flaubert « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Are Novels the Private Histories of Nations? Quote of the Day (Flaubert via Dinitia Smith)

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:34:39 +0000

Many of the quotes of the day on this site have dealt directly or indirectly with the purpose of fiction, nonfiction or poetry. Dinitia Smith suggested one of the many functions of novels when she wrote in a recent review of Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture (Viking, 300 pp., $24.95) in the New York Times:

“Flaubert once wrote that novels are the private histories of nations.”

the genius is in the grammar

paperpools — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:17:07 +0000

Je lis seulement à l'instant ... l'article du distingué critique de La Nouvelle Revue française sur "le Style de Flaubert". J'ai été stupéfait, je l'avoue, de voir traiter de peu doué pour écrire, un homme qui par l'usage entièrement nouveau et personnel qu'il a fait du passé défini, du passé indéfini, du participe présent, de certains pronoms et de certaines prépositions, a renouvelé presque autant notre vision des choses que Kant, avec ses Catégories, les théories de la Connaissance et de la Réalité du monde extérieur.....

Le subjectivisme de Flaubert s'exprime par un emploi neouveau des temps des verbes, des prépositions, des adverbes, les deux derniers n'ayant presque jamais dans sa phrase qu'une valeur rythmique. Un état qui se prolonge est indiqué par l'imparfait.

... cet imparfait, si nouveau dans la littérature, change entièrement l'aspect des choses et des êtres, comme font une lampe qu'on a déplacée, l'arrivée dans une maison nouvelle, l'ancienne si elle est presque vide et qu'on est en plein déménagement. C'est ce genre de tristesse, fait de la rupture des habitudes et de l'irréalité du décor, qu donne le style de Flaubert, ce style si nouveau quand ce ne serait que par là. Cet imparfait sera à rapporter non seulement les parole mais toute la vie des gens. L'Education sentimentale est un long rapport de toute une vie, sans que les personnages prennent pour ainsi dire une part active à l'action.

La conjonction "et" n'a nullement dans Flaubert l'objet que la grammaire lui assigne. Elle marque une pause dans une mesure rythmique et divise un tableau. En effet où on mettrait "et" Flaubert le supprime..."Il voyagea, il connut la mélancolie des paquebots, les froids réveils sous la tente, l'étourdissement des paysages et des ruines, l'amertume des sympathies interrompues." Un autre aurait mis: "et l'amertume des sympathie interrompues". Maid cet "ete' là, le grand rythme de Flaubert ne le comporte pas. En revanche là où personne n'aurait l'idée d'en user, Flaubert l'empoie. C'est comme l'indication qu'une autre partie du tableau commence, que la vague refluante, de nouveau, va se reformer. ...En un mot, chez Flaubert, "et" commence toujours une phrase secondaire et ne termine presque jamais une énumération.

La très lente acquisition, je le veux bien, de tant de particularités grammaticales (et la place me manque pour indiquer les plus importantes que tout le monde notera sans moi) prouve à mon avis, non pas, comme le prétend le critique de La Nouvelle Revue française, que Flaubert n'est pas "un écrivan de race", mais au contraire qu'il en est un. Ces singularités grammaticales traduisant en effet une vision nouvelle, que d'application ne fallait-il pas pour bien fixer cette vision, pour la faire passer de l'inconscient dans le conscient, pour l'incorporer enfin aux diverses parties du discours!

... Les "après tout", les "cependant", les "pourtant", les "du moins" sont toujours placés ailleurs qu'ils l'eussent étés par quelqu'un d'autre que Flaubert... Flaubert ne craint pas la lourdeur de certains verbes, de certaines expressions un peu vulgaires (en contraste avec la variété de verbes que nous citions plus haut, le verbe avoir, si solide, est employé constamment, là où un écrivain de second ordre chercherait des nuances plus fines: "Les maisons avaient des jardins en pente." "Les quatre tours avaient des toits pointus.")

...

Si j'écris tout cela pour la défense ... de Flaubert, que je j'aime pas beaucoup, si je me sens si privé de ne pas écrire sur bien d'autres que je préfère, c'est que j'ai l'impression que nous ne savons plus lire.

Marcel Proust, A propos du "style" de Flaubert

Dyslexia Series-Disabled Legend Gustave Flaubert

lifechums — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:20:43 +0000

Gustave Flaubert was born on 12 December, 1821 and died on 8 May, 1880. Gustave was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. Gustave is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style. Flaubert was a tireless worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work.

Keep visiting: www.lifechums.com/ more Celebrities featuring Shortly .............

Masked balls of the imagination

double negative — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:57:26 +0000

Listening to: "Cliquot" - Beirut

Hello, ol' bloggy ol' blog ol' bloggy. Noogies! Flecasfksf;lh. I'm tired and hungover--too tired to sleep, and should not be trusted with a keyboard in such a state. But yar, maties, what be this thing on which I'm typing?

Lessee. it's been awhile, I suppose, partly because the last few weeks I've been trying to do some actual writing. Working on a new story, the direction of which changes with the wind. Maybe it'd help if I gave the characters names. I've got a title though--"The Price of Rootlessness." (from a line in Angels in America: "The price of rootlessness, motion sickness. Only cure: Keep moving.") It started in one of those sudden, feverish, questionable flurries of writing. This one came upon me riding the T back home from a particularly bland thingee thing I had to see for work.

That churned out two pages-ish, and I've been taking notes on it since. I tried to write another scene and, rereading it all, I began to worry that I had fallen prey to what Flaubert called in one of his letters, "these masked balls of the imagination, from which one returns with death in the heart, exhausted, having seen nothing but falsity and uttered nothing but nonsense."

Anyway, we'll see how it turns out. I'm tempted to yet again strike off in the magical realist direction that I love so well, but that is probably best left in the hands of the masters.

But like my ol' editor told me today at a barbeque, if you're too hard on yourself, you'll cancel it out before it starts. And anyway, Flaubert spent his whole life beating the shit out of himself over his writing, seeking detachment and perfection. Maybe not the best role model for me.

Between reading Persepolis and Watchmen recently, I'm really starting to think about writing something in graphic novel form. Such a cool medium. If only my drawing muscles weren't all outta practice. Must stretch. Also, reading a book about the myths of the world I got off the dollar rack at the Brookline Booksmith. The Icelandic myths are the tits. A one-eyed king of the gods? A queen of the underworld who's half-woman, half-corpse? And best of all, Ragnarok, a swords-n-blood apocalypse that makes every other apocalypse look totally lame? Tits.

What else, what else... went camping two weekends ago in the Mahoosucs with a friend and the dog. Disaster ensued when we followed what we thought was a path, but turned out to be a boundary line that led us through dense underbrush up a mountainside in the dark. Had to set up camp where we could, the wind howling off the fucking summit all night. We made it out alive, though, albeit coated in scrapes and mosquito bites, and even a tick or three. Tucker took it like a trooper. It was an adventure, I'll give it that. And it was beautiful out there. Here's Tuck at Dryad Falls, contemplating the view of the Whites to the south:

But get this, get this: the mountain was called... Mount Success! Oh, thou soul-crushing irony, take my soul for the crushing!

It's funny how you can crave wilderness, but the second you're up on a mountain in the dark with no place to make a fire, all you want is to land smack-dab in the middle of Times Square. Deep in our primordial scared-ass caveman guts, we just want light and warmth, I suppose. And maybe a mammoth-beatin' stick. Take that, mammoth!

Cool and Calm at La Mirande

jessamynb — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:35:25 +0000

The short walk from La Mirande to the café scene at Place de l’Horloge may be one of the most beautiful strolls Avignon has to offer. Just steps away from the city’s top tourist sites, this four-star hotel is ideally situated for travelers wishing to be at the center of it all while still having a quiet place to call home when the day is done. Sheltered by the Palais des Papes and its 18-foot thick walls, this luxury hotel is calm and composed even during the city’s notoriously raucous theatre festival.

Part of what makes La Mirande so distinct is the incredible detail that has gone into preserving the traditions and style of a European luxury hotel while eliminating the sort of corpse-like formality which can leave guests hurrying off to their rooms. In a town famous for its theatre, La Mirande knows how to act like a four-star hotel.

