#Poetry Jane Hirshfield 10 Windows

 

Finish: 13.05.2024
Title: Ten Poems – How Great Poems Transform the World
Genre: poetry analysis
Rating: B

Conclusion:

1. J. Hirshfield’s book is  god…but not great.
2. She is not to be compared to Helen Vendler
3. …but Ms Hirshfield does have her moments.
4. There weak chapters but there are also strong chapters
5. …I would re-read:  ch 3 – 4 – 5  and 9.
6. Strong point – The book has introduced me to many new poets.
   
7. Really, just one poem sparked my  interest and
8. …I went searching for more info and poems by this writer.
9. I also want to read Ms Szymborka of Poland once again.
10. Weak point: I found  Hirshfield’s analysis at times  convoluted and unending!
11. She takes too long to “get-to-the-point!” 
12. After a few chapters I gave up and learned to skim her thoughts.
13. New poets: Carlos de Andrade ( Brazil), Charles Simic (Serbia),
14. Gwendolyn Brooks (USA), Czesław Miłosz (Poland), Basho (Japan), C.P. Cafavy (Greece).
15. Strong point – To be fair Sometimes Ms Hirishfield’s words were wonderful!
    
16. Poems: They bring hope, community, quenche our thirst for connection,
17. …bring tears even in the briefest of poems.

 

NOTES:

1. The only way I could get through this book was to
2. …read one chapter a day.
3. For anyone who likes poetry…and is interested
4. here are the thoughts that popped into my mind
5. while reading this book with my morning coffee.

 

Ch 1 Jane Hirshfield is getting carried away with her “own inner poet”. Her pompous, lofty descriptions…mediations are too much for  me so early in the morning. Example: ” In a poem everything travels inward and outward.”  Or this one : “While writing a poet is unchained from sadness and free.”  This vague language…is hard to digest. I do hope the other 9 chapters in this book are better. Fingers crossed

Ch 2  Not impressed with  JH’s approach and writing. She finally touches on a good concept….then is off describing language as a person (Personification)…it just felt like gimmick that she used too long.  Not interested.  I will try to fish out some tidbits of info.

Ch 3 Basho and Haiku  – JH discusses many aspects of haiku. She has made reading this book…a pleasure….if it is only for chapter 3 and  haiku!  There are wonderful summaries about Basho and his haiku: who he was and what his poetry meant to him.

Ch 4   The importance of “hiddenness” in other words that sometimes one’s  survival depends on...the art of disguise.  This chapter was excellent and brought poets like W.H. Auden and C. P. Cavafy to my attention.

 Ch 5 This was an excellent chapter…food for thought! What lives in a poem lives in us. Words on a page neither  ponder or grieve.

Ch 6 – This is  a long chapter and I don’t want to rush it. Ch 6 was not one of Ms Hirshfield’s best…too long and concept (“windows” in poems) too vague. Just did not resonate with me. But…there is good news… I read Emily Dickkinson’s  wonderful poem: We Grow Accustomed to the Dark.” She is another poet I must jus sit down and read!

READ: Jane Hirshfield  Ch 7 – Sometimes JH’s  chapter titles are a bit ” over the top” and I hesitate even to start the chapter!  Example: Poetry and the Constellation of Surprise. – Oh, this will be a quick chapter…it is all about what ‘surprise’  is and practically no poetry analysis. Just a lot of “blah, blah”.

READ: “Ithaka” by C.P. Cavafy. One thing about Ms Hirshfield’s book…she’s introduced me to Cavafy, the Greek poet!  “Ithaka” has long been recognized as one of his  finest poems. The theme of the poem:  it is better to journey than to arrive. Life should not be wasted. Cavafy puts all this advice in context by setting it against the background of the Odyssey…but reverses it. Odysseus always longs for home. He does not enjoy his long journey…but we should do the opposite. TRIVIA: “Ithaka” by C.P. Cavafy was read aloud at the funeral of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994. I read  another 2 poems in this chapter “closely”.

READ: “Oysters“ by Seamus Heaney – I just cannot follow Hirshfield’s thoughts   about this poem…and return to the poetry scholar Helen Vendler (book: Seamus Heaney, published 1998) . She is the only one who has explained to me the 5 stanza poem. Stanza 1 and 3 contrasts with 2 and 4 (…discover this yourself!). Stanza 5  is an attempt to “resolve  the inner quarrel”…that Heaney is experiencing. What is the base foundation for poetry according to Heaney?  The senses “…that its tang might quicken me…” and  freedom “…in the clear light, like poetry or freedom.”

READ: “Nothing Gold Can Stay“ by Robert Frost. I love his poetry…but Hirshfield’s analysis is too complicated.  For example: “Poems  allow us not only to bear the tally and toll of our transience….” I feel Ms Hirshfield is trying to outdo the poets she’s discussing. In short: Nothing good lasts forever – colors change (“..nature’s first green is gold” ); the sun sets (…so dawn goes down to day”); and seasons change (…nothing gold can stay”). That’s it. That’s the poem.

Ch 8  Not in the mood for any “Jane Hirshfield” now….but must press on.  “American poetry”.  The only poet I liked in this chapter  was  Vietnam vetran Yusef Komunyakaa.  He expresses his emotions while visiting the Vietnam memorial in “Facing it”. His writing is absolutely stunning with vivid images that sear into the brain.

Ch 9 Propaganda is language that  steers, hardens and stupefies.  That is a strong statement about our times!!  I like this approach  JH is taking in this chapter. She highlightd that  …when the shape of the outer…the inner must shift to meet the change.   Private change: Yusef Komunyakaa (Vietnam vet) – Public change: Whitman, Yeats, Wilfred Owen (WWI), Langston Huges (racisim), C. Milosz (WWII). What we experience of art (poetry) takes place within and under the skin. Poems do not need to reverse grief…yet the acknowledgement of what is is enough to alter us.

Ch 10 As I Walked Out One Evening by W.H. Auden…just beautiful poem  in chapter 10.  I should read more by this poet. Here is an analysis of this poem I found NOT in the book…but on the internet.

1. The poem’s speaker wanders out for an evening stroll and
2. overhears a debate between a young lover,
3. …who believes that “love has no ending,”
4. all the city’s clocks, which counter that “you cannot conquer time.” 
5. These personified clocks sing of all life’s disappointments and endings. (death)
   
6. In spite of the fact that love does have an ending,
7. …one must nevertheless go on trying to “love your crooked neighbor”.

#Fiction Erasure

• Author: Percival Everett
  
• Title: Erasure
• Genre: novel
• Rating: A++++

 

1. This book is a gem!
2. The Oscar winning film “American Fiction” based on this book.
3. The novel is a mise-en-abyme a novel about a novelist writing a book.
4. The Black-American writer is not selling books.
5. His publist says he’s not “writing BLACK enough!”
6. Well, he decides to write that ‘book” b/c of
7. …cash flow problems supporting mother and brother.
   
8. I had to SKIM the ‘black novel”….it was awful literature. 
9. Everett’s point being made:  terrible books (written on purpose)
10. ….able to win prizes they do not deserve.
11. The author is so distraught a/b what he as had to write to get attention
12. ….he does not even want his name on the book!

Conclusion:

• The pacing is perfect…all muscle and no fat!
• Must read many more books by Percival Everett!

 

James (Hardcover)

Published March 19th 2024

Hardcover, 303 pages

The Trees by Percival Everett published 2021

#Stephen Sexton – Forward Prize for Best First Collection

• Finish: 06.05.2024
• Title: If All the World and Love Were Young (76 poems)
• Genre:  Poetry  (105 pg)  
• #ReadingIrelandMonth24  hosted by @746books (Cathy)
  
• …could no manage book in March b/c
• …hip replacement operation/recovery)
• Author: Stephen Sexton
• Rating: A+++++++++++++++++++++

 

Trivia:

1. WON:
2.  – the Forward Prize for Best First Collection,
3.  – E. M. Forster Award
4.  – Rooney Prize for Irish Literature
5.  SHORTLISTED
   
6. – Dylan Thomas Prize and the
7.  – John Pollard Poetry Prize.
8. Book of the Year :
9. Sunday Times, New Statesman, and Telegraph.

