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Larry Muffin At Home

Tag Archives: literature

Le temps des cerises

04 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by larrymuffin in art

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

fables, fairy tales, France, life, literature

It is cherry time now, all markets have them and we are in the second part of Summer, though the weather has been hot and humid and living by the ocean is a good thing for the breeze it brings constantly.

I have been reading the book written by Lady C.  (Lady Colin Campbell) know as Georgie to her friends. She wrote and published a tell all book about Meghan and Harry entitled Meghan and Harry the true story. Lady C. does not like Meghan who the British Press now call Me Gain, for her rapacious quest for financial gains, the British Media is no kinder to Harry who they now call Blow Job Harry, apparently that is how Meghan won his heart. Lady C. got lots to say in her book and gives ample references.

Both of them come across as total idiots, she for not understanding or not paying attention to what she was getting into or as is now largely suspected she is a social climber and a gold digger who planned it all well and bagging Harry who is a dolt. He for seeking some silly revenge on his family for slights and for being the spare, well this is what happens in Royal Families, you simply have to carve a role for yourself. Meghan plays on Harry’s super emotional and sensitive nature prone to burst of rage, many anecdotes on that one from various people who were on the receiving end of his tantrums. Even the chef who cooked for both boys when they were kids, says that William was the mature practical one more like his father, while Harry was the air head.  The boy got problems, I now understand better the remark made during our visit to Kensington Palace a year ago that Harry had mommy issues.

The one drawback to the book, it needs more editing and Lady C. got the part about Canada wrong when she speaks about Margaret Trudeau, the 70 something mother of our current Prime Minister. The newer book by Scobie and Durand Finding Freedom, I will give a pass. The whole affair is unbelievable, why could Harry not marry a nice German Princess like in the old days.

Now this morning I read the blog of Dr Spo who is Carl Jung’s first cousin and living incognito in Phoenix AZ. https://sporeflections.wordpress.com

He was mentioning reading books from the family library entitled the 100 best stories. He was wondering if they really were the best stories written by some unknown authors. This got me thinking that Reader’s Digest once had books by famous authors in abridged versions and sold them in nice leather bound edition with gold trim, I do not know if anyone ever read them. I also remember thinking if you read one of those books could you really say you had read the book, it was an abridged version with sections cut out so not the actual complete work.

When it comes to stories the French literary scene has lots of authors but one in particular is Charles Perrault (1628-1703) who is said to have invented the concept of Fairy Tales. Another is Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695) the famous fabulist. Both lived during the reign of Louis XIV, a golden age for the arts.

220px-ChPerrault.jpg

Perrault in my estimation is the classic story teller and his tales are world famous, immortal you could say. Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Blue Beard, Tom Thumb, Cinderella, etc.. His tales all have a moral lesson attached to them and he writes to impress upon the imagination and plays on the fears of the common man. Symbolism is important, good and evil represented by the dark forest, the wolf, witches, giants and ogres. His tales delight and frighten everyone really as they did then. He appeals to our basic instincts as humans all the while telling his tale.

Jean de la Fontaine in his famous fables equally tells tales which draws upon lessons for life, with a heavy dose of morality with punishments for those who do not heed the warnings.

Both Perrault and Lafontaine I learned at school and at home, they were the classic authors you simply had to know. I wonder if children still read those stories or is it all about super heroes now and dinosaurs.

 

Another what I am reading

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by larrymuffin in books

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

literature, reading

With Summer you always get reviews about what to read at the beach or the lake. Usually recommendations will be mostly about bestsellers, some topics will be light and easy, self-help books, novels, maybe some detective stories or a biography.

I find it difficult to read at the beach because the sea is more interesting than a book, any book. Walking on the beach is also for me therapeutic, so why sit down and read?

At the cottage or the lake, never did go much to the cottage as kids, I only remember 2 Summers at a rented cottage but we did mostly fishing and on rainy days some water colour painting, no reading.

Again what I read is a mish mash of authors and topics, whatever strikes my fancy. I usually hear about a book, go to Amazon.ca to have a look, read up about it and read the reviews, though they do not influence me much. I can also go to the bookstore and look around what they have. A nice hobby on how to spend a couple of hours browsing for books. I may buy or not buy something.

When on a trip I will take my kindle with me, easy to handle and light weight. You can take it everywhere with you.

The other day I was in my favourite coffee shop when I noticed a big hard cover book on the window ledge by my table, just sitting there, forgotten or abandoned, I picked it up to see that it was Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant. Will and Ariel Durant were about 35 years ago famous authors, historians and philosophers in the scholarly academic section of book writers. They wrote the 11 volume History of Civilization between 1935-1975. I think it was required reading in some universities. They were certainly celebrated as a couple. I was surprise to see the book and I had completely forgotten about them. Will Durant died in 1981 at the age of 96. Many said then that he and Ariel were historians who had changed our understanding of history.

I also picked up other books recently David Crystal, A little book of Language which is light fare in understanding how we think about languages in general from baby talk to slang, to meanings of words and expressions, to many other languages and how they are constructed and how cultures and people think differently and this is illustrated in their own language.

