexus-6 androids. The task is not easy. To help him, he’s sent to the Rosen Association which creates androids for the colonies and the goal of his visit is to ensure that the Voigt-Kampff test is relevant to pick out Nexus-6 androids. At the time his assignment arrives, Rick is already questioning his life-style, his job and he’s obsessed with genuine animals. For example, he keeps the catalogue of the pet shop with him and acts about pets as men usually act about fancy cars.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is not a political novel. I saw it more like an existentialist novel, although I’m not sure it is the right adjective. The central question of the book is “What is the essence of humanity?” The androids act more and more like humans and Rick starts feeling empathy for them. He questions his own humanity. What does it mean to be human? Philip K Dick bases its novel on the philosophical concept that empathy is what differentiates humans from androids. Only living beings can feel empathy and make impulsive and irrational decisions fuelled by empathy. As a coincidence, the day I finished the book, I heard a radio show on France Inter named Sur les épaules de Darwin. It was about scientific experiments on empathy and the link between scientific discoveries in that field and philosophical thinking on that very concept. They said that Marcus Aurelius and then Adam Smith and then Darwin supported this theory.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a novel about the human condition and a quest for identity. Rick wonders How am I a man? How do I remain a man? Or shall I say a Mensch? Frontiers start to blur when he interacts with Rachael. He doesn’t recognise her as an android right away. He meets with androids that are sure to be human. Rick craves for natural interactions with people. He’s not sure that it is right to retire androids any more. He thinks he’s killing them, not retiring them. He has empathy for machines and it affects his work. Doubt about his job creeps in his mind but events always bring him back on the right track. Androids are not human beings. Even sophisticated androids betray themselves in stress situations: they don’t react as humans and don’t understand the humans’ reactions around them as they are irrational. Philip K Dick seems to say: “See, humans are too complex to be copied”. Irrational is hard to imitate, to program: these humans have foolish reactions and can have feeling for machines.
At the beginning, I saw Rick as another Montag, the hero of Farenheit 451. Both are married men with questionable jobs. Both meet a woman who unsettles their vision of life and of themselves. Both start questioning the rightfulness of their profession. This new acquaintance happens at a moment in their life where they were ready for a change. When Montag rejects the society he lives in and joins the resistance against it, Rick has a more personal quest about his place on earth. Montag chooses to fight against institutions; it makes sense. Rick struggles against himself to fight his angst and life seems absurd. I couldn’t help thinking about Malraux, Camus and Gary. I don’t have enough education to elaborate that thought but that’s where the book led me to. It is set in an imaginary reality but Rick’s quest is ours.
When I closed down the book, I thought “I didn’t like it”. I would have stuck to that opinion if I didn’t have the rule to write about all the books I read. Writing the billet helped me see how interesting and complex this novel is. It is not easy and I’m glad I’ve read it, although I didn’t enjoy myself. I’d rather read Camus to think about that kind of concept. Or Romain Gary.
For another review, discover Brian’s here.
We, damaged people
Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem by Arthur Miller. 1949. French title: Mort d’un commis voyageur.
You’re going to read about theatre again as I renewed my subscription to the city theatre. The first play we chose was Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. I read it before attending the play and I was both excited and curious when I entered the theatre. Excited to see the play on stage as I found it very good on paper and curious to see what the director would do with the numerous stage directions Miller included in his text.
Willy Loman is the salesman mentioned in the title of the play. When the lights appear on the stage, Willy is coming home from work, it’s late, he’s exhausted. His wife Linda wakes up and greets him. We quickly learn that he’s over 60, that he has worked as a salesman for the same company since 36 years and that he’s in charge of New England sales for his company. He travels the whole week and comes back on weekends.
But tonight, Willy is distraught and came back home on a Monday night when he should have been in Boston. He can’t drive anymore because he can’t focus enough. He was almost in an accident and when back driving very slowly, afraid as he was to kill someone in a car crash. Willy is no longer a good salesman, he’s burnt out and his employer stopped paying him a salary, he lives on commissions.
Willy and Linda make too much noise and wake up their sons Biff and Happy. Biff has come after a three months errand and at 34, he’s not settled yet. Happy usually lives by himself but is back in his old room for now.
