“Pursuing the wild desire to live…” @Confingo @Mr_Dave_Haslam

If you’re anything like me as a reader, there are times when you really want to read something shorter which you can finish in one sitting. And having fought my way through the DDM book, I confess I was in that sort of mood… Fortunately, the TBR had the ideal read for me, by an author whose slim works have given me great delight in the past. The author is Dave Haslam, and I’ve previously read and loved his “A Life in Thirty Five Boxes” and “My Second Home“, both of which are part of his ‘Art Decades’ series which is published by Confingo Press, a lovely indie. Haslam is an excellent writer, bringing a wonderfully sharp eye to his subject and capturing place, time and events brilliantly. I have all of the books released so far in this series, and the new work is “Adventures Everywhere“; subtitled ‘Pablo Picasso’s Paris Nightlife‘, it does indeed explore that topic over its 66 pages – but it draws in so much more.

Picasso moved from his native Spain to Paris in October 1900, so at a time when parts of the city were more like outlying villages. Montmartre in particular, where he settled, was home to a whole community of artists, writers and bohemians; crucially, it was also cheap to live there, so ideal for an impoverished painter. There was a vibrant nightlife and cafe culture, plenty of ladies of the night and the surroundings were the perfect subjects and stimulation for the young artist.

Curiosity was key to the creativity around Picasso in Paris; a creative flow of ideas.

Haslam takes an interesting approach in his exploration of Picasso and his surroundings; he takes us through Picasso’s life, portraying the world around the painter, his friends, acquaintances and lovers, and of course the clubs, bars, resturants and the like which the artist would have visited. Inevitably, we meet up with other famous Parisians, from Cocteau to Apollinaire, Rousseau to Satie, and this wider look at the city shows just how intensely creative its residents were. Inevitably, wars affect the city and its artists; Apollinaire died in 1918 of Spanish flu, having been weakened by an injury in the First World War; and the Occupation of WW2 affected Picasso with his cafe life being disrupted.

Of courses, Picasso’s behaviour, particularly towards women, could be reprehensible and Haslam never shies away from showing the man as he was; and he gives due credit to those female artists whose light was unfairly dimmed by being around Picasso. Inevitably, as the artist aged and the 20th century moved on, his fame grew and those early years of struggle and camaraderie were lost.

What’s particularly interesting to me is the comparisons which Haslam draws with other groups of creative people over the decades. As he says:

Every generation comes to identify its version of the Bateau-Lavoir years, the years of hunger and creativity, courage and daring. Every generation makes its own culture, finds its own cafes, pubs, clubs, coffee bars, greasy spoons, cheap gathering spaces and takes on the world armed with fervent iconoclasm, and desperate for new forms of expression…

So perhaps it’s unavoidable that any group of creatives in their early years are drawn together and stimulate each other’s work, fragmenting as their life and art changes and develops; certainly that was the case with Picasso and his contacts.

Inevitably, this is one of those books which sends you off in different directions, wanting to explore all sorts of interesting things referenced in it; from Apollinaire’s poetry, particularly “Zone” in its translation by Beckett (and why is there so little of Apollinaire’s work available in decent translation???) to George Moore’s “Confessions of a Young Man”, there is much in the book which warrants investigation – I have a list to prove it…

“Adventure Everywhere” (which takes its title from an Apollinaire poem) was quite fascinating from start to finish. It’s a book which, despite its smaller size, is packed full of fascinating insights and all sorts of clever resonances between the past and more recent times. Haslam knows his subject well, and with his breadth of vision is able to draw in all kind of interesting facts about subsequent generations and how they too were part of Parisian night-life. Even though much of the Paris Haslam is writing about has now been demolished and replaced with unpleasant modern things (Primark!!), the poignant ending of the book lets you mentally squint a little and see the past. As you can tell, I loved this book as much as the others I’ve read from Haslam’s pen, and I’m just glad I still have some of the ‘Art Decades’ series on the TBR – highly recommend the whole lot!

 

“Civilization has just reached the ultimate stage of savagery…” #LeftBank #Paris

“Left Bank” by Agnes Poirier has been sitting on Mount TBR for a couple of years now; if I recall correctly, I picked it up in my local Waterstones when I had a book token, liking the sound of it. The subtitle is “Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940–1950”, and of course with a cover featuring Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus it was always going to appeal… However, although this book is a fascinating and engrossing read, I actually feel that the cover undersells it! 😀

Poirier is a French-born journalist and author, and has written in both English and French; here, the book is presumably written originally in the former. “Left…” is a book which explores life in France’s capital city during a decade of great change and disruption, with the focus mainly on Paris’s intelligentsia. It was a period which saw Nazi occupation, collaboration, liberation and reconstruction, and at the heart of all this were artists, poets, writers and philosophers – the people who seemed to shape French life in a way that the intelligentsia don’t in other countries.

