Anne Dromache – Page 9 – My Own RE:public

Just one night

Elsewhere I have written on Leïla Slimani, and will briefly do so again. Last night I read (as always in the German translation of Amelie Thoma with the title Der Duft der Blumen bei Nacht) Slimani’s slim ‘summing-up’ of her voluntary ‘locking-up’ – for one night only – in the Venetian Punta della Dogana; this being her contribution to her French publisher’s ongoing collection, “Ma nuit au musée”. Now, this, an idea that I initially found somewhat contrived – “Mickey Mouse” even, more suited to the ‘low’ culture of Disneyworld than the ‘high’ of the traditional European museum. Whereby that with vertical graduations of culture is relative and a matter of taste and circumstance: I remember, Orlando, circa. 1990, babe in arms, man at side; a memory as sunny and warm as the atmosphere in which it was created and lives still. Modest, perhaps, but nonetheless a highlight of this life.

Slimani herself is not absolutely convinced of the ‘higher’ purpose of the project nor of her qualification to speak on the contemporary art in the midst of which she will be stranded. But she is struggling with her novel and there is something about being alone, being ‘locked-up’, that is appealing enough to lead her to accept the proposal, reasoning her acquiescence as a consequence of her literary inheritance and ambitions; literary heroes – so many loners amongst them; her own unresolved conflict between an overwhelming desire for solitude and a peculiar restlessness. All this may well be so, but during her night of self-imposed confinement, other more personal motivations come to the fore.

*View of Punta della Dogana from the Bacino di San Marco.*

So it is that Slimani’s meditation on her own particular art of writing is embellished with those of others – for instance, Tolstoy, Woolf, Rushdie, Adnan – and, on this night, run parallel with her confrontation with forms of visual art that are not easy and are open to interpretation. And her interpretations can not be but reflective of her experience living between worlds; the Morocco of her childhood and the France of her adulthood, and always the Francophone which is her linguistic home and the Arabic which was never gifted her – but the essence of which is always there, somewhere.

When considering the 17th century building in which she now finds herself and the greater plight of Venice and the Notre Dame fire in Paris on the previous day, Slimani reflects upon the transient nature of cities and the structures that inhabit them. And she wonders where the life-enriching transcendent is to be found in an increasingly secular society, when religion and the sacred is abused, demolished? Always there in the poetic, in literature, she suggests. And whether with her own turn of phrase or extending upon those of others, her musings are thoughtful and clearly formulated – and very revealing of her writing life and the price paid for her obsession.

And personally revealing. Perhaps this was not Slimani’s intent, but somewhere through that night she is struck by the irony that she should choose this bizarre form of confinement for just one night, whilst years previously her father had been confined, imprisoned – no choice there, and unjustly so claims his daughter. And even when not actually deprived of their freedom, there was a generation of Moroccans like her parents who had been condemned to a life sentence anyway – a life in the shadow of colonialism, lives lived in a land claimed by others. Slimani writes with understanding and empathy of their plight – without reproach nor bitterness; only too aware of the later freedoms granted to her through circumstance.

We know Leïla Slimani returns to Paris, freed – for a time, at least – of the not so brutal, but also not trivial, shackles that freedom brings, and with the realization that in the whole scheme of things her burdens are governed by choice – and are to be endured or thrown asunder. She is fit again to write of those which are greater; borne by others in another place, another time. Tell another story. (The second of the trilogy, Regardez-nous danser, was published last year.)

Pugin

Should one not be adequately informed, by virtue of professional or personal interest, in the social and cultural history of Victorian England (and the Georgian that preceded it), one could be forgiven for not easily placing the name Pugin (says she absolving herself!). That is, to be precise: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin^[a] (/ˈpjuːdʒɪn/PEW-jin; 1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852). And so pasted from Wikipedia; for, having come to the end of a fabulous biography, I now realise I have been saying – in my head anyway – quite correctly (by chance!) the first syllable but consistently mispronouncing the last syllable with a hard ‘g’. And for reasons I can’t say, for there is that rule dependent upon the following vowel and in days gone I certainly had a penchant for an icy gin and tonic of a summer evening. Too long a stay in Germany perhaps, where the g of Germany and gin is confined to words derived from other languages – like, for instance, ‘Germany’ and ‘gin’!