The play has two intertwined stories. In the first place, it’s Willy’s story, his professional fall and his small life. Willy is a true believer in the American dream and its pendant, the consumer society where you buy on credit. He constantly regrets not following his brother Ben in Alaska to seek fortune. Ben died a rich man. Willy has lived the life of a middle-class man: he worked to support a wife, two kids, buy a car, a house and all kinds of domestic equipment but starts doubting, now that he’s older:
Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it.
And with hindsight, his life seems a bit meaningless.
Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it’s broken! I’m always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it’s on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when you finally paid for them, they’re used up.
With the loss of his professional standing, his confidence is shattered and he speaks to himself aloud, ruminating conversations with his brother Ben or with Biff. Willy worked for a better life for himself and a better life for his boys but he failed miserably on both sides.
Biff has tried dozens of different jobs and can’t keep one for a long time. He never had a serious relationship with a woman and is nowhere near getting married. All this isn’t a choice but the result of a vast personal failure. His younger brother Happy works in company, usually lives in his apartment and is a womanizer. Sex is almost an addiction, he sorts of suffer of the all-whores-but-mommy syndrome. Here are the two brothers talking about women and sex:
HAPPY: I get that any time I want, Biff. Whenever I feel disgusted. The only trouble is, it gets like bowling or something. I just keep knockin’ them over and it doesn’t mean anything. You still run around a lot?
BIFF: Naa. I’d like to find a girl—steady, somebody with substance.
Willy’s relationship with Biff is broken and the clue to the damage only comes at the end of the play. They can’t communicate and we soon understand that Biff had a brilliant American future before him: he was popular in school, a good football player, he had scholarships for university. But he failed his math final in high school and never graduated. All his hopes of glory and a good job evaporated with this.
As the story unravels before our eyes we understand Willy’s responsibility in Biff’s failure. He never had his feet on the ground, indulged his sons in everything. They lived in a mutual adoration fueled by Linda’s blind adoration for her husband. This is a family where people don’t see reality as it is but nurture childish dreams of grandeur, a family where nobody questions Willy’s opinion or vision. He can only be right and no one could undermine his confidence. Willy is the king of his family but the king is naked. He isn’t open to advice or to the thought that he might be mistaken. Unfortunately, he based his faith in life upon the silly concept that to be successful, you must be popular, loved and daring. Isn’t that childish?
The play is powerful, painfully up-to-date when it comes to Willy’s work life and the treatment of senior employees in companies. It made me think about my carrier and brought me back to a question I’ve already asked myself many evenings: how on earth will I be able to work at the same rhythm as today when I’m 60? What will become of us in such a competitive corporate world when we’re old? How can a play written in 1949 resonate that strongly on that part? Perhaps it’s because working conditions are going backwards nowadays or because so many young people in their twenties have difficulties finding a permanent job and settling down.
The family dynamics gives a universal tone to the play and deals with the parents-children interactions. Do we expect too much of our children? How can you raise children to be themselves, unique, detached from you and pursuing their own goals and not the ones you decided for them, while giving them the right amount of guidance for them to have the best chance to make the most out of their potential?
On a literary point of view, Miller managed to break the codes of theatre. There is no unity of time, place or action here. Some scenes are flash backs from Biff’s adolescence and help the spectators understanding the events that led this family in this cul-de-sac. They also show Willy’s appalling principles of education or lack of principles actually. The characters are at the Lomans’ but some scenes are in a restaurant or in the office of different side characters. It’s like a film.
Death of a Salesman is Miller putting the American dream to pieces: Family? Dysfunctional and toxic. Climbing the social ladder? Useless. Working hard? What for? To buy more? This play is clever, witty, profound and powerful. For those who don’t like reading theatre, my friend watched the film directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Dustin Hoffman plays Willy and John Malkovich plays Biff. The scenario was written by Arthur Miller. I heard it’s excellent.
PS: one last quote, for the road:
CHARLEY: Willy, the jails are full of fearless characters.
BEN [clapping WILLY on the back, with a laugh at CHARLEY]: And the stock exchange, friend!
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. 1920. French title: Le temps de l’innocence.
We start our new reading year with The Age of Innocence and it’s a breathtaking start. If the other books are half as good as this one, this new Book Club year is going to be a treat. I had seen the film by Martin Scorcese (1993) but I didn’t remember all the details so it didn’t spoil my reading. Except that I couldn’t think of the main character, Newland Archer differently from picturing Daniel Day-Lewis, who proved to be a good choice of actor. But back to the book.