As the book opens, Paris is a city full of intellectual life. Sartre’s first novel, “Nausea”, has been published in 1938, existentialism as a philosophy is gaining popularity, and he and Beauvoir set the tone for what the rest of Paris thinks. However, WW2 breaks out, and what follows will tear the city (and indeed the country) asunder. Poirer goes on to lead the reader through the War and occupation years, which were dark ones for Parisians, exploring the complex range of characters who lived in the city during that period, and how they negotiated the difficulties of occupation. Once Paris was liberated, the end of the war brought change to the whole of France; and the political and intellectual conflicts between left and right were intense and often violent. Poirier’s narrative runs until 1950, when the divide between East and West in the world was becoming hardened, and the decade which followed would see much of the world slipping into conservatism.

Poirier casts her net wide and the list of those involved in her story is huge; in fact, although she does provide a ‘Cast of Characters’ at the beginning, this is a smallish selection of those who feature, and it was occasionally hard to keep track of who was who. Obviously, the dominant characters are Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus, although interestingly Arthur Koestler is a key player. He’s also, unfortunately, not a pleasant man…. Boris Vian, a perhaps lesser known figure nowadays, plays a prominent part in the narrative, as does Beckett, and of course the many artists of Paris (notably Picasso) are a regular presence.

Paris during the Occupation (Bundesarchiv, N 1576 Bild-007 / Herrmann, Ernst / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

“Left…” delves deeply into life during occupation and reveals how complicated it was to cope with being under Nazi control. There were, of course, resistance movements; and yet some Parisians chose to accomodate or work with the German occupiers to either ensure the survival of Paris’s massive collections of art treasures, or to help other vulnerable Parisians survive, or just to make things easier for themselves. There is no doubt the privations were great, and Poirier is not judgemental re collaboration; in particular, the art of Paris would never have survived had it not been for the combined efforts of Louvre director Jaujard and German Count Metternich, sent to Paris by the Nazis to safeguard the art. Sometimes matters higher than loyalty to country came into play.

The Occupation had been a laboratory of moral ambiguity as in no other period in France’s contemporary history. The coexistence, for four long years, of heroism, passivity, cowardice and duplicity is, three-quarters of a century later, something France is still trying to come to terms with.

Once the war was over, the politics of France became particularly complex, with conflict between the communists, who had played such a major part in the resistance, and the forces of the Gaullists, both vying for power. In a way unlike any other country I can think of, Paris’s intellectuals were deeply involved in politics, trying to find a middle ground between the polar opposities of left and right wing. Their ‘Third Way’ was, alas, doomed to failure, but it would have been wonderful if they had managed to find some political balance. In fact, the book ranges outside Paris and explores the connections with the US, and the attraction Paris had for people from the other side of the pond. In particular, authors of colour such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin found that attitudes in Paris were completely different and that they didn’t encounter in Paris the racial harrassment they did in the states. Conversely, Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus all visited America and found it very different from Europe and so there was a kind of culture shock both ways. Poirer discusses the role of public intellectuals in France as something unique, and certainly I can think of no equivalent in Britain or the US, where intellectual discussion is rather frowned upon…

If most of the hopes laid at the feet of Paris intellectuals, writers and artists just after the Second World War were partly dashed by the force of bloc politics, and their own ideological and moral ambivalence, it remains that seldom before had a generation tried so hard to reinvent themselves and re-enchant the world.

Towards the end of the narrative, a younger generation start to appear, often young women unhappy to play second fiddle to the men. Francoise Sagan, Juliette Greco and Brigitte Bardot take their inspiration from Beauvoir’s lifestyle and work, taking life on their own terms – which is refreshing, because amongst the earlier generation, as usual, the women often play second fiddle to the men; putting up with their awful behaviour, working and supporting them without thanks or acknowledgement, and often being abandoned on a whim. As I mentioned above, Koestler comes out of the book as really unpleasant; his behaviour towards the women in his life seems to have been quite reprehensible.