As mentioned previously, in a weaker moment last year I relented and, despite my modest budget, subscribed to the London Review of Books. The reading of a random piece here and there or a rare purchase at a Hauptbahnhof en route from here to there had become a bit tiresome. And I haven’t regretted doing so; even when some articles tend to veer too left of my (fading) scope of vision. While sometimes delivery has been tardy (unfortunately a digital only sub. is not offered so it is always the case that I have an online version for a significant time before the hard copy turns up) and this year has seen a hefty price hike, I am sticking with it for the moment. During the year gone I have discovered some really excellent pieces of writing – from people known to me and not, about subject matter with which I am familiar and that which I’m not.

Rosemary Hill is an example of such an ‘unknown’ (to me) with whom I have been glad to become acquainted. As it transpires, Hill is not only a regular contributor to LRB, but a widely respected writer and cultural historian. Early in the year gone, I was impressed by a ‘Diary’ piece in which Hill, inspired by the 1921 census becoming available and an interest in discovering her father as the baby he then was and the family that surrounded him, explores her familial roots in South London and in doing so vividly illustrates the conditions under which the ‘working-classes’ lived at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Then later I listened to a series of podcasts hosted by Rosemary Hill on Romantic Britain coinciding with her new book Time’s Witness (I await the paperback – remember, the modest…meager budget – ordered and due in a couple of weeks) which led to the discovery of her 2008 Wolfson History Prize winning book God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (2007), of which an immaculate paperback copy fell into my hands.

The Oppermans

One hundred years ago, in 1923, Germany was grappling with the instability of the new constitutional republic patched together out of the ashes of a world war and the accompanying chorus of public unrest and grievances – real and imagined; the economy was wracked by reparation payments and hyperinflation; French troops occupied the Rhineland and now the Ruhr valley and a fledgling radical nationalist party in Bavaria (with enough thugs in its midst and an Austrian with a talent for oratory – if you want to call it that – now at its helm) was stirring up resentment and planning (not very well!) a putsch of sorts. Ten years later the events described in Lion Feuchtwanger’s novel “The Oppermans” that I write about below are realized – the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 ended in the triumph of the Nazis rise to supremacy and the beginning of some of the darkest days of history.

I knew who Lion Feuchtwanger was. I knew him to be one of the German (and Jewish) literati to get out just in the nick of time. I knew him to be one of those intellectuals to have found safe haven first in the south of France and then in the US; in his case amongst an exile community in Pacific Palisades that included Thomas Mann and Adorno. And that his home, the “Villa Aurora”, exists still – now as an artists residence and a place of cultural exchange and learning.

And, until now, I had not read him at all. But, encouraged by a piece written by Joshua Cohen in the NYT last year, that is, in fact, his introduction to a new publication (for which he is apparently responsible for) of the English translation of The Oppermanns, not long ago I sought out and read the most recent German edition entitled Die Geschwister Oppermann. The Geschwister being all the siblings of a privileged and successful German-Jewish family in Berlin: Gustav, a writer of the literary establishment and bon vivant, and the main protagonist from whom the narrative springs, Martin, who runs the family furniture business, Edgar, a brilliant doctor, and Klara, married to a Polish Jew with American passport and the best connections in industry and finance.

As literature in the highest sense of the word, one should not attempt to feign too high a regard. There are portions that have been written very carelessly indeed, without an editorial eye and committed revision – inconsistencies, repetitions, messy dialogue abound. Short sentences are fine, but only up to a point. And when one too often wonders whether that sentence – or something not dissimilar – has not previously been read – and it has? That Feuchtwanger was operating in screen-writing mode (as suggested by Cohen and elsewhere) is a good explanation for the often disjointed form; one which may very well work in drafting, with a camera at the fore, a curt: cut to … and a continuity ‘girl’ at one’s beck and call. It may also account for what I thought the exaggerated, often repetitive, descriptive passages. Though I did wonder, also, whether here was not a style characteristic of a lot of German writers of this generation who, unlike Thomas Mann and few others, didn’t have the luxury of working alone for literary publication, but had to also shuffle between theater, film, journalism, perhaps, academia.