New-York, 187– Newland Archer is a young member of the high society, well-bred, well-integrated, a perfect model of the New-York gentleman.
Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man. Conformity to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second nature. It was deeply distasteful to him to do anything melodramatic and conspicuous, anything Mr. van der Luyden would have deprecated and the club box condemned as bad form.
He’s in love with May Welland, a beautiful product of the society he’s accustomed to. May is young, innocent, pure; Newland sees her as the lily-of-the valley he sends her everyday.
Countess Ellen Olenska is May’s cousin; they have the same grandmother, the eccentric and domineering Catherine Mingott. Her realm is her family and she’s a tough sovereign. Ellen was raised abroad by the black sheep of the family, Medora Menson. Ellen married the Count Olenski in France and has now done the unthinkable: she left him and came back to America. The Mingotts show their support by taking her to the opera, where everybody can see her and their intention to reintegrate her in the high society. Newland knows her, he used to play with her as a child and he thinks the Wellands quite daring to expose her to the eyes of the society after what she’s done. He frowns at the idea that the Mingotts back up Ellen but soon feels he could help his future in-laws in a move. If they announce his engagement to May, two families will be behind Ellen and ease her return.
That’s what he does, that’s what happens. The only problem is that Ellen doesn’t slip that easily into a New-Yorker’s clothes. She’s been living abroad for too long and unconsciously disregards many unspoken rules with unaffected manners. Newland tries to help her into fitting in her new environment. Ellen has the intellectual vitality May is lacking. She’s more spontaneous in her language and her actions, less willing to abide by the rules if they go against her moral integrity or what she thinks is right. She’s a catalyst for Newland. He already ached for a more satisfactory life. In his New-York, the intellectual life and the high society life exist in two parallel universes, contrary to Paris where Ellen used to live. No literary salons there, despite Medora Manson’s attempt to settle one:
Medora Manson, in her prosperous days, had inaugurated a “literary salon”; but it had soon died out owing to the reluctance of the literary to frequent it.
So Newland meets with writers in their neighbourhood and endures dull diners in his world. He’s drawn to Ellen and genuinely tries to help her find a middle ground between her need for freedom and the level of independence the social will tolerate. They soon fall in love. She’s married and can’t get a divorce as it would be a society suicide. He traps himself into a marriage with May. What’s going to happen to them?
I love Edith Wharton. The whole story is told through Newland’s eyes and she has a talent for sensitive young men. I was fond of Ralph when I read The Custom of the Country and I’m fond of Newland now. Her male characters appear to be trapped in their lives, not freer than women to live their lives as they wish. The mothers are manipulative and families keep young people in iron claws. Nothing escapes their attention. They will do anything needed to avoid scandal and preserve peace.
Newland has modern expectations about his wife. He’d like May to be more curious about books, to be willing to learn new things but she’s not. And as he admits it years later, how could she be?
Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied. There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May’s only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration.
I don’t know why, but I don’t like the word wifely. It might be perfectly neutral in English but to me it sounds like a condescending word to talk about a brainless married woman. Is it because it rhymes with silly? May wasn’t raised to use her brain for abstract thinking. She was raised to be pretty, well-bred, knowledgeable in all kinds of social rules. She’s more outdoorsy. She wouldn’t be an accomplished woman in the Austen world: she can’t stitch and she can’t sing or play an instrument. She lives in a narrow world and is perfectly happy with it. She’s a mystery to me. How can she cling to a fiancé who only likes her? Perhaps she does because she has a very practical vision of marriage: on paper, he’s a catch. She knows everything and lives with it. And she’ll participate to anything that will her world stay as it is.
Edith Wharton paints a scary picture of the New-York society of that time. It’s a spider’s web knit with tight family knots. Don’t try to walk out of the admitted path, don’t threaten the web with liberal views on women and marriage, don’t try to change the rules. Why did that microcosm put so much effort to part Ellen and Newland? It’s a world where the individual has no weigh, no importance. Only the community counts. Yes, Newland was well-read but ill-prepared to face the world anyway. He’s too innocent: he thinks he hides his feelings but he doesn’t. (Strange as you always think you can conceal your interest in someone and always fail because whatever you do, you never behave naturally). And May isn’t as innocent as it appears. Like in The Custom of the Country, women are more shrewd and manipulative than men.