 

 

1. 76 levels in Super Mario World and that links to 76 short poems.
2. If All the World and Love Were Young addresses the death of Sexton’s mother in 2012 t
3. through the lens of the 1990 Super Nintendo game Super Mario World.
4. It takes  its reader through each level of the game
5. …in an exploration of loss, memory, and the shape of reality.
6. I can only manage 2 levels p/d. 
7. Emotional Poems.
8. Poems do not need to reverse grief
9. …yet the acknowledgement of what is is enough to alter us.

 

1. How did S. Sexton put his  grief into words.
2. How can anxiety, grief, abysses of chaos
3. …be lured into beauty and meaning.
4. Reading collection was a major reading challenge.
5. I was determined to discover the genius that is Stephen Sexton.
6. Feeling now?  Exhausted but happy that I perservered.

 

1. There is so much emotion and writing skills….to experience in
2. “If All the World and Love Were Young”.
3. I have no more comments to make for this introduction
4. …I poured them into my notes so now …I’m empty.
5. If you ever read this collection perhaps my notes will help you along.
6. #Bravo Stephen Sexton
7. …for bringing me to tears at the end of the collection!

 

NOTES:

01.05.2024

Comments: The poet weaves together his childhood experiences of playing Super Mario World with those of dealing with his mother’s illness and eventual death. “If All the World and Love Were Young” – While the title of the collection comes from the Sir Walter Raleigh poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” each poem in the book is linked  to a different level of Super Mario World (1990). You  NEED  SUPER MARIO WORLD WIKI …to understand the poems – Super Mario World takes place on Dinosaur Land, an archipelago of themed areas, and players navigate on this world map, which visualizes traveling through the island.

Comments: Stephen Sexton’s collection after glancing at it quickly is going to be a challenge for me. I’m not very attuned with the world of video games! “If All the World and Love Were Young  NOT looking forward to reading this…but I’ll start with YOSHI’S ISLAND.

Comments:  This poetry collection is like no other that I have read.  I needed a plan to try to discovers some overarching theme….in the  #…Castle” series. This is clearly the poet’s struggle to deal with the loss of his mother. 

Comments:  Because this collection is so unique…non- standard…based on levels in video game Super Mario World (1990) it has engraved itself upon my mind! I worked so hard to figure out what the patterns arebefore I discovered on a website the basic premis of the collection!  It was a real puzzle…but now I am able to fit the pieces of the puzzel together! Who said poetry is boring?

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01.05.2024

Yellow Switch Palace –  GAME:  reference to a moubtaintop. –  PERSONAL: “…the beloved is gone but there is always the story.” Perhaps this refers to a Mother that the narrator is trying to process.

Yoshi’s Island 2 – GAME: Link to game: Tree (slumping)…not the Super Happy Tree on Yoshi’s Island + Red berries, At the beginning of the level, the first of many red Berries can be seen. PERSONAL  mother not explicitly mentioned…inferred. Boy recalls being called home to hear (somebody) mother is sick (“..cells which split and glitch”). Carcinogenic braken mentioned (cancer)  and  “poisons” called to intervene.

Yoshi’s Island 3 – GAME: Boy climb the “Windy Mount”  the highest peak…see what he could see. .  PERSONAL: mentions brother and father.

Yoshi’s Island 4 – GAME: Boy describes scene on a pool of water, fish, swan and mother standing “…b/t the aritifical pool and the sunstruck coastal waters…who beckons us back to harbour.” PERSONAL mentions mother – “begins the idle effacement of dying the many prickles of needles of many exotic compounds.”

#1 Iggy’s Castle – Iggy:  The first few lines of ther poem “my dream”  describe the foto from the Super Mario World  game of Iggy’s Castle, fences to be climbed and lava that can kill instantly when touched. The last few lines get personal. She (mother)   says “…go on without me” (forshadowing death). Mother cannot sleep. “…my mother..feet, toes, hands, ankles head…she says are on fire.”

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02.05.2024

Donut Plains 1 – GAME:  no references –  PERSONAL: poet describes a “little house” where a images of family are displayed.

Donut Plains 2 –  GAME:  Henry = is mother’s brother – The whole level features sand tides that can crush someone.  “Down I go with bats and pyrite slow progress and inching landslides.” PERSONAL: I couldn’t find anything.

Green Switch Palace: – cottage – “…all that is made to a green thought”.

Donut Ghost House: – GAME: no direct reference…All I could understand was first line: “What is there to be afraid of? ” PERSONAL:  Could refer to the line “…the world of the living peers OUT into the world  of the dead…”

Top Secret Area –  Cannot make ANY connection with this poem/poet/personal life

Donut Secret 1 – GAME: This underwater level consists of one long underwater screen and an above ground room. Poet refers to night birds’s lullibies and counting fish (underwater) ….to try to fall asleep.  PERSONAL: “Night itself sleeps sweet on my chest….and she (mother) quarters a bright grapefruit.” Reference to poem “#1 Iggy’s Castle: “…my mother who cannot sleep halves a bright grapefruit…”

Donut Secret House – GAME: no references – NOT much in this poem…just a description of a “…little house on the east shore of the lake….” PERSONAL: ” (picture) Frames return my image in their glass…”

Donut Secret 3 –  GAME: no references  – This is one of the MOST PERSONAL…poems so far:

1. Mother: ” She has lost all sense of taste  we have dinner in McDonald’s.
2. Mother: If I’m going to die she say might as well go to McDonald’s.”
   
3. Mother: ” Her hair is thin under the light and surgery will be discussed tonight…”

Donut Plains 3 – GAME: Just a description of the game…oak trunks across the gorge to help “player” not fall into the pit. PERSONAL: Boy is probably dreaming about this level of the game: “…from the falling (into the pit) dream you jolt somehow having landed having been NOWWHERE ….but long in front of the beautiful television.” Probably reflecting also on the “pit” that he and the family is falling into b/c of his sick mother.

Donut Plains 4 – GAME: NO references –  PERSONAL:  Poet muses about chestnuts….and those he sees on the hospital grounds…in the low dazzling winter sun.

#2 Morton’s Castle – Morton: hallways in castle  (hospital) “..as long as dreams” –  “In the castle is the surgeon…” castle (hospital) – a dilemma sharpens its horns (problem with mother, she is sick) – Surgeon is “…sharpening his finger” (scalpel) – wind blowing over the ramparts (of hospital).

READ: Exhausted  now completed 24/76 poems (31,5 %) .…having read so many poems Stephen Sexton. + notes this afternoon!!  12 !!  Need to take a break do some relax reading in bed!

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03.05.2024

Vanilla Dome 1 –  GAME: to escape the poet goes down in his mind to this game level where there are dark diamond mines. PERSONAL: 4 references to poet’s sick mother (anethesiologist/personable surgeon/goes under the skin/ “time goes slowly and the surgeon covers his tracks.”

Vanilla Dome 2 – GAME: description of “Big Hole” …filled up with rain water is describing the level in the game, one ot the few ‘underwater’ levels. PERSONAL: Poet dreams of lazlly sailing in “leaky rowboat Sundays” ….when the “whole thing is over”  Poet thinks: ” …how we used to live like that?  . Mother comments: (emotion) – ” …do you think it’s strange to miss yourself?…as the sun goes down.” 

Red Switch Palace –  GAME:  reference to a baisin, cave…that is all I can find. PERSONAL: Reference  to a remedy that can heal hematomas ( sick mother).