Many historic hotels have a schizophrenic approach to design. Unsure how to merge modern technology with period décor, belle époque armoires are too often weighed down by clunky TVs, rococo desks left cluttered with DSL cables and iPod docks. At La Mirande, the emphasis is on beauty, detail and discretion. At first glance, the spacious guest rooms, with their antique tapestries, paintings, and Pakistani carpets, look as if Flaubert or Baudelaire could have just checked out. On closer inspection, however, the luxuries of the modern era are all there: marble bathrooms with Frisbee-sized shower heads, his and hers sinks, robes and slippers, and best of all, a flat screen TV discreetly hidden beneath a two-way mirror.

The lounge, garden, bar and a collection of other quiet public spaces are equally charming and offer a variety of settings for guests to sip an espresso, read le Figaro, and let the day slip by. When their appetites pick up, the renowned Michelin-starred Restaurant La Mirande, offers an organic locally grown menu sure to please even the pickiest eater. Guests hoping to learn the chef’s secrets can sign up for cooking classes held in the building’s perfectly preserved medieval cellar, complete with vaulted ceilings, shiny copper pots, and a 10-meter deep well.

As a small hotel with only 21 rooms, La Mirande is able to offer impeccable customer service and a one-to-one employee-client ratio during the high season. Rooms fill up fast however, and guests are recommended to make their reservations at least three months in advance.

As published at PlanetEye

Desperately seeking Madame Bovary

laramanni — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:14:51 +0000

Dunque, dunque.

Gli ultimi due commenti di Blackvirgo e Avalon9 mi hanno fatto pensare a lungo. E anche Wu Ming 4 ci ha messo del suo: ho divorato Stella del mattino come un'affamata, e ho persino ringraziato la pioggia che mi ha impedito di godermi il mare.

Comincio da qui: verso la fine del libro (Angelo, non è uno spoiler, tranquillo), Tolkien capisce cosa deve fare per liberarsi dai suoi fantasmi, che sono, poi, gli spettri comuni a tutti i reduci della Prima Guerra Mondiale. Raccontarli, raccontare quel conflitto. E, insieme, trasfigurare: la vicenda che gli appare, perfettamente delineata nelle sue mappe e intersezioni come se la guardasse, in volo, dall'alto, è un'epica straordinaria, è la creazione di un mondo altro. Ma è, contemporaneamente, la sua storia: una storia di guerra.

Ed ecco che, di colpo, si arriva a "Madame Bovary c'est moi", giustamente citato da Blackvirgo. L'oggettività è il fine, ma l'autore porta se stesso, e la propria storia, nel personaggio. E dunque nella Storia. Per questo King insiste, in Duma Key, sull'arte come "quel che conosci". Per questo i famigerati "nuovi epici" di cui si parla in questi giorni (avete letto l'articolone di Giancarlo De Cataldo su Repubblica di ieri?) non sono semplicemente autori di romanzi storici. Come non lo erano i protagonisti del romanzo di Wu Ming 4: Lewis, Graves, Tolkien. Lawrence d'Arabia è il catalizzatore che fa scattare la comprensione in ognuno di loro. Ma loro trasfigurano la Storia, non la registrano come in una semplice cronaca.

E noi?

Qui interviene Philippe Doumenc, giustissimamente citato da Avalon9: Doumenc è l'autore di un libro che voglio leggere, Lo strano caso di Emma Bovary, che è, se non capisco male, una specie di raffinato giallo letterario (Emma non si è suicidata, ma è stata assassinata). Ma questa è, accipicchia, una fan fiction fatta e finita!!!! Così come lo è, che so, Intervista col vampiro rispetto a Dracula di Bram Stoker (e a sua volta, quanti debiti ha Stoker nei confronti delle centinaia di leggende sui ritornanti?). Così come lo è, per assurdo, Moby Dick rispetto al Giona biblico. Per non parlare della sceneggiatura di Apocalypse Now rispetto a Cuore di tenebra di Conrad.

Riscriviamo, tutti.

Dice Avalon9:
"Allora, aveva forse ragione Cherilo di Samo nel suo prologo ai Persikà quando affermava che non c’è più un nuovo campo da arare? (e notate che la metafora ormai abusata era innovativa per il tempo, V sec. a. C.). Forse. Eppure, dopo di lui la letteratura ellenistica è riuscita addirittura a creare un nuovo genere letterario: poesia bucolica. Partendo da Esiodo, certo. Però, in definitiva, nulla di genera dal nulla. E poi riprendere non significa copiare. Gli epigoni di Omero copiavano; riprendevano forme e soluzioni epiche e riscrivevano senza originalità. In modo piatto. Ziegler potrà sostenere l’importanza (tra l’altro reale) dell’essitenza dell’epica ellenistica, ma non può negare che, sovente, si riduca a pallida imitazione del genio omerico".

In un certo senso, sì. Ma non sempre si tratta di pallida imitazione: quanto di ripresa, rimeditazione, riscrittura. Potenza, molto spesso. Noi riscriviamo, sempre. Ma ogni volta diversifichiamo: sempre che, ovviamente, vogliamo raccontare una storia e non semplicemente i fattacci nostri alla Valentina F.

Qualche anno fa, mi sono intrufolata in una lezione di sceneggiatura tenuta da alcune grandi firme americane. Ricordo perfettamente una signora molto truccata e molto ingioiellata che, con aria truce, spiegava come in ogni sceneggiatura ci dovesse essere un dio o un eroe della Grecia antica: un Marte, una Venere, una Giunone, un Ulisse, un Achille. Altrimenti la storia non tornava.

A pensarci bene, nonostante il tono manualistico, aveva ragione. Chiaro, più si procede, più la faccenda si complica. Il mondo va avanti, direbbe il Maestro, e le vie si intrecciano. Ma il dentro e fuori è probabilmente questo: la storia individuale dentro la grande storia che si ripete e si evolve.

Pensavo a questo guardando, sul mio scaffale, Io sono leggenda di Matheson. Un libro straordinario. Ma chi conosce la letteratura fantastica ricorderà probabilmente il mitico Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907). Matheson non ha "plagiato" Aldrich. Ha raccontato una storia quasi identica: ma, dentro, c'è lui. Com'era la storia di Aldrich? Tre righe:

"Una donna sta seduta sola in una casa. Sa che nel mondo non c'è più nessuno: tutti gli altri esseri umani sono morti. Bussano alla porta".

