January 30, 2014
How not to lie, or Paris-the-first-time, part 1
One of my favorite authors in my 20's was Milan Kundera. You may recall a movie that was made from one of his books, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Now, the first step in "How NOT to Lie" is to NOT LIE. For example---I hated that movie.--not a lie. At the time, it seemed like the smart people, or the cool people or the artsy-fartsy people liked the movie, so, at the time, I said I liked it also. Frankly, no matter how I approached it, I got bored and fell asleep. If I watched it loaded, I got bored and fell asleep and if I watched it not loaded I got bored and fell asleep. It was a lose-lose situation. Because I refused to admit I hated this movie, I saw it more times than I can count. None of this really mattered though and life went on.
Now, in 1989, I found myself on a plane bound for Paris. I was traveling out of "spite". If you ever have the opportunity to travel out of spite, I highly recommend it-- there is tremendous satisfaction to be derived from spite-travelling (at least there was when I was 19.) This story I am telling, being full of secrets and lies and spite is a two-parter. Part One is Paris-the-First-Time and Part Two is Paris-the-Second-Time. And Milan Kundera was one of those rare figures who magically spanned both realms--the First and the Second. Now, if you can just bare with me through what might feel like a few non-sequetors, I will attempt to tell this story:
Here are a few examples of Things I Used to Lie About:
1. What I ate for breakfast.
2. Whether or not I had ever met Mikhail Gorbachev
3. Just what my cat allergies really amounted to
4. That I had lost your book.
So, we've got spite, Paris, lies and Milan Kundera. (It is all coming together)
It was March when I arrived in Paris. I was lucky enough to "know" someone.---my mom's boyfriend's best friend's son's girlfriend's father had offered me a place to stay for a bit. It turned out to be an indescribable classically beautiful apartment, twice the size of my house back home, in the fifth arrondissement of Paris on the Rue de L'Abbey. The whole thing could not have been more old world posh. There was a house keeper who made fried cheese for lunch and a library full of books in dozens of different languages. A cobalt blue bathtub that defied description and--the oddest thing to me then--a digital clock that was kept on 24 hour time. I would glance at it and it would say "13 o'clock". One of my favorite books in the world started with the line: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."* For me, this line was a promise. A promise that you were about to go somewhere that both existed and didn't exist at the same time--a place that had happened already, would never happen, and was happening at that very moment-- all at the same time. I love books that can beckon like that.
And Paris itself beckoned to me like that--like a book. It promised me that my whole world, my whole life, had not only disappeared and been replaced with something else--but that that other life just might never have existed in the first place. At age 19 that was all I wanted.
I saw and did things in Paris that I can still hardly believe are true. And I don't mean beautiful things, or a change in the quality of light, or some dumb-ass mime in a sandy-ass park--these things are solid and undeniable. I mean things that made me feel like I wasn't even a part of the human race anymore. Things that were simultaneously horrifying and inspiring--I just can't describe them. Somehow, Paris made me into something else--a horror and an inspiration--something that belonged there--where ever that was. It wrung the life out of me and stung me into a new shape--it created its own new animal--me. I became capable of things I didn't know I could do--some of them wonderful and some of them something else. To this day, some of these things I just wish I didn't know. But there it is, just the same.
The good news was obvious: the line between the dark and light became almost nonexistent and suddenly LIFE in it's entirety was,,,,,,,accessible..
That is what "Posh" did for me. That and a shelf full of Milan Kundera books published in English.
End of How NOT to Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part 1
(to be cont'd)
* 1984, George Orwell
Now, in 1989, I found myself on a plane bound for Paris. I was traveling out of "spite". If you ever have the opportunity to travel out of spite, I highly recommend it-- there is tremendous satisfaction to be derived from spite-travelling (at least there was when I was 19.) This story I am telling, being full of secrets and lies and spite is a two-parter. Part One is Paris-the-First-Time and Part Two is Paris-the-Second-Time. And Milan Kundera was one of those rare figures who magically spanned both realms--the First and the Second. Now, if you can just bare with me through what might feel like a few non-sequetors, I will attempt to tell this story:
Here are a few examples of Things I Used to Lie About:
