The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday
In a nutshell: a backwards book that starts with the end, whose main character Wilberforce is a wine-lover (according to him), a hopeless alcoholic. The question is how, and why, did he become so?
The blurb: the book's opening scene introduces us to Wilberforce stepping out of a taxi and about to spend thousands of pounds on Chatau Petrus 1982 in a fashionable restaurant. Soon we understand that he is a wine-lover, and then rapidly realise it's a bit more than that. What is so fabulous about this book is that it is written backwards. Divided into four parts and four years ('vintages' Torday cheekily calls them), the book starts in 2006 and goes back to 2002. As the book progresses [backwards] we go from Wilberforce's terminal alcohol problem to its origins, spanning work, love, family, friends and [still backwards] his terrible decline. Written in the first person narrative, we witness the terrible confusion, paranoia and self-justification of the alcoholic, though progressively slip backwards to discover another character- a shy, nervous man in quest for origins and a circle in which he can belong. Though this is a serious, heartbreaking subject and story, there is a always a wry sense of humour thoughout the book: it is like watching a man who slips on a banana skin only to die of a broken back.
IMHO this is a wonderful, intense, thought-provoking book. Wilberforce's character starts as a big man, a little arrogant, self-assured, similar to John Lanchester's Tarquin character in the Debt to Pleasure (read review here), though clearly haunted by memory flashes of different times. Little by little we learn to distinguish the man from the drink and discover the genesis of the flshback snippets. After Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (read review here) which was simultaneously funny, bittersweet, moving and dark, Torday conjures up another orginal style and story in a similar clean prose. Very highly recommended -more than that!- and Torday is now on my list of favorite contemporary writers.
mardi 23 juin 2009
mardi 12 mai 2009
So here we are testing our Europhilia
Turns out I'm a left wing pro-European (yup). In French but a nice little test from www.touteleurope.fr!
vendredi 8 mai 2009
dimanche 3 mai 2009
So here we are celebrating Labour day
May 1st, Labour Day, was on a friday so we had a lovely long weekend. Protest on the friday and picnic on the saturday, good stuff! Here are the highlights in pictures.
What is so totally cool about French protests are the slogans, which are usually rude, subtle and/or funny.
A personal favorite: This is a play on words on "Gone with the wind" (Autant en emporte le vent in French) with the first word a homonym of OTAN- Nato. A lot of French people are pissed off with Sarkozy for making France rejoin its integrated military command, which it famously left in 1966.
Protests in France are for all, of every age. This little girl, who had been casually left sitting on the reycling bin, had a sign that read: Nobody should let themselves be walked over, not even Carla! referring of course to France's first lady.
You could hardly move for these posters, the "Casse toi pov' con" ones. This means "sod off you sad bastard" and was famously said by Nicolas Sarkozy to a guy who refused to shake his hand.at the Agricultural Fair, and caught on video.
Another fave: "Couilles en or", or Balls of gold is slang for someone very rich. This says that as long as there are golden balls, there will be steel blades...
Karcher, Taser, Charter: the State's sponsors. Karcher is a brand of industrial hose, which Sarkozy poetically said he would use in the suburbs to flush away all the undesirables. Taser for the increasingly violent police methods. Charter for the 30000 expulsions of illegal residents
Outside the Republican guard.
Everybody had something to protest about: here the Tamil community marching about the current situation in Sri Lanka.
Paris, Notre Dame, the river... and politics.
These were plastered all over to Paris to represent the 28000+ people who have been deported.
It all ended at la Bastille, the symbolic location of popular uprising. Another protest started at Hotel de Ville.
One of the joys of living in Paris is the picnics by the Seine. In the summer it can get a bit crowded as the parisians squeeze on the riverside flagstones. But in Spring, on a chilly night, it was great!
Aaaah! Paris!
before...and after
As we were walking home, we crossed the Town Hall. In protest to the Pecresse Law on Higher Education and Research, professors, librarians and researchers have been walking in a circle for, at that point, 972 hours!! Not the same people obviously.
What is so totally cool about French protests are the slogans, which are usually rude, subtle and/or funny.
A personal favorite: This is a play on words on "Gone with the wind" (Autant en emporte le vent in French) with the first word a homonym of OTAN- Nato. A lot of French people are pissed off with Sarkozy for making France rejoin its integrated military command, which it famously left in 1966.