If I had read The Age of Innocence twenty years earlier, Newland and Ellen would have infuriated me. I would have liked them to elope, put everything behind and be happy or at least take the chance to be happy. Now I understand them. I’ve had enough years of compromising to understand that you cannot just do what you want and disregard the consequences of your choices for the people who love you. The tone is melancholic and this novel made me think. Is their choice wisdom, generosity or cowardice? Is it worth it? Is their sacrifice worth it? It might as it keeps their love beautiful. I also understand Newland and his questionning. He lived his life as an active member of his community but the best part of him was dead all along. He wasn’t strong enough to liberate himself from the impact of his education. And if he had? He didn’t have it in him to live as a pariah; he wasn’t adventurous enough to start over abroad. He would have been like a fish out of his bowl and he had the insight to acknowledge it. Is his life a waste?
This novel is a masterpiece written in a delicate prose unravelling feelings, motives and the workings of a smothering society. It shows the violence hidden in the smooth politeness of boudoirs and dining rooms. In French, we say, “an iron hand in a velvet glove”. As for the relationship between Ellen and Newland, now I want to read La Princesse de Clèves again.
Kennedy and me by Jean-Paul Dubois
Kennedy et moi by Jean-Paul Dubois. 1996 Not translated into English. (*sigh*)
| Je m’appelle Samuel Polaris. Mon nom ne doit pas vous dire grand-chose. Dans la profession, on m’a toujours considéré comme un auteur sympathique mais secondaire. Quelqu’un de lisible mais de mineur. Un saisonnier de la littérature. Je n’avais pas à me plaindre de cette situation, d’autant que, dans son ensemble, la critique me ménageait. Jusqu’au jour où, invité d’une émission littéraire, en direct, à la télévision, j’ai refusé de réagir aux questions que l’on me posait. Je n’avais pas prémédité cette attitude. Simplement, lorsque le présentateur s’est adressé à moi, j’ai marqué un temps d’hésitation avant de répondre. Séduit par ce vide, j’ai senti que je devais en rester là et retenir mes phrases comme un plongeur sous-marin retient sa respiration. J’ignore encore pourquoi je me suis comporté ainsi, mais, ce jour-là, moi qui suis en permanence hanté par le doute, je sais que j’ai fait preuve de dignité. Devant ces caméras, face à tous ces gens, mon silence était une forme d’obscénité. J’étais assis sur mon siège, immobile, calme, buté, et je laissais fondre les mots dans ma bouche. Au cours de cette longue apnée, il m’a semblé que mon père, mort bien des années auparavant, était à mon côté et m’encourageait.Lorsque toutes les tentatives pour me faire desserrer les mâchoires eurent échoué, il se trouva quelqu’un d’assez lucide pour proposer d’interrompre l’émission. C’est ce moment que je choisis pour sortir de mon mutisme. Je me levai comme un homme qui s’apprête à faire une déclaration et poussai un cri interminable, un cri terrifiant qui remonta de mon ventre. Ensuite, je ramassai mes affaires et sortis sans bruit. | My name is Samuel Polaris. It probably doesn’t mean anything to you. In my profession, I’m considered as a nice but secondary writer. Readable but minor. A seasonal worker of literature. I couldn’t complain about it, especially since most of the critics left me alone. Until the day when, as a guest in a literary talk-show broadcasted live, I refused to react to the questions I was asked. I hadn’t planned this attitude. However, when the anchorman talked to me, I hesitated before answering. Seduced by this void, I felt I should remain silent and hold back my sentences like a diver holds their breath. I still ignore why I behaved like this but that day, I who is always haunted by doubt, I know I was full of dignity. Before these cameras, in front of all these people my silence was a form of obscenity. I was seated on my chair, immobile, quiet, and stubborn and I let the words melt in my mouth. During this long apnea, it seemed that my father, who had died years before, was standing by my side approvingly. When all attempts to make me utter a word failed, eventually someone was lucid enough to suggest ending the show. I chose this moment to come out of my absolute silence. I stood up like a man ready to make a speech and I yelled a long cry, a terrifying cry coming from my guts. Then I picked up my things and left silently.(My translation) |
I know this is a long quote but it represents well the tone of this fantastic novel.