Vanilla Secret 1  – GAME: Reference in poem to “fistfuls of ivy and vine stems” that Mario uses to go from this secret level to  level #2 in Vanilla Dome. PERSONAL: The poet says ” I take the Orpheus route from one world ….into the brightly-lit waiting room (sick mother)”. The boy sees from window “wards and scaffolds…”.  “She (mother) wakes by cars coming and going “…bringing womern and fatherly men who will turn into fathers.”

Vanilla Ghost House –GAME: No real references to the this level. PERSONAL: Stephen Sexton describes the  (mother’s) hospital  room roaming nurses  “…in whte nightdresses” and ‘…nurses who watch the fobs (smth that hangs from a chain/cord = IV-drip bags.). “The steady drip of morphine renders us half there and half not…”

Vanilla Dome 3 – GAME: Level’s objective is to cross a lava river. The poet refers to “Dante” “…his raft become auatomated poor Charon dosses on the banks…Dante has under it all a kingdom of ice their breaths clear in the air.” PERSONAL: Nothing I can find.

Vanilla Dome 4  – GAME: No references. PERSONAL: All I could find are refremces to poet’s house, backyard and what he can see. Solitude Bridge, fox hunters, rifels, floodlights, scouting dogs, swans, little lake…a long list of things. I think the purpose is to describe the “…narrow path betwen sleep and wakefulness….” ( boy can’t sleep). Anxiety as to what will happen to his mother perhaps. “…any minute a gunshot the roar of a swan….a stilless deeper than before.”

Vanilla Secret  2 – GAME: First sentance: “I think of the Alps edelweiss….”. PERSONAL: No direct reference to sick mother…just a comment made about Ötzl the iceman. Perhaps the boy poet is thinking the same:  Ötzl: “I’m here it was lonely I have longed for how it feels to be seen by someone else’s eye.

Vanilla Secret 3 – GAME: Poet uses a figure from Greek Mythology Arion. He sings a song for Poseidon about the “dolphins” that swim with him. PERSONAL: No direct reference to poet’s mother but to  remark about death: “…offered a final music to choose the terms of one’s own death…” . I have no idea if poet’ s mother was offered assisted death at the end …or not.

Vanilla Fortress – This is the only underwater fortress in the game. GAME:  “I’m swimming coelacanths…” ( mostly extinct lobe-finned fishes of the group Coelacanthiformes or Actinistia, known only in fossil form until a living species).  PERSONAL: This poem is 50% game (first 10 lines) and 50% about….”…the next life will find me happy.”  The last lines are very emotional and obviously about his mother: “…this will have been long ago and by then I will have misssed you (mother)  for so long will I have missed you.”

#3 Lemmy’s Castle

Lemmy: ” In blue scrubs the Merlins (doctors) apply…” (elixir, potions, panaceas, medicines, opiates) – “…wards (are) sweltering greenhouses where patients start to look the same.”

READ: Exhausted  now completed 33/76 poems (43 %) ….having read so many poems Stephen Sexton. + notes this afternoon!!  You really must commit to reading this collection…it is not something you can breeze through. You will miss some of the most heartfelt emotion S. Sexton injects into his poems.  

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04.05.2024

Cheese Bridge Area – NO GAME and NO PERSONAL…just about cheese.

Cookie Mountain –  GAME: NO reference – Poem is ALL PERSONAL. Poet recalls helping mother, whose cancer’s been excised, bake cookies for a bake sale. Mother: “…she can’t stand for very long.” …”…she prints her name unsteadily on a white adheive label for the biscuit tin…”

Soda Lake is a secret underwater area reached by entering the secret Giant Gate of the Cheese Bridge Area in Super Mario World. NO GAME and NO PERSONAL...just about a river that poet and family would walk to some Sundays.

Butter Bridge 1 – GAME:  NO ref…but there is something PERSONAL...but it is hidden, writen in “invisible” ink, I think! “…appels cored in the kitchen the pips like painted fingernails the boy kept black until the end slowly unwoven by cancer…”.

Butter Bridge 2  – GAME: Reference to (Albert) bridge and mention of Super Mario game designer: Shigeru Miyamoto. PERSONAL: Just a line describing a steersman of a racing shell coxing the rowers…and perhaps the boy poet feels he needs coaching. “…voice through a megaphone. …what faith is… a voice that steers into the dark.”

#4 Ludiwig’s Castle:  Ludwig: “This is the dream….” – stone corridors with….spiked maces swinging” (perhaps rotating ventilators in hospital)  – “..the still air of an ossuary.”  Ludwig hears music…” buzz of skull their jawbones almost singing along.”

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04.05.2024

Forest of Illusion 1 – GAME: References to trees and the temple of the forest.  Also one of the “enemies” is mentioned (Wiggler) …a spiny caterpillar. PERSONAL: The poet mentions a butterfly  that lands on a tree: Camberwell Beauty…aka Mourning Cloak.  Perphas the word “mourning” refers to the  situation between sick mother and the boy poet.  Mourning Cloak is said to be named after similarly colored attire once worn during grieving ceremonies.

Forest of Illusion 2 – GAME: The only reference is a water element and fish. The poet describes catchin a rainbow trout in a lake. This level of the game has ‘fish’ enemies Rip Van Fish…who spend much of the time sleeping. PERSONAL: No direct reference to sick mother.

Blue Switch Palace

(BLUE SWITCH) alludes to a  garden…that I think is accurate having read about hedgehogs, fields, mouse, moon, owl, woods at night.

Forest Ghost House – GAME: The only reference I find is trees and poet is walking along a narrow path to paddock with a palisade fence (a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground) and barbed wire. PERSONAL: Poet describes a sick horse (…allusion to sick mother): barrel of ribs, emaciated, rheumy eyes (watery, red), aching flanks, rickety legs.

Forest of Illusion 4 – GAME: NO reference to game, skies or strange enemies! PERSONAL: The poem is ALL about the poet’s mother. Postive news…the “wound is almost healed”  She is planting roses and flower bulbs and “…she thinks the days go by in gratefulness.” Negative news…   The poet adds a very emotional line: “She will not be the same of course…but nor will anybody else.”

Forest Secret Area – GAME: Only reference I can find is “…high above the forest”.  Poet names a farmer, shepherd, angler, workhorse, wolves and brook trout.  A Spanish galleon lingers in the bay. NO connection to the game! PERSONAL: No direct reference to sick mother.

Forest of Illusion 3 –GAME: Brother of the poet is blowing soap/water bubbles  “…each a shallow breath in transit”. Reference to bubbles in game. PERSONAL:  Also the poet pauzes in the darkened forest (Game)….after hearing the news of the Omagh Bombing (15 Aug 1998) on the radio.  No reference to mother….but does tell us how the news impacted the poet.

Forest Fortress – GAME: Perhaps the only reference is th sense of  place in the first line. The poet says he is not at the church…the hill over the village (….so not in the forest, but in “overworld”) PERSONAL: The rest of the poem describes the funeral (…the coffin rest with a wealthiness of flowers)  of his grandmother. “…my mother was a child with her.”

#5 Roy’s Castle Roy:  Recalls the memory of mother  “…she putting stitches in some bolts of blue fabric” (mother in sewing room) –  Emotion is expressed: “…the machine ticks so fast these small years go by in minutes.”

READ: Exhaustred… I can only manage 2 levels per day…there’s a lot to absorb.  45/76 (60% read)

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05.05.2024

READ:  ...not looking forward to reading (…because it is exhausting!) ..but I will finish Stephen Sexton’s collection.