And that is where one gets to why this book is special, and its shortcomings so easily forgiven. Feuchtwanger is not a stylist, absolutely no Th. Mann, but style here is not the point. Literary inadequacies in form are hardly to be wondered at considering the circumstances and urgency under which this novel came to be. Writing, as Cohen says, in “real time”, Feuchtwanger’s novel is the only work that I have read that so portrays – in narrative form, and as it happens – the end game in the Nazis diabolical rise to power, and being played out against the backdrop of an already fractured German society – many elements of which were willing or passive participants.

And I mean the collapse of an entire society – its laws, its norms, its moral fabric. Only in retrospect may one presume that here was a disintegration just waiting to happen. From its beginnings in late 1932 as Gustav celebrates his 50th birthday at his Grunewald villa with family and friends, the novel is bound to the chronology of events leading to the Machtergreifung in January 1933 and what happened next – in Berlin (knowing well enough the particular topography in western Berlin that the novel traverses, added an extra impetus to my reading and its reception), in the provinces, in and out of exile. That that city which has so flourished in these last decades as I write, just as it had so embraced modernity and all its hallmarks of tolerance and indulgence a century ago whilst chaos reigned on the streets and in all the institutions of the young Weimar Republic, could have degenerated so swiftly is a potent reminder of, not just the inherent fragility of almost all social structures, but also the prejudices they conceal and opportunism they encourage.

A tragic tale, a cautionary tale for the ages. Irrespective of its deficits, The Oppermans is an important and immensely disturbing book that should be read for its exposition of the lies told – and those we tell ourselves still – and where they ultimately lead.

The Diary of Virginia Woolf (3)

VOLUME Three: 1925-1930

My Copy of Vol. III of The Diary of Virginia Woolf

Extraordinarily it has taken me two years to write up this Volume Three of Virginia Woolf’s diary. Absurd, really. But here it is!

It is left to be said, as I have vowed before I do so again; with Volume Four encompassing the years 1931- 1935 (and to be started upon post haste!) I shall endeavor to be stringent and selective. But, believe me, with Woolf that is easier said than done. And, whilst ambition is a worthy trait, and a very Woolf-ish one at that, I dare not predict a time frame for the completion of this volume either!

Fuelling the fires

In due course, it maybe that this year now ending will never ring with quite the foreboding of some during the last century; say, 1914 or 1933 or 1939 (or as they are so considered in retrospect rather than the lived experience of those years.) Certainly though, at the very least, 2022 will stand there in the annals as one defined by crises and disruptive influences. It may even turn out to be the year that is the pivot to a new world and economic order, a realignment of interests and expectations; and whether that will be for better or ill only time will tell.

In the short term, it is not to be denied that there are enough reasons to be found for a pessimistic outlook; climate catastrophes and their consequences, energy dependencies and their consequences, geopolitical turmoil – Russian aggression, mixed messaging from China, collective naval-gazing wherever one looks. But there is also cause for some optimism; a pandemic evolving to a manageable endemic state, signs of political and economic stability in the United States (relatively speaking!), indications of the “west” engaging with the “global south” with renewed energy (albeit born out of self-interest) and fresher ideas that go beyond mere words (and markets and profit margins!).

On a personal level, as this year ends, I admit to have well and truly run out of gas in the home stretch! Yes, yes, the pun is more than intended! What has plagued (!) me in the last weeks, I guess I will never now know. Enough to say, my bringing in of the New Year 2023 will be very quiet indeed and it is all I can do to resolve to get myself fit (in body and mind and soul) for all the fights that surely lay ahead; fuelled as they are by fires of discontent – ignited deep within where the narrative of each life resides, or fed from out there in an increasingly fractious world where the big stories are made to then settle as burden upon us all.

My own agenda and aspirations for 2023 are still being mulled over and will be written on in the next week or so.

Tomb Raider

Still a topic of contention and with new evidence surfacing a hundred years on; the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922 by a team under the patronage of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon and led by the Egyptologist Howard Carter. As I mentioned here in discussing the Rosetta Stone and other artifacts strewn far and wide, this, perhaps the most famous of all plunderings, also remains a matter of heated debate between the governments of Egypt and the United Kingdom.