As I said at the start of my review, I do feel that the cover undersells the book considerably, focusing as it does on the post-War period. As well as exploring the personal lives of its protagonists, “Left Bank” is a wide-ranging and long form work which takes a deep look at the effects of WW2 on France, the issue of collaboration, the politics, the post-war political conflicts all over Europe and even the development of the Cold War. Poirier brings a unique perspective to the history of the time, portraying a Europe stuck in the middle of the two great opposing forces which would everntually come together in a Common Market to secure their own political identity. “Left Bank” is an exhaustive, if occasionally exhausting, account of politics, love and sex, and how they all came together in Paris during a pivotal decade. A wonderful and engrossing read!

*****

Just managing to squeeze this review in before the end of the month and so I shall definitely count it for Non Fiction November! 😀

“…being a bit more Baudelaire…” – Sylvia Plath’s adventures in Paris @Mr_Dave_Haslam

I’ve commented before on what a bad influence Book Twitter is on my TBR, but if I’m truly honest I really don’t mind. I’ve come across some wonderful books thanks to my random wanderings online, and today’s post is about a case in point. I first stumbled on mention of this book somewhere on Twitter and because of the subject matter was instantly intrigued! The book is “My Second Home: Sylvia Plath in Paris, 1956” by Dave Haslam; and being a bit of a Plath addict, it was of course a must!

Haslam is a writer, broadcaster and DJ, renowned for over 450 DJ sessions at the famous (notorious?) Haçienda nightclub in Manchester. As well as writing for publications like the New Musical Express, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The Times, he’s also published five full-length books. “My Second Home” is what he calls a mini book, part of a series called ‘Art Decades’ and as well as being a moving read, it’s also a beautifully produced little book. Published by Confingo Publishing in a limited edition, it explores a pivotal time in Plath’s life – and I couldn’t put it down.

Before her first trip to Paris, in a letter to her mother, Sylvia said she yearned to see ‘the blazing lights and wonders of (the) city’. Paris, to Sylvia, was a mythical place which promised light and delight and deep experiences. Maybe we all have such places in our minds. Where we imagine uncaging ourselves and discovering the secrets of life.

In 1955/6 Plath’s life was in flux; she was in Cambridge on a Fulbright Scholarship, and trying to adjust to the contrast between 1950s America and 1950s Britain. Her relationships were also in flux; she’d spent Christmas 1955 in Paris with lover Richard Sassoon, often referred to as her ‘man that got away’. However, when she returned to the city for Easter 1956, Sassoon had done a bunk and basically broken off the relationship. Things were complicated by the fact that not long before decamping to Paris, Plath had had her fateful first meeting with Ted Hughes, subsequently spending the night before her departure to France with him in London. Haslam’s book follows Plath through that Easter visit to Paris, drawing on her letters and journals, and painting a picture of a woman enjoying her freedom, exploring the city, contemplating having flings with casual acquaintances and pondering her future.

“My Second Home” is beautifully written; Haslam captures wonderfully the sense of how Plath was feeling, her joy at being in Paris and her sense of adventure. Being a single and attractive woman in Paris in 1950s was not without risk, but Plath negotiated things carefully, relished meeting up with old friends and making contacts with strangers. In the end, having missed a number of letters which had been forwarded to Cambridge by mistake, she returned to Cambridge and Ted; we know how that played out, but Haslam captures quite brilliantly Plath at a turning point where the future wasn’t yet written.

That’s it though. Fate, decisions, a conversation with a stranger, a moment of irresponsibility, someone hearing your faint cry. And opportunities, choices, decisions. Richard, Ted: do the missing letters hold any clues? What’s being said? What decisions have been made? Questions were falling like rain on the Paris rooftops.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this lovely little book, but it was a real treat. Haslam puts Plath firmly in context, exploring briefly her life before Paris, and summing up the aftermath. He also gives hints of what was happening in the wider world, allowing us a kind of time travel back to 1956 so we can almost wander through Paris by Plath’s side. This is the Paris captured in the film “The Red Balloon”, something of a touchstone in the book, and it’s a Paris I would have loved to see. Although Haslam is even-handed in his portrayal of Plath and those in her life, I sympathised with his obvious annoyance with Hughes’s portrayal of Plath’s Parisian adventure; particularly in his “Birthday Letters” poem about the time the couple stayed in Paris together. Haslam takes issue with Hughes’s later version of events, his viewpoint that his interpretation of Paris was the best one whilst belittling Plath’s experiences; Haslam disagrees, touchingly allowing Plath her Paris.