Protests in France are for all, of every age. This little girl, who had been casually left sitting on the reycling bin, had a sign that read: Nobody should let themselves be walked over, not even Carla! referring of course to France's first lady.
You could hardly move for these posters, the "Casse toi pov' con" ones. This means "sod off you sad bastard" and was famously said by Nicolas Sarkozy to a guy who refused to shake his hand.at the Agricultural Fair, and caught on video.
Another fave: "Couilles en or", or Balls of gold is slang for someone very rich. This says that as long as there are golden balls, there will be steel blades...
Karcher, Taser, Charter: the State's sponsors. Karcher is a brand of industrial hose, which Sarkozy poetically said he would use in the suburbs to flush away all the undesirables. Taser for the increasingly violent police methods. Charter for the 30000 expulsions of illegal residents
Outside the Republican guard.
Everybody had something to protest about: here the Tamil community marching about the current situation in Sri Lanka.
Paris, Notre Dame, the river... and politics.
These were plastered all over to Paris to represent the 28000+ people who have been deported.
It all ended at la Bastille, the symbolic location of popular uprising. Another protest started at Hotel de Ville.
One of the joys of living in Paris is the picnics by the Seine. In the summer it can get a bit crowded as the parisians squeeze on the riverside flagstones. But in Spring, on a chilly night, it was great!
Aaaah! Paris!
before...and after
As we were walking home, we crossed the Town Hall. In protest to the Pecresse Law on Higher Education and Research, professors, librarians and researchers have been walking in a circle for, at that point, 972 hours!! Not the same people obviously.
jeudi 30 avril 2009
So here we are in an electoral dilemma
So the campaign for the European elections has finally kicked off with, as usual, no fuss, no debate and little information. It's not easy being a conscientious European citizen and not only for the above reasons. The real challenge is to understand what exactly one is voting for and, in parallel, how the vote is perceived.
On paper, there is little doubt: on June 7th, France will be voting for the parliamentarians who will have a seat at the European parliament and technically the lucky ones will represent the European people and elaborate and vote for laws that concern all 492 million of us Europeans, according to their political beliefs. Easy peasy, let's vote left wing and get it over with. Unfortunately the reality of politics means that nothing is so straightforward. In fact, most national politicians would say that the election of the MEPs is just a bit of a strange side-effect of this election, which they consider a barometer of their popularity.
In 1980, Reif & Schmitt, two political scientists, coined the term "second order national elections". With this they explained that since the European vote has little bearing on national policy making and none on the current leadership, the voters will tend to vote with their hearts (or with their boots), knowing that voting for the local communist geek won't mean having to suffer the risk of a communist government actually getting sworn in. Hence the relatively huge difference in the smaller parties' results in the EU elections compared to the presidential, national parliament, or local ones.
So on the one hand, politicians see the European election result as support or condemnation of the current leadership, while it should really be about who and what you want represented in front of the world's biggest supranational legislative institution. On the other, voters vote for improbable or unreputable candidates to show they are pissed off with the big parties usual faffing around. In my case, the guys I would vote for on a European level are idiots at a local level, and the guys I like on a national level I think would be crap at an EU level. An electoral dilemma.
In more detail: the European election 2009 candidates in my constituency (the region of Ile de France) are (so far) 10 different parties. Once we have eliminated the extremes and weirdos- the NPA (new anticapitalist party, run by charismatic trotskist hamster Olivier Besancenot who is one of France's most popular politicians), the FN (ultra nationalist anti European), MPF-CNPT (alliance of nationalists and hunt'em shoot'em fish'em) and Debout la République! ('Nuff said), we are left with:
UMP: right-wing, includes Sarkozy, his government and a lot of parliament. Main candidates are Michel Barnier (agriculture minister) and Rachida Dati (justice).
PS: currently ridiculous Socialist party. Main candidates, Harlem Désir (founder of uber-symbolic anti racism organisation who has long since entered politics), Pervenche Beres (respectable current MEP) and Benoit Hamon (current MEP, opportunistic little twat who probably isn't sure where Brussels is).
The Greens: good old Ecologists, led by charismatic Daniel Cohn Bendit, a huge symbol of '68 France and Eva Joly, who used to belong to the Modem.
The Modem: poor François Bayrou's party, somewhere between the left of right and the middle of nowhere, led by Marielle de Sarnez (FB's faithful companion and current MEP).
The Front de gauche : communists- never heard of them.
