Nous sommes Charlie

What can you say that hasn't been said, mostly with utter banality, before? 'Horrible, terrible, shocking, barbarity'? I am embarrassed to used those words. They are too much and not enough. More seemly to just shut up. Or be there--somewhere--with a pen or a sign. Charlie Hebdo represents a few centuries of fighting for and achieving freedom of speech--it's not some symbol of late capitalism. It's a right, it's human. It's something we can agree on without feeling squeamish. We can say 'we' without wanting to add 'but.' 

'Nous Sommes Charlie,' the Air France pilot said on the intercom, touching down at San Francisco International yesterday afternoon, after he hoped we'd had a good flight.

Packing

To get out the suitcases or not to get out the suitcases, that is the question. Wait till the last minute, which is tomorrow, and put off thinking about leaving for another day, or stumble over suitcases for an extra 24 hours, but pack more slowly?

Normally we'd only have hand luggage. But we are moving to a new-to-us condo and thought we might take: a few sheets and towels, books, sofa cushions, books, salad bowl, tea towels, books, napkins, pot holders, books, placemats, books, a winter coat, books...ie, some of all the things (books) that are more than we need in one place. The model sailboat my son built. Books.

Here's another Christmas photograph. The village is La Roque Alric, looking towards the Dentelles de Montmirail, a great climbing spot. We walk there several times a week, 3.5 km of fairly steep up and down. In autumn there are vineyards with grapes to glean. In winter the mistral can be fierce, but the Place de l'Eglise, when you get there, is sunny and sheltered. In fact, you never want to leave. On this day a woman came along with a key to the church and we were able, for the first time, to go inside. She was taking away some of the Christmas flowers.

Photos by François Brahic

Michael Hofmann in the LRB

My December 18 LRB turned up a little late, but just dove into Michael Hofmann's review of Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. What a pleasure to read even if, like me, you know nothing about the book. Case made. Thanks.

I happened to be working on a review of something myself, which I almost binned, but settled for deleting all the adjectives.

Paris, Malaucène

Went to the Bibliothèque Nationale yesterday to see an exhibit of rare books, including some of Apollinaire's handwritten revisions of the first or second proof of 'Le poète assasiné.' And Mallarmé's extensive revisions on proof of 'Le coup de dès,' Proust's dedication of the first edition of "La Recherche' to a friend with whom he was less and less on good terms ("Chère Madame..."), a copy of a book Picasso illustrated and that he gave to Dora Maar, whom he portrayed as a harpie. Looking at the revisions of manuscripts and manuscript proof made me feel how improvised everything is, how open to change, how imperfect in its author's mind as it goes to press. Afterthoughts, afterthoughts, and then they come down to us as if engraved in marble.

Photo by François Brahic

The picture on the right was taken in the village of Malaucène, at the foot of the Mont Ventoux. It was Christmas Eve, about 6:30 pm, according to the clock up top, by the moon. Shops were closing. We'd stopped off after a hike on one of the Mont Ventoux trails (the GR4) to buy some last-minute gifts in a little bookstore, and some eau de lavande at the pharmacy.

Malaucène is one of the places cyclists begin or end their ascent of the Mont Ventoux, and it is also where Petrarch set off on his "Ascent of the Mont Ventoux" in (I think) 1336. The pharmacy is behind us in the photograph beside a mossy fountain, a butcher shop and a bike store; the bookstore is beyond the lit archway (the sign points to to it) in one of the narrow streets. Also behind us, on the main street, a supermarket, where we buy groceries.

The Persimmon Tree and the Family Tree

photo by François Brahic

I can't sum up two weeks offline. Besides my blog philosophy is that it should be short and full of particulars. I could have kept it going by a) sitting on the steps of the village library in freezing temperature and whiplash mistral; b) sitting on my brother-in-law's doorstep in ditto. In fact, the weather was so cold and blustery, though mostly sunny, last week that we had to force ourselves out of the house after lunch for walks. We made it halfway up the Mont Ventoux at least three times and nabbed some persimmons on the way. This involved a long conversation with the custodian of the tree, whose father had planted it, about seventy years ago, when the present "owner" (if trees are owned) was ten years old. He climbed a ladder, we held up a box he also provided. It turned out he and my husband were cousins, after they exchanged family trees--the persimmon tree and the family tree.

Back to Paris last night. I finished my almost-finished Knaussgaard (too fat to transport, besides I had Ferrante, whose more conventionally-organised narrative makes it easier to read when there are a number of other people in the house, all doing their things: slow-cooking a leg of boar shot by our next-door neighbour and offered with great ceremony to us; playing "bananagrams," a speed version of Scrabble, in case, like me,  you didn't know; playing the flute; slow-cooking pork; vacuuming; moving beds; making exquisitely folded paper objects; photo-shopping the day's photos...).

I think I'll add a few photos to this, if i can get my son to send them over from the next room. Stayed tuned.

Knausgaard, again

Is it worth reading Knausgaard from beginning to end? Why would it be worth it?

What doesn't change is the tediousness of his account of his life--which is the tediousness of everyone's life, I suppose, the ups and downs, the trivial along with the momentous. Taking out the garbage, watching his wife give birth, shitty diapers, a suicide attempt. Of course, not everyone could report these things is such obsessive detail and still have people read past the first chapter, so this in itself is an accomplishment. If I have nothing else to do I am not discontent to plough through these daily details, because of the chutzpah of even thinking about writing all that down, and his puritanical honesty about his feelings, no matter how they may reflect on him. 

What does change, and give the book an "arc" are his developing reflections on how meaningful or meaningless all this is. Meaningful, I guess, because his success as a writer, this is in the background, in the interview requests, that confers meaning on his life, and that means everything to him too. It's not something he's going to sacrifice to a marriage and children. 

Knausgaard, again. South for Christmas.

Knausgaard is getting boring. I'm just turning the pages, pretending to read, because psychologically it is almost impossible for me to stop reading something before the end. ( Ok, I should learn.) I took tome 2 to a doctor's appointment: she had said, "Bring a book, I'm not very punctual," which was an understatement. It was two hours before my turn came, two hours after the appointment time. Fortunately the doctor was smart, humorous. It doesn't help to have a book when you are getting mad. And there are only so many issues of Elle magazine you can bear to read in one afternoon.

Tomorrow off to the south of France for two weeks. Looking forward to lots of hikes, up the Mont Ventoux etc. The house belonged to my husband's great grandfather. It was last decorated by my mother-in-law and is a museum of a certain southern French style, the furniture and kitchen stuff that got relegated to the country when their Marseille house was updated. It's dans son jus, as they say.

Lunch, rain, Knausgaard

Just back from having lunch with a friend at the Centre Pompidou, where there was a long line of people waiting to enter when the Centre opened, at 11. Nina and I had planned to meet at Brancusi's Atelier on the parvis, but it wasn't open either, and when I arrived Nina was standing outside under an umbrella, and we went to the Cafe Beaubourg up by the Niki de St Phalle/Tinguely fountain.

Knausgaard: it's very good, I think. (Deliberately) not beautiful writing (the way Sebald is consciously beautiful writing) but gripping in its unfolding, the story of his "struggle" to find meaning in existence, developed alternatively in passages of narrative and passages of essayistic discourse, all on a forthrightly personal level. I don't want to rush through it, want to take time to understand why it seems important as a book.