Ulise şi convenţiile lecturii

senzatii — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:34:06 +0000

Marile construcţii literare care au influenţat proza secolului al XX-lea sunt puţine. Pe primul loc ar fi Doamna Bovary, a lui Flaubert, urmează În căutarea timpului pierdut, de Proust şi insolitul roman al lui James Joyce (1822-1941),Ulise. Cititorului grăbit de astăzi, căutătorului de indiscreţii egolatre şi de umori revărsate în pagină cu cea mai naturală lipsă de simţ estetic şi cultură, acest roman îi va stârni repulsie şi probabil că îl va ţine în biblioteca personală, necitit dar la vedere, ocupându-se pe mai departe cu lectura cărţilor în care se poate regăsi. Ulise nu este un roman frumos în sensul comun al termenului şi nu se citeşte ca orice alt roman. Într-un sens este o construcţie monstruoasă, dar dacă cititorul nu citeşte numai pentru a se identifica cu personajele ci se dedică lecturii artistice, creatoare, atunci cartea îi poate oferi delicii la care nu a sperat vreodată.
Ulise este descrierea unei singure zile, joi, 16 iunie 1904 şi gravitează în jurul a trei personaje – Leopold Bloom, agent publicitar, Stephen Dedalus, tânăr profesor de şcoală din Dublin şi Marion (Molly) Bloom, soţia lui Leopold, cântăreaţă – dintre care dominant este primul. Acţiunea are loc în Dublin. Despre cadrele generale ale poveştii nu se poate spune mai mult. Dar, ceea ce face Joyce cu aceste trei personaje şi cu peregrinările lor este de-a dreptul demiurgic, ridicând arta literaturii la valenţele nemuririi.
După cum sugerează şi titlul, romanul este legat cu fire nevăzute de Odiseea, dar a spune că Ulise este o parodie a epopeei antice este o eroare hermeneutică gravă, pierzându-se astfel orice posibilitate de înţelegere a cărţii în ceea ce are ea ireductibil. Ar însemna să o punem în umbră, să o legăm de alt-ceva şi să îi confiscăm prin aceasta dreptul la existenţa pe care o merită. Valoarea simbolică pe care o au aventurile lui Leopold Bloom este numai un aspect al cărţii lui şi nu e nici pe de parte cel mai important. Dacă vom avea inspiraţia să îi acordăm răbdare şi ne vom concentra atenţia asupra detaliilor, singurul aspect care contează atunci când citim literatură, această operă ne va putea oferi spectacolul artei în tot ce are ea mai mare şi mai frumos de oferit. Cu alte cuvinte, nu ideile generale, ci stilul şi ţesătura întâmplărilor (structura) fac din această carte o capodoperă, restul fiind doar finisaje pe care mintea noastră le face oricum.
Fiecare capitol este scris de Joyce într-un stil diferit. Mai mult, arta autorului se manifestă chiar la nivelul alchimiei fonemelor (acest aspect fiind mai greu de observat în traducere), el reuşind să creeze o muzicalitate aparte prin combinarea superbă a sunetelor pentru a reda o stare specifică, o melodie abia perceptibilă sau pentru a sugera micile devieri ale fluxului conştiinţei, invenţie stilistică a lui Tolstoi, pe care Joyce o desăvârşeşte aici. Iată o mostră de stil joycean: „Intrând pe sub arcada podului de cale ferată [Bloom] scoase plicul, îl rupse repede în fâşii şi le împrăştie apoi pe drum. Bucăţelele de hârtie se risipiră tot mai departe, năruindu-se în aerul umed; fluturare albă şi apoi totul năruindu-se încet.” De observat cum aşează el punctul şi virgula înaintea unei precizări poetice cu rol vizual. Acesta este un procedeu folosit pe larg de Flaubert în Doamna Bovary. Sau, finalul viziunii unui torent de bere revărsată, „şerpuind peste tot pe pământul plat, şuvoi leneş, tot mai dens, de lichid purtând cu sine flori lătăreţe de spumă.” O altă caracteristică a stilului din Ulise este dezvoltarea terifiantă a temei flaubertiene a contrapunctului: în partea a doua, în capitolul 7, se întâlnesc şi dialoghează aproximativ cincizeci de personaje. Scenele sunt de-a dreptul înnebunitoare şi numai un cititor înarmat cu răbdarea artistului se poate descurca în acest uriaş hăţiş, poate cel mai animat capitol din istoria literaturii.
Dar, ceea ce a rămas în mentalul colectiv drept joycean prin excelenţă este tehnica redării monologului interior sau a fluxului de conştiinţă. V. Nabokov observa că primul care a folosit această tehnică a fost Tolstoi, în Ana Karenina, în episodul drumului către gară al eroinei. Acolo mai sunt prezente încă semnele de punctuaţie şi precizările autorului. La Joyce fluxul conştiinţei este eliberat de artificiile punctuaţiei şi se desfăşoară sub ochii imaginaţiei noastre liber, întortocheat şi spumos ca apele unui fluviu ce se revarsă primăvara peste o câmpie. Monologul lui Molly Bloom din final este transpunerea artistică a unei cascade de gânduri şi imagini ce adună în tumultul său întregul edificiu romanesc.
Romanul Ulise îşi aşteaptă încă cititorii pentru a le oferi ceea ce nu au primit de la nimeni: o superbă construcţie şi o paradă copleşitoare de procedee stilistice pe care, însă, nu le putem aprecia decât dacă ne lepădăm de convenţiile lecturii şi pătrundem curaţi artistic în lumea Dublinului lui Joyce.

Caseta tehnică: James Joyce, Ulise, 2 vol., trad. rom. şi note Mircea Ivănescu, Ed. Univers, Bucureşti, 1984.

Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

twins4reading — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:25:21 +0000

it's funny that you've mentioned that you are slowing down on your Bovacious journey. I, on the other hand, am picking up steam. Since last I left the blog I've read several chapters. (Well, if you expand the definition of several to include two, that is--that's right two you're moving up in the world in my book, your "few" no longer, now you "several." Congratulations!)

Is this a sign that you are falling back into your old habits. Are you once again becoming the brother who commits to read a book and then...well for lack of a better word...stops? I am having flashbacks to when we were going to "book club" Wilkie Collins' The Women in White. I think you made it to about page 30 and then you got distracted by some unconventional sleuth from the animal kingdom solving, as you call them, "people mysteries," and you never came back.

I hope not Jon, I hope not.

I've noticed something about the writing of Monsieur Flaubert it seems to be rife with.....

Let me choose my euphemism carefully here.

...Eroticism (Maybe I don't know what a euphemism is.)

I just read an address celebrating the wonders of agriculture that could have fogged up a few windows it was so steamy. After the imagery he used to describe flax, his treatment of adultery really seems a little tame.

Maybe Flaubert was just a frustrated agronomist.

Anyway I am off to read more.

Justin

Alegría esa puta sobrevalorada...

Bruno Clément — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:01:49 +0000

Our earthly pleasure distract us against our will

Are you hopeful or just gullible? (Maximö Park-Russian Literature de su cd "Our earthly pleasures")

El otro día trataba de escribir una entrada sobre la belleza infravalorada de la melancolía, la alegría estúpida que nos tratan de vender desde arriba (generando una especie de soma del mundo feliz de Huxley) y la estulticia de aquellos que dejándose llevar por "Our earthly pleasures" (que dirían los Maximö Park ) niegan la mierda que nos rodea en muchos ámbitos. Como si el hecho de reducirnos a celebrar la mediocridad de nuestra opulenta existencia en un mundo de pobredumbre moral fuese a llenar el vacío existencial o el sentimiento de culpa.

Pese a tratar de escribir algo coherente y no pedante (lo de la pedantería creo que se puede observar en las prímeras lineas de este puto texto) y contar con la inestimable ayuda de mis amigos ron a palo seco y música genialmente deprimente (Interpol y Joy Division a los que prometo dedicar algún post), el texto era una puta mierda. Lo único que quedaba claro era que me gusta mucho esta cita de Victor Hugo: "La melancolía es la felicidad de estar triste" y que pese a que los necios o los inexperimentados lo ignoren, la tristeza y la melancolía son placeres que solo están al alcance de los paladares mas selectos. Y por cierto que también es muy placentero el refocilamiento narcisista en la mierda.

En cualquier caso abandoné la idea de escribir sobre esos temas cuando leí este artículo en el Imperio del Mal que explica mejor algunas de las cosas que quería decir en mi estúpida disertación: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/melancolia/infelicidad/musas/inspiradoras/elpepucul/20080601elpepicul_3/Tes

Incluye 2 citas cojonudas: "Ser estúpido, egoísta y estar bien de salud, he aquí las tres condiciones que se requieren para ser feliz. Pero si os falta la primera, estáis perdidos". Flaubert

"Promover la sociedad de la felicidad absoluta es fabricar una cultura del miedo" del tal Wilson que es el centro del artículo.

Hala a sufrir que son 2 días!

Dawson's Creek - 6 serie

Fernanda Corona — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:21:22 +0000

Ci sono voluti mesi di dedizione e lunghe notti insonni, ma ora l'opera è completa. Stasera si è conclusa la mia maratona di Dawson's Creek.

Ho conservato per oggi la puntata doppia di chiusura del telefilm, perchè so che mi commuove.
Ricordo ancora con quanta ansia ho atteso questa puntata: era il 2003 e io e Manu ci siamo attrezzate alla comune Bonetti con un paio di birre e sicuramente qualche schifezza da cinema. Fedeli al mio fianco centinaia di Kleenex prima di andare alla festa unversitaria. Erano ancora tempi in cui si socializzava in facoltà e si partecipava agli eventi, periodo durato pochissimo.

Ora che mi sono rivista tutte le sei serie e mi sono trascritta la grande saggezza degli sceneggiatori di questo telefilm sono pronta anche a lasciarlo archiviato nel mio hard disk per almeno qualche millennio.

Dawson's Creek è favoloso, è adolescienziale e paranoico nei linguaggi e nei comportamenti. I protagonisti sono veri, sono persone vere e le situazioni in cui si trovano decisamente realistiche. Tutta una serie di eventi e traumi da teenager che accadono, o per lo meno che nella mia piccola esistenza sono successi magari non negli stessi modi o negli stessi tempi o con gli stessi risvolti.
L'anima gemella con cui si sta bene e poi non ci si sta più e ci si rincorre in un infinito labirinto di liti e baci. Il trauma del primo bacio. I tradimenti d'amore e d'amicizia, di fiducia e dei sogni. La prima volta e tutte le ansie relative. La rivalità e le amicizie vere. Un amico che si scopre gay. Eterni triangoli amorosi da cui non si esce. Qualcuno che muore e si deve colmare il vuoto. Qualche sbronza con conseguenze idiote. I problemi con lo studio e con il lavoro. Amiche che prendono il prozac. L'alcolismo come via di fuga. Cantare su un palcoscenico per mostrare l'altro lato di sè. Amicizie che si distruggono per una notte di sesso. E il finale di strade divise, ma i legami veri non si rompono mai.