Lutte ouvrière: a party as old as the world, more communists.
I have de facto excluded the last two, because despite my minimum wage status and my current respect for all things equalitarian, I don't actually want them to represent me in the EU. Modem: like(d) Bayrou for a while and would like to support him at a national level but at a European level I'm not sure about Marielle de Sarnez
The Greens: love the DCB character, am OK with EJ, but am extremely wary of my local green municipal councillor, and refuse to validate him at a local level via the European vote.
The PS: Jesus, my obvious choice but they are so fucking pathetic at a national level and I loathe and detest Benoit Hamon. This last fact could be overlooked if they weren't so hopeless, but they are.
UMP: I like MB, who actually knows a bit about the EU, but hate the current government and despise Dati.
That leaves... nobody, or abstention. And abstention is the same as not giving a fuck, so... damn, it'll have to be the Greens. But, I don't like you Mr Guadi!
On paper, there is little doubt: on June 7th, France will be voting for the parliamentarians who will have a seat at the European parliament and technically the lucky ones will represent the European people and elaborate and vote for laws that concern all 492 million of us Europeans, according to their political beliefs. Easy peasy, let's vote left wing and get it over with. Unfortunately the reality of politics means that nothing is so straightforward. In fact, most national politicians would say that the election of the MEPs is just a bit of a strange side-effect of this election, which they consider a barometer of their popularity.
In 1980, Reif & Schmitt, two political scientists, coined the term "second order national elections". With this they explained that since the European vote has little bearing on national policy making and none on the current leadership, the voters will tend to vote with their hearts (or with their boots), knowing that voting for the local communist geek won't mean having to suffer the risk of a communist government actually getting sworn in. Hence the relatively huge difference in the smaller parties' results in the EU elections compared to the presidential, national parliament, or local ones.
So on the one hand, politicians see the European election result as support or condemnation of the current leadership, while it should really be about who and what you want represented in front of the world's biggest supranational legislative institution. On the other, voters vote for improbable or unreputable candidates to show they are pissed off with the big parties usual faffing around. In my case, the guys I would vote for on a European level are idiots at a local level, and the guys I like on a national level I think would be crap at an EU level. An electoral dilemma.
In more detail: the European election 2009 candidates in my constituency (the region of Ile de France) are (so far) 10 different parties. Once we have eliminated the extremes and weirdos- the NPA (new anticapitalist party, run by charismatic trotskist hamster Olivier Besancenot who is one of France's most popular politicians), the FN (ultra nationalist anti European), MPF-CNPT (alliance of nationalists and hunt'em shoot'em fish'em) and Debout la République! ('Nuff said), we are left with:
UMP: right-wing, includes Sarkozy, his government and a lot of parliament. Main candidates are Michel Barnier (agriculture minister) and Rachida Dati (justice).
PS: currently ridiculous Socialist party. Main candidates, Harlem Désir (founder of uber-symbolic anti racism organisation who has long since entered politics), Pervenche Beres (respectable current MEP) and Benoit Hamon (current MEP, opportunistic little twat who probably isn't sure where Brussels is).
The Greens: good old Ecologists, led by charismatic Daniel Cohn Bendit, a huge symbol of '68 France and Eva Joly, who used to belong to the Modem.
The Modem: poor François Bayrou's party, somewhere between the left of right and the middle of nowhere, led by Marielle de Sarnez (FB's faithful companion and current MEP).
The Front de gauche : communists- never heard of them.
Lutte ouvrière: a party as old as the world, more communists.
I have de facto excluded the last two, because despite my minimum wage status and my current respect for all things equalitarian, I don't actually want them to represent me in the EU. Modem: like(d) Bayrou for a while and would like to support him at a national level but at a European level I'm not sure about Marielle de Sarnez
The Greens: love the DCB character, am OK with EJ, but am extremely wary of my local green municipal councillor, and refuse to validate him at a local level via the European vote.
The PS: Jesus, my obvious choice but they are so fucking pathetic at a national level and I loathe and detest Benoit Hamon. This last fact could be overlooked if they weren't so hopeless, but they are.
UMP: I like MB, who actually knows a bit about the EU, but hate the current government and despise Dati.
That leaves... nobody, or abstention. And abstention is the same as not giving a fuck, so... damn, it'll have to be the Greens. But, I don't like you Mr Guadi!
lundi 27 avril 2009
So here we are turning the other hand
The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
In a nutshell: in accordance to the blurb on the cover which gives no information on the plot and asks one to do the same, I will keep this nutshell to a minimum - two very different 21st century women with opposite backgrounds are reunited as both go through life-changing times and events.