‘I felt downright happy,’ she wrote in her journal. She describes how a calmness came over her that Sunday morning, an awakening. It’s a beautiful moment, Plath’s realisation of liberation and belonging: ‘I had as much right to take my time eating, to look around; to wander & sit in the sun in Paris as anyone’.

I read “My Second Home” in one sitting and absolutely loved it; for 57 pages I was in Paris with Plath, seeing it through her eyes, and it was a wonderful experience. I finished the book feeling as emotional about Plath as I always do, and thoroughly impressed by Haslam’s achievement with the book. It left me with the beautiful image of Plath tripping through the City of Light in her lightweight ballet pumps, happy and proud to be living her life – and that’s how I would like to think of her. A lovely little book and recommended for anyone who loves Plath.

The shining stars of the City of Light – over @ShinyNewBooks

I have a new review up at Shiny New Books today which I want to share with you, and it’s a book which turned out to be a particularly interesting read! Paris, the City of Light, holds a great fascination for me, as do its writers and artists. So when I was given the chance of reviewing a book which explored the creatives passing through Paris in the first half of the 20th century I jumped at the chance – and this is it!

Twentieth Century Paris (1900-1950) – A Literary Guide for Travellers by Marie-José Gransard takes a look at the city in what was a golden age. From Josephine Baker to Jean Cocteau, James Baldwin to Ernest Hemingway, the place was bursting at the seams with brilliant, creative people. It wasn’t all glitter, though, as characters like Jean Rhys and George Orwell found poverty did not go down well there.

The book is a fascinating read, and made me wish for a time travel machine! You can read my full review here. 😀

On My Book Table…7 – modest ambitions!

After the excitement of all the reading and sharing from the #1920Club I was as usual a bit uncertain as to what I wanted to read next. I went for some Golden Age crime of various sorts, but then I decided it was time to have a bit of a reshuffle of the book table to see if I could focus on books I fancied tackling in the immediate future. Plus, a few new titles have made it through the blockades so I thought I would share those too! So here we go…

First up, let’s take a look at the contents of the Book Basket. Some of these are the same as when I last  shared this on social media – the Nairn and the two Huysmans are still WIPs. However, another sneaky little Notting Hill Editions hardback has crept in, in the form of Roland Barthes’ “Mourning Diary” – yes, another addition to my growing Barthes pile! That’s a recent arrival, as is the Dickinson volume. I’ve had a skinny Faber selected volume of her poems since my teens but I’ve been hankering after a complete edition for some time now. When I saw this one available for a reasonable price I snapped it up – ideal for dipping!

Chunksters! Let’s have some big books! All of these have been hanging around waiting for me to notice them for some time now; the Mollie Panter-Downes “London War Notes” volume is a beautiful Persephone I picked up some time back when they had a special offer. It seems like it would be apt reading for these times. The Chateaubriand is a lovely review copy from NYRB (I need to catch up….) and what I’ve read so far has been fascinating. And Carlyle’s “French Revolution” jumped back into my line of sight recently when I read the marvellous Persephone Jane Carlyle book. All would be wonderful to sink into for hours…

Then we have a few random titles which happen to appeal, mostly unearthed after a recent reshuffle. The Colette is one I’ve intended to reread for ages, but somehow never get to despite it being the perfect recent read for 1920… The Bachelard is a more recent acquisition and one which my radar picked up again recently (you might understand why next week). And “I Burn Paris” had been started a couple of times; it’s a beautiful hardback Twisted Spoon edition and although the subject matter is perhaps going to be a little triggery in these pandemic times, I do want to get to it sooner rather than later.

Last but not least, some recent arrivals. Needless to say, because of Outside Circumstances, the books making their way into the Ramblings have reduced in number – no browsing in charity shops nowadays, alas. But I *am* acquiring the odd one or two! The NYRBs are review copies – thank you! – and I’m very excited about these, particularly the Malaparte. “The Yellow Sofa” was one I read about on Tony’s Book Blog and I loved the sound of it (and it’s slim…). “Paris Then and Now” is pretty pictures of the place – ’nuff said. And the Mansfield is a most lovely first edition of her “Novels and Novelists” collection of reviews which I snagged at a Very Reasonable Price online. Last, but definitely not least, “People, Places, Things” is a collection of Elizabeth Bowen’s essays. This is a scholarly publication – but why her non-fiction isn’t more widely available is a mystery to me as I love her writing.

