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The books I got using my company’s gift cards are definitely on the dark side. The first one I got, a few weeks ago, is French and a recent release (unusual for me, if you follow this blog): “D’autres vies que la mienne” [Other lives than my own], by Emmanuel Carrère, a writer who has a reputation for being narcissist and realist (he writes about real and dark events and about his own life). It’s disturbing and quite a difficult read: within a year, he has witnessed death of 2 close people: a child who died in the 2004 tsunami while Carrère was in holidays in Asia, and his sister-in-law who died of cancer. The parents’ child and his brother-in-law both “asked” him to write their stories, so he reconstructs the lives of both families and the events with surgical precision. It’s heart-wrenching and not at all complacent.
On Saturday morning, I bought 2 more new books from my little bookshop nearby (that accepts big brand gift cards): The Road, by Cormac McCarty, because of the good feedback it got throughout the lit-blog world; and Gomorrha, by Roberto Saviano, a non-fiction book about the Naples mafia that reads like a gripping novel but gets even more horrific as you realize it’s true and personal. As I usually read several books in parallel, I plan to select optimistic, or cheerful (but not too pollyannaish) novels to re-balance this downright black series. Suggestions are welcome!
On Saturday afternoon, I had a strange misadventure at the library, when I discovered 5 unknown books on my personal card… Oops! Apparently a computer glitch had made it possible to register on my account books that went to another user (last time I went, there was indeed a system breakdown). I was really stressed out, because if the unknown user decided not to return the books, I would have to pay for all 5 of them, as I was unable to prove I didn’t have them myself. The librarian decided to extend the loan for another 2 weeks and hope for the best… I checked almost everyday from then on, and yesterday night the 5 books had disappeared from my account!
And to finish this glorious Saturday, I went to the writing group again! Our usual host, David, was not there (I guess he had some Halloween activity), but we had a female, Californian, motherly figure instead (a friend of his) to replace him, and the meeting was rather crazy. We heard hilarious pieces and obscure poems, stories with a Vietnam colonel in drag, and a lesbian pirate attacking Walmart (people are usually a little nervous about showing their pieces around and this one succeeded in relaxing the general atmosphere!). The writer of the lesbian pirate adventure offered each of us a queer audio-book on CD and a piece of chocolate. French people don’t celebrate Halloween, so the American expats in the room were a bit home-sick and ready for any kind of banter. Once again, I wrote nothing at all, but it was great!
I wanted a very Halloweenesque title but this is totally misleading, the title should really be “return to”. I’m so happy to report here that I finally returned to my “official” writing group after nearly 1 ½ year.
It’s almost surrealistic how little it changed while I was away. It is held at the famous bookshop “Shakespeare and Co.” close to the river Seine and Notre Dame, and the meeting room is a very atmospheric library with rough benches, a frayed carpet and musty books that aren’t for sale: actually a perfect setting for a gothic short story! The group leader is still the same, bedraggled, pale and thin, hurried-but-always-ready-for-a-pint-afterwards, limerick-loving and with such a great theatrical voice for epic poems. And even though most of the group are American artsy students and au-pairs (a therefore transient and tortured – if not navel-gazing – little troop), I recognized a few members, the lyrical middle-aged female poet with a large golden mane and long, a bit spidery limbs, and Robert, a very nice middle-aged guy who shares his time between France and the US and who’s always ready to read aloud and comment but rarely brings his own pieces.
I stopped going, oh I don’t remember the exact last session I joined, but I was already very pregnant by then, and sitting there in the crowded little room (no toilet) wasn’t fun anymore. Everybody there suddenly seemed… I don’t know, so young, unattached, egocentric, rootless. The bookshop seemed very far from our home, the metro journey unbearably long and stuffy, and the baby had somehow sucked all my inspiration. I was dazed, but not in a creative way. And after that last session, well, I never found the time and energy on Saturday afternoons anymore. Not to mention that blog aside, I wrote nearly nothing, no fiction to speak of. Even less to consider presenting in front of 20 strangers.
But this month I found a good friend through Facebook, someone I met back when we were in a writing group together on the other side of the world, and she reminded me of the fun of this all. Mr. Smithereens kindly agreed to entertain our toddler during the meeting this weekend. I was elated, but it felt strange, it felt… bloody long (2 hours!! How will Baby S survive?? While I routinely let him with the nanny all day long…) and to say nothing of the guilt. But at the end of the session my brain was full of words and ideas, new ones, old ones. I had heard funny theater scenes, obscure poems, a page of a thriller. And nobody said it was worthless and futile. It’s worth it. Definitely. I’ll go again.