Chocolate Island 1 – GAME mention dinosaurs and PERSONAL – family in the garden looking at the comet

Choco-Ghost House – GAME – Nothing  and PERSONAL  – pain in poet’s side (alludes to trouble in his life, sick mother?) , rainclouds in storm, lightening, playing cards balcony in Spain

Chocolate Island 2 – GAME –  Ref to Dürer’s drawing of a rhino, game is played in Dinosaur Land and PERSONAL – Nothing 

Chocolate Island 3 – GAME (sky level) no  ref only about famous horse gallops and PERSONAL – Nothing 

Chocolate Secret – GAME (undergound level/lava) – ref to “precipice overlooks the valley (Bowser?) and PERSONAL –  The line “the world will go on without you.” Perhaps ref to mother who is dying. Also “She drove home with this box seat-belted in the back seat.” No idea what this means.

Chocolate Fortress – GAME – ref to “ground down rubies”…can be found in “Red Switch Palace” – “…alcheists smashing rubies to dust into medicine”.  Doctors are ref as Merlins, surgeons, Hippocrates and white coats.   “…in forbidden pharmacy  he (doctor)  goes about the magic task of grinding rubies”. This can refer to “The big hole” (cave) in level “Red Switch Palace” and PERSONAL – “… we take the pain to hospital” – “…now the pain must stay in the small room w/o flowers.”  The Pain = mother.

Chocolate Island 4 – GAME – Underground level with chocolate lava – NO ref to lava only that the poet in “…at this nadir of the earth” (underground)  and PERSONAL – Strange ref to painting by Rubens or Goya  “..the wild fearful eyes of Saturn devouring his son.” Have NO idea what Sexton means by this…but painting is  scary!

Chocolate Island 5 – GAME – NOTHING –  PERSONAL –  Strange ref to pixies (sprites), dry Atacama desert landscape, in swimming pool like that of La Mon Hotel in Belfast I=No. Ireland …all things that have nothing to do with the game…but must be personal with last line “…something is about to happen”. (sick mother?)

#6 Wendy’s Castle

Wendy: Longest poem in the series “#….Castle”. Clear descripiton of a day in mother’s hospital room “…Wendy (mother)  sings her final songs…” – Doctor enters:  “..his white coat brings with him a shake of the head….the word for sorry.” –  “We  must refrain from harm…we have done everything in our powers…” Of all the poems in this “series” this is the most emotional.  The poet (S. Sexton) gives us a line that brings the reader closer to the experience “…she did not say anything, but stared as if to recall  how my face looked when she first saw me” . I feel S. Sexton is trying to describe a slight happy smile as the mother remembers her baby when it was born. So touching.

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05.05.2024

Valley of Bowser

Sunken Ghost Ship – GAME – is cave themed. Mario must swim through haunted ship  (…poem mentions ship Genoa – NY and can refer to the Andrea Doria (sunk July 25 1956)  to get to Valley of Bowser.  and PERSONAL – The last lines could relate to sick mother “…one takes a last breath of this world and closes one’s eyes and descends…”

Valley of Bowser 1 – GAME – Cave level with maze like structure.  First line “…Like a labyrinth of neural pathways.” and PERSONAL – Neural pathways, encounters dead ends  all ways of  “…finding oneself lost there.”  Poet does mention garden he planted and a woman who came to clip the boys hair “…the secateurs snapping thickly”. These are  garden pruning clippers.  Many images seem to get mixed together….

Valley of Bowser 2 – GAME – “…shifting strata mazes of dirt”  This level is cave, maze with “sand tides” that can shift and crush Mario.  and PERSONAL – 90% of the poem is personal. “…morphine’s tightness in the chest, fountain drips ( IV drip), in courtyard (waiting room in hospital), people chatting like “motets and madrigals”. Reading newspapers, chat about holidays.”   Feels for the poet a bit of disregard/cruel for others in room.  3 items very personal: recalls telegram about death of Henry (mother’s brother) in Tasmania. “The ancient voice of her brother …”. Mother “… after not so long she’s dozed off.”

Valley Fortress – GAME  NOTHING –  and PERSONAL – ALL personal...mother drifting in and out of consciousness  agreeing to funeral arrangements (flowers, tea/sandwiches afterwards. Heartbreaking  what the poet can express in a few words. “My head is heavier than stone, telling his mother “I’m here.”  Mother: ” I want to die…let me please die is what she says”. ” I want to go home for one once more one night.” Poet: “…I say you can’t go home, now she says I know, not now after.”

Valley Ghost House – GAME – This level is a “ghost house” so references  to “cobwebs, creaking of timber”,  and PERSONAL – Poet is talking to his brother, remembering  themselves  “…as though images of us still roam there…in …the house we grew up in,  the fuzz of the carpet, toy trains, secret door in the hedgerows…”

Valley of Bowser 3 – GAME  Nothing-  and PERSONAL – Poem is ALL personal and so sad to read the snippet of conversation poet has with his dying mother:

1. “…it’s so short it doesn’t feel like I’ve been here at all and not I have to go.”
2. “…I won’t get to see what happens to you or your brother…”
3. “…no grandchildren, not first steps…and never again a first word.”
4. Poet:  “My first word she says was apple or something something like appel.”

Valley of Bowser 4 – GAME – Many reference to the game: Hazard named “Diggin Chuck” dressed in football gear shoving rocks on Mario: “….who wears cuirass, throwing stones, from high vantage point, and Mario can try to climb a vine to escape.”  and PERSONAL – The poet links game hazards to his own life: “…Is it so that every world is only a world of enemies?” – Mother: “…there is only night and its garden suddenly is NOT my dream but hers and she dreams of us arriving.”

#7 Larry’s Castle

Larry: Again a very touching description” “…no clocks in her room”  (she is dying) –  “Hippocrates arrives…I ask him what will happen.”   The poet is expressing such raw emotion in this  “#…castle” series. One can only discover it if you read the poems one after another and not be distracted by other poems in the book.  S. Sexton reveals: `’…Today is the day yes I guess….what am I to say to her asleep…”

READ: Exhausted…again. I can only manage 2 levels per day, wow just wow…poems are packed with emotion. There’s a lot to absorb.  462/76 (82% read)

 

---

06.05.2024: 

READ: Stephen Sexton – “If All the World and Love Were Young” (pg 87 – finish??)

Star World 1 – GAME (underground level)  Nothing related to underground….but digging in the ground working in mother’s garden and PERSONAL: Transplanted a rosebush in memory of HER mother. “…once her final winter” and birds nesting will be gone. “…the room she looked from…and the room above which I cannot sleep.”

Star World 2 – GAME (underwater level)  “A deep breath I am water tight on the ocean floor…”  and PERSONAL: No direct reference to mother but in the water the poet can “…dream alone.”

Star Road 3 – GAME (sky level at night) ” I walk into the night as it aches all over the countryside…”  and PERSONAL: No direct reference to mother but the poet mentions “…when I awake in my childhood bed there’s embers dozing in the warm fireplace.”

Star Road 4 – GAME (sky level at night) “…through another boiling night of stars of the distances between them of chaos…” and PERSONAL:  Mother referred by “…the calm blue of hospice carpets…this blue by its presence welcomes the ritual of the new world”

Star Road 5 – GAME  (sky level at n ight)  “…filled up with night right to the brim…night spills up to whatever is not night.” and PERSONAL: Mother “…She spends a final night at home…”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

06.05.2024: 

READ:  Special World   ( in the game this it titled “Special Zone”)

Gnarly – GAME (vertical level of ropes and vines)  “…vines and beanstalk from a box”  and PERSONAL: Poet describes ” I tried to make a monument. I want my monument to be composed of light.” Perhaps he is trying to build a memorial for his mother.

Tubular – GAME (no ground …must traverse through the air) “…windless skyline”  and

MOST HEARTBREAKING….

PERSONAL:  “…wind never again striking  her shoulders.  “…for those final breaths, I wasn’t there.  With whatever strenght she had left she went without me as witness…”.  I WILL myself to contain it. …the rest of my life will be spent…breathing the world into the world.