So there you have it. Plenty of reading available for this strange lockdown world in which we find ourselves. As I write this, I’m just coming to the end of another wonderful and comforting Golden Age crime read from the British Library Crime Classics series; so where I go next is anyone’s guess… ;D

“As you walk around Paris do not take space for granted.” @_CopyPress #michaelschwab

Paris by Michael Schwab

As we’re all still confined to barracks, the only way left to travel is in films or books, and the latter is my preferred choice – I like to let the words take me on journeys. Paris is a place I’ve still not managed to visit but it has an endless appeal; however, a recent encounter via a slim book what not quite what I anticipated…

Imagine you were to pick up a book by a photographer apparently exploring the trees of Paris. You would expect maybe a glossy monograph filled with tastefully and beautifully taken images and lyrical commentary. “ Paris” by Michael Schwab is indeed a study of some trees in Paris, but it’s as unlike those expectations as you could imagine!!

Shwab is a German artist who takes a very individual view of his craft, and it’s his clever image which adorns the cover of this thought-provoking little book. Intriguingly, however, he takes as his central premise the idea of a photographer who sets out to snap the trees of Paris but has forgotten his camera. How to log and record what he sees? Instead of some kind of attempt to draw the foliage he instead devises a gadget and sets out chart the trees by a complex measuring method (set out at the start of the book). The result is an abstract diagram which represents the tree though of course looking nothing like it; yet which has a beauty of its own.

Each diagram is accompanied by text explaining where the measurements were taken, describing the location and also the response of local people to his actions. It’s a fascinating concept, somewhat Perecian to my mind; a visual constraint as opposed to a linguistic one; and the results really are singular. Despite the fact that the diagrams look nothing like trees, you still get a strong sense of place from the combination of the plan and the description; and the two have a kind of beauty of their own.

Space: In the drawings space is uneven. It is as if spaces move under my eye like waves in a sea that break and fold back onto themselves. When the figure is developed in the drawing, and imaginatively brought back to site, it is space that is affected first. The real, lived space starts to move too and all sense is reconfigured. This happens already when a site is measured and the figure emerges. The drawing give uneven space an established form, like a memory.

“Paris” is published by Copy Press in their ‘Common Intellectual’ series, a set of short 100-page works; according to the publisher, “each title makes a proposition for living, thinking and enjoyment.” Certainly this book make me think about representation; whether we can best capture a place by a simple snap, or whether thinking outside the box and looking more deeply gives a better impression. Schwab is London-based and so presumably wrote the text in English, and it’s evocative writing, capturing the artist in the process of undertaking his work and interacting with those around him. All in all, it adds up to a fascinating short book which is not really like anything else I’ve read.

An example of one of the diagrams from the Copy Press website: https://www.copypress.co.uk/index/paris/

This really was a most interesting experience, reading “Paris”; the more I think about it, the more I feel that Shwab is coming from a very Oulipian perspective, with the mixture of maths and words and constraints; even down to the cover photograph with the foliage reflecting the shape of the Eiffel Tower behind it. I’m still trying to remember where I stumbled across this one (possibly Twitter…), but I’m very glad I did. The Copy Press website lists some very tantalising titles, and I may have to explore a little further… ;D

On My Book Table…6 – a bit of a shuffle!

The world is a little bit scarier than usual at the moment, as we’re all quite aware, and so I’m trying personally to balance keeping my awareness of what’s happening at a sensible level and trying to keep myself on an even keel. Books have always been my go-to in times of stress and frankly are being a little bit of a lifeline right now. Anyway, after all the recent excitement of the #fitzcarraldofortnight, plus a number of new arrivals, I thought it was time to take stock and reorganise a little. Reading from one publisher is a lovely experience, but as I have so many other books lurking I wanted to try to clarify what I planned to pick up next. Of course, I never stick to reading plans, but it’s always fun to spend time shuffling books, as well as being very therapeutic… 😀

After spending some time digging among the stacks and moving books about, I ended up with a few piles I currently want to focus on and here’s the first:

This rather chunky pile has some of the weightier books (intellectually and literally!) that are calling right now. Some of these were in my last book table post, but some have snuck in when I wasn’t looking. There’s a lot of French writing there and both the Existentialist Cafe and Left Bank books sound excellent. Barthes is of course still hanging about in the wings even though I haven’t added him to the pile. I could go for a Barthes fortnight (or longer…) quite easily, but that might a bit brain-straining. Some of the volumes *are* reasonably slim so I might be able to slip them into my reading between bigger books – we shall see! 😀

Next up, some of the review books I have pending:

These are only *some* of the review books lurking, but if I put them all in a pile it looks scary and I panic, so I thought a modest selection would do. There are some beauties from the British Library Crime Classics and Science Fiction Classics range, as well as Camus and a classic Russian play and Frankenstein! They all sound so marvellous….

