On Friendship (with an Apology)

"But it really is time to join the others, and I've mentioned only one of the two things that I meant to ask you, the least important one. The other is more important to me, but I'm afriad you will say no. Would you mind if we were to call each other tu?"

"Mind? I'd be delighted. 'Joy! Tears of joy! Undreamed-of happiness!'"

"Oh, thank you...thank you...After you! It's such a pleasure to me that you needn't bother about Mme de Guermantes if you'd prefer--calling each other tu is enough." (from The Guermantes Way) 

Here, the fictional Marcel is making a formal declaration that his friendship with Robert de Saint-Loup has reached a more intimate stage. They'd been close buddies for months. Marcel (initially motivated to drop in on his friend so that he could somehow break into the honeycombed world of Saint-Loup's aunt, the Duchesse de Guermantes) has found the perfect friend. Saint-Loup caters to the sickly Marcel's every need with remarkable sincerity and understanding. Marcel, in turn, seems divided between the love he has for the Duchesse and the intense affection he has for Saint-Loup.

I sometimes wish that we had a formal mode of address in English with this little stepping stone of the informal "you." How you come about this decision to eliminate the distance between yourself and another person and how you choose to communicate this without getting the cold shoulder has something in common with a marriage proposal. It's an elaborate social ritual that puts friendship on the same level as romantic love. And why not? Why shouldn't friendships be cultivated with the same delicacy as one's love interests?

Mon dieu! I have an apology to make. I confused the Princesse de Guermantes with the Duchesse de Guermantes in my last blog entry. The description of the woman in her loge at the theater was that of the Princesse de Guermantes, not to be confused with the Duchesse who is Marcel's ideal love interest. She's the one he saw as a young boy in the cathedral at Combray. And the Duchesse is also the one who is deliciously jolie laide as you can see in the following description: 

...I caught sight of the profile, beneath a navy-blue toque, of a beaklike nose against a red cheek, barred across by a piercing eye like some Egyptian deity...Mme de Guermantes was dressed in fur to the tip of her toque...Amid this natural plumage, her tiny head curved out its beak, and the prominent eyes were piercing and blue.     

On French Women

Like a great goddess who presides from afar over the sport of lesser deities, the Princesse had deliberately remained somewhat to the back of her box, on a side-facing sofa, red as a coral rock...The beauty that set her far above the other mythical daughters of the semidarkness was not altogether materially and inclusively inscribed in the nape of her neck, in her shoulders, in her arms, or in her waist. But the exquisite, unfinished line of this last was the exact starting point, the inevitable origin of invisible lines into which the eye could not help extending them, marvelous lines, engendered around the woman like the specter of an ideal figure projected against the darkness. (from The Guermantes Way)  

It's no accident that Proust is often quoted for saying, "Let's leave the obviously pretty women to men with no imagination." The Princesse de Guermantes, described above, would make a good example of jolie laide ("unconventionally good-looking woman: a woman whose facial features are not pretty in conventional terms, but nevertheless have a distinctive harmony or charm.")

We first meet the mysterious Princesse de Guermantes in Combray, when the young Marcel spies her in the town's Gothic cathedral, as the light spilling through the stained glass windows illuminates "the little pimple flaring up at the corner of her nose." Courtly love is very much alive and well two volumes later in The Guermantes Way, as the protagonist, now a man in his early twenties, continues to worship her to the point of stalking her by visiting her favorite Parisian haunts every day.

I thought of the topic of French women when I saw an article in the New York Times on October 11th ("Where Having It All Doesn't Mean Having Equality"), in which the editor-in-chief of French Elle says: "We have the right to do what men do--as long as we also take care of the children, cook a delicious dinner and look immaculate. We have to be superwoman."

Debra Ollivier, author of the scholarly tome (okay, guilty pleasure) What French Women Know: About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind, adds her own interpretation when she writes, "Readers, let us bite into the Big Camembert with this: In France men and women actually like one another. A lot. There is no American-style war of the sexes going on. French men and women actually want to be together. They enjoy their mutual company. They spar. They debate. They flirt. They seek out one another's company in a multiplicity of social settings." (Unlike American women who are sex-starved and prickly, I assume.)