Way Cool – GAME (shifting platforms)  Nothing in poem and PERSONAL: Again the poet is describing all little objects he will use to build his momument.  Mother: “…Every other day I think I see her passing by the window…crossing the bridge…walking ahead of me in  the village…”

Awesome – GAME (winter landscape level of slippery ice) “A morning of wintergreen the snow has closed the country roads…”  and PERSONAL: “…I try to scream into the wilderness of the world. I make no sound: the flakes of snow are noiser in their falling.”

Groovy – GAME (horizontal  level) Nothing in poem   and PERSONAL: “I tried to make a monument from the emptiness of the house…the house empty but for me.”

Mondo – GAME (water tides  which constantly rise and lower)  ” The waves the waves undulating the waves…” and PERSONAL: “In the quietness of the house the hush of the river….a voice like someone else’s running away under the hills.” “…now its my voice she hears.”

Outrageous – GAME ( dark forest, tree trunks, canopy of brown leaves ) “…the fireplace puffed out embers…splinters of the tree tallest in the forest…” and PERSONAL: The poet tries to absorb memories “…I put my head against the fireplace…that the embers might confess to me what they’ve seen…while the room fills up with their warmth.”

Funky – GAME ( grassland setting with a dark-blue sky)  “…little bolts of lightning the sky storm-dark as it has been these blue afternoons of winter…”  and

This brought tears to my eyes…because doing a “close read” of Stephen Sexton’s collection has….not been easy for me.

PERSONAL:  LAST LINES of collection as reflected in Super Mario World:

• “…the storm crumbles the bank into the river and
• what can I say this has not been easy
• thank you friend you are a super reader.”
  

 

READ:   (this is …not a level in the game just the end of the book)

Front Door – Emotional summary by the poet...here are the lines that explain the title:

• “..her voice moves around the edge of the world
• …once when all the world and love was young
• …I saw it beautiful glowing
• …once in the corner of the room
• …once I was sitting in its light.”

Finished: Exhausted…

#Play Audrey or Sorrow

 

Finish date:  01.05.2024
Play: Audrey or Sorrow  – Marina Carr
Rating: B
Reading time: 2 hours

 

1. Absurdist play by Irish playwright Marina Carr
2. …Audrey or Sorrow was produced at the
3. …Dublin Abbey Theatre 23 Febr – 30 March 2024.
4. I don’t read many absurdist plays but in this one
5. …solid worlds morph into treacherous ones
6. behaving with the unpredictability of dreams.
7. I was ready to read an “ordinary” play but scenes 7, 8,10  and 11 should have
8. warned me this was going to be a  rollercoaster of a play.

 

1. It took me time to grasp that these characters are in two different worlds.
2. Who is living …who is dead?
3. That is what I had to decide.
4. Do I believe Audrey – arousing, inspiring fear or dread with each word?
5. Scene 7: “…don’t be fooled when they act like they’re alive. They are wind and like the wind
6. …they rise, they blow and then they die. We know better don’t we?”

Staging Audrey or Sorrow

1. Do I believe the young couple, David and Maria, mourning the loss of their infants.
2. Scene 10: Maria asks her parents if they ever “…felt anything?” (ghosts). Her father says:
3. “Ah, felt! Felt! They die Maria. They don’t come back.
4. Maria: “Unless THEY  do. Unless WE do. Keep on and keep on coming back.”

 

1. If that was not the hardest part of the play to wrap my head around
2. …then I was confronted with the title:
3. Audrey of Sorrow.
4. Don’t be fooled by the other  characters in the play …some hilarious
5. Audrey is the puppet master.
6. She is pulling all the  strings controling everyone.
7. But while reading the play I did not realize that…only after finishing the
8. …book  I stared to make sense of it all.

The formidable….Audrey

 

1. Sorrow, it seems like a concept we all have dealt with.
2. But Marina Carr takes it to a whole new level in scenes 8 and 11.
3. Mac (ghost) asks Audrey: “But if they’re ghosts what are we?
4. Audrey: We’re the living. Death doesn’t last very long Mac.”
5. Audrey comments on Maria and David:
6. “Look at them, so sad, so full of themselves with sorrow.”
7. But Ms Carr saves the most bitterly severe,
8. …a scathing remark about  sorrow for Maria’s father in scene 11:
9. “…sorrow does not make you great or stronger or wiser.
10. It depletes. It ravages. It devours….
11. …until you can’t remember there was ever a thing called joy.”

 

Conclusion:

1. It takes a great playwright to put so many  absurd concepts on paper.
2. The dialogue at times tickles the funny bone and at other times
3. …stuns the audience into silence.
4. I’ve tried to give you an impression how the play  ‘made me feel’.
5. Last night  I wrote the first draft of this review.
6. I was angry.
7. I could not yet put into words how confused this play had left me.
8. After a good night’s sleep I could appreciate the  play in a new way.
9. Ms Carr is not here to please everybody and produce
10. …a play with comforting qualities:
11. clear plot, palusible situations and realistic characters.
    
12. She is here to dazzle us!
13. #Bravo

 

#Reading journal April 2024

“Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things,

…to make the stone stony.”

(Art critic, V. Shklovsky)

In this case Camille Claudel makes a ‘waltz’ feel like seduction.

 

READ: Start New Yorker 25.03.2024 – EXCELLENT profile by Molly Fisher a/b Quinta Brunson: creator and star of “Abbot Elementary”. I have to watch this show!!

READ:  New Yorker – poem “Ed Hopper (Yellow and Red) by W.S. Di Piero (American, 78 yr) – Just a list of items  EH painted…no depth.  – poem “Untitled” by Nasser Rabah (Nasser Rabah was born in Gaza in 1963) – okay.

READ: The New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik a/b book “Takeover: Hitlers’ Final Rise to Power” (25 March 2024)

READ: Having trouble sitting (after hip replacement operation 2 weeks ago)… for a long period of time in “day bed” for reading. The sit position is putting too much pressure on the hip wound. So….I put the laptop in the book case…and walk around with my French book. If I need to look up a word…just stop at the bookcase. This keeps me moving at a low level.

READ:  FINISHED  “Nord Stream” this week. I do enjoy reading French…it keeps my mind active in a very strange way! Hope to finish Sonnets for Albert (A.  Joseph), poems about his father. Winner T.S. Eliot Prize 2022

 

 

READ: Start “Les Fossyeurs” ( The Grave Diggers) – exposé about the conditions in French retirement homes for thet aged. Just so great to have a “relaxing day bed” in the living room. I can read and sometimes….just close my eyes and rest.

READ: Continue reading “Les Fossyeurs” – read more about this on the internet….what a financal corruption and scamming $$! After the book the Orpéa Organization was forced into bankruptcy. Finished – BLOGPOST IS READY.

 

READ:  Start and finish: Camille et Paul by Dominique Bona (NF)

READ:  2 poems by A. Hecht: Double Sonnet and La Condition Botanique.

 

READ:  Start: Les Siècle des Intellectuels (NF) (purchased: 01.04.2022) M. Winock (historian) – Trying to read 5 KINDLE French books I bought in 2018 (6 years ago!!) –  First chapters are all about Zola, Dreyfus Affair, trials (Dreyfus and Zola) and the consequences. Did learn that Zola was “murdered” in 1902 when a roofer  admitted he stuffe Zola’s furnace ventilation in his house!  Alos…all the  brouhaha about this affaire…the only thing that  REALLY moved things along was the fact the countries were prepared to BOYCOTT the 1900 World Fair in Paris if something was not resolved!! Many chapters (ch 1-13) …but I decided b/c this book so SO long to read the Wikipedia “Dreyfus Affair” page and have all the essential info. So….time to skim to the next topic.