And this is the pile of recent finds or other titles I really want to read at the moment:

More French writing. The top two are books about French authors – I’ve read the start of each and they’re marvellous. The Queneau is short but essential (and another play! I’m reading more drama!!), the Hitchens and the Christiansen arrived recently, as did the beautiful Persephone (which I think I might well pick up soon). And the Makioka Sisters is there because there’s a readalong going on. I doubt I’ll get to it – I’ve failed every one so far this year, getting nowhere near either Proust or Musil. But it’s there just in case.

However, there *is* another pile of interest lurking. Coming up in April, Simon and I will be hosting the #1920club, the next in our themed weeks of reading from a particular year. I’ve been thinking ahead about which books I’d like to spend time with, and there really are some wonderful titles from 1920. I always try to read from the stacks and a quick dig revealed I had these books on the shelves:

All of them are beautiful titles, and most of them would be re-reads – which is not really what I want to do with the reading clubs. I have another new title lurking digitally which I am definitely going to overcome my aversion to e-reading and get to; but with the re-reads I shall have to be picky so that I can perhaps focus on unread books. Though it *would* be nice just to spend the week re-reading Agatha, Virginia and Colette…

And of course, just after I had finished writing this post, a lovely collection of review books popped through the door looking like this:

There are some wonderfully exciting titles there, including a new Crime Classic from the British Library; two editions from their new imprint focusing on Women Writers (which is being curated by Simon – well done, that man!); and a fascinating book on Artemisia Gentileschi with an introduction by Susan Sontag – how timely!

So there we go. The state of the books at the moment. I have just finished reading Lennie Goodings’ wonderful book about her life in the book trade and with Virago which I will eventually get to reviewing (I’m very behind…) – I highly recommend it. And I confess to being unsure as to what I’ll pick up next, although it may have to be escapism in the form of Golden Age crime. As usual, watch this space! 😀

“Dusk excites the mad.” #Baudelaire #Paris

Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Martin Sorrell

I’ve touched briefly on the French author Charles Baudelaire on the Ramblings in the past; but despite having several of his books lurking, it’s decades since I dipped into his poetry. The “Selected Poems” you can see on the pile in the picture has been with me since the 1980s, when I first began to really explore literature, but the rest of the volumes have arrived gradually over the years. I’ve meant to go back to his work many times, but it was reading “Orphic Paris” which gave me an attack of French Poetry (as those who follow me on social media might have seen…) Baudelaire was a constant touchstone in Henri Cole’s Paris and I thought it was about time I got down to actually reading some CB…

Dreams, always dreams! And the more the soul is ambitious and discerning, the greater the distance between dream and the possible.

“Paris Spleen”, a pretty little Hesperus Press volume that I’ve had for quite some time, contains 50 short prose pieces by Baudelaire which are considered just as revolutionary as his poetry was. His best-known work is the poetry book “The Flowers of Evil” (Les Fleurs du Mal), and apparently the pieces in “Spleen” often correspond with the poems in the former volume, almost considered as prose versions of the verse; I can’t really comment on that as yet, as it’s a looong while since I spent any time with “Flowers…” However, I think “Spleen” stands on its own as a marvellous work and could well be a good introduction to Baudelaire for those new to him.

The fifty pieces range in length and subject matter; some are no more than half a page, some stretch to four or more; and they’re anything from fables and allegories to poetic pieces of prose exploring Baudelaire’s thoughts, dreams and beliefs in all their variety. There is a streak of dark melancholy running through the work and a recurring motif of autumn; which is often a particularly bittersweet time of year and indeed time of life. It’s perhaps worth recalling that “Spleen” was published posthumously, and the dating of each piece can range over several years, as if Baudelaire revisited the pieces regularly to refine their final form.

She loves with autumn love, as though approaching winter were lighting a new fire in her heart, and the servility of her tenderness is never a burden.