The blurb: An interestingly constructed book as each chapter alternates the two women's very different narratives. The real story- this book recounts its consequences through the eyes of the protagonists- happens three years previously, when the women meet for the first time in extraordinary circumstances. When the book starts, we follow one of the women and meet the second, and slowly their common story, and its aftermath, unfolds. 'Nuf said.
IMHO this is a little jewel of a book. Knowing nothing about the plot, one is captivated as one tries to understand why the women are where they are, and what binds each to the other. As the truth slowly leaks out, a grim tale emerges that makes one question a plethora of assumptions, from responsibility and politics to what constitutes friendship and humanity. Given the serious nature of many aspects of the story, it could have been a rather stark book, but the incredible, funny, poetic voice of the main protagonist makes it as light as a romantic comedy, which it almost isn't. A lingering book, very highly recommended.
In a nutshell: in accordance to the blurb on the cover which gives no information on the plot and asks one to do the same, I will keep this nutshell to a minimum - two very different 21st century women with opposite backgrounds are reunited as both go through life-changing times and events.
The blurb: An interestingly constructed book as each chapter alternates the two women's very different narratives. The real story- this book recounts its consequences through the eyes of the protagonists- happens three years previously, when the women meet for the first time in extraordinary circumstances. When the book starts, we follow one of the women and meet the second, and slowly their common story, and its aftermath, unfolds. 'Nuf said.
IMHO this is a little jewel of a book. Knowing nothing about the plot, one is captivated as one tries to understand why the women are where they are, and what binds each to the other. As the truth slowly leaks out, a grim tale emerges that makes one question a plethora of assumptions, from responsibility and politics to what constitutes friendship and humanity. Given the serious nature of many aspects of the story, it could have been a rather stark book, but the incredible, funny, poetic voice of the main protagonist makes it as light as a romantic comedy, which it almost isn't. A lingering book, very highly recommended.
samedi 4 avril 2009
So here we are saying Merci (les Bobos)
Aaah, the Bobos! This new species was first described in David Brooks' analysis of the new social elite, in a book aptly named "Bobos in Paradise, the new upper class and how they got here", that came out in 2000. In the not too distant future I'll write a rave review of this book, but in the meantime I'll just stick to the day's subject: a new shop, unique in its kind in France, called Merci. The link between this and the Bobos? Well, hang on a sec, let me explain.
The Bobos, named after a combination of "Bourgeois and Bohemian", are as contradictory as their name would indicate. To caricature them would be too easy, so here goes: the Bobos think that TV is terrible (mainstream propaganda and brain-washing programs) but have the latest 40inch flat screen in their living room. They have kitchens which "look like an aircraft hangar with plumbing", but leave cooking to the pros as they feast on raw fish and macrobiotic soya sprouts. They are enviromentally conscious and buy hemp shopping bags from famous designers, but have giant bathtubs with multi-jet massage sprays, 4x4s, and love to import strawberries from Peru in December, to go with the homemade granola sorbet they produced with the help of their eight door superfridge.
Needless to say that, ten years after the term was first coined, there are many variations on the theme, as explained in this excellent article, and the original expression used to describe a certain slice of American culture has been exported. Parisians are often accused of being Bobo: with a left wing mayor and full of '68 speeches about a new equalitiarian society, while thinking nothing of spending a fortune on rent, appearance, food and entertainement.
Though I myself could easily be described as a Bobo (I live in trendy central Paris, drink authentic prol drinks like pastis in fashionable bars, am left wing but still don't want my taxes pushed up), my heart shuddered today when I visited Merci, this new shop in the cool 11th arrondissement.
Merci is, unbelievably, France's first official charity shop but any ressemblance with the scruffy Oxfam outlets full of attic-dusted trinkets and dodgy clothes you would find in England ends there. Merci is a huge, 1500m² reconverted loft on three floors, full of light rom the ironwork glass ceiling and with split levels. the idea is that all the stuff is donated and the money made form sales is sent off to help women in Madagascar. It so happens I have a theory on why this is: Merci was opened by the Cohen family which among others founded Bonpoint where I worked for nearly a year a few years ago. Bonpoint is the ultimate in Bobo baby & childrens' clothes: beautiful, funky, trendy original outfits where a shirt goes for 60€ and a pair of trousers more than double that. For children. A lot of the stuff is made and/or embroidered in Madagascar so I magine they want to give something back.