Howard Carter and a foremen working on the innermost coffin.

The archaeological record of the excavation was bequeathed on Carter’s death to The Griffith Institute at Oxford University which provides for a comprehensive online resource – original documentation, photos, drawings. What of course it does not do is delve into the nitty gritty of questions of ownership and restitution.

Reith Lectures

As this BBC centenary year draws to a close, the Reith Lectures (inaugurated in 1948 and delivered by Bertrand Russell) remain a last highlight in an extraordinary year in broadcasting. Already recorded at different venues and before an audience, and with the first in the series airing this week on Radio 4, the lectures have in the past been (mostly always?) delivered by one person. This time, however, entitled The Four Freedoms – of Speech, of Worship, from Want and from Fear – the lectures are given by four individuals over four weeks: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rowan Williams, Darren McGarvey and Fiona Hill. The first two of these I am very well familiar with indeed – Adichie through her wonderful writing and her presence in the public forum and Williams as an Archbishop of Canterbury who may have left office but has not shied from public debate. McGarvey, is a young man who has fleetingly come to my attention in very recent times – not for the rapping (Loki) but for his generous and insightful exploration of the working class experience and poverty in Britain and Fiona Hill burst onto my radar a few years ago when she seriously came to blows with Trump and since has become an oft heard voice of expertise and clarity in respect to the global rise of autocratic and even fascist tendencies, Russian aggression and their war upon the Ukraine, and all the ensuing disruptions in foreign policy.

The contrarian side of my nature must emphatically state the obvious that the idea behind this series is far from original; steeped in 20th century American mythology, inspired as it is by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union speech. Delivered while war was raging in Europe and tensions rising in the Pacific, the speech focused on America’s national security interests and the threats to democracy being posed from within and beyond its borders, and indeed, by years end Pearl Harbor would be attacked and the United States would be at war. However noble Roosevelt’s words, the sentiments expressed remain just that – sentiments preached from the high western perch of possibilities. And the society he was speaking to or, at least, the segment for which he was interested, was another – best represented in Norman Rockwell’s 1943 depictions below in which these “four freedoms” apparently applied only to a very white, ‘conservative’ America. I can’t help wonder just a little that the BBC were unable to find inspiration a little closer to home.

Enough diversion – the four voices to be heard this year will hopefully catapult us into the here and now! First up on Wednesday, and the one I most look forward to, is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking on Freedom of Speech. In The Guardian today there is a sort of interview and a bit of a taster; also reminding me of her first appearance on the “world stage” so to speak in a TED Talk way back in 2009 (!) – 18 minutes … and 32 million odd views I now see! – that I revisit gladly below.

The danger of a single story – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • TEDGlobal 2009

Salman Rushdie update

On a number of occasions recently I have searched for an update on Salman Rushdie’s condition following the brutal attack upon him at a literary event in rural New York in the summer just gone – and mostly have came up short. His (super)agent, Andrew Wylie, did divulge the extent of Rushdie’s injuries, which include the loss of an eye, during an El País interview – reported upon here at The Guardian.

Now, and without having to take the initiative, on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning, Mishal Husain spoke with Alan Yentob, a long time friend of Salman Rushdie (at about 2:19:00 – usually available for about 30 days). We are told that very recently Rushdie has “listened in” at a couple of special readings of his works by friends and colleagues, amongst them Yentob, who says that Rushdie is working hard at getting well, that he remains optimistic and his humor as razor sharp as ever.

Very good news indeed.

And … his new book, called Victory City, finished before he sustained such dreadful injuries is due out in February 2023. Yentob actually said January, but I have checked at Penguin Random House and it is indeed February 7 in the US and February 9 in the UK. From what Yentob says and following the publisher’s blurb we will be taken back anew to Rushdie’s literary roots in a magical, mystical, shape shifting India – this time to the 14th century and to the tale of a little girl possessed by a powerful goddess and sent on a divine mission to guide the fate of a great city and expose and conquer the patriarchy. A mission that will span centuries, and be interwoven with the city’s rise and fall and with it that of its rulers and its citizens.

Now if that doesn’t sound like the Salman Rushdie that gave us Midnight’s Children – who could believe it! – forty odd years ago.