A seguire le frasi degne di nota...

Come puoi rimanere amico di una persona se ogni volta che la guardi pensi a quanto bella è e a quanto la vuoi?

E' un folle, ottuso e paranoico, ma è il mio folle, ottuso e paranoico.

Fa che le cose che ami siano il tuo rifugio.

Flaubert credeva che la forma di piacere più puro fosse l'aspettativa e anche la più attendibile e che mentre tutto quello che ti succede finisce immancabilmente per deluderti, invece ciò che non ti è mai successo non muore mai, non scompare rimane sempre inciso nel tuo cuore come una dolce malinconia.

I sogni sono imperfetti, diventano veri, perdono libertà.

Il dolore di capire che anche se due persone sono fatte l'una per l'altra non necessariamente significa che siano fatte l'una per l'altra adesso.

Il sesso è intenso, è appassionato e a volte riesce a cambiarti la vita, ma il sesso non è mai una cosa innocente.

Io ti ascolto, non importa quanto io urli o quanto tu stia in silenzio, io ti ascolto.

Mi dispiace che ti manchino i miei sguardi, ma a me non mancano perchè io non li ho mai ricevuti.

Mi piace che divaghi quando sei nervosa. Mi piace sapere che divaghi quando sei nervosa. Mi piace essere ancora in grado di renderti nervosa.

Qualche volta è giusto fare le cose sbagliate.

Stavo solo pensando fra me e me che quando perdi il controllo non sei per niente male piccola, diventi perfino bella.

diario di campagna n°95

Nicola — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:59:52 +0000

MARY POPPINS DEVOLUZIONISTA

HO DEI PROBLEMI con Mary Poppins. Ne avrei probabilmente meno con Julie Andrews e basta, ma con Mary Poppins ho dei seri problemi.
Che Disney fosse un perverso anticomunista con disturbi della personalità è una teoria ormai consumata (non lo detto io, giuro! No! Gli avvocati della Disney no! Vi prego ahhhhhhh….) ma con Mary Poppins credo abbia toccato l’apice. Andando ben oltre la semplice violenza psicologica, già ampiamente sperimentata in Bambi.
Imporre un personaggio come Mary ai bambini degli anni 70 i cui genitori, cresciuti nel boom economico, vivevano uno stato di “svagata grazia rivoluzionaria”, a posteriori, visto a che punto di disgregazione ci si trova, voleva dire creare una generazione di dissociati più portati all’abuso di mdma che a reali applicazioni costruttive.
La lisergica tata inglese proponeva soluzioni immediate. Apri la valigia et voilà! Hai problemi? Basta un poco di zucchero! Risultati ottimali in tempo zero e senza fatica!

LA DEFORMAZIONE si genera nel momento in cui ci si aspetta che le Mary Poppins arrivino da fuori, ed ecco spuntare mille e mille eroi nazionalpopolari alla Beppe Grillo (questo non lo metto nei tag perché non voglio rotture di balle da fanatici supporter…), eccoci in attesa che qualcuno risolva i problemi tirando fuori dalla borsa la soluzione salvifica. E se la soluzione non c’è… c’è sempre l’mdma…(se ci sono problemi con le sostanze illegali c’è il prozac et similaria…)
Per motivi fisiologici (una birra media mi procura visioni sulla reale struttura del divino… svengo e mi riprendo 24 ore dopo, nel mezzo: il nulla…) non mi sono potuto buttare su nessun alteratore della percezione e quindi ho dovuto ristrutturare in chiave fisica e materica il meccanismo fantomatico della valigia di Mary Poppins.
Questo meccanismo funziona, il mio orto, le mie galline, le varie macchine assurde montate con “rifiuti” che affollano ogni angolo del mio giardino (filtri a sabbia, distillatori di compost, incubatrici… la pala eolica è esplosa durante un temporale…) nascono da li. Non risolveranno i problemi del mondo, ma quantomeno mi permettono di abbassare i miei bisogni di consumo, frenano un processo entropico e mi danno argomenti di conversazione per istaurare relazioni proficue con i miei vicini.
Io sono Mary Poppins (senza le sue curve e, per favore, lo spazzacamino la smetta di cercarmi… sono pur sempre un uomo impegnato!).

PER I PROGRESSI nell’orto, siamo in attesa che smetta di piovere per fare un conto preciso dei caduti per mano delle lumache… per ora sto in casa a panificare (la scorta per il mese prossimo, gli amici ed i parenti…)

P.S.- Rileggendo mi sono reso conto che dire “M.me Bovary c’est moi” suona un po’ diverso da “Mary Poppins sono io”… ma Flaubert era un trombone…

Le mie letture, Flaubert e Salammbô

babilonia61 — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:49:28 +0000

Ogni epoca della mia vita ha avuto la sua ragione d’esistere, definita da precise esperienze, determinati cammini, particolari letture.

Il primo libro che lessi fu un raffigurato Pinocchio, all’età di appena 6-7 anni, seguito da una serie di libretti illustrati, spesso d’avventura, che attiravano la mia attenzione di ragazzino: Salgari, Verne, e via dicendo. Con il passare degli anni, grazie alla scuola e alla mia buona insegnante di italiano e latino, scoprii Socrate, Orazio, Cicerone, Seneca, e dintorni; seguì il periodo poetico con Dante, Montale, Baudelaire, Pascoli, Prévert, Evtušenko, etc. Durante i miei studi universitari mi dedicai invece a ben altre materie.

I miei trent’anni andarono via deliziati da Borges, da Neruda, da Cervantes, Vargas Llosa, Moravia, Sciascia, Pirandello, Calvino, senza perdere di vista Hermann Hesse, Robert Walser, Goethe...

Il tempo passa, e ne sono felice!

Ora, valicati da un bel pezzo i quarant’anni, mi dedico per lo più a rileggere, ristudiare, riprendere ciò che risiede assopito nella mia memoria.

In tutto ciò c’è un filo conduttore, un velato filo che unisce i vari periodi di lettura: la Storia. La Storia è quella materia che più mi affascina, mi prende, mi conquista: non è mai passato un mese in tutti questi anni senza leggere un volume di storia, senza approfondire un definito periodo, un personaggio, un evento. E questi ultimi anni sono stati a lei dedicati.

Ogni libro ha la sua bellezza, la sua caratteristica, ci lascia un qualcosa di cui abbiamo bisogno. Ogni lettura ci migliora, ci serve, arricchisce la nostra cultura, il nostro modo di scrivere, ma anche di vedere la vita. Ogni rigo entra nella nostra mente e, statene certi, uscirà quando lo necessitiamo, basta solo essere aperti, come un libro.

Non posso dire che ho particolare preferenza per questo o per quell’altro. Tutti mi hanno dato e mi danno sempre ciò che cerco, specialmente se li rileggo due tre volte.

Flaubert, per esempio, riaperto qualche mese fa, ha riacquistato luce, fascino, simpatia.

Ecco un passo del suo elegante romanzo a sfondo storico Salammbô:

Accadde a Megara, quartiere di Cartagine, nei giardini di Amilcare.

I soldati che Barca aveva comandato i Sicilia si stavano concedendo un gran banchetto per celebrare l’anniversario della battaglia di Erice, e poiché il padrone era assente ed erano in molti, mangiavano e bevevano in piena libertà.

I capitani, calzati di bronzei coturni, stavano sul viale centrale sotto un velario di porpora a frange d’oro, disteso dal muro delle scuderie alla prima terrazza del palazzo. I soldati erano sparsi sotto gli alberi tra i quali si scorgevano numerosi edifici dal tetto piatto, frantoi, dispense, magazzini, forni, arsenali, e poi un recinto per gli elefanti, fossati per le bestie, una prigione per gli schiavi.

Rino, nella storia delle sue letture.