1. What I ate for breakfast.
2. Whether or not I had ever met Mikhail Gorbachev
3. Just what my cat allergies really amounted to
4. That I had lost your book.
So, we've got spite, Paris, lies and Milan Kundera. (It is all coming together)
It was March when I arrived in Paris. I was lucky enough to "know" someone.---my mom's boyfriend's best friend's son's girlfriend's father had offered me a place to stay for a bit. It turned out to be an indescribable classically beautiful apartment, twice the size of my house back home, in the fifth arrondissement of Paris on the Rue de L'Abbey. The whole thing could not have been more old world posh. There was a house keeper who made fried cheese for lunch and a library full of books in dozens of different languages. A cobalt blue bathtub that defied description and--the oddest thing to me then--a digital clock that was kept on 24 hour time. I would glance at it and it would say "13 o'clock". One of my favorite books in the world started with the line: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."* For me, this line was a promise. A promise that you were about to go somewhere that both existed and didn't exist at the same time--a place that had happened already, would never happen, and was happening at that very moment-- all at the same time. I love books that can beckon like that.
And Paris itself beckoned to me like that--like a book. It promised me that my whole world, my whole life, had not only disappeared and been replaced with something else--but that that other life just might never have existed in the first place. At age 19 that was all I wanted.
I saw and did things in Paris that I can still hardly believe are true. And I don't mean beautiful things, or a change in the quality of light, or some dumb-ass mime in a sandy-ass park--these things are solid and undeniable. I mean things that made me feel like I wasn't even a part of the human race anymore. Things that were simultaneously horrifying and inspiring--I just can't describe them. Somehow, Paris made me into something else--a horror and an inspiration--something that belonged there--where ever that was. It wrung the life out of me and stung me into a new shape--it created its own new animal--me. I became capable of things I didn't know I could do--some of them wonderful and some of them something else. To this day, some of these things I just wish I didn't know. But there it is, just the same.
The good news was obvious: the line between the dark and light became almost nonexistent and suddenly LIFE in it's entirety was,,,,,,,accessible..
That is what "Posh" did for me. That and a shelf full of Milan Kundera books published in English.
End of How NOT to Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part 1
(to be cont'd)
* 1984, George Orwell
January 31, 2014
How Not to lie or paris-the-first-time, part 2
Before we begin, let's start with a little information about Milan Kundera that may turn out to be pertinent to this tale; I am not really sure yet.
Milan Kundera is one of the most recognized writers from the Czech Republic. However, it is important to note, he is a naturalized French citizen, lives in Paris, writes his books in French and prefers to be classified as a French writer. The reason he lives in Paris and not Prague, the setting of most of his books, is because he has been exiled from his homeland--he is a writer of banned books, strong opinions and a talent for story telling. The Communist regime of Czechoslovakia "took issue" with Kundera's writing and blacklisted his books until the Velvet Revolution, in 1989. (Most writers I know would secretly love to be blacklisted, controversial and banned--but I hear it is not as romantic as it sounds....)
If you have never read anything about the Velvet Revolution, (such a lovely name for a revolution!) it is quite interesting and I recommend further study. But then, I have yet to run across a boring revolution.
These are the opening paragraphs of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.* They were easily memorable to me as these paragraphs meant something profound to my 19 year-old self. The experience of reading them was meaningful enough for my 43-year-old self to mention them here:
Milan Kundera is one of the most recognized writers from the Czech Republic. However, it is important to note, he is a naturalized French citizen, lives in Paris, writes his books in French and prefers to be classified as a French writer. The reason he lives in Paris and not Prague, the setting of most of his books, is because he has been exiled from his homeland--he is a writer of banned books, strong opinions and a talent for story telling. The Communist regime of Czechoslovakia "took issue" with Kundera's writing and blacklisted his books until the Velvet Revolution, in 1989. (Most writers I know would secretly love to be blacklisted, controversial and banned--but I hear it is not as romantic as it sounds....)
If you have never read anything about the Velvet Revolution, (such a lovely name for a revolution!) it is quite interesting and I recommend further study. But then, I have yet to run across a boring revolution.
These are the opening paragraphs of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.* They were easily memorable to me as these paragraphs meant something profound to my 19 year-old self. The experience of reading them was meaningful enough for my 43-year-old self to mention them here:
|
"In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Barouque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousand of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was a great turning point in the history of Bohemia. A fateful moment of the kind that occurs only once or twice in a millennium.