Another one I have read is Nigel Warburton, A little history of philosophy. He gives a short description of various philosophers and their own philosophy, how they came to develop their world view and he covers about 40 of them from the ancient to the modern. This is a good little book for someone who never studied in school philosophy as a topic. I remember my classes in philosophy and our teachers who appeared to us so learned, I had two who would tell jokes in ancient Greek and Latin. Of course the majority of the students in the class did not understand and so they would invite us to translate them to find the meaning. Some of the books we read then were heavy going like the ones on Logic and thought process.

Recently I was reading how Millennials had angst about not wanting to make mistakes in their choices in life, leading to some kind of paralysis. I thought have they read Soren Kierkegaard? Some 50 years ago young people had the same anxiety, nothing new. He was with Jean-Paul Sartre on Existentialism, a popular author to help people understand the world after 1945.

With the crisis of Climate change I would think that Existentialism is going to make a comeback.

Books.jpg

I also stumbled upon the Biography of Alex B. Campbell, Premier of PEI from 1966-1978, he was the youngest at 32 to be elected Provincial Premier in Canada and saw during his tenure massive changes in PEI. He is 85 years old now and lives in Stanley Bridge, PEI.

I also got a book by Rawi Hage, Lebanese Born Canadian living in Montreal who has won many literary awards. This recent book also shortlisted for many awards is Beirut Hellfire Society.  I always enjoy reading about the Middle-East where I spent so much time of my working life. The stories remind me of those days and my travel in the region. A place I always found fascinating for its politics, culture and antiquity.

Beirut Hellfire Society begins in 1978 with Pavlov, the son of an undertaker who inherits his father’s business and his membership in the eponymous group, a secretive, pagan-like sect that reveres fire, cremates the dead, and is accommodating to those who have been shunned for reasons such as homosexuality and atheism. Pavlov defies social norms, like the famed cynic Diogenes, whom he resembles (and makes explicit mention of in the text). The book follows Pavlov closely as he picks up the remains of bodies, caring for dogs (a species he holds in high esteem) and people with a modest but piercing tenderness. Pavlov befriends Rex, a stray dog, and begins talking with him. The context of civil war in the Middle East often lends itself to a blame game involving Christians versus Muslims, West versus East, or good versus evil. Hage dissolves these rigid binaries in his portrait of a syncretic Lebanon, where violence is perceived as a facet of everyday relations between people.

I also have on my roster the book of John C.G. Rohl, Kaiser Wilhelm II: A concise life. His life was complicated by family relations, Queen Victoria was his maternal grand mother and his mother was the eldest daughter of Victoria and Empress of Germany, a difficult birth which left him crippled and an upbringing verging on torture. He died in exile in 1941 and to this day is portrayed as a warlord, a misfit who became Emperor because of the early death of his father. The House of Hohenzollern to this day has to live with that ghost, though history is slowly rehabilitating him.

On the lighter side P.G. Woodhouse The code of the Woosters which is certainly good for a few laughs. That would fit the bill for what is called Summer fare.

So there you have it Summer reading!

 

 

 

Books I read recently

23 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

De Sade, France, literature, Nobility, Paris, Sadist, sex, Versailles, Writers, Writing

After the Jack Bush retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada which ended just a few days ago, I decided to read the biography of the wife of his agent Clement Greenberg who was probably the single most influential art critic in the twentieth century. Although he is most closely associated with his support for Abstract Expressionism, and in particular Jackson Pollock, his views closely shaped the work of many other artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland. His attention to the formal properties of art – color, line, space and so forth – his rigorous approach to criticism, and his understanding of the development of modern art – although they have all been challenged – have influenced generations of critics and historians. The book is written by Janice Van Horne, she is still alive living in New York, she’s 87.

The book is entitled a Complicated Marriage. In it Van Horne talks mostly about her life and Greenberg and their daughter are treated as an aside. She met Greenberg at a party, she was an Office girl and he picked her up and she simply fell in his bed. She was a follower, a hanger-on, that is pretty obvious from the beginning.

What is interesting is the description Van Horne gives of the wives of the great artists Greenberg represented and promoted. Van Horne did not like any of them and in most cases had difficult relations with them. The reason being she was an outsider and married Greenberg when he was already very much a well known impresario. She confesses she never liked Art much nor the Art scene, it bored her to tears, but she did not know what to do with her life so she hung around with the crowd her husband knew and loved. She was afraid of ending up like her Bennington College girlfriend living with some rich husband in Connecticut.

There were also several artists she did not like for various reasons, a very personal approach to it all. One who comes in for harsh criticism is Jackson Pollock, who killed himself driving his car drunk and also killed one of his passenger in 1956.  His wife Lee Krasner protected the image of Pollock even after his death and despite the fact she was estranged from him at the time. Van Horne really disliked Krasner because she never felt included in any encounter Greenberg had with Pollock and Krasner who were close friends of his. Van Horne claims that Krasner invented the myth of Pollock the great artist. According to her he was not so great, just a boozer and self-destructive. Another couple she did not like was Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine, they were to full of themselves and snooty.

