Posted on: August 12, 2008
Farmhouse in Provence, by Vincent Van Gogh. 1888.
There are, of course, hundreds of beautiful regions in the world. Too many to see in one lifetime. So we must pick and choose carefully. Pick and choose carefully where to visit and where to live – if we have that choice and chance. Provence is one among hundreds, but unique. Unique being a word we can apply to those hundreds of places as well. And so it goes. Thousands, if we talk about towns, villages, cities, and so on. So far, in this life, my favorite places are in Ireland and France. But I hope to see much more of the world. Much more.
When I studied Art History in college, I would take a class and be overwhelmed by the greatness of this or that artist, this or that period of Art, and think: This is it.…
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Posted on: August 11, 2008
Mont Saint Victoire, by Paul Cezanne. 1887
One of my favorite places in France is Provence. Yes, I know. It’s not like I discovered it, of course. It’s been a very popular destination for … well, centuries. But especially in the modern era. Popularized best, perhaps, by painters such as Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh, and more recently by writers such as Peter Mayle. I recently watched a movie of one of his novels, A Good Year, starring Marion Cotillard (Vie En Rose), Abbie Cornish (Somersault) and Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind). It tells the story of a London Master of the Universe who returns to his boyhood home in Provence, falls in love all over again with the land and its people, especially Marion Cotillard, and has to make some serious decisions. A good, not great movie … but evocative of place and a state of mind.…
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Posted on: August 7, 2008
Days of Sappho, by John William Godward. 1904
It’s been too busy today to post about Pasternak. Though I was thinking of writing something solely about the Lara poems. Will do so later, at another time and place.
Instead, I’ll post one of my poems from many years ago. From 1997, or thereabouts. Written in the mountains of Boone, North Carolina. Inspired in part by a girl named Aly. Hence the title.
The Wanderings of Aly
Hills like white Cezannes rose up to her
She rose and stood laughing at the sea
Now that it was calmer
Now that it had lost its madness its delirium
Like the poets she had seen running away
From the shamans
Like the tourists with their Prozac wafers
Inside Byzantine churches
The sky touched her and she dropped her wine
Over the railing
Watched burgundy mix with blues and greens
And grays
It was the night when Sappho had split
The air and the ancient world with her love
For the woman of the Fragments
The sea and the air were still circling
Breaking
Waiting for answers
Two thousand years later
It was the night that Aly had learned
Of his death and immortality
His suicide and acceptance as painter
Of miracles by snobs and peers and lovers
Of magic and myth
The myth was two years old now and she
Was its mystery its goal and vortex
And Aly faced the Greek blackness
And felt the Greek abyss
As if
She had jumped from that tower
In New York as if
She had painted her last unsold work
Do deities cry?…
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Posted on: August 5, 2008
Boris Pasternak
Rereading Paternak’s epic at the moment. Makes me think about the movie, of course. David Lean’s film shares its epic sweep and grandeur, along with the emotional weight of actual tragedy. But, this reread (so far) brings surprises. I had forgotten how much of the story had been left out of the movie, how many characters never appear, how most of the back-story is missing in the film.
It would, of course, have been impossible to include much more. Pasternak fills the book to the brim with hundreds of characters, events, philosophical asides, and the national tragedy of millions. He makes Russia and its people live. I’ve only gotten through a bit less than a quarter of the book, and already I can see it would be impossible to fit it all into even a very long film. Though much of the early going is just not as dramatic, visually, as the rest of the novel, and is better read than seen, it has the source material for a long miniseries.…
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