Yesterday I had a sort of library-blah (let’s say, a sub-optimal experience). I hadn’t meant to go this week, because I’m already absorbed in Tom Perrotta’s Abstinence Teacher and a French history book on popular classes in Paris 18C called “The Fragile Life”. Both are fascinating, and I just needed to renew the loan for another 3 weeks.
In theory, I can do it online, but it’s a new service in Paris public libraries and their internet website has all sorts of breakdowns. So I had to go and renew, baby in tow. When we got there, the librarians too were having a network breakdown; there was a long line at the check out counter! So I figured, at least let’s have a look on the shelves and bring back something new, perhaps the mess will be sorted out by then.
I wanted some comfort read too, but somehow nothing seemed to measure up to those 2 I’m reading now. And I had to be quick because Baby Smithereens isn’t really that patient (it doesn’t help that the library is over-heated and has a strict silence policy). But eventually I found a fun project for the Halloween season:
Sheridan Le Fanu and Wilkie Collins are old Victorian gothic favorites: I’ve read that they were rivals, but also that Le Fanu had influenced Collins. I’m curious to experience that firsthand, because I had read them before with a long interval between them. Will I see some parallels? Is one better than the other?
I’ve borrowed 2 novels: The Evil Guest by Le Fanu (1851), and The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins (1871), and intend to read them together. I confess, I chose them both only because they were rather short by Victorian standards, and that the titles seemed mysterious. Maybe I will discover that they have nothing in common, but at least I’ll have a real Gothic fall this year!
- An unknown baby (about 4-6 months old) in her stroller at the zebra crossing, who smiles at me
- A notice at the door of the (closed) driving school we pass by every morning: “End of the renovation works: Sept 29, Inch’ Allah” — it’s so true that having repairs done these days depends so much on God’s will!
- My new colleague who is so dynamic and optimistic
- Knowing that I’ll leave work early tomorrow afternoon
- Juicy, fresh figs bursting and melting in my mouth
- Seeing my mother coo over my son
- Wearing a suit at work that is neither black, navy, grey or beige, but- shocking blue-green!
- The new mystery I’m reading during my commute: The War against Miss Winter, by Kathryn Miller Haines. A sample of her witty heroine’s talk:
When I started, there were only two employees, Jim Mc Cain, owner and operator (and, I assumed, the “& Son” of the title) and his secretary, a well-preserved middle-aged doll I eventually learned was named Agnes, but was usually referred to as honey, baby or cupcake. Ss much joy as Agnes brought into Jim’s life, at some point he figured out that he couldn’t function in an office where the only alphabetical thing was the soup. That’s why he hired me.”
Welcome to the 1940s in New York! I can’t wait to be sitting in my train to follow her breezy girl’s adventures between theater auditions and serious detection!
Going back to work after the holidays is never easy, but with the recession, the mood in my department was downright dreary… until yesterday we were informed that the company will give out gift cards to everyone, on an equal basis, to be spent on “cultural goods”… which means books to me (but also DVDs, CDs, tickets to exhibitions and concerts)! (Apparently we can’t have rise or benefits, but we still can get gift cards…)
I still need to confirm if the bookstores associated with these gift cards have foreign language books or can order them, but that’s definitely a piece of great news! Isn’t that funny that the company sort of acknowledges that ”cultural goods” are good for the employees’ morale? Or does it promote escapism (because results are so depressing) with the hope that it doesn’t increase absenteeism? (Yet I can’t help but remember that they never reopened the office library, which would have been great too… but you know French people’s reputation… always grumbling!)
My mind is already reeling with tempting ideas. Surely, with 659 new novels published in France this fall for the yearly “Rentree litteraire”, the choice will be hard to make!
We’re back from holidays after a wonderful time, very far from internet connection and mobile phone signals. We staid in family-run countryside places, either in self-contained flats or small hotels or B&Bs like this one or that one, and it was perfect (a little publicity will do them no harm). As usual, I spent an inordinate amount of time in drugstores and bookshops. France doesn’t have drugstores where you can find a combination of beauty products, natural products and baby products together in one place – that’s a real shame (Mr. Smithereens certainly wouldn’t agree). As for bookshops, well, you know that already. The result is that I ended up, as usual, buying mostly body lotions, herbal teas and, well… books to bring back as souvenirs. I’ll certainly write a post about the great bookstores we found in Innsbruck (Austria) and in Konstanz (Germany), but here is the crop of this summer, both for me and Mr. Smithereens:
- Sarah Wiener, Meine kulinarische Reise durch Frankreich. Eine Liebeserklärung mit Rezepten / My cooking travel through France, a declaration of love and recipes. Sarah Wiener is an Austrian-born star cook who has a restaurant in Germany but also makes TV shows in France and Germany. She’s fresh and approachable and seem to teach you to cook like a best friend would. This book, that looks like a travel journal, is a recap of her trips to traditional restaurants in France remote countryside, so as to learn new techniques and old recipes.