The Sound of the City in Flaubert's Sentimental Education

andreasbick — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:51:07 +0000

Gustave Flaubert searched with exhaustive care for evidence, documents and testimony to authenticate the account of France's social classe and the political uproar through the revolution of 1848 that was expressed in his highly influencial novel "Sentimental Education" in unrivalled manner. His description of daily live sounds is particularly evocative, here is what his protagonist Frederic Moreau hears one morning strolling the streets of Paris:

"For two hours nothing could be heard but the heavy rolling of carts making their way to the markets. The window-panes began to admit streaks of white. A cab passed; then a group of donkeys trotted over the pavement. Then came strokes of hammers, cries of itinerant vendors of wood and blasts of horns. Already every other sound was blended with the great voice of awakening Paris."

During the fighting of the June days of 1848 the noises of guns and cannons must have been alternating with moments of silence and tension as he recalls in the passage:

"Occasionally an express rider passed at a rapid gallop; then the silence was renewed. Cannons, which were being drawn along the streets, made, on the pavement, a heavy rolling sound that seemed full of menace – a sound different from every ordinary sound – which oppressed the heart. These interruptions served to intensify the silence, which was profound, unlimited – a black abyss."

Nabokov - bucuria creaţiei

senzatii — Sat, 17 May 2008 11:23:03 +0000

[gallery]Dacă exită un creator din ale cărui romane să poţi învăţa să scrii, acela este Nabokov. Într-o măsură mai mică şi numai apelând la corespondenţă, este Flaubert. De la Proust nu poţi învăţa să scrii literatură. De la Joyce nici atât. Nabokov are însă un stil inconfundabil care te îndeamnă să-i studiezi scriitura şi, prin urmare, să înveţi din ea. El scrie pentru cititorii creatori - a spus-o în mai multe rânduri, atât în romane cât şi în cursuri.

De curând am recitit Vrajitorul, prima zvâcnire creatoare a subiectului din Lolita. În acest micro-roman Nabokov e la începutul drumului său. Dar se simte în el acea voluptate a descrierilor care va exploda în Ada sau ardoarea. Se aud cuvinte preferate, metafore îndrăgite şi comparaţii structurate magistral. De asemenea se întrezăreşte încă de aici obsesia lui pentru structură, pentru construcţia romanescă. Structura şi stilul sunt singurele aspecte după care putem recunoaşte un scriitor mare, crede el. De fapt, sunt singurele aspecte după care putem deosebi scriitorii între ei în genere. Iată ce scrie el într-un eseu cu titlul Despre o carte intitulată Lolita: "Pentru mine, opera de ficţiune există în măsura în care îmi produce ceea ce aş numi grosso modo bucurie estetică, adică sentimentul de a fi oarecum conectat undeva cu alte stări existenţiale unde norma este arta (curiozitate, tandreţe, bunăvoinţă, extaz). Nu sunt multe cărţi de acest fel. Celelalte reprezintă fie maculatură de actualitate, fie aşa-numita literatură de idei, care este foarte adesea maculatură de actualitate, livrată în uriaşe ambalaje de ipsos ce se transmit de la epocă la epocă, până când vine cineva cu un ciocan şi le trage lui Balzac, Gorki sau Mann o lovitură zdravănă şi-i sparge." (trad. rom. H.-F. Popescu, Ed. Polirom, 2003, 393-384).

Nabokov face cu literatura cam ceea ce a făcut Heidegger cu Metafizica: îi distruge conceptele, o reînvie, o îmbogăţeşte, îi redă viaţa autentică. Comparaţia nu este deplasată. R. Rorty, într-un studiu magistral, arată pe larg înrudirile dintre metodele celor doi. Dar, trecând peste intenţiile generale ale lui Nabokov, trebuie să observăm că ele au fost realizate în act încă de la primele sale scrieri. Iar Vrăjitorul (Humanitas, 2005) nu este decât sămânţa din care vor rodi mai târziu Lolita, Foc palid şi Ada. Adesea, dacă vreau să mă liniştesc şi să mă conving că merită să citim, deschid la întâmplare un roman de Nabokov şi încerc să văd cu ochii mei, dar ajutat de cuvintele lui, un peisaj insolit, o coapsă din care se naşte un vis sau, chiar, să ating "textura timpului", a unui timp minunat printre clipele căruia ne putem întrezări fericirea.

Let Them Eat Cake

twins4reading — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:24:29 +0000

Talk about two extremes. InTristram Shandy you could read pages and pages (tens even hundreds) waiting for some plot progression only to get to page 586 (a.k.a the end) and find yourself still waiting.

Bovary on the other hand shoots out of the gate and moves forward at a breakneck speed. Let's see in the first 30 pages or so Charles Bovary grows up, fails his medical school entrance exams, takes them again, passes, becomes a doctor, marries a widow, sets a broken leg, becomes a widower, woos Emma Rouault, marries her, and settles into an ultimately unsatisfying marriage.

All in the first 35 pages. And in his spare time Flaubert fits in a few detailed descriptive passages of cakes, wedding receptions, and gardens.

After reading the wedding scene, I have to agree with you, twin brother, tier two of the, shall we say elaborate, wedding cake is particulary Shantastic. No doubt both Toby and Trim would have to fight back to tears to the see the tiers (I love a homophone) cut.

Also, I think it is hilarious that Doc Bovary keeps a bust of Hippocrates on one of his shelves. You'll have to keep this in mind when you outfit your new apartment...in fact you may want to start thinking about it now since you'll likely have to special order those busts of Thomas Jefferson and Melvil Dewey.

Well, that's all for now.

Your friend in Bovary,

Justin

Ne uccide più la penna?

giuseppemartella — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:50:50 +0000

Sembrano lontani i tempi in cui in cui l'autore di Madame Bovary, o il nostro Pasolini, subivano processi a causa di quanto andavano scrivendo. Si tratta poco più di mezzo secolo, stando ai processi subiti dall'autore dei Ragazzi di vita.

Eppure, alle volte, gli errori si ripetono. Salman Rushdie subì una fatwa per avere scritto il sacrilego Versetti satanici e il nostro Roberto Saviano ha subito una condanna a morte per avere spiattellato ai quattro venti le gesta lorde di sangue della 'ndrangheta.

I due, alcuni giorni fa, si sono incontrati a New York, e hanno avuto modo di parlare della loro condizione di reclusi. L'articolo che riassume e tratta di questo incontro evidenzia una cosa su tutte: la capacità delle parole di incidere sulla realtà. Un banco di prova, la storia di tutti i giorni, che forse non aveva bisogno di questo esempio.

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Gaël — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:02:42 +0000

Título:
Madame Bovary

Autor:
Gustave Flaubert (Francês, 1821-1880)

Língua:
Francês

Temas:
Educação, Burguesia, Casamento, Fidelidade, e vida na França no meio do século XIX

Resumo:
(em breve)

Opinião:
(em breve)

rancière on bovary

adswithoutproducts — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:54:56 +0000

I've read just about all the Flaubert criticism there is to read that's available in English, and lots that's not. But Jacques Rancière's "Why Emma Bovary Had to Be Killed," published recently in Critical Inquiry, might just be, pound for pound, the best I've ever read. (I apologize if you don't have access to the journal one way or another). I've got lots to say about it, but will for tonight mostly just quote a bit to give you a taste.

The ﬁctional deﬁnition of Emma is in keeping with the big concern of the 1850s and 60s that was encapsulated in one word: excitement. At that time in France, the diagnosis could be heard everywhere at every time; society suﬀered from a fatal disease that aﬀected the social order and individ- ual behaviors as well. It had become an unrelenting turmoil of thoughts and desires, appetites and frustrations. In the good old times of monarchy, religion, and aristocracy, there had been a clear, long-standing hierarchy that put every group and every individual in its right place. It gave them a ﬁrm footing and limited horizons, which are the conditions of happiness for poor people. Unfortunately that order had been shattered, ﬁrst by the French Revolution, second by the rise of industrialism, third by the new media—the newspapers, lithographs, and so on, which made words and images, dreams and aspirations, available everywhere to anybody. Society had become a hustle and bustle of free and equal individuals that were dragged together into a ceaseless whirl in search of an excitement that was nothing but the mere internalization of the endless and purposeless agitation of the whole social body.