Anyway, this place is just incredible: architecturally it borders on perfection and is full of varied things from second hand books (see pictures of it here) to clothes, there is a perfume workshop and two cafés, and a entire floor dedicated to furniture. But here's the catch: apart from a few scruffy second hand books, everything is tearjerkingly expensive. A T-shirt specially made by Isabel Marrant is 90€, a tin cup 6€, a scented candle 29€, an armchair 1200€, a plain glass plate of the type you would get 10 for a quid in a Shelter shop goes for 8€. This is expensive charity. And on a Saturday PM we got a good idea of who goes there: the Vuitton dressed, bicycle using Bobos of the Paris' fashionable areas. We bought 7 books and spent 17€, but in the queue ahead of us a guy spent over 200€ on a couple of T-shirts, and another chick 300€ on a bag.
True, they would spend that kind of money on the same stuff anyway, so they might as well do it here, between a cup of organic coffee and a fennel carpaccio, but it still seems to me that there is something tasteless about spending 1400€ on a crystal vase to save the poor destitute mothers of Madagascar. Boboism at its best?
The Bobos, named after a combination of "Bourgeois and Bohemian", are as contradictory as their name would indicate. To caricature them would be too easy, so here goes: the Bobos think that TV is terrible (mainstream propaganda and brain-washing programs) but have the latest 40inch flat screen in their living room. They have kitchens which "look like an aircraft hangar with plumbing", but leave cooking to the pros as they feast on raw fish and macrobiotic soya sprouts. They are enviromentally conscious and buy hemp shopping bags from famous designers, but have giant bathtubs with multi-jet massage sprays, 4x4s, and love to import strawberries from Peru in December, to go with the homemade granola sorbet they produced with the help of their eight door superfridge.
Needless to say that, ten years after the term was first coined, there are many variations on the theme, as explained in this excellent article, and the original expression used to describe a certain slice of American culture has been exported. Parisians are often accused of being Bobo: with a left wing mayor and full of '68 speeches about a new equalitiarian society, while thinking nothing of spending a fortune on rent, appearance, food and entertainement.
Though I myself could easily be described as a Bobo (I live in trendy central Paris, drink authentic prol drinks like pastis in fashionable bars, am left wing but still don't want my taxes pushed up), my heart shuddered today when I visited Merci, this new shop in the cool 11th arrondissement.
Merci is, unbelievably, France's first official charity shop but any ressemblance with the scruffy Oxfam outlets full of attic-dusted trinkets and dodgy clothes you would find in England ends there. Merci is a huge, 1500m² reconverted loft on three floors, full of light rom the ironwork glass ceiling and with split levels. the idea is that all the stuff is donated and the money made form sales is sent off to help women in Madagascar. It so happens I have a theory on why this is: Merci was opened by the Cohen family which among others founded Bonpoint where I worked for nearly a year a few years ago. Bonpoint is the ultimate in Bobo baby & childrens' clothes: beautiful, funky, trendy original outfits where a shirt goes for 60€ and a pair of trousers more than double that. For children. A lot of the stuff is made and/or embroidered in Madagascar so I magine they want to give something back.
Anyway, this place is just incredible: architecturally it borders on perfection and is full of varied things from second hand books (see pictures of it here) to clothes, there is a perfume workshop and two cafés, and a entire floor dedicated to furniture. But here's the catch: apart from a few scruffy second hand books, everything is tearjerkingly expensive. A T-shirt specially made by Isabel Marrant is 90€, a tin cup 6€, a scented candle 29€, an armchair 1200€, a plain glass plate of the type you would get 10 for a quid in a Shelter shop goes for 8€. This is expensive charity. And on a Saturday PM we got a good idea of who goes there: the Vuitton dressed, bicycle using Bobos of the Paris' fashionable areas. We bought 7 books and spent 17€, but in the queue ahead of us a guy spent over 200€ on a couple of T-shirts, and another chick 300€ on a bag.
True, they would spend that kind of money on the same stuff anyway, so they might as well do it here, between a cup of organic coffee and a fennel carpaccio, but it still seems to me that there is something tasteless about spending 1400€ on a crystal vase to save the poor destitute mothers of Madagascar. Boboism at its best?
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