- Barbara Vine, The Birthday Present – we just can’t resist any new title by Barbara Vine, aka Ruth Rendell.
- Qiu Xiaolong, Red Mandarin Dress – another installment from a mystery series we both love, set in contemporary Shanghai. Qiu is very talented when it comes to mix history and Maoist darkest moments with present-time corruption and excesses in China.
- What to Expect: The Toddler Years by Murkoff, Eisenberg, and Hathaway: it was at a bargain 5 euros, second-hand: 2 years of advices for such a low price, even we don’t follow them (all), isn’t it worth it? We got the first “What to expect…” during my pregnancy and went on with the First year book, they were quite down-to-earth and commonsensical, but the older Baby Smithereens grows, the clearer I can see how European and American education styles diverge, so I’ll probably keep a more distanced eye on this one.
- Alain de Botton, The pleasures and sorrows of work. This one is for Mr. Smithereens, he’s a fan. As for me, the magic doesn’t seem to work, even though the theme appeals to me. Who knows, maybe I’ll give it another try?
Just the time for a bullet post today, because I realize I’ve started so many books in parallel:
- Elizabeth George’s Careless in Red is still on my night stand. It’s quite hefty, it will probably come with me in holidays.
- Batya Gur, The Saturday Morning Murder: A Psychoanalytic Case (1992). Last year I’d discovered this Israeli mystery series featuring detective Michael Ohayon. The title I’d read was Murder in the Kibbutz, and it was interesting to learn so much about Israeli daily life. This one is rather slow, but equally exotic. I’m trying very hard to finish this one before leaving.
- Francisco Coloane, Cape Horn (1941). This is a collection of short stories by a Chilean writer I’d discovered about 10 years ago. As you can imagine stories set in such a desolate, harsh, windswept lands with desolate and harsh people are something of a cultural shock. Especially when I’ll be vacationing in sunny, tidy, flowery Tyrol. Sometimes it reminds me a little of Annie Proulx’ prairie, but not with the same sensibility. Mmh, let me think a little more about this comparison and get back to you at the end of the month.
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami: another collection, but can anything be further apart from Cape Horn than quirky Japan? I’ve started a few stories, the mood is about as strange as expected. I’m not so sure I’ll take it with me in holidays.
I’m sure I’ll still pack another few to go with these, but I can’t guess how much reading I’ll have time for this year. We’ll see!
I am gearing up for our annual summer holidays, at last! To say the least, we are all very much looking forward to it (except perhaps Baby Smithereens who shamelessly already enjoys the sandy Northern beaches with his grandparents).
We’ll be driving east through Bourgogne, the Alps, stopping in Switzerland, in Austrian Tyrol, at the Lake Constance (also known as Bodensee)… in total a round-trip of 3000km (I don’t know how many miles that make), but no more than 3 hours driving on any given leg of the journey, as far as possible from the daily rush. It also means that I won’t have access to Internet for most of the 3 weeks, and I won’t be taking my computer either (I have a pen and notebook to write, we’ll see how it goes). In case I suffer from serious withdrawal symptoms, there must be internet cafés somewhere along the road, or so I hope!
For the 3 previous summers I had a Smithereens Seasonal Shutdown, but this year I thought of something different. I was wondering about blog-sitters (I had one in mind, only I learnt that she was leaving too, good for her!). Thanks to WordPress technology (there are so many options on that stuff I hardly know the basics) we can now schedule posts, so I am preparing a series of posts that will be released every few days while I’ll be away… These mostly are reviews I wrote longhand in my notebooks and that I am now scanning and typing. When I’m in the right writing mood, I can write several drafts in the same day, which is an unreasonable pace for me (and as you may know, I never finish drafts…) It’s nice that I saved them so you’ll be able to enjoy them in a more timely fashion!
It seems that the more I’m time-limited, the more ideas I get for series that would take me a lot of time to research and write properly… So, at the risk of short-changing you readers, this is the first of a sporadic series about words that are missing either in French or in English (and the cultural background behind these words).
By “missing”, I don’t mean that they have disappeared or are rarely used, I mean that the concept or the object doesn’t even exist in one language. You can imagine that this is the source of a great frustration when you have to deal with such a word… Because in a conversation you can’t insert a footnote of several lines, you probably end up with such a conversation: “well… you know, this thingy… [usually the other person just glares] that stuff that looks like a… but actually in French it’s rather used as… No? you don’t see what I mean? [usually the other person glares on and starts being bored] Well, I can’t say it better than… [here everyone is embarrassed] How bizarre… Anyway, let’s change subject and move on.”