“Paris Spleen” is not a jolly read, that’s for sure; Baudelaire was not a happy chappie and he has a dark view of humanity which is in places reminiscent of Poe. However, I’m very fond of Poe’s darkness and found myself equally drawn to Baudelaire’s spleen. (The fact that Baudelaire was a pioneering translator of Poe may have some relevance here…) Nevertheless there is great beauty and melancholy in his writing, and these vivid pieces linger in the mind. For example, one section tells of the narrator being brought face to face with an old and redundant circus performer; seeing this surplus member of humanity, Baudelaire predicts a destitute and useless old age for himself – which, for better or worse, he never reached, dying at the age of 46. The language is often heightened and melodramatic; there are tales of meeting with, and losing your soul to, the Devil; and love never goes well for our Charles…

…an exquisite autumn sky, one of those from which hosts of memories and regrets descend..

However, an additional element which needs to be born in mind is the time and place in which Baudelaire was living. The nineteenth century saw Paris being pulled to pieces and rebuilt and the descriptions of the city in these poetic vignettes often reflect this. One of the best-known pieces is “The Eyes of the Poor” (which you can find online easily, and which I’m sure I’ve read before). Although the story shows the impossibility of real communion and understanding between humans, an important element is the changing city. The poor characters are shown as being witness to changes taking place which are not for them, in their poverty, and this resonated strongly with my recent reading of “City of Light” for Shiny New Books, which of course covered the razing and rebuilding of Paris by Haussmann. Modernity is creeping into the world and that’s reflected in these stories, with so many of the characters appearing to be out of date and unneeded.

… the intoxication of Art dulls the terror of the void better than anything else…”

Étienne Carjat, Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, circa 1862 – Public Domain

“Paris Spleen” is translated and introduced by Martin Sorrell (who I believe has translated a number of French authors of this era) and I was interested to compare his rendering of what is possibly Baudelaire’s best known piece from this collection. No. 33 is here rendered as “Be drunk” and advises us to be in a permanent state of intoxication – whether from wine, poetry or virtue, it doesn’t seem to matter! (Poetry for me, please!) I’ve seen this translated as “Get drunk” and I think on the whole I prefer “Be drunk” as it kind of implies a permanent state, rather than something which has to be constantly refreshed!

… what does eternal hellfire matter to someone who for one second has known an infinity of joy?

Somehow, Baudelaire made perfect reading for a wet, dull Bank Holiday Sunday (yes, I’m that behind with my posts…) His writing is intense, beautiful, dark, evocative and melancholy, and his imagery memorable – well, he’s a poet writing prose, so it would be, wouldn’t it! I hadn’t realised he had such a reputation as an essay writer until I did a bit of online research and remembered I had a Penguin Great Ideas volume of his prose knocking about too. So I think I might be spending a bit more time in the company of this melancholy man in weeks to come – pass the absinthe, please!

“Evenings lit up by burning coals” (Baudelaire) @nyrbclassics @colehenri #paris

Orphic Paris by Henri Cole

That serendipitous book thingy’s been happening to me again. I was browsing the NYRB catalogue, and my eye was caught by the title of this one; and as someone who’s always been captivated by the thought of Paris, a look at the blurb was enough to convince me I should read it. Henri Cole is a poet, and a winner of numerous awards for his writing; he’s also taught widely and has been poetry editor of the New Republic. Yet in my ignorance I’d never heard of him (I’m *not* well-read in modern poetry if I’m honest); and the loss has been mine.

Poetry is a language that doesn’t shut us out; it should give the opposite experience.

“Orphic Paris” is Cole’s love-letter to a city he lived in, its denizens, and any number of poets; but so much more than that. I’ve seen it described as a kind of literary commonplace book, and it certainly combines a number of literary forms to paint its picture. It’s a beautiful collage of a book – photos, memories, stories, musings, poetic fragments, pieces of his own verse – all building up an image of the Paris Cole lived in and loved. The text is not limited to Paris alone, however; Cole explores his family background (his mother was a French Armenian, his father an American, and he was born in Japan) and the parts dealing with his relationship with his family are some of the most touching in the book. He also explores the connection that other authors have had with Paris and poetry, and the ghosts of Elizabeth Bishop, Baudelaire, Stein, Hemingway, Plath and Rilke, to name just a few, hover beautifully over the narrative. Baudelaire in particular is a regular touchstone, a writer connected to the heart of Paris.

I want to write poems that are X-rays of the soul in moments of being and seeing. This includes the ghastly, the insane, and the cruel, but also beauty, Eros, and wonder. In short, a poem is like a portrait. It is an artist’s most profound and expressive response to life.