What is it about French women, besides their scarves and their thinness (attributed on alternate days to cigarettes, delighting in small portions of foie gras, and peer pressure), that makes them so unique?

I think Jeanne Moreau summed it up when she said, "One thing you have to give up is attaching importance to what people see in you." This is a tall order when you grow up in a "haveaniceday" culture in which it is not only important to be liked, but well liked. French women (at least in Eric Rohmer films) share a blend of self-possession, self-knowledge, and poise. These women are as intelligent and acutely emotional as they are individual. The American woman in popular culture is childlike, doughy and half-formed in comparison. Superwoman or not, the French woman shoots out at sharp angles, like the Princesse de Guermantes and her "marvelous lines." 

On Flow

The metaphor of "flow" is one that many have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives. Athletes refer to it as "being in the zone," religious mystics as being in "ecstasy," artists and musicians as aesthetic rapture. Athletes, mystics and artists do very different things when they reach flow, yet their descriptions of the experience are remarkably similar.--Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

Here, Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "chick-SENT-me-high") has written a self-help book that is truly helpful. He shows how people are often in flow when playing at games and sports, which have clear goals and immediate feedback, and much less so when watching television, which, obviously enough, requires much less ability and isn't intrinsically rewarding. The aim is to maximize the amount of flow you get out of every day.

Clearly, Proust was in flow when he wrote In Search of Lost Time. He needed quiet and solitude in order to concentrate, so he worked night after night in a cork-lined room. In a letter to a friend, he describes his writing regimen: "Never have I lived like this, eating once every forty-eight hours, never before three in the morning, etc., etc." (Notice the telltale mark of "flow" in a lack of awareness of bodily needs.)

In turn, in reading Proust, I am in a state of flow. The last one hundred pages of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower passed as if a dream of a dream. A cloud of Lolita-like nymphs of summer frolicked on the grassy knolls of the fictional seaside resort, Balbec. In my concentration, I lost track of time and self...

Csikszentmihalyi cites "love of fate" as necessary for a good life. He quotes Nietzsche, who wrote: "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity...Not merely bear what is necessary...but love it."

Proust's character Marcel might writhe in pain over a troublesome love affair or express disappointment at some long-anticipated event or encounter, yet he sees beauty in everything.

In the last lines of the second volume, the summer at Balbec doesn't simply end, but becomes a relic in itself. Marcel recalls his maid, Francoise, unpinning the blinds in his windows after he has taken a nap:
"the summer's day that she uncovered seemed as dead and immemorial as a mummy, magnificent and millennial, carefully divested by our old servant of all its wrappings and laid bare, embalmed in its vestments of gold."

As Allen Ginsberg would say: holy, holy, holy...    

Franzenfreude

"...a well-read man hearing of the latest 'great book,' can give a jaded yawn, assuming the work to be a sort of composite derived from all the fine works he has ever read. But the fact is that a great book is not just the sum of existing masterpieces; it is particular and unforeseeable, being made out of something which, because it lies somewhere beyond that existing sum, cannot be deduced simply from acquaintance with it, however close. No sooner has the well-read man discovered the new work than he forgets his earlier indifference and takes an interest in the reality it sets before him." (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)

This is a great example of how we make books our own. When we finally read a book thought of as a masterpiece--such as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary--it sheds that generic quality and becomes part of our private universe. It's like getting to know someone well you have only seen from afar or going from a vague sketch to sharp focus. From then on, the book belongs to us, to the most private place within us.

Speaking of masterpieces, Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom is already hailed as the novel of the decade. The Observer calls it "the novel of the century" and Sam Tanenhaus in the New York Times declares it "a masterpiece of American fiction." Even Michiko Kakutani, whom Franzen once called "the stupidest person in New York," has conceded that it is "an indelible portrait of our times."

On the cover of Time (next to the words "Great American Novelist" printed in bold), Franzen stares off into the distance with a certain unease, while the windswept hair, English professor glasses and face peppered with stubble cry out "boyish charm."

I've had two Franzen sightings since he published The Corrections nine years ago. Once in that fall of 2001 on a subway platform at 96th Street waiting for the 1 train, where he stood in a raincoat and carried a briefcase, cloaked in anonymity. The second time was at a Citibank on the Upper East Side. I can report that he is surprisingly tall and wore faded black jeans.