READ: Zipping through this book…lots of “intellectueles” I’ve never heard of, info about  starting new politcal parties, trying to fight the swell of fascists in France (1920s- 1930s). I’ll be glad when this book is ended. Pg 400 – Not all of the ‘intellectuels” interest me….so I’m concentraing on the authors: Bernanos, Malraux. Gide (Nobel Prize), Roger Martin du Gard (Nobel Prize), Mauriac (Nobel Prize), Zola, Satre and Aron.

READ: Going to speed read the rest of “Intellectuels”…b/c it is rather boring and more books to read. – Book becomes more intresting when we read what the “intellectuels” felt/did (…or did not do!)  in the face of Hilter’s threats/actions 1938.  There were some philosophers of  a “shaded reputation”  H. de Montherlant? (see Wikipedia)…collaborator with Germans, had a thing for sexually abusing street boys…but went on to be elected to  a lifetime position in the Acade1mie française in 1960,…hmmm.) FINISHED…skimming about last 30% of the book. Just want to be rid of it!

READ: Moving along….The next book is: (purchased: 01.04.2022) On ne peut pas tout dire – Petit éloge de la “censure” by Sebastien Fontenelle.  The book is only 137 pages...thank God, for small miracles! = AWFUL

READ: BOXE by Jacques Henric…essays about boxing, ugh. BOXE …is just awful, I cannot even bring myself to finish it!  I did write a blogpost and recommende “After the Count” by Stephanie Convery (Australian) as one of the best books I’ve ever read about boxing.

READ: Just moving on to the next French book on the TBR:  Laurent Gaudé “Écoute nos défaites”. According to Goodreads it is historical fiction so I’m hoping for a good story. (201 pages) = AWFUL!!

READ:  “L’autre qu’on adorait” by C. Cusset….AWFUL.

READ: “Le Colonel et l’appât 455 by F. Hachtroudi = AWFUL

READ: “Impunité” by Helene Devynck – AWFUL ! Reducing my French reading time for a few days, need a break.

READ: Australian magazine…ISLAND…just browsing, will read more later.

 

READ: After the Water, poem by Rebecca Rushbrook in ISLAND 170 magazine (Tasmania)….it was so toughing. Impressions of life during the Australian floods 2022.  Poem was shortlisted for the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize.  What to read today? I have no idea.

READ: ISLAND – non-fiction story “Treading Water” – okay.

READ: 52 Poems by  Jean Valentine “Home Deep Blue” …they have an emotional tint referring to her private life, but if you don’t anything a/b her life the poems just glide by without any impact. Ms Valentine has been lauded for her poetry but I just do not get it.

 

READ: Start again…Mme de Sévigné – working out first “who’s who” – I made it to alost to ch 4 ( pg 75). Easy reading but not  trying to learn history ” La FRONDE ” uprising 1648-1953. Just not going to be bothered by the nobility and the increaseing of taxes by Queen Ann of Austria and Mazaran.

READ:  FINISHED  53  poems by Anthony Joseph “Sonnets for Albert” It was an exceptional collection…perhaps the best I read this year! Blogpost was easy to write and then uploaded this morning.

READ: Studying Poetry…reached pg 65. Pretty dry stuff about T.S. Eliot and his modernist poetry ideas, not very enlightening,

 

DEAD RIP: So sad to read Helen Vendler (1934-2024)  died today at the age of 90 yr.

Her essays and reviews were gathered in “Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets” (1980), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; “The Music of What Happens: Poems, Poets, Critics” (1988); “Soul Says: On Recent Poetry” (1996); and other collections.

Her many studies include “The Breaking of Style: Hopkins, Heaney, Graham” (1995), “The Given and the Made: Strategies of Poetic Redefinition” (1995) and “Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill” (2010).

In her interview with The Paris Review, Ms. Vendler compressed her critical method into seven words: “I write to explain things to myself.”

READ: FINISHED Madame de Sévigné  and posted review.

READ:  Started  poems in Poetry Ireland Review.  On The Road (Noel Howley) and Reprimand To Brigid (Caitriona Lane) …both very good!

READ: Zola “Page d’Amour” – classic

 

READ: Time to take on this “bad boy” who has been lingering in my bookcase for 3 years! Paul Morand: writer, diplomat, collaborator with Vichy WW II, finally elected to Académie française 1968 despite protests from De Gaulle. Paulien Dreyfus won Prix Goncourt de la biographie 2021 et prix de la biographie de l’Académie française 2021 for this biography.

READ: Finally getting started with biography of Paul Morand. Preface (pg 11-16) – Paul Morand: Controversial writer/thinker in 20th C. France that you don’t hear much about. Collaborated with Vichy in WW II...and when the war was over Morand tried to completely transform himself….to fall into favor with the 1960s literary world. What will happen in this book? Scratch an old wound or settle an account….or both.

 

READ:  The New Yorker dd. 22.04.24   – great article: “No Time to Die” by  (Dr.) Dhruv Khullar – really good insights about healthy and aging.

• Marginal decade – the end of our lives when medicine keeps us alive but ou independence and capacities bleed away.
• By preparing for the future the skeptics say, we mistake a long life for a worthwhile life.
• If anything, longer lives now appear to include more difficult years.
• Training dozens of hours a week might take MORE time than it will ever tack on!
• You might live to be 100 yr if you could pick your genes
• …but picking a healthy lunch option  itn’t likely to be enough!
• Healthy aging is like investing in retirement: contribute what you can…a daily walk, an extra hour of sleep and the benefits compound over time.
• Healthy aging  seems to require a shift in “mind-set”  as much as a shift in “muscle mass”.

READ: poem by Catherine Barnett (pg 34 New Yorker)  “Hyacinth” ….pretty good.

READ: poem by Tracy K. Smith  (pg 44 New Yorker)  “Vision” ….average, did not make a huge impression on me.

#BadLuck Just when I was getting some words right in the @NewYorker crossword puzzle…I dropped the magazine in the toilet. Don’t ask how his could happen…it just did.

So now I’m waiting for the magazine to dry out!

 

#Zola Addiction 2024

Author:  Emile Zola
Genre:    Novel 
 “Page d’amour”
Published:  1878

Folio Classique, 5 parts ( 25 chapters)  Bookcover  is painted by James Tissot (1836 – 1902) “La demoiselle d honneur”‘.


 

Setting: Paris
Timeline:  February –  November
Themes:  struggle between living life to the fullest vs living a strict dutiful life, analysis of passionate love,  heredity ( mental weakness inherited  via  Rougon-Macquart family tree)
Trivia: 8th book written in the series, Zola indicated that it should be read as the 10th on his advised reading list.

Main Characters:  
Rambaud  honorable
Mouret, (Hélène) calm, weak, following her head,  not her heart
Jouve,   (Abbé)
Grandjean (Jeanne)  jealous, possessive
Deberle ( Henri)  spineless, hypocritical
Deberle (Juliette)   scatterbrained, blind to situations

Storyline:
Hélène Mouret, a young widow, ( the daughter of Ursule Macquart) arrives in Paris with her 12 yr old daughter  Jeanne.
She receives help from two friends  : Abbe Jouve, and his brother Rambaud.
She leads a quiet and well ordered life while watching Paris from her window in Passy.
Jeanne  goes  wherever  with her mother.
This child  develops a  jealousy  of anyone who shares her mothers’s love or attention.
One day when the child is suffering from a convulsion, Hélène seeks help from her neighbor, Dr  Henri Deberle.
They fall in love with each other but unfortunately Henry is married to  Juliette.
Hélène must decide what to do.

 

Structure:
I’m learning to pay  more attention  to the sturcture of  Zola’s books.
This book is  divided into  5  parts.
Each part describes  an ‘impressionistic’ view  of the rythmn of Paris at  sunrise, at sundown, at night, in a storm, or under the snow as seen from Trocadero. This also reflects the mood in the story during that section of the book.

Heredity:
Adèlaide –> Ursule –> Hélène –> Jeanne  has the characteristics of her great- grandmother, and grandmother:  erratic, moody, outbursts of rage.