Samuel Polaris is 46, he’s a writer and he hasn’t been able to write a line after the episode he relates in the previous quote. He just stays home, idly spending his days in his office with a beautiful view on the ocean. His wife Anna is a speech therapist in a private clinic. She’s been cheating on her husband for three years with the clinic’s ENT specialist. Samuel knows it but doesn’t care. Samuel and Anna have three grown-up children and they don’t understand them anymore. Sarah, the eldest is finishing school to become orthodontist. She chose this career path for money and heads to a petit-bourgeois life. Nathan and Jacob are twins and work in the Internet industry. They are some kind of geeks, talk in binary mode and have that secret understanding only twins have. Samuel doesn’t relate to them and to be fair, Anna doesn’t either.
The novel is a first person narrative, giving us a direct access to Samuel’s troubled thoughts. It’s intertwined with Anna’s point of view, told by an omniscient narrator. Samuel is depressed and he slowly drifted away from family life. His children are materialistic strangers, creatures from a generation he doesn’t understand. He has now sunk to the depths of his own black pool of misery. He buys a gun. (Note to American readers: this is not a common thing in France) Will he manage to give a kick at the bottom and resurface to the light of life?
The best adjective to describe this book is FRENCH. It’s introspective, seen from the side of a man who doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. It was made into a film and, as the cover of my copy gives it away, the director chose Jean-Pierre Bacri to play Samuel’s part. A perfect choice. He has the physic, the voice, the right frown and the right pout to impersonate Samuel. I even wondered if the scenario wasn’t written before the book. Now, I want to watch the film and I could imagine it. Dubois’s style is excellent, sober and yet powerful. He was born in 1950 like Samuel and he might have poured some parts of him in this novel.
Dentists have several parts in this novel as Samuel suffers from an acute tooth ache at some point and as Sarah and her boyfriend are dentist-to-be. I don’t know how it is in other countries but in France’s imagery, the dentist is a symbol of a greedy, petit-bourgeois and snob person. Dentists are supposed to make a lot of money, charge a lot for their work and enjoy their wealth. It’s not as noble as being a doctor, as if they chose dentistry because they failed in medical school. I wonder why they are so mocked; after all, anyone with a tooth ache will tell you they are very useful. Perhaps it stems from the difficulty to bond with a human being who works on your teeth with a surgical mask while your mouth is wide open. It doesn’t foster communication, does it?
A character who is a writer, who experiences a mid-life crisis, who lives beside the ocean, probably in Biarritz since Dubois refers to surfers, a wrecked marriage, difficult children, all this sounds like a book by Philippe Djian. The two writers are from the same generation but don’t have the same sense of humour. Dubois has a dark sense of humour and applies it to situations while Djian is more into self-irony. However, if I’d read Kennedy et moi without knowing the name of its author, I would have guessed Djian.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that this novel was translated into English. Dubois’s other novel Une Vie française is available in English but I didn’t enjoy it as much as this one. Well, you still have the film…
Remarkably boring
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. 2009. French title: Prodigieuses créatures.
Remarkable Creatures is this month read for our book club Les Copines d’abord and it is also a readalong for other bloggers interested in reading this novel. I’m afraid this review is going to be a breach in the book blogging etiquette: I abandoned the book of my own readalong. Of course, I feel guilty and at the beginning I wanted to stick with it and endure it until the end for the sake of that readalong. But I had to acknowledge that I started to shy away from the book and I’d rather not read at all than read it. That was the final blow, I stopped exactly at page 111 and the book has 415 pages.
In appearance, Remarkable Creatures has several ingredients of a book I should like. It is set in Lyme Regis, England, a place I visited last year and it’s always nice to read a book when you know the setting. It happens in the King George era, like Austen’s novels. It is the story of a friendship between two women who have a very unladylike passion for fossils. It tells the real story of Mary Anning, a paleontologist and her struggle to reach recognition in a men’s world and in a world where science was for upper classes. Feminism, history, 19thC England, all these are good tags for me.
Now, why didn’t I like it? I have a French edition, so my English has nothing to do with it. I guess it’s all Ms Chevalier’s fault. I was bored with the fossils. Fossils, fossils and more fossils. So many fossils names and no scientific explanation; I didn’t even have the satisfaction to learn something nor was my curiosity picked enough to research the names on the internet. And the style! It took Ms Chevalier twenty pages to describe how they detached a crocodile fossil from the cliff and all in a dull style. I didn’t get attached to the characters, which is the basis for that kind of book to work. It could have been a thorough description of the life in a quaint little English town, but no. In the 111 first pages, there is no hint of social analysis, no hope for psychological insight in the characters’ inner minds. Eveything is a flat tale in alternate voices as the two women take turn to relate the events.