I suspect his discomfort in public is to a certain extent misinterpreted as self-satisfaction or conceit. If you Google "Jonathan Franzen smug," you get 7, 250 results. "Jonathan Franzen is a great writer," Newsweek declares. "Should it matter if he's not a great guy?"

Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner defines "Franzenfreude" as "taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen." (Even though it was quickly pointed out that "freude" means joy, not displeasure.) The Herald Scotland rallies against those women authors who feel unfairly overlooked: "They may be justified in ranting against the cliche of the white male darling, but they are in danger of being seen as that even worse creature, the shrew."

This entry has the unfortunate second-hand quality of being about book reviews instead of books. I'm looking forward to the pleasure of reading Freedom. I remember the evening in 2001 when I went to three different bookstores where The Corrections was sold out. I finally ordered a copy from my favorite bookstore, Three Lives, and read it compulsively for most of a day and a half.

I also have a sinking feeling. I end with one final quote, this one from Virginia Woolf on Proust: "Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry...One has to put the book down and gasp."       

 

On Beauty

     The fact was, he could still see her as a Botticelli. Odette herself, who always tried to conceal things she did not like about her own person, or at least to compensate for them rather than bring them out, things that a painter might have seen as her "type," but which as a woman she saw as defects, had no time for Botticelli. Swann owned a wonderful Oriental stole, in blue and pink, which he had bought because it was exactly the one worn by the virgin in the Magnificat. Mme Swann would not wear it. Once only, she relented and let him give her an outfit based on La Primavera's garlands of daisies, bellwort, cornflowers, and forget-me-nots. In the evenings, Swann would sometimes murmur to me to look at her pensive hands as she gave to them unawares the graceful, rather agitated movement of the Virgin dipping her quill in the angel's inkwell, before writing in the holy book where Magnificat is already inscribed. Then he would add, "Be sure not to mention it to her! One word--and she'd make sure it wouldn't happen again!"

      Here, Swann ponders the beauty of his wife (and former mistress/courtesan) Odette. Throughout In Search of Lost Time so far, Swann has a habit of comparing women to famous works of art. We talk about "types." ("She's not my type.") It's both charming and a little creepy to see Swann compare Odette to a Botticelli right down to her fingertips. (At least he doesn't find his inspiration in Victoria's Secret catalogues!)
     Today's equivalent might be to reference movie stars. For example, I am convinced that my dog Phoebe looks like Elizabeth Taylor. (She has a glossy coat of black and tan, white gloves, soft pointy ears and big worried eyes.)
     I saw the beginning of the Farelly brothers' Shallow Hal on television the other day. Possibly one of the worst movies ever made, it stars Jack Black as someone who suddenly sees women for their inner beauty. He doesn't realize that the woman he finds gorgeous (played by the very blonde and very svelte Gwyneth Paltrow) is actually overweight and ordinary looking. I assume he gets his comeuppance in the end and learns not to judge women by their measurements. Yet every frame the model-thin Gwyneth Paltrow is in contradicts such a lesson.

     Walk through any museum and you can see that there are few universal standards for beauty.

     My mother is enrolled at the Meet Me at MOMA program. Once a month, groups of Alzheimer's patients convene at the Museum of Modern Art to look at, and talk about, art. In front of a Klimt painting called "Hope, II," my mother recently described the oval shapes embedded on the gown of the pregnant woman who is the focus of the piece as "donuts," and added, "They're making me hungry!" She is clearly excited about the art, even if what she is able to express doesn't live up to her emotional impressions.
     Like Rita Hayworth, someone else with early onset Alzheimer's, my mother was a great beauty. Growing up, that's all I ever heard: your mother is gorgeous! Though she is still pretty, people now look at her as if she were a fossil and say, "I can see from her bone structure that she must have been quite beautiful." Yet my mother transcends age and time. She still has mad crushes on people such as Amir, a striking group leader at the Meet Me at MOMA program. "There he is!" she said to me conspiratorially at our last tour. "Let's get him!"
     And why not? After all, he kind of looks like someone I saw in a film once...   