Symbolism:
Hélène Grandjean  =  bourgeois
Doctor Deberle     = elite

Le jardin des Deberle is  =  adultery
Walls around the garden  =  correct behavior  according to the morals of society.
Cycles of vegatation  =  the  progress of the passion love  between Hélène and the doctor and the death of a child

Role of the garden:
The garden plays the central role of the story. Its the place  where the intrigue  occurs and proivdes a means of  communication  between neighbours, Deberle’s  family and  Hélène Grandjean and her daughter. Zola has used   garden-communication scenes  in La Rêve and La Conquête de Plassans.
The garden reflects  throughout  the course of the seasons the  character’s feelings as well as the bourgeois decorum, etiquette. Zola describes each of the 5 steps of this love affaire in minute psychological details.

Structure of the garden:
In La Faute de l’abbé Mouret  ‘Paradou’ was protected by huge trees in full leaf and Zola emphazied the disorder of the garden ( statues  toppled over or broken, half sunk in ponds, neglected vineyards with branches so low that  one must crawl to snatch the fruit.). This was to symbolize the  wild and savage love between Serge and Albine.
In Une Page d’amour, by contrast, the garden is very formal and well cared for. This was to symbolize the   love between Hélène and Dr Derble which  developed  according to the social norms in Parisien society.

Strong points:
Mise-en-abyme: Helene is reading a book “Ivanhoe” by Sir Walter Scott.
Helene sits in front of a window and observes the surroundings does Rebecca in Ivanhoe. Helene observes  Pairs  while  Rebecca  observes an ongoing battle outside a castle in order to inform  the wounded knight.

Weak points:
Zola is noted for his  precision for details. This is seen in all the panorama of Paris, the Deberle garden, the children’s party and house interiors scenes.  Let’s  just call it  an ‘exhausting’  instead of  a weak point while reading the book in French.

 

Expressions: (part 1)
des chevaux délicats qui ressemblaient à des pièces mécaniques ( delicate horses resemble mechanical toys)
la bonne en tablier tachait l’herbe d’une clarté  ( the maid in an apron stains the grass with a brightness)
des barques passaient, pareilles à des oiseaux couleur d’encre ( boats pass by  like ink black birds)

Part 1:
Part one:  Paris at  sunrise  rises out of the mist veiled.  “…de fines mousselines étalées, et une à une, les mousselines s’en allait, l’image de Paris s’accentuait en sortait du rêve”. ( ..as the mist dissolves, Paris intensifies and leaves the dream.)
Mise-en-abyme: Helene compares her love to a dream floating  over Paris. She dreams of loving as did Rebecca ( with pride and dignity)  and Lady Rowena ( with serenity and patience) in Ivanhoe (chapter 29).  HELENE = REBECCA 
Tone:  There is a sudden change of tone from dreams back to reality as Helene rememebers the death of her father.

Part 2:
Expressions: (part 2)
 She put her face in her joined hands, pressing her fingers on her eyelids to increase the darkness…
Elle posa la face dan ses mains jointes, appuyant les doights sur ses paupières, comme pour augumenter la nuit où elle se plongeait.

Part 2:
Family scenes: Hélène and Jeanne are becoming quasi members of the Debrele family, often dining with them. When Hélène spoke her lips said:  < monsieur > , but  in her heart she heard an echo say:  < Henri >.
Bal d’enfants: This is an echanting, magical description of a children’s fancy dress party. In the backround we feel the excitement building not only with  ‘les enfants’, but also Henri and Hélène, stolen glances and whispers in ears.
Paris at  sunset   is in flames. Hélène is ready to disappear in one long embrace (Dr. Henri Deberle). To live in one minute all that she has never experienced. “Elle sentait ces flammes brûler dan son coeur”.
James Tissot  (1836 – 1902) Reading a story

Expressions: (part 3)
There is an honorable  man who loves you and waits for you. Just put your hand is his to find peace of mind once again.
…un honnête homme vous aime et qui vous attend….mettre votre main dans la sienne pour retrouver le calme.

Part 3:
Month of May celebrations:  Hélène  meets Henri outside the church. They know their love is forbidden and will maintain it by a glance, an inflextion of the voice or even a silence.
Keeping vigil over a sick child: Overcome with emotion when Dr Deberle brings Jeanne back from death’s door, Hélène finally confesses her love for him. Je t’ aime. An insanely jealous child torments her mother by keeping Henri at a distance. Hélène suffers a struggle between motherhood and her new love.
Paris at night: is a giant who lets the night enveloppe it, motionless, eyes closed.
 
Part 4:
Intrigue, the double rendez-vous: Will the love triangle be  discovered? Zola increases the suspense. Alfred Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
Paris is inundated during a storm. Suddenly there is a thunderous cloudburst over the center of Paris. It is the turning point.

 

Part: 5:
Voice of Zola:
I was surprised to read Zola’s  negative commentary about  novels.( ch 5, part 1)
Novels lie. They were pleasant fables for those who have not experinced  life. This is contradictory to what Zola does in his novels. He gives realitiy a human and fragile touch.
I was relieved to read Zola’s simple advice about religion and church attendence. (ch 1, part 3)
Beautiful souls gain salvation by their good sense and charity.

 

Conclusion:
I liked this book because it was quiet and calm.  It did not require much ‘think work’ as did La Conquête de Plassans ( no  politics/social commentary ), It had a narrow scope of action unlike Germinal and just a few characters. Due to the  subject of a ‘developing secret love between Dr. Debrele and Hélène, there were  pages of ‘easy to read’ dialogue.
I must say in each and every book that I have read by Zola:  this man can write a love story and all the feelings it entails. How does he do it?

Memorable scenes:  childern’s ball, month of May celebration ( La Vierge), vigil over a sick child, Jeanne, love triangle with a double rendez-vous.

Tiresome scenes:  repetition of the panorama of Paris over and over and over….again.
Personally, I would advise  using  Zola’s recommended reading order. This book makes subtle references to other characters in the books of this series. For examplk  an ancestor with a history of mental illness and a rich uncle who bestows an inheritance on Hélène’s mother and father. I know exactly who they are!

 

This book was a pleasant surprise.   It seems any of my  preconcieved notions about Zola’s books are torn to shreds once I start reading the book. His talents are ‘innommable’!
Score: 4

 

#Non-fiction Madame de Sévigné

Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) – Une femme et son monde au Grand Siècle

 

• Author: Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac
• Title: Madame de Sévigné   (470 pg)  2023
• Genre: biography
• Rating: A+

 

#Prix de la biographie Le Point 2024

Biographies are great…but I always
hate the chapter when the person I’ve spent
many hours with, in this case Mme de Sévigné, dies.
Note: One book about the poet James Wright
…to this day I cannot bear reading the last page of
his life, so, so sad.

This was a very easy book to read in French.
Well worth the touble to all those who want to
‘polish’ you French reading skills. Any “gaps” in
the information can be easily found on Wikipedia.
One regret…I should have looked at the last pages of the book
first…there is a complete genealogy of the “les Coulanges” (Maire)
and the “les Sévigné” (Henri, husband) available.
This would have saved me some time doing my own research!

I kept some notes during the reading and I will add them
for all those who are interested.

 

April 18, 2024 –

page 35

5.92% “Chapter 1 is first making a “scorecard” with who’s who!
Parents, grandparents, godparents…not to mention all the aunts and uncles. It will take time to let these names become familar.”

April 18, 2024 –

page 75

12.69% “04 Aug.1644 Marie (18 yr) and Henri (21 yr) marry.
1646 -daughter Francoise-Marguérite
1648 – son Charles
April 1649…Henri falls under the spell of Parisian courtesan Ninon.
Three months later Ninon dumps him….and Mme de Sévigné has had enough!
Things never change.”