Such was the discourse of the notables and the learned persons. What must draw our attention is the synonym they gave for that excitement. That synonym was democracy. They had ﬁrst met democracy in the shape of the government of the people, the government of free and equal citizens, where the rulers and the ruled people are one and the same. Needless to say, they had eﬃciently worked during the French Second Republic (1848–51) to crush the threat of democratic anarchy, at the cost of handing over their own freedom to a new emperor. But it was not enough to crush it by force. They had to annul its political signiﬁcance, make it a mere sociological phe- nomenon. Therefore a new democratic ghost was substituted for the older; political democracy, they said, had been crushed, but there was a new, far more radical uprising of democracy that no police, no army could tear down: the uprising of the multitude of aspirations and desires, cropping up everywhere in all the pores of modern society. To be sure, the idea was not exactly new; Plato had invented it two millennia before by stating that democracy, in fact, was not a form of government but the way of life of those “free” Athenians who cared for nothing except their individual pleasure. The modern antidemocrats translated it into a more dramatic version, as the uprising of the multitude of unleashed social atoms, greedy to enjoy everything that was enjoyable: gold, indeed, and all the things that gold can buy, but also, what was worse, all that gold cannot buy—passions, values, ideals, art, and literature. Such was the big trouble as they saw it. It would be a lesser evil if poor people only wanted to get rich. Poor people are sup- posed to be “practically minded.” But poor people were now taking a new view of what practical-mindedness meant. They wanted to enjoy all that was enjoyable, including ideal pleasures. But they also wanted those ideal pleasures to be practically enjoyable ideal pleasures.

For those who come upon Flaubert’s book, Emma Bovary is the frightening incarnation of that desire. She craves ideal romance and physical love. She constantly negotiates between material and ideal sources of excitement. When she has resisted her love for Leon, she thinks that she deserves a reward. She buys a piece of furniture. And not any piece of furniture: a gothic prie-dieu. This is what respectable persons perceive as the law of democracy, the law of universal equivalence: anybody can exchange any desire for any other desire. A critic sums it up as follows: “Madame Bovary, this means the pathological overexcitement of senses and imagination in dissatisﬁed democracy.” That would be a good reason for sentencing her to death. But respectable persons are not asked to judge Emma; they are only asked to judge her inventor. The ﬁrst person who has an interest in killing her is Flaubert. Besides the trial of the writer, there is the trial that the writer mounts against his character. Besides the evil that frightens respectable persons, there is the evil done to literature by Emma, which means the evil that he wants her to do, that he embodies in Emma.

Perhaps you can sense where he's headed with all this... The anxious war of Art vs. the aestheticization of everyday life as the battle between Flaubert and his creation, but it's even more complex than a reactionary defense of privileged access to the aesthetic, as the aesthetic in question, the aesthetic perhaps proposed by Flaubert in Bovary is one that itself resists hierarchy, the oldest hierarchies that define the shape of art, and not just the shape of art.

There is one person who could have explained it to Emma. Unfortunately it is the person whom you are not supposed to meet in a convent. It is the Devil. Before writing Madame Bovary, Flaubert had written the ﬁrst version of his Temptation of Saint Anthony. The devil that tempted Saint Anthony was much cleverer and much more generous than the old nuns in the convent. He gave him the explanation of “mystic languor” as he dragged him on an aerial journey through space. He made him discover what life truly is when our sensations are released from the chains of individuality. With his help, the saint could discover strange forms of preindividual or impersonal life: “inanimate existences, inert things that seem animal, vegetative souls, statues that dream and landscapes that think.”5 In such a world our mind loses all its conventional bearings. It bursts into atoms of thought that come into unity with things that have themselves burst into a dance of atoms. The Devil reminded the saint that he had already felt that experience of fusion between the inside and the outside: “Often, because of anything at all, a drop of water, a shell, a strand of hair, you have stopped short, your eyes ﬁxed and your heart open. The object you were gazing at seemed to encroach upon you, as you bent toward, and new ties were found: you clutched each other, you touched each other by subtle innumerable embraces.”6

Those “subtle innumerable embraces,” those shells, strands of hair, and drops of water, together with sunrays, breaths of air, and grains of sand or dust whipped up by the wind make up the sensory framework of Madame Bovary. They are the real events of the novel. Every time that something happens in the ﬁction—notably the birth of a love—they are the real content of the event, the real cause of the emotion. Let us remember what happens when Charles ﬁrst falls for Emma: “The draught beneath the door blew a little dust over the ﬂagstones, and he watched it creep along” (B, p.35).

When Emma falls for Rodolphe, she perceives little gleams of gold about his pupils, smells a perfume of lemon and vanilla, and looks at the long plume of dust raised by the stagecoach. And when she ﬁrst falls for Leon, “weeds streamed out in the limpid water like green wigs tossed away. Now and then some ﬁne-legged insects alighted on the tip of a reed or crawled over a water-lily leaf. The sunshine darted its rays through the little blue bubbles on the wavelets that kept forming and breaking” (B, p.107).

This is what happens: “little blue bubbles” on wavelets in the sunshine, or swirls of dust raised by the wind. This is what the characters feel and what makes them happy: a pure ﬂood of sensations. Much later, the Proustian narrator will evoke the message addressed by the sensation to the person that it strikes, a message that he will sum up as follows: “Try to solve the riddle of happiness which I set you.”7 But the Flaubertian characters don’t solve the riddle. They don’t even understand what kind of happiness can be enclosed in swirls of dust and bubbles on wavelets. They want those microevents to be linked together in a real plot. They want the swirls and bubbles to be turned into properties of real things that can be desired and possessed, into features of individuals that they can love and who can love them. From the point of view of the writer, they don’t mistake art for life. They mistake one art for another and one life for another. They mistake one art for another; this means that they are still trapped in the old poetics with its combinations of actions, its characters envisioning great ends, its feelings related to the qualities of persons, its noble passions opposed to everyday experience, and so on. They are out of step with the new poetics that has shattered the hierarchical poetics of action in favor of an “egaliarian” poetics of life. This also means that they mistake one life for another. They still perceive a world of subjects and predicates, things and qualities, wills, ends and means. They think that things and persons have qualities that individualize them and make them desirable and enjoyable. In short, they think that life is deﬁned by aims and purposes. They have not listened to the lesson of the Devil: life has no purpose. It is an eternal ﬂood of atoms that keeps doing and undoing in new conﬁgurations.

This is brilliant stuff, but there's one thing perhaps that I'd tweak or add or augment. These micro-events that Rancière so persuasively describes are also a matter of time - they are time images, visual manifestations of the passage of time. The blowing of the dust, the movements of the insects - these events are a matter of a new, secular temporality that, like the aesthetic involved in their encapsulation in the novel, is incompatible with standard narrative forms. (Sometimes I call these temporality the anti-ephiphanic, other times simply the everyday. I comes to the same thing, in the end...) Novels can light on these moments, but novels cannot stay - and a novel made entirely of them (of course this happened, in a sense, later, with Woolf and others) simply does not work as a novel, does not do what a novel is supposed to do.

More to be said, of course...

Un dimanche d'oise

wordspics — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:25:15 +0000

Dimanche 30 mars 2008, entre Clermont et Mouy dans l’Oise. Ainsi, me voici arrivé au terme de ma résidence d’artiste dans l’Oise. Après quelques repérages en octobre, je n’ai vraiment commencé à photographier que fin novembre dans l’automne finissant. Il a fallu donc faire avec les journées courtes et les ciels bas et plombés s’entr’ouvrant parfois dans l’ultime lueur du jour. Il y eut les pluies incessantes, continues, du matin au soir, et quelques lumières miraculeuses. Mais trop peu, si peu.

Je pensais que la proximité avec la Manche engendrerait des ciels vifs et bousculés, des ciels qui fluent avec la marée et déversent d’un coup le trop-plein de leurs nuages, comme dans mes hivers atlantiques ; mais il fallut trop souvent me résigner à subir ce gris éteint sous un ciel immobile, annihilant toute forme et toute couleur, en espérant seulement qu’à l’heure du crépuscule quelque épiphanie céleste se produisit. Ma fréquentation assidue des églises de l’Oise se devait d’y contribuer, mais… Las ! Ce que j’y ai recueilli risque de me conduire tout droit en Enfer.