I thought that writing from times to times about those “thingies” must be fun, and maybe, you people out there, you blog-friends will help me find a proper way to explain and/or translate and/or extricate myself from the above sticky situation.
Alright, enough introduction. The missing word I want to introduce today is a French one: “turbulette”, also named “gigoteuse”. You can get a picture here.
The first word is built from the qualifier “turbulent”, that means rowdy, the second is built from the verb “gigoter”, to wriggle. The result is a quilted sleeping-bag-thingie for baby and it’s very very popular in France. I think it does exist in UK, but I didn’t see any in North America. To go to sleep, a French baby usually wears a babygro and this on top, which is closed by two snaps on the shoulders and a zipper on the side, or a zipper on the front. And nothing else in bed! So Baby is free to wriggle at night because there is ample room for legs in the sleeping bag, but baby remains covered (and added value: the “turbulette” will somewhat hamper baby’s movements if it tries to turn on his belly when it’s little, and later when it tries to stand up in the middle of the night and that wakes her up). I was pointed toward the word “bundler”, but bundlers don’t exist in France and it’s different because a “turbulette” is closed at the bottom and not elasticated.
The reason why this “turbulette” is so popular that we have 2 words for it, is that French babies don’t have blankets (US gasp!). The idea that a newborn would sleep in a blanket will be met in France by a blank stare, because doctors tell mothers-to-be that the baby will wriggle inside the blanket and either get out of it, catching a cold or worse, or they might suffocate in the blanket [doctors know how to guilt-trip you out of a purchase, don’t they?]. Some French babies have a snuggle blanket (the small item which is actually more like a hankie), but others prefer a teddy bear or a burping cloth, or even an old white diaper cloth to comfort them.
Anyway, I like the word “turbulette” because it gives you the feeling of an energetic and playful baby going to bed (whether it will sleep soon is not really included in the concept 
!), and the sounds of it is funny and cute in French (-”ette” is a suffix to say something is small and nice). Blanket does not in my mind have the same image, rather a snug and comfy one, but I may be mistaken.
International bloggers, let me know if your country is “turbulette”-friendly, and how it is called there, or whether it has found yet another solution (with an exotic name) to make local babies sleep!
By sheer chance I am now reading two very different books that are both set in Cornwall: Patrick Gale’s Notes from an Exhibition and Elizabeth George’s latest Inspector Lynley mystery, Careless in Red.
I’ve never been to Cornwall (although I very much want to), so I can’t judge if both writers have captured the spirit of the place. But the backdrop of each story is so different that sometimes I feel they are set in different worlds.
Elizabeth George’s story is set on the coastline in an imaginary village with local small businesses catering to the tourists, especially those looking for outdoor sports like rock-climbing and surfing. As Elizabeth George explains, she always takes her inspiration from a real place, so readers familiar with Cornwall may be able to discover through the realistic description the real-life name and location of Casvelyn.
The book is set off season, so there is a definite small-town, gossipy, tightly-knit-against-outsiders and rather grim atmosphere. I’m not sure what are the most popular clichés on Cornwall, but there are definitely pasties, clotted cream, nice landscapes, back roads and lots of wind. Now, I’m not really a sports person (ok, I can hear Mr. Smithereens roaring with laughter already — I’m not at all a sports person), so I don’t care much about surfing, and I find myself rather annoyed by the very Cornish names of the massive cast of characters (it’s not the fact that they are difficult to remember, it’s the sheer number of them…)…
Mmh, maybe I’m getting off on the wrong foot with that one. I’ve often wondered about the fact that Elizabeth George, an American, writes typically English mysteries, and how true (or wrong) her books sound to British (or Cornish) ears. Most previous novels didn’t bother me that much, but on this one, her concern about local realism seems forced to me, even to my completely foreign ears.
Patrick Gale’s story is set in Penzance, and it definitely appeals a lot more to me, even if the subject was unfamiliar at first. It’s a family drama centered around the mother, an artist suffering from bipolar disorders and severe bouts of depression. The small-town feeling is also present (and the wind, but not the pasties !), but seen under a warm, human light, especially as one of the adult sons stays with his father to sort out stuff after his mother’s death. He appreciates the chitchat in the local shops, the feeling that people know and care about each other, although he is reminded of his teenaged years when all this slowness and closeness was oppressive and made him yearn to leave for the big city. It helps to say that the story is set in the Quaker community (a faith I didn’t know the first thing about), so it gives a calm, intimate and subdued atmosphere, completely at odds with the Elizabeth George mystery.
I’m sure that the truth is somewhere in between, or maybe in a combination of both. Imagine a bipolar killer who enjoys surfing, shopping for Cornish pasties in Penzance, before joining cliff-climbers going to a Quaker meeting… not really the best of both worlds!