On Not Writing

If I had not been so determined to set seriously to work, I might have made an effort to start at once. But given that my resolve was unbreakable, given that within twenty-four hours, inside the empty frame of tomorrow, where everything fitted so perfectly because it was not today, my best intentions would easily take material shape, it was really preferable not to think of beginning things on an evening when I was not quite ready--and of course the following days were to be no better suited to beginning things. However, I was a reasonable person. When one has waited for years, it would be childish not to tolerate a delay of a couple of days...Unfortunately, tomorrow turned out not to be that broad, bright, outward-looking day that I had feverishly looked forward to. When it had ended, my idleness and hard struggle against my inner obstacles had just lasted for another twenty-four hours. (from In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower) 

     How easy it is to justify not beginning to write. My favorite method of stalling is to read books on writing. I confess to having read The Courage to Write twice already. This is symbolic writing. It's a little like reading a book on weight loss with a pastrami sandwich in one hand, telling oneself the diet will start on Monday.
     A great way of procrastinating is to read about the rituals of famous authors. Kent Haruf, for example, sits in front of a typewriter blindfolded and types as quickly as possible. As in an Catholic church service, there are a lot of smells and bells.
     Some authors, like Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron, are better known for their books on how to write than for their other works. My favorite guide is Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer. These books can be as helpful as they are seductive, yet in the end nothing but putting pen to paper will suffice.
     It seems that a great many people feel they have a book in them (as opposed to a painting or a song or a dance) and they are just yearning for a stretch of free time to kick back and set to work. The novel is almost complete--it just hasn't been written yet.
     Part of the problem is having such high standards: "I must wake up at 4 am to work on my novel" or "I must sit in front of my computer for 5 hours a day." Everyone at least marginally interested in writing has heard the advice to write at the same time each day, everyday, for at least an hour. Why is this simple prescription so hard at times?
     I think many people are unknowingly afraid of what the act of writing will stir up. It's a form of perfectionism. If they abandon themselves and lose a minimum of control, they may end up broke, drunk, or crazy.
     In the end, not writing is quite difficult. Once you plunge in, even for a few minutes, there is a great sense of relief.

Celebrity Crushes

     My mother is in love with Paul McCartney. "Oh, Paulie!" she says. In her youthful sixty-nine-year-old face is the first flush of adolescence, the breathless "I would die for him!" swoon. This is my mother, the seventies disco queen, the eighties jogger, and the nineties horseback rider, the former school psychologist who now cannot shower or dress by herself.
     Alzheimer's crept up on my mother unexpectedly and damaged her orbito-frontal cortex and thalamus and hippocampus, making it difficult for her to control her impulses. Maybe this can explain the sort of Beatles fan she is today, the boy-crazy alter ego who would like to tear her hair out, stomp her feet, and scream the way lovesick girls do, in a horrific frenzy.
     I'm a little embarassed by this woman who says, "I hope Paul visits today" and carries around old CD liners with his picture on them. "Look at Paul," she says in doctors' waiting rooms and in the supermarket line. All she has to do is fish into her purse or coat pockets and Paul appears as unexpected as if he had just made a fresh entrance into her life. Paul is more real to her than her husband or her daughter. To her, we are rude, nonsensical creatures who help her dress and undress in a tug of war over arm holes and buttons and the subtle differences between right and left.
     It reminds me of my first celebrity crush. I was a young girl at summer camp and my cousin in another cabin had a poster of Tommy Howell (the centerfold in Teen Beat) taped to the wall of her bunk. I had to have one just like that and I kissed my glossy flat poster boy with quick, shy pecks on the mouth. He was my practice boyfriend.
     The adolescent Marcel experiences something similar with the actress La Berma. He yearns for "the unique and ungraspable object of so many thousands of dreams." While Tommy Howell doesn't necessarily compete with La Berma as a masterwork of dramatic art, there is still that unfulfilled desire for a well-known actor.
     At its absolute best, my relationship with my mother is a form of "karma yoga" or selfless service. I try to perform some small kindness. Sometimes that means offering her a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Sometimes that means talking about Paul as if he were a dinner guest. And sometimes all that means is putting on a Beatles CD and watching her sway back and forth like a fish swimming upstream, mouthing all the lyrics. For a moment, she is a boy-crazy teenager, biting her knuckles and screaming through her tears. And then the moment passes and we have to navigate the rest of the day as mother and daughter.