"Gottwald was flanked by his comrades, with Clementis standing close to him. It was snowing and cold, and Gottwald was bareheaded. Bursting with solicitude, Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald’s head. "The propaganda section made hundreds of thousands of copies of the photograph taken on the balcony where Gottwald, in a fur hat and surrounded by his comrades, spoke to the people. On that balcony the history of Communist Bohemia began. Every child knew that photograph, from seeing it on posters and schoolbooks and museums. "Four years later, Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immediately made him vanish from history and, of course, from all photographs. Ever since, Gottwald has been alone on the balcony. Where Clementis stood, there is only the bare palace wall. Nothing remains of Clementis but the fur hat on Gottwald’s head." |
On with the story:
French is French (that is what is known as an axiom)--some love it, some hate it.
Some folks think the French sound like someone gagging and trying to speak with marbles in their mouth. And what is with all those extra letters!? Sheesh! Learn how to spell!
Then, of course, others think it is the language of love and one of the most poetic and melodic forms of spoken communication in the world. They think any utterance, "vomit-snot-popcicle" sounds great was long as it's in French.
Then there's me. I think of French as a "Melodic -Marbled-Gag Language" one in which invisible letters have sounds and weight and the whole thing is really very beautiful.
But, at 19, struggling in my conversational French all day really wore me out. And I began to get afraid--afraid of the looks I would get as I pronounced words imperfectly (and I had a great accent! I had listened to my Grandmother, Memere, most my life!) One time a woman yelled at me, told me to leave her alone and take my "L'anglais Savage" with me! I swear I didn't do anything but take up space and speak. (Turned out later she was holding a grudge about something but that is another story.) The yelling and the sneering and the snideness were actually a minority occurrence -at their best, many of the French people I came into contact with just pretended I didn't exist. But they would do this very carefully. After making sure they knew that I knew that they knew I was there, then they would ignore me. It. Was. Great. The French were the only people who knew I wasn't one of them---most other Europeans mistook me for German, Swedish or French. The French thought I was very pretty (notice how I have conveniently lumped together the opinions of an entire nation to find me attractive) and they would say so---but that didn't mean they liked me. They were, after all, a nation of fairly attractive people. So, for the most part I was left alone as I wandered all over the city, being stripped of my self-image and being reformed into some new Gillian 2.0
Sometime soon, in a faraway land, I would YEARN for this lack of attention and indifference. I would return to Paris relieved, embracing the aloofness I had once found distasteful.
End of How NOT to Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part 2
(to be cont'd)
Some folks think the French sound like someone gagging and trying to speak with marbles in their mouth. And what is with all those extra letters!? Sheesh! Learn how to spell!
Then, of course, others think it is the language of love and one of the most poetic and melodic forms of spoken communication in the world. They think any utterance, "vomit-snot-popcicle" sounds great was long as it's in French.
Then there's me. I think of French as a "Melodic -Marbled-Gag Language" one in which invisible letters have sounds and weight and the whole thing is really very beautiful.
But, at 19, struggling in my conversational French all day really wore me out. And I began to get afraid--afraid of the looks I would get as I pronounced words imperfectly (and I had a great accent! I had listened to my Grandmother, Memere, most my life!) One time a woman yelled at me, told me to leave her alone and take my "L'anglais Savage" with me! I swear I didn't do anything but take up space and speak. (Turned out later she was holding a grudge about something but that is another story.) The yelling and the sneering and the snideness were actually a minority occurrence -at their best, many of the French people I came into contact with just pretended I didn't exist. But they would do this very carefully. After making sure they knew that I knew that they knew I was there, then they would ignore me. It. Was. Great. The French were the only people who knew I wasn't one of them---most other Europeans mistook me for German, Swedish or French. The French thought I was very pretty (notice how I have conveniently lumped together the opinions of an entire nation to find me attractive) and they would say so---but that didn't mean they liked me. They were, after all, a nation of fairly attractive people. So, for the most part I was left alone as I wandered all over the city, being stripped of my self-image and being reformed into some new Gillian 2.0
Sometime soon, in a faraway land, I would YEARN for this lack of attention and indifference. I would return to Paris relieved, embracing the aloofness I had once found distasteful.
