I love the book and the look of words the weight of ideas that popped into my mind I love the tracks of new thinking in my mind. Maya Angelou
Today broughtI love the book and the look of words the weight of ideas that popped into my mind I love the tracks of new thinking in my mind. Maya Angelou
Today brought the news of Dutch poet Astrid Lampe winning the esteemed PC Hooft poetry prize for her oeuvre; it struck me how the words of Maya Angelou illustrate Lampe’s point of view that in the light of the much being unpalatable in the world, poetry, like other art forms, helps to keep breathing and find mental space amidst the chaos of global crises.
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The year 2023 started excellently reading-wise. Once summer began, things however changed pretty drastically and this reader arrived in (mostly self-inflicted) stormy weather. The winds of change are still blowing and so I have to brace myself that the beginning of 2024 will probably be too turbulent and busy for reading much as well.
In short, I read considerably less than in previous years. I hadn’t the time to concoct reviews and to my frustration didn’t manage to finish a couple I started, having lost the notes that I jotted down haphazardly. I haven’t rated half of the books I read (yet?) and this year abandoned more books than I did in the forty-five years of reading before, which was quite unsettling for a compulsive book finisher. Or I was too fidgety to continue or I quit because I wasn’t able to give a book the attention it deserved. My deepest regret (and shame) is that while I managed to dedicate some of the rare reading time to four books on Michel de Montaigne I got hopelessly stuck in reading the essays of the man himself. Silliness, thy name is…yes, I know.
In hindsight, I am glad that about half of the best reads were books that have been on my shelves for years and which I finally managed to read. Nonetheless, how could I resist treats like The Blindfold or Paris kindly offered by the wonderful local library?
The most delightful book experiences this year were linked to a week of multiple visits to the feline bookshop Mon Chat Pitre in Aix-en-Provence – books and cats, as ever, making life good. Impossible to choose the one that is most lovely, soft, furry and beautiful: Marcel, Féfé, Plume, Sherlock, Tam, Colette, and Garfield, we are waving and wish you all well!
Nearing the end of the year, I am half-way through with Josyane Savigneau’s biography of Marguerite Yourcenar that has been collecting dust on the shelves for longer than I can remember, interspersed with indulging in reading the poems from the beauteous collection Books and Libraries: Poems that has been patiently waiting on the bed stand for the moment this reader would eventually calm down.
Even if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, when they come in the form of reading plans I allow myself some because it is such a pleasure to dream a little for the coming year: firstly, to give priority to the unread books towering at home (including some written by friends), secondly, because I want to be able to communicate in French when starting my new job in the capital, make a dent into the pile with French pockets (which miraculously grew on holiday in France).
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Wishing all of you who continue to make this warm, generous and brilliant bookish community a place of great inspiration and joy a wonderful 2024 – may it be more gentle to the many who are afflicted by terror, cruelty and suffering worldwide....more
I don't photograph life as it is, but life as I would like it to be. — Robert Doisneau
For someone who is in love with Paris, this collection of 560I don't photograph life as it is, but life as I would like it to be. — Robert Doisneau
For someone who is in love with Paris, this collection of 560 photographs of the French photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) is an absolute treat.
While I mostly associate images of nocturnal Paris with the photography of Brassaï, Doisneau’s photographs add a matutinal perspective on the city, widening the scope to street scenes in broad daylight. His exploring and documenting of Paris in black and white is often cheerful, with an eye for humour and the comical, shimmering with joie de vivre, celebrating life, love (Cosy kiss, 1950) and the beauty of Paris.
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Thematically organised (Paris by surprise, Paris for Parisians (les Halles, everyday Parisians, a home for tenants, Paris-by –the-Seine) Paris in Upheaval (occupation, resistance, liberation, demonstrations), Paris at play (fairs, cabarets and nightclubs, society, fashion) Paris in concrete, the book offers enchanting vignettes from the multifarious facets everyday life in Paris, a couple of snapshots from children’s play, love, a couple of glamourous events and magnificent portraits.
Particularly with his choices on the human figure Doisneau illustrates breezingly the French national motto of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, juxtaposing casually portraits of ordinary Parisians next to photographs of personalities that might ring a bell with the reader (Charles de Gaulle, Vercors, Prévert, Francis Ponge, Raymond Queneau, Juliette Binoche, Orson Wells, Alberto Giacometti (1958), Picasso, Colette, some couturiers (Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier)
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A couple of favourites are gems of storytelling condensed in just one image, for instance the accordionist on the cover picture or the picture of Anita, who could one of those characters with a shady past one encounters so often in the cafés and bars described by Patrick Modiano.
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The photographs are accompanied by fragments from the personal notebooks of Doisneau and some of these witty comments made me smile, for instance when he recounts of loitering around and so coming late to work because he preferred to capture the poetry of a gracious moment, taking a snapshot from a street scene that he finds amusing, savouring the urban spectacle during his strolls:
“One morning I had an appointment with a clutch of advertising people who were preparing a campaign to launch new washbasins in polystyrene – or was it polyester?
As usual, I was late, and as I was crossing the Tuileries I was held up by a van marked ‘Gougeon: Fine Art Movers.’
Once I saw the statues by Maillol, the washbasins completely slipped by mind.
It must have been about that time that the advertising agency stopped returning my calls.”
[image] Venus gone bust, 1964
For half of a century I pounded the cobblestones, then asphalt, of Paris, wandering up and down the city. The few images that now rise to the surface of the flow of time, bobbing together like corks on a swirling stream, are those taken on time stolen from my employers. Breaking the rules strikes me as a vital activity, and I must say I enjoyed indulging in it. [image] Diagonal steps 1953
[image] The centaur town hall of the 6th arrondissement 1971
Charm needs to be fleeting, Doisneau reflects , but glancing through this wondrous collection, I am grateful for Doisneau’s art to stop and capture time in his photographs....more
They both stared out at the parking lot. They didn't say anything. But they seemed to feel each other's insides now, as though the worry had made themThey both stared out at the parking lot. They didn't say anything. But they seemed to feel each other's insides now, as though the worry had made them transparent in a perfectly natural way.
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As soon as I started reading A Small Good Thing and recognized Ann Weiss at the bakery ordering the birthday cake decorated with a space ship for her son Scotty for next Monday morning, I realised I had read this story before - and even if I didn't want to continue because I was all too aware of what was coming, I was lost anyway, my memory hastening toward bringing it all back - the car accident, the hospital, the impotence of the doctors, the parents, the hard-working, purposeful baker, the phone calls. The begging for and make-believe reassurance, ever weaker, ever less confident, that everything will be fine and the child ok.
Yes, it is a heart-breaking story. Yes, it is even worse so the second time around.
A Small Good Thing is a powerful story touching on the fragility of life, cutting deep into the devastation of fear, guilt, grief, helplessness, pain and loneliness, showing how a shared experience of the sense of loss nevertheless connects people, ultimately thawing in some comfort coming in the shape of a simple, kind gesture that soothes the anger and the numbing pain, if only for a short time, on a moment the world seems to stand still, in a way that reminded me of the poem of Joy Harjo:
Perhaps the World Ends Here
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
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