New Address

Hello the site has now been moved here
www.wistfulbegonias.com

Boris Vian and The Foam of the Daze

I've just read Boris Vian's "Foam of the Daze," translated by Brian Harper and Published by TamTam; and I'm having difficulty accepting it. I suppose the story is about acceptance and love. As if events form a persons identity and if things had been different how they would change who we are. At one point the story comes to a crescendo, where you realize there is no regret or remorse for things to be different only for them to get better.

To begin with, the tragedies are so ludicrous and infuriating but so heart wrenching, it's not so much that this woman has a water lilly in her lung or that the characters are throwing away money on flowers and obscure editions of literature it's that life is horrific and there isn't a single thing that a person can do to change their fate or win the favor of the fates, but it doesn't have to be that awful. I found the shift of their dwelling space especially traumatic, to go from where they were to where they end, with ceilings caving in and rooms vanishing as is the earth could voluntarily swallow you whole and belch afterwards as a very sad view of existence. The novel and it's characters is intended to be taken very literally and metaphorically simultaneously, in a universe where worn shoes grow back and mice walk on crutches.



Except in some cases the story is so true and paints such a vivid portrait of the harsh reality that people might face on a daily basis. Alise is in love with Chick, and Chick is in love with Alise. Chick has a job although not a very good one, and Alise is from a wealthy family. Colin, is very wealthy and gives Chick a quarter of his fortune so that he may marry Alise, continue to work and live a comfortable life. Chick is grateful but is obsessed with an author who publishes five or six articles a week. Chick spends the money he is given so that he may buy the latest publications, but it's not just rare manuscripts and memorabilia it's relics that the author has touched or even breathed on. So much so that he has wasted all of the gifted money very briefly, and in the process lost his job.




Yet this woman loves him, perhaps not more so but she blames the author for his continued proliferation. I will add that much of the story is so absurd that it can't be believed, but is moves so thoroughly with such swiftness that I found myself not only lost in the story but practically tearing out each page as I read in frustration. But if this story is about acceptance it might be about the hopelessness people often find themselves lost in as if upon receiving a phone call the phone booth literally shrinks in size, the windows become walls and what was once a door in now only a keyhole. Characters in these types of situations tend to find themselves crawling through windows to enter stores or out of windows and onto ledges depending on the circumstances. But life doesn't always have to be so hopeless. It is maybe more about making bad decisions worse, and looking at the world as if it might swallow itself up whole tomorrow. And rather than take a single step backwards to appraise the events, they find themselves in rooms where doorknobs have been removed, with hearts torn out, and mountains of books that are just smoldering and unable to catch fire.



But this is what makes the L'Ecume des Jours "Foam of the Daze" and not "Froth of the Daydream" as it was initially translated by Stanley Chapman, these predicaments and tragedies which by definition can't be true and we pray can never be true. As a passing note the story is quasi scifi where everything depends on a seemingly incomprehensible retro-organic futuristic technology within a quaint romantic/ fascist society. Towards the end it all becomes painfully clear when the character has finally managed to get a high paying job as a security guard at the gold production facility, where he must circle the perimeter of the plant once a day, and in order to do that he must run as fast as he can on a jagged concrete ground, even if it means not stopping and turning around to stop and listen when he hears something happening in the darkness of his surroundings. So maybe it's more about a blind acceptance of the world and the love for family that is so compelling to the human experience that the characters can't stop doing what they love because if the do they could get ground up in the factory machine, but if the don't they end up getting stoned at a funeral.

Boris Vian didn't live very long, he wasn't even forty years old by the time he died during a screening of J'irai Cracher Sur Vos Tombes, but he managed to cram ample experience into his relatively short life. He was a novelist, playwright, poet, songwriter, jazz musician, translator, engineer, husband and father. He wrote a number of novels including "Hearsnatcher" which I'm almost scared to read, if it is half as depressing as "Foam of the Daze" I won't be able to finish it and if it's half as compelling I might not be able to go to work.

But I did actually see some similarity to Goddard's "Alphaville," but I digress.

In The Bathroom

I recently finished reading "The Bathroom", by Jean Philippe Toussaint. The story is about a man living in Paris with his girlfriend named Edmondsson. She works part time for a gallery and he lives in the bathroom of their apartment. It sounds complicated at first but I suppose he does other things besides living in his bathroom, he dreams, he watches football and sometimes he talks with the Polish painters who have a show at the gallery where Edmondsson works but have offered to paint the kitchen for a little spending money and something to do while they're in Paris. In fact what color they want to paint the kitchen is a very serious issue, it isn't the simple economics of the decision, it also is a consequence of how time will change the color. They seem to spend most of their time inside the kitchen smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey, and in some cases skinning octopuses. But there is more to their lives than choosing the color of their walls.

He travels unexpectedly to Venice. I'm not sure whether or not the adventure was a good idea, but it did get him out of the bathroom. The bathroom was too wombic, if he wasn't going to wash or look at himself in the mirror there was nothing else for him to do but smoke cigarettes, read and stare. His mother comes to visit at the request of Edmondsson, she brought pastries and suggested diversions but steadfastly there he remained. In Venice there is even less to do than in the bathroom. He stays in a small hotel room and doesn't do anything except wander the halls at night and stop into the bar for a drink or two when the football is on. He stays there alone and bored until he decides to call Edmondsson. The phone calls become an extensive regularity, sitting on the floor of the hotel lobby around the corner of the clerks desk in hushed tones he talks to her for hours. Everyday, sometimes twice a day, the phone calls become the focus of his existence, and then she visits. It's obvious he is in love with her. His relationship with her borders on obsession, but he seems to be out of sorts at the moment. While Edmondsson is in Venice with him, she wants to do all of the adventurous things like go to the museum, and see the art, but he's already been in the city for a month and all he wants to do is lay in bed with her. One morning he gets up early to find some tennis balls, he wanders around, to get some exercise, and returns to the room. But she doesn't really want to play tennis, and he doesn't really want to do anything else. Things got out of hand and he absentmindedly threw a dart at her. You are not supposed to do these sorts of things, Do Not Throw Darts At Girlfriends! She goes to the hospital and then returns to Paris, while he stays on in Venice.