End of How NOT to Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part 2
(to be cont'd)
*Original Title: Kniha Smichu a Zapomneni
First published in France under the title: Le Livre du Rire et de L'oubli, 1979
First English printing: 1980
I did not get permission of any kind to quote this book and I hope that it's "okay"
First published in France under the title: Le Livre du Rire et de L'oubli, 1979
First English printing: 1980
I did not get permission of any kind to quote this book and I hope that it's "okay"
February 1-2, 2014
How not to lie or paris-the-first-time, part 3
Often, the most basic answers to problems of existence are revealed in philosophical thought and spiritual systems. But, as I stated earlier, it seems that having the answers is only truly helpful if one has the right questions. And, it it appears that there aren't as many questions and answers as I thought. The more engaged I become in my own life and the lives of others, and the more layers are stripped away, the less information is revealed. What is revealed isn't information at all, but something else entirely. I don't know what it would be called but it feels like this is the basis for the pronouncement: "less is more".
Residing in that same vein is the notorious, "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?" (not to be confused with "Why did the chicken cross the road?" or "If there is a chicken in a glass bottle and the bottle is sealed and the neck of the bottle is too narrow for the chicken to pass though, how do you get the chicken out of bottle without breaking the glass?")* The question at hand, really, is: does the answer to this question change anything?
The tie-up: one of the questions I should have been asking myself at the time of my cultural acclimation in Paris was: am I reacting to the French because of the way the French were reacting to me, or were the French reacting to me because of the way I was reacting to them? But, at 19, I was ego-centric and "neutral" in an absolute zero kind of sense--I was at the center of all and everyone else was defined and measured by the percentage of their deviation from my positioning.
In the mornings, I would wake up dizzy with French. I had to find a way to take a break. Two obvious ways presented themselves right away and they were both vey effective: movies and books.
I found that many movies in Paris were in English with French subtitles--- just going in the theatre and listening to my native tongue for a couple of hours would give me great relief. Plus, reading the subtitles helped me with my colloquial French.
And books: I passed an English bookstore one day, ducked in and paid a ridiculous sum of money for a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in English. Why? Why would I buy the book that inspired the movie that put me to sleep over and over again? I guess, some part of me thought there was something in there worth knowing. (For the record, I have not seen this movie since the few years surrounding it's release--do with that as you will.) So, I started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being and discovered something surprising: I loved it. I more than loved it, I freak-out loved it. What struck me immediately was the entanglement of philosophy, ideology, writing style and story-telling. It was all so perfect and beautiful! I felt like the narrator (who, in my mind, was always Kundera) was standing just behind a grand theatrical red-velvet curtain talking to me. I would lean into the curtain to listen. Every so often he would peek his head through the folds and say: "Don't forget, you are reading a book. A story. This is not actually happening. You are reading a book and I am telling you a story." It seemed very Dada-ish in that way. The whole "Ce c'est n'est pas une pipe" kind of thing. I'm really keen on that.
I was hooked. One day, reading in the kitchen--now well into The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, my mother's boyfriend's best friend's son's girlfriend's father said, in heavily accented English, "You like Kundera, do you?" I nodded, we spoke a moment, he said, "You come with me." He left the table, I followed and he lead me to his bibliotheque. Without words he gestured grandly to a particular shelf. I stepped over and looked and after a moment my eyes landed on a section of books--all Milan Kundera, all in English.
Not only was that totally miraculous and moving , but boy, did that save me a lot of money!
*This is one of my favorite Zen Kaons. The answer is, "Look! It's out!"
End of How NOT to Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part 3
(to be cont'd)
February 05, 2014
how not to lie or paris-the-first-time, part 4
I am tired of writing about Paris for now. I basically read as much and as many Milan Kundera books as I could in the next month before a friend of mine from Boston invited me to visit her in Italy while she was studying abroad. Leaving Paris on a train from Gare du Nord was the event marking the end of my stay in Paris-the-first-time. Besides my few possessions I had a stolen Kundrea book tucked in my bag. Why I did not ask to borrow it, I'll never know.
In a few months I would return to Paris. Or at least someone who looked like me would.
In a few months I would return to Paris. Or at least someone who looked like me would.