The loose structure of the book allows Cole to meditate on all number of subjects; from his deep friendship with author James Lord to his thoughts on the art of writing poetry. The former are moving; the latter illuminating; they did much to enlighten me about the power I often feel poetry has over me and why I’ve responded so strongly to books, and also to people who use words well. The book ranges wide and free, stopping here and there on subjects such as AIDS, the introduction of same-sex marriages in France and the changes to values Cole has seen since he was a young man in the 1970s and 1980s. The latter aspects recur in the section dealing with the symbolism of roses as a flower and also their colour, tied in with sadness at the coming of HIV and its consequence.

Poetry is different from fiction. Poetry is not a lie that tells the truth. A poem must burn with a truth-seeking flame and be a small symphony of language, too.

Cole’s musings on Plath I found to be particularly thoughtful, and one section of the book focuses on bees, using their activity as an analogy for the work poets do. Plath, of course, drew heavily on beekeeping imagery, and I found myself pondering on the way some poets burn bright and then burn out. Of the seminal influence of Plath and the personal nature of her work, Cole comments perceptively:

I believed then, and I still do, that a poem is organized violence. Like Baudelaire, Plath extended the boundaries of the lyric, taking the reader deeper into the shadows of her sorrow during the final weeks and months of her life. Even today, in certain quarters, she is trivialized and dishonored because of the confessional nature of her poems.

Needless to say, the language is quite beautiful and evocative throughout; I suppose by definition, the prose of a poet will of course be poetic. The book is eminently readable, full of wisdom and wearing Cole’s love for the city on its sleeve. The small images, some taken by Cole and some from other sources, enhance the narrative – particularly when dealing with the poet’s family. And the Orphic connection? Well, for me Cocteau and his spellbinding film “Orphee” have always been inseparably linked to Paris; and both the classical Orpheus and Cocteau’s character were poets. I couldn’t helping thinking that Cole’s literary flaneuring was carrying on a great tradition…

To look inward and explore the darker corners of the soul is one of the functions of lyric poetry.

“Orphic Paris” is a gem of a book, and I’m so glad I stumbled upon it. The words are hypnotic; the pictures evocative; and the book invokes the spirit of Paris beautifully. Cole’s narrative builds to a beautiful, lyrical crescendo where he pours out what he loves about Paris and it’s extraordinarily moving. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the book is actually being released directly in the UK, as the NYRB catalogue states there are no UK rights. Fortunately, however, you can buy it from online sources (as I did!) and so you can get your own copy of this wonderful book, which I really urge you to do!

Photo by Nicolas Vigier, Public Domain

As for Henri Cole’s poetry, I’m going to make a point of going off to explore it; he has a website with some wonderful examples, and if his poetry speaks as strongly to me as this book did, I may have to end up with a dedicated shelf… 😀

Rebuilding the Parisian Landscape @ShinyNewBooks @HoZ_Books

It’s probably been fairly noticeable over the past year or so that I’ve developed quite an interest in the French Revolution (as well as the side aspect of iconoclasm during that conflict…); so when the opportunity arose to review a new book from Head of Zeus about the reconstruction of Paris during the 1800s, I was of course very interested indeed….

“City of Light” by Rupert Christiansen is a beautiful hardback book, lavishly illustrated and full of fascinating information about the knocking down of the mediaeval street plan and the building of the boulevards in Paris. It also puts the changes very firmly in context, clarifying much of what can be a very complex period of French history. The book raises a number of issues, and it struck a number of nerves with me. I find myself very conflicted about the amount of razing to the ground and rebuilding that happens nowadays, particularly when it’s done with little regard for the humans that have to live and work in the areas concerned.

By http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/ [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

And the changes taking place around Charing Cross Road and Soho in London I actually find really upsetting. When I first started visiting the area in the late 1970s/early 1980s, there were so many parts that had been unchanged for decades; you could wander down a little side street and find a cafe with 1950s formica tables and small glass coffee cups and saucers; and it was easy (and entertaining!) to get lost in the back streets of Soho. However, so much of that character has been knocked out of the area in the name of progress; and when I met up with my brother (plus Middle child and Partner) in January, he was cursing the gentrification of Soho, and how difficult it was for us just to find a damn pub to grab a quick drink in… I know where he’s coming from!

So this is a book that looks at a historical landmark that is still very relevant to what’s happening around us today. My review is at Shiny here, so please do pop over and have a look.