Now the story is difficult to describe because there are so many details to it. He doesn't want to grow up. He'd rather play in the bathtub while his mother sits by his side than attend a reception at the Austrian Embassy. The couple is so free that they make love in the bedroom while the Poles skin the molluscs and paint the kitchen. While in Venice though he comes down with sinusitis and spends a good number of weeks living in a hospital smoking cigarettes and watching people in neighboring rooms through his window. And all of this is extremely unhealthy. I will remind you that Jean Philippe Toussaint is alive and well and continues to produce a massive volume of work. I found it all extremely depressing, this guy doesn't want to do anything when he is in Paris except make love and sit in his bathtub, his girlfriend even encourages it by joining him in the bathroom. But he leaves the city on an unannounced whim and heads to Italy, where he doesn't do anything except smoke and miss Edmondsson. I had trouble reconciling all of this. When Edmondsson arrived, she was thrilled, ready to enjoy him, Venice, and perhaps start a new life there if that's what he wants to do, she bustles around sightseeing, she gets him into a church where he is put off by the dark and the candle smoke. Finally, he wants to play tennis, in fact he's practically dying to, and she is so happy for him she says she doesn't want to, all she wants to do is lay in bed and make love.

In the end he returns to his life in Paris with Edmondsson, but I don't know if he has really changed. Actually I would guess not, because the first thing he does is go to the bathroom and lay in the bathtub. I don't know if I can really relate to this character. There was a point in my life when I was living in a little studio apartment in West Philadelphia and I was convinced that the woman upstairs was living in her bathroom. Whenever I went into my bathroom there was this sense that she was up there in the bathtub. I imagined her getting comfortable with a blanket and her TV. Insulated by the six inches of porcelain on either side. While I was down stairs, beneath her, shaving or washing or grooming, wondering if she was really their or not. And reading this made me think of Dottie Lasky's tiny tour. When she reaches the bathroom leg of the tour she's reading from her recently published book of poems "AWE", the audience and the camera sit in the bathtub while she stands in the doorway reading her poem about a universe of cats.

Blue Flowers

Hello,
I would like to introduce myself and my new blog.  So, I guess I'm sort of used to this whole thing and I've always wanted to have a blog but I was never sure if 1) I could focus on a single topic enough to garner a blog or 2) that I could be interesting enough to attract a following.  And, I have come to the conclusion that I don't need to focus explicitly on a single topic, I can be satisfied with a consideration of culture as I see it at large; and I believe that it doesn't really matter if I'm interesting enough, I can try my best and if I'm honest and thoughtful, hopefully I'll be able to keep a few of you interested. Today, I decided that I would try to address a book that I finished reading recently, The Blue Flowers, by Raymond Queneau & Translated by Barbara Wright.  I suppose this may be suitable given the Oulipo Festival and the fact that spring is coming.  The story is basically a whimsical fairy tale. But, of course I enjoyed it.  It is the kind of book that you can finish in an afternoon and feel better for it.  I would recommend that my sister take it with her to the Jersey Shore or to Martha's Vineyard to read at the beach, if she read this kind of stuff.  I however, preferred to have it in my bag while I went to The Last Drop Cafe and read it with a Soy Latte and some Pain au Chocolate.  

The story is of Cidrolin/ Duke d'Auge and the continual balancing act of the French lifestyle. Obviously I don't even know how to actually interpret this, Cidrolin lives on a barge along the Seine in Paris during the 1960's while Le Duke d'Auge rampages through history from a summer morning in 1260 until he arrives in the present accompanied by his entourage.

  

Cidrolin spends his time living with his daughter drinking essence of fennel and water.  Occasionally he dozes off and takes a nap only to awaken and realize that a vandal has painted obscenities on his picket fence.  He washes his fence, he eats at the local cafe and he is relatively content with his life.  When he falls asleep and drifts into one of his regular naps the story switches focus to Duke d'Auge.  The Duke d'Auge is a feudal lord who lives with his wife on an estate full of friers and talking horses and drinks of essence of fennel and water. When the Duke d'Auge drifts off into a regular slumber the story moves back to Cidrolin.  The novel follows the lives of these two men, and the events that tend to occur to resting fathers and tenacious nobels.  Cidrolin's last remaining unwed daughter marries and moves out of the "house".  The Duke d'Auge on the other hand has constant tensions with the King and his agents of authority.  As he advances through time you see France through a number of epochs from a privileged almost everyday point of view.  This is really a nice story, I'd like to think that there is more to this than Queneau's awareness of how he enjoys his masculinity.  There must be more to this story than the observation that the heirs of French nobility tend to be lazy alcoholics living impermanently in an almost lonely self serving way.  Despite my description the story really isn't as depressing as it sounds; I'm quite certain there is some moral of historic significance, only I'm not French and I really don't know much about French history outside of the French Revolution.  I think Queneau is speaking more to the soul of Cidrolin, living on his barge, waiting for a Huckelberry Finnesque adventure but, he's been too caught up raising and caring for his family to really accomplish anything other than refining a taste for the essence of fennel.  Rather than get any deeper into interpreting the overtly self aware, post-modern chauvinism I think I'll let you decide for yourself.   Post a comment or email me, and let me know what you think.



Here is some video of Raymond Queneau.