I’m quite alone is this assessment of Remarkable Creatures. It has a 4.5 stars rating on Amazon and 4 stars on GoodReads. So don’t be put off by this review, the problem probably comes from me.
As an aside, here are other reviews from French bloggers:
De ma Plume à vos Oreilles and Miss Alfie at Miss Alfie, Croqueuse de livres
After the Book Club meeting.
Well, I feel less alone. They finished it but also found the style flat, without any flavour. Although the themes were appealing (religion, feminism, the beginnings of a science), the story wasn’t interesting. For example, none of us remembered the characters’ names, which is a really bad sign. They didn’t learn anything about fossils, even after 400 and some pages. When I asked them to relate the story, it was difficult since the plot was rather thin.
I know, I know, this was not really chivalrous towards Ms Chevalier but is it my fault if the book is tasteless?
Not the best read of the book club so far. I’m looking forward to reading the reviews of the other participants to this readalong.
Don’t worry, I’m fine, they all say
Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas by Olivier Adam. (155 pages). Not translated in English. The title means : Don’t worry, I’m fine.
I decided to read Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas by Olivier Adam, after watching the eponymous film directed by Philippe Lioret. The film upset me and left me with terrible questions about right and wrong. In order to better understand the characters, I bought the novel. The title means “I’m fine, don’t worry”. But who is fine? Claire, Loïc, their parents Paul and Irène?
The first part of the book pictures Claire and her automatic life. She works as a cashier at a Shopi, a French equivalent of a 7/11. This jobs requires no brain and that’s fine with her. She’s suffering. She’s thinking of Loïc all the time. What he would do. What he would say. What he would think. Loïc is Claire’s little brother. They are as close as twins. Loïc is absent. And his absence changed Claire into a robot. Her parents are silent, loving but silent, ill at ease with their feelings. We don’t know where Loïc is, just that he is physically absent but present in all Claire’s thoughts. A ghostly presence at her side and haunting questions.
Second part. A flash back. Claire comes home from holidays. Loïc is gone, the parents say. He and Paul had a dreadful fight. He left six days ago and hasn’t called since. Claire sinks, stops eating, lets herself wither with chagrin. She wants to die. She feels hollow, a living part of herself is missing. One day, a postcard. Loïc wrote to her. He’s fine, he wants to travel. And from this moment, every now and then, a post card. “I’m fine, don’t worry.” Claire still feels hollow but her death-wish fades away.
Third part. Claire struggles to move on, decides to go to Portbail as Loïc’s latest postcard comes from there. And I won’t say more about the plot.
After watching the film, I wanted to read the novel. After reading the novel, I needed to write about it, not type, but write with a pen the words pouring out of my head. Because the story touched me and the atmosphere wrapped me in a veil of gloom.
Adam writes in a staccato style, figuring Claire living like a robot. He captures Claire’s automatic life, how she feels ill at ease everywhere. Out of place. Not in the mood. Alien. He portrays France in the 1990s, the quiet suburbs around Paris, with fathers and husbands like Paul, commuting everyday, spending two and a half hours per day in the suburb trains. (RER) Claire and Loïc’s childhood sounds like any childhood of middle-class children from that time. They are ordinary people. Spot on. Such are also the descriptions of the parties among Parisian students, not asking what one studies but where. Snobs who look down on the poor cashier.
This novel made me think of Skylark by Deszö Kosztlányi. Not that Olivier Adam is as talented as Kosztlányi. But there’s a recurring theme: “How children suffer for their parents, and parents for their children”. How they can suffer side by side, knowing what the others are feeling but never telling it. Saying it aloud would only increase the pain greatly. Better do anything rather than inflicting pain on their beloved ones?
Adam’s book hasn’t been translated in English. It’s easy to read in French, not too much slang, not too many complicated words. I felt the melancholy and a sort of nostalgia when reading about the food references, the music, the prices in francs. For those who can’t read French, I recommend the film. Philippe Lioret has done a wonderful job there. He encapsulated the atmosphere of the novel. He turned the words into images on the same tune. Mélanie Laurent (Claire) and Kad Merad (Paul) are excellent in their roles. Watching the film is as good as reading the book, and that doesn’t happen so often.
In case anyone is interested, the DVD I have includes English subtitles and French subtitles for the hearing impaired.
Book Around the Corner 