April 19, 2024 –

page 80

13.54%“Chapter 4… reading how Mme de Sévigné’s marriage is over (she is only 23 yr.) She has 2 babies and does not want to risk her health in childbirth. It was a risky business in 17 C France! Her husband, Henri, dreams of a daring life in the saddle venturing off to battles. Also he has discovered world of Parisian courtesans. So he has two choices: being shot off his horse by the enemy or syphilis will kill him.”

April 19, 2024 –

page 142

24.03% “Mme de Sévigné becomes a widow on 06 February 1651. Her husband Henri was a serial philanderer who spent money recklessly. This widowhood was probably the best thing to happen to her. She could live her life freely and raise her children.
I love her way Mme de Sévigné describes her marriage:
“He respected me but did not love me….I loved him but did not respect him.””

April 21, 2024 –

page 280

47.38%“Ch 8-17…a lot has happened: daughter, Françoise, is married (children, 2 die at birth) moves with husband to south of France. Son Charles is in the army. Mme de Sévigné heart is breaking being so far from her daughter, Mme de S. decides to pull some strings in Paris to get her son-in-law transferred to the capital. Only this way can she reunite her family.”

April 22, 2024 –

page 350

59.22%“I did not know…that Mme de S did not get along with her daughter in her later years (Francoise 30 yr/ Mother 50 yr). I seems her daughter could not handle living in her briliant mother’s shadow, Francoise experienced “les dragons” (depression)regularly and the poor girl worried her husband would start an affgaire with a younger woman. So Francoise left mother and they agreed to continue a ‘friendship’ with letters.”

April 24, 2024 –

page 450

76.14%

READ: Today I WILL finish (…still going slowly update 14:30 uur)  the biography of Mme de Sévigné…by hook or by crook!  Love reading biographies….just makes history so much more interesting! CH 17  is lists of Mme de S.’s “la troupe des amis intimes”.  Mme de S. is out wining and dining but has to appear once in  awhile “à la Cour” of King Louis XIV and Queen Maire Theresia (daughter of Spanish King Philip IV).

Louis XIV had a real eye for the ladies. Mistresses all in a row:

• Louise de la Valliège (4 children) – King was 23 yr
  
• Marquise de Montespan  (6 children) – King was 29 yr
  
• Mademoiselle de Fontanges (short fling, no children) – King was 41 yr
  
• Madame de Maintenon (no children with King) and she secretly married (1683) King Louis XIV (45 yr) after the death  of his wife of Marie Theresia. Mme de Maintenon  was 48 hyr  and “reigned” with Louis XIV…as he visited her apartments every day and received offical ministers in her presence. She was the boss!
  

READ: There is a lot of “worrying about money” in 1680s France in Mme de Sévigné’s family. How can Mme de S. pay those who maintain her chateaux in Les Rochers Bretagne? How can Mme de S. lend all the money for her daughter’s dowery? How can Mme de S. pay for the rent Hotel de Ville Carnavalet? ( now a museum) How can Mme de S. prevent losing her ‘downpayment’ to cousin Philippe-Auguste Le Hardy…so that her son  (and cousin to P-A) Charles will inherit the family chateaux? (Philippe-Auguste gave the rights to the chateaux to his son-in-law!!) How can Mme de S. convince her son-in-law (Comte Grignan)  (..to protect her daughter and grandchildren from $$ distress) to stop hemerroging money on his expensive lifestyle?

READ: Precious son Charles (32 yr) has syphilis (1680). Suprisingly he reaches the age of 65 and his wife dies at the age  of 78 yr.  He goes through awful so-called cures. 1684 Charles marries Jeanne Marguerite de Mauron (1659-1737) (young woman from Bretagne)…and a year later she too has syphilis. The couple had NO children…probably both were sterile due to the sickness + cure. While describing how he feels (Charles) …he tells his sister and she recognizes symptoms HER husband has. So he is probably infected as well. Poor Mme de Sévigné…her “perfect world and children” is crashing down.

So sad to read in the last chapters….all Mme de S’s friends are dying, one after the other.

• Mme de La Fayette (1634-1693)…is a crushing blow, great loss.
• Another dear friend Mme Lavardin aka Marguerite-Renée de Rostaing (1616-1994) died the next year. 
• Mme de S’s world of eruidite friends and correspondents…..is almost gone.
• Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy (1618 – 1693), commonly known as Bussy-Rabutin,
• …was a French memoirist.
• He was her cousin and frequent correspondent of Madame de Sévigné.
  

 

#T.S. Eliot Prize Winner 2022

 

Finish: 22.04.2024
Title: Sonnets for Albert (2022)
Genre: 53 poems  (92 pg)
Rating: A+++++++++++++++

 

Absolutely stunning poetry collection….really, the best I’ve
read this year. 53 short poems and I liked 53! score: 100%

The poems combined excellent form and technique.
Challenge: see if you can find the clever word play in the
first 19 poems!

These poems are short and my be deceptive in their
simplicity, but deep, deep down there is so much craft.

Anthony Joseph is confonting his childhood with an absent father.
He flew home after years living and studying in Europe….to finally bury his father
…but not his memory.

The son wanted answers from his father that he did not
find in photographs. When Mr Joseph saw his dead father:
Poem: Answers are Important (pg 83)

“…the half-parted mouth which kept its secrets,
and offered no response, no tender farewell.”

You can read these poems as a autobiography…
each poem compliments the other.

After spending many hours with Anthony Joseph
the line that just took my breath away about the
turbulent father-son relationship was:
Poem: P.O.S.G H. II (Port of Spain General Hospital) (pg 77)

“…He ate up all the joy.”

 

Last  thoughts:

• Anthony Joseph tells us  how ‘giving up your secrets’
• makes for great literature and how ‘the personal is universal’.

#Shortlisted T.S. Eliot Prize 2023

 

Finish: 18.04.2024
Title: I Think We’re Alone Now (2023)
Genre: 29 poems  (82 pg)
Rating: F

 

1. Some call it ‘delightfully difficult’.
2. Some call it ‘ambitious’.
3. I call it….disappointing.
4. Sometimes when you start to dislike a book, you begin
5. finding fault with all kinds of things that you wouldn’t otherwise.
6. This book is not what I consider “shortlisted T.S. Eliot Prize” quailty.
7. I could have accepted it …I’ve accepted far worse before!
8. …but I found no dazzling images only spurts of hackneyed clichés
9. …especially in “Audio Commentary”  4 pages with 101 sentenances.
10. Is that poetry?
11. Ms Parry has potential…being shortlisted demonstrates that
12. …but did not show it to me today.

 

READ:

• Self-Portrait as Othello – Jason Allen-Paisant  (35 poems) – REVIEW  Winner T.S. Eliot Prize 
• The Map of the World – E. Ni Chuilleanáin – REVIEW
• A Change in the Air – J. Clarke (55 poems) – REVIEW

 

#Poetry Jean Valentine (1934-2020)

Finish: 18.04.2024
Title: Home Deep Blue (1980)
Genre: 52 poems  (79 pg)
Rating: D

 

The only thing I will remember about Jean Valentine is
that she kept me awake all night!
52 Poems by  Jean Valentine “Home Deep Blue”
…they have an emotional tint referring to her private life,
I do not know anything a/b her life so…the poems left  little impact on me.
Ms Valentine has been lauded for her poetry but I just do not get it.

Ms Valentine never dodged emotion but she leaves out the details.
The readers are forced to use their imagination.

Too many of these “poems” are just spurts of words with no rhythm and little feeling.

The tone of the poems is dream-like. The poet uses this mental state to forge for ideas.
Unlike Sylvia Plath, who inspired Ms Valentine….Plath uses life experiences to
create her narrative. That is what made her  poetry electrifying!

Last thought….I’ll leave it this time to… Emily Dickinson:
“She has the facts but not the phosphorescence.”