J’ai l’air de me plaindre, mais au fond je n’ai jamais détesté ces Winterreise, bien au contraire —et il n’est pas nécessaire d’énumérer mes séries antérieures pour le prouver-. Cette fois, je n'ai quand même pas eu la partie facile. Et pourtant le titre que j’ai trouvé, il y a déjà quelques semaines, pour résumer ce travail, un hiver d’oise, renvoie plus à quelque mélancolie songeuse qu’à l’épreuve “tragique“ de la traversée de l’hiver! Oise, comme aise ou oiseux, ou oisif —à ce propos, j’ai découvert que les habitants de l’Oise n’étaient ni oiseux, ni oisais, ni oisiens, mais isariens, terme qui fait plus "politiquement correct"— ; bref, une simple manière de dire qu’il y eut quelque bonheur à traverser de part et d’autre le plateau picard (la partie nord, ch’ti, de l’Oise), en état de rêverie oiseuse, adaptant le rythme lent de ma conduite à une forme d’étrange intuition qui me permettait, parfois après des heures d’errements vains, d’arriver pile ! en un paysage de promesse, sous une lumière inattendue mais espérée, sauvant en quelque sorte le reste de la journée. Il m’est arrivé aussi –parce que je ne suis pas toujours si malin— de devoir venir deux fois, trois fois, quatre fois, en tel ou tel lieu, avant de pouvoir photographier dans des conditions correctes. Et puis, quitte à jouer avec les mots existants ou les néologismes, cet hiver d’oise m’a permis aussi de nommer (du moins pour l’instant) les trois séries qui composent ce travail : toise, noise, poise. Mais j’aurais pu tout aussi bien travailler sur foise, moise, joise…

En tous cas, en ce dimanche 30 mars, c’est pas joise, et pour mon dernier séjour prolongé en Oise (il ne me reste que quelques “raccords“ à faire), j’ai le sentiment d’accumuler depuis mon arrivée les journées les plus vaines : ciel épais, d’un gris crasseux, suintant régulièrement la pluie, au point que ce léger débord vers le printemps —nous sommes déjà fin mars— n’existe que sur le calendrier et non sous les cieux. Comme souvent, les jours de no future, je vais là où ça poigne le plus ; au hasard, ce dimanche 30 mars, un petit retour vers Mouy, charmante petite cité industrielle à l’ouest du bassin de Creil. En route, je m’arrête une nouvelle fois à Clermont, troisième visite à l’église Saint-Samson dont j’aime la forme singulière, ramassée et toute en hauteur, ce qui a le mérite les jours de beau temps de lui conférer une lumineuse clarté. J’avais remarqué, lors de ma première visite en novembre, entre autres trésors, un tableau représentant Marie terrassant le Malin (ou le dragon, si j’en crois mon guide ?), une peinture de l’École italienne (XVIIème siècle). J’aime l’élégance aérienne de cette Madone qui ne semble pas écraser son ennemi, mais qui semble plutôt prête à l’étouffer, à l’absorber sous l’ample robe d’un rouge écarlate. Par je ne sais quel détour pervers de la pensée, cette scène m’évoque immédiatement un tableau de Jean Hélion, Le peintre piétiné par son modèle —l’une de ses dernières œuvres— qui se trouve au musée de Picardie à Amiens. J’y vois moins la scène allégorique et chaste de l’iconographie purement religieuse que la relation ambiguë de l’artiste renversé par la beauté virginale de son modèle ou soumis à sa vengeance. On sait bien que la peinture et la statuaire religieuses n’ont cessé de célébrer le corps profane et divin —vertu et faiblesse de la chair, des passions et des désirs— jusque dans les scènes de martyr, de crucifixion ou de déploration. Entre les représentations liées à l’Ancien testament, au Nouveau testament et au martyrologue catholique, toutes les formes d’érotisme, de “perversion“ (voyeurisme, fétichisme, sado-masochisme etc.) ainsi que tous les genres sexuels sont déclinés allègrement ; ce que je porte pour ma part au crédit du catholicisme. S’il n’y avait eu que des religions puritaines et iconophobes, telles l’islam ou le protestantisme, qu’en serait-il de l’Histoire de l’art ? Et si Freud n’avait pas grandi dans le très catholique empire austro-hongrois, si sa culture juive n’avait pas été également nourrie de cette articulation dialectique entre le péché et le plaisir, la faute et la rédemption, qu’en serait-il de la psychanalyse ?

Pour en revenir à l’église Saint-Samson, je dois avouer ma faiblesse pour le pied fin et délicat qui sort de sous l ’étole vert Véronèse. Cet érotisme du pied virginal est l’une de mes récurrences favorites.

De l’autre côté de l’abside, à l’opposé de la chapelle où Marie terrasse le Malin, l’obscurité me révèle un tableau qui m’avait échappé lors de mes visites précédentes, sans doute noyé par l’abondance de la lumière céleste tombant des hauts vitraux. Il s’agit d’une Ascension où Marie-Madeleine essaye de garder, encore un instant pour elle, en le retenant par la jambe et par le pied, un Christ devenu léger comme l’air. Mais son regard éperdu s’attarde du côté du pagne qui voile la “nudité“ du Christ — dans la représentation du pagne, tout est dans l’art du nouage… en quelque sorte.

Je viens de relire L’éducation sentimentale de Flaubert —mon édition, très piquetée de traces d’humidité, est datée de 1969, ce qui me ramène à la fin de l’adolescence—, parce que mon ami Denis Dormoy m’a rappelé qu’une partie du roman se déroulait dans l’Oise. En fait le Nogent de Frédéric Moreau n’est pas Nogent-sur-Oise mais Nogent -sur-Seine, mais il y a cependant un très court passage qui se passe à Montataire, près de Creil, où Frédéric retrouve Madame Arnoux dans la faïencerie de son mari avec l’espoir qu’elle cède enfin à son amour transi : « Il ne rencontra personne dans l’escalier. Au premier étage, il avança la tête dans une pièce vide ; c’était le salon. Il appela très haut. On ne répondit pas ; sans doute la cuisinière était sortie, la bonne aussi ; enfin, parvenu au second étage, il poussa une porte. Madame Arnoux était seule, devant une armoire à glace. La ceinture de sa robe de chambre entr’ouverte pendait le long de ses hanches. Tout un côté de ses cheveux lui faisait un flot noir sur l’épaule droite ; et elle avait les deux bras levés, retenant d’une main son chignon, tandis que l’autre y enfonçait une épingle. Elle jeta un cri et disparut ». La pluie a cessé. Délaissant enfin l’église Saint-Samson et ses trésors voluptueux, je redescends dans le bas de Clermont ; et, par une de ces coïncidences qui ne sont pas si étranges -—je me suis nourri, jeune homme, de cette conception du hasard chère à André Breton— je me retrouve à photographier un alignement de petites maisons ouvrières butant sur un cul-de-sac : l’impasse s’appelle Flaubert (tout un programme…littéraire).

Puis, peu après, arrivant à Mouy à nouveau sous une pluie battante, je me réfugie dans une brocante où mon regard est immédiatement attiré par une édition Les Belles Lettres 1945 de Bouvard et Pécuchet, la même édition que celle que je possède des Voyages de Flaubert. J’ai le deuxième tome, mais pas le premier ; on fouille un peu avec la brocanteuse et on le trouve, coincé sous une pile de livres insignifiants. Broché et non coupé, jamais lu. Pour deux euros. Avec en prime, une image de catherinette trouvée dans le fouillis de cartes postales : la belle n’est pas d’une grande beauté, son menton fuit et son nez proémine, mais tout un côté de ses cheveux lui faisait un flot noir sur l’épaule droite… Encore que, non, ce jeté d’épaule, je n’imagine guère la prude Madame Arnoux se laissant aller à une telle provocation ; plutôt une charmante cocotte comme Rosanette, la Maréchale ! Au bas droit de l’image, je remarque un 666, le chiffre du Malin, toujours lui. Et au dos, de cette belle écriture de l’époque, une brève déclaration, telle l’affirmation d’une liberté revendiquée, d’un droit au non- mariage : « Vive Sainte Catherine, signé Marthe ». Le prénom d’une de mes grand-mères…

À Mouy, c’est poise ou c'est moise ? Les deux sans doute. Je photographie d’abord une ancienne fabrique de chaussures que j’avais déjà repérée. Il reste sur la façade le sigle MIR : dois-je en déduire que dans cet ancien fief communiste qui vient juste de basculer…à gauche, c’est à dire du côté du PS, l’on fabriquait ici les chaussures de la Paix *?