What you see is as an outsider, she is angry that they did not include her but all these people were artists and created art, lived it, it was their world, not hers. You want to ask her, what did you do to integrate the world of Greenberg and these artists besides feeling sorry for yourself. The only artist she seems to have liked was the Canadian Jack Bush and his wife Mabel, she was not an artist just a housewife, Van Horne liked that there was no threat or exclusion.

The book is about how her and you learn little about Greenberg.  All her life she was looking for who she wanted to become or could be, looking for happiness, fulfilment through countless affairs with other men and in various work projects so that she would not have to be with Greenberg and his artist friends all the time. There was much booze and drugs it was the sixties after all. At the end of the book I was wondering what she was trying to tell us and was it worth reading. Maybe for the gossip and the stories about the artists and their world in New York, it was a time period.

The other book I read or am still reading is the life of Donatien Alphonse François Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). No it is not what you might think on the contrary this is the book written by Gilbert Lely, first published in 1952 and in 1957 is an exhaustive research of the life of the Marquis de Sade. Lely read just about everything about the Marquis and his family, friends, and the complicated family life he had. Born in the circle of the Royal Family of France and raised with the Royal Children of the King, De Sade had a very privilege life surrounded by luxury.

He is described, because no portrait survives of him, as a short little man 5 foot 2, which is rather short, fat or plump, aquiline nose with dirty blond hair and blue eyes. He like all the Nobles at Court had a military career which was mostly made up of fine uniforms, medals and lots of parades. He was lazy, loved intrigues and from a very young age had a rather dissolute life of debauchery, which we are told was not uncommon amongst the powerful and wealthy who were bored at Court. He was married quickly by his father to another Noble family who were of inferior rank at Court but very wealthy, so their more modest rank in the complicated Court system of precedence and protocol could be overlooked because money talks. The author Gilbert Lely explains in detail what rank at Court meant and how very important it was to the Nobles who were constantly fighting , arguing and having intense discussions on who could do or not do this or that at Court depending on when their ancestors were elevated to a dignité by the King. Saint Simon who lived some decades before De Sade does speak of this in his memoirs. It is very tedious for modern readers but you do understand how deadly serious it was at the time. This sets the tone for the book and brings the reader into the world of the Court of France in the XVIIIth century.

Though De Sade became the most controversial writer of his time, most of his troubles came from the acrimonious relationship he had with his mother in law Madame la Présidente De Montreuil, her husband had been a Chief Magistrate (Président de la Cour du Roi). She came to hate him and to ensure her complete and cruel vengeance on him for disobeying her, neglecting his children and wife and for being a spendthrift used all of her influence at Court to destroy him.

De Sade in his writings simply made available to the common man the sexual practices of the Ancien Régime, most of which were often predatory on the common people who had no recourse and went largely unpunished. It was one thing to participate in orgies with people of your own class and to gossip about it or give parties where all manner of excesses where performed on commoners hired or tricked under the promise of favours or money for the event. It is known that Monsieur who was the brother of the Sun King Louis XIV was known for his penchant for very young Pages at Court or that Louis XV was a sexual pervert, that Voltaire had a long term incestuous affair with his young niece Marie-Louise Denis or that Montesquieu who wrote beautifully an enlighten text on the mistreatment of African slaves made his fortune on such trade or that Jean Jacques Rousseau who wrote about the care of children abandoned his 5 children at birth, not giving them a second thought.

Le Marquis de Sade wrote about all this debauchery in graphic details and his books were published became very popular and are to this day. That was his crime, he committed the horrible crime of betraying his Class the Nobles and showing them for what they were to the people. That was inexcusable and his Mother in law knew how to exploit this to her advantage to save her name and that of her relatives the De Sade Family. The author Gilbert Lely also researched the psychological portrait of De Sade and much has been written in the 19th century about his psychological make-up. He obviously enjoyed violence and found great personal gratification. Despite the fact that his writings created much employment for writers, literary analyst, university thesis and psychologists, De Sade comes across as a deeply deranged man who French Society at times accepted and praised and then shunned and despised, politics, societal changes, taste and attitudes all played a part.

Le Marquis de Sade was freed by the French Revolution but imprisoned again because the Revolutionary found him a little too free in his thinking. He was let go yet again when Napoleon gained absolute power in a Coup d’Etat but not for long since even the Emperor thought De Sade’s morals a bad example on France. Needless to say that Napoleon and Josephine were not puritain and much documentation remains about their own sexual debauchery.

Seen in this light, I think that in our World today le Marquis de Sade would be on You Tube giving advice and invited on shows like Ellen or The View. One only has to think of the popularity amongst the Bourgeoisie in North America with the novel Fifty Shades of Grey to understand the hypocrisy of the World.

cuisine-et-service-de-table-set-de-table-fragonard-les-hasards-3290007-fragonard-swing-9467e_570x0

L’escarpolette by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)

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