Mouy, Oise©Thierry Girard

Pour le reste, il était temps que ça bascule ; l’église, fermée, est la plus noire de suie et la plus pénétrée d’humidité que j’ai vue dans la région, mais ce n’est pas le plus grave ; ce qui poigne, là, c’est cette atmosphère de communisme cacochyme dont beaucoup de villes industrielles et ouvrières portent encore la marque. Autant je me méfie de ces villes de droite trop proprettes pour être honnêtes, autant je me désespère de voir les vestiges d’un certain état d’esprit du PC qui, à une époque pas si lointaine (il y a encore des survivants), pensait sans doute “tenir“ sa clientèle en l’entretenant dans un paysage désespérément dépressif. Ce n’était pas simplement une question de richesse, d’argent (la présence d’industries et d’entreprises ramènent évidemment des taxes professionnelles), mais bien plutôt une certaine façon de considérer le bien-être social à l’écart de toute préoccupation paysagère ou environnementale, ou dans une acception désuète de l’urbanité. Cela m ‘amène à évoquer un autre auteur isarien —pas du genre oisif—, Henri Barbusse, écrivain communiste et anti-fasciste, thuriféraire de la littérature prolétarienne, mais aussi l’un des premiers biographes de Staline, qui vécut à Aumont-en-Halatte, près de Senlis. Sabine m’a rapporté une édition de Clarté, ce roman qu’il écrivit après Le Feu, récit terrible des tranchées, vécu de l’intérieur, et qui sent les tripes, les boyaux, la merde et la mort. Clarté, c’est l’espoir retrouvé, le plus-jamais-ça avec la promesse d’une révolution portée par les « citoyens du monde ». Bon, cela dit, c’est un peu chiant à lire, ça a mal vieilli, c’est comme Anatole France. Qui lit encore Anatole France ? Huysmans, Mirbeau, d’accord, mais Anatole France ? L’Histoire littéraire est terrible, elle fait beaucoup de morts, même des gens respectables. Et Barbusse l’était. Peut-être devrais-je lire L’Enfer, ce récit d’un voyeur qui analyse le monde depuis une modeste chambre d’hôtel et un trou dans la cloison ? Barbusse décrivait alors « l’infini de la misère », une misère existentielle. Et alors, Mouy ? Pas vraiment l’enfer, mais peu de clarté.

*Mir en russe.

A Lamp in the Form of a Dove

ferdinando — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:33:46 +0000

Another from The Legend of St. Julian:

The husband and wife kept their secret. But both cherished the child with an equal love, and respecting him as one marked by God, they had infinite care for his person. His crib was padded with the finest down, a lamp in the form of a dove burned over it, three nurses rocked him, and, tightly wrapped in his swaddling clothes, with rosy face and blue eyes, dressed in a brocade mantle and a bonnet set with pearls, he looked like a little Lord Jesus. He teethed without crying once.

Rooms in a Castle

ferdinando — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:12:11 +0000

St. Julian the hospitaler. Trans. Fowlie. Nothing in particular to say about this, just exceptional writing:

Inside, the ironwork glistened everywhere. Tapestries in the bedrooms were protection against the cold. Cupboards overflowed with linen, casks of wine were piled up in the cellars, and oak coffers creaked with the weight of bags of money.

In the armory, between standards and heads of wild beasts, you could see weapons of every age and nation, from the slings of the Amalekites and the javelins of the Garamantes, to the short swords of the Saracens and the Norman coats-of-mail.

The large spit in the kitchen could roast an ox. The chapel was as suptuous as the oratory of a king. There was even, in a remote corner, a Roman steam-bath; but the good lord did not use it, considering it a pagan practice.

A bit later, Julian's hut:

His only furniture was a small table, a stool, a bed of dry leaves and three clay cups. Two holes in the wall served as windows.

Casquette et transcendance

mademoiselleelise — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:21:28 +0000

Pourquoi cette douloureuse expression sur le visage des élèves quand je leur demande d’enlever leur casquette en entrant en classe ?

Simple coquetterie ?

Drame du cheveu gras impitoyablement exposé au grand jour par le caprice autoritaire du professeur ?

Non, la lueur tragique qui passe dans le regard de l’élève à ce moment là semble nous dire qu’il y a autre chose, on peut pas comprendre…

Observons de même la célérité de la remise du précieux couvre-chef entre la fin du cours, à l’insu du professeur qui efface le tableau, et la sortie dans le couloir, où le CPE sévit à nouveau contre l’innocent accessoire… quelques secondes de répit souvent chèrement achetées, parfois même au péril de la chère casquette qui se trouve confisquée pour plusieurs jours…

Rendons nous à l’évidence, quelque chose de plus grand que la coquetterie se joue dans le port de la casquette.

En me rendant dans le bureau du CPE du lycée où j’enseigne, j’ai été frappée par l’abondante collection de casquettes et bonnets ornant le dessus de l’armoire.

Voici un modeste échantillon du trésor de guerre du tyran casquettophobe :

Je me penchai alors sur leur ornementation et tentai d’en dégager une tendance cohérente :

· une vanité baroquisante représentant un crâne et une rose

· une casquette énorme et blanche, joignant le fond à la forme et arborant les lettres XL

· une immonde bête brodée, une fouine-chien-renard-loup-belette en train de fumer, couverte de strass

· une casquette ayant autrefois fait partie d’un uniforme de la police

En apparence, cet ensemble ne présentait aucune espèce de cohérence.

C’est alors que je me remémorai la première scène de Madame Bovary, étudiée récemment avec mes élèves.

On y trouve une longue description de la casquette du jeune Charles Bovary entrant en classe, objet absurde et ridicule qui nous le présente comme un boulet (un « bolos », comme diraient mes élèves) dès l’ouverture du roman. Certains critiques ont vu dans cet objet énorme et stigmatisant un symbole du destin, de la fatalité, une transcendance qui surplombe et écrase Charles, parce qu’elle est sur sa tête et donc au dessus de lui.

En serait-il de même pour les casquettes de mes élèves ? Symboliseraient-elles une forme de transcendance ? Seraient elles au dessus d’eux (car sur leurs têtes) pour mieux symboliser ce qui est au dessus de tous les hommes ?

La mort pour la casquette baroque ?

La loi pour la casquette de la police ?

L’immensité pour la casquette XL ?

L’absurdité existentielle pour la casquette avec une belette qui fume ornée de strass ?

Tout s’éclaire.

Un adolescent avec une casquette ne se moque pas du savoir vivre ni du règlement, il veut faire passer un message :

Aucun règlement intérieur n’abolira l’insignifiance de l’homme devant l’infini, son impuissance face à la loi, ni l’absurdité d’exister face à la menace du néant.

Heureusement que je suis là pour les comprendre.

Julian Barnes is awesome

grumblemouse — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:03:34 +0000

Went to see Julian Barnes talk about his new book last night at that RSA - its a memoir about his parents and their deaths - it was a suprisingly light hearted discussion considering the topic - anyway he chatted about a bunch of awesome things but the best bit was his closing where he quoted Flaubert:

'Prose is like hair, it shines with combing'

Thought this was awesome and true for many more things than prose.

St Julian the Hospitaler

ferdinando — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:49:37 +0000

Alors le Lepreux l'etreignit, et ses yeux tout a coup prirent une clarte d'etoiles; ses cheveux s'allongerent comme les rais du soleil; le souffle de ses narines avait la douceur des roses; un nuage d'encens s'eleva du foyer, les flot chantataient. Cependant une abondance de delices, une joie surhumaine descendait comme une inondation dans l'ame je Julien, pame; et celui dont les bras le serraient toujours, grandissait, grandissait, touchant de sa tete et de ses pieds les deux murs de la cabane. Le toit s'envola, le firmament se deployait; et Julien monta ver les espaces bleus, face a face avec Notre-Seigneur Jesus, qui l'emportait dans le ciel.

*
Narine: nostril. Flot: wave. etreindre: hug, grasp. prirent: passe simple, prendre. foyer: hearth. pame: to swoon. cabane: shed, cabin. emporter: carry away.

*
Then the leper hugged him, and all at once his eyes took on the brightness of stars; his hair stretched out like the rays of the sun; the breath from his nostrils had the sweetness of roses; a snow of incense rose from the hearth, the waves sang. At the same time, an abundance of delight, a superhuman joy descended as a flood in the soul of Julien, as it swooned; and the one whose arms still held him grew, grew, touching with his head and feet the two walls of the cabin. The roof flew off, the firmament spread out; and Julien climbed toward the blue spaces, face to face with Our Lord Jesus, who carried him away in the sky.