Back in November a conference titled "Take Note" was held at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The purpose? To assess the long history, up to the current state, of the practice of note-taking. While this at first seemed to me another painful, self-reflexive mise-en-abîme that academia prides itself on -- an event in which literary scholars, historians, and psychologists could pontificate on the marginalia of their own professions -- it quickly occurred to me that there was a kernel of an idea here that could give way to some lovely observations on reading, note-taking, and memory. This kernel, I thought, could be best served, not by the medium of sober academic scrutiny, but of whimsical, stream of consciousness literary expression. Yet before I was able to have any marginally profound thoughts of my own I quite by accident came across a passage in a book I had chosen at random that reflects on this very theme.
Within the second page of Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage -- a sometimes hilarious and consistently insightful contemplation on the very deep-rooted anxieties that surround writing, procrastination, and settling down -- we come across one of the most apt descriptions of the purpose of note-taking I have had the pleasure of reading. Within a somewhat rambling caveat to the fact that this is a book that is and is not about D.H. Lawrence, Dyer sets out to preface us with some of the difficulties one encounters when beginning such a large literary undertaking. He writes, "I even built up an impressive stack of notes with Lawrence vaguely in mind but these notes, it is obvious to me now, actually served not to prepare for and facilitate the writing of a book about Lawrence but to defer and postpone doing so. there is nothing unusual about this. All over the world people are taking notes as a way of postponing, putting off and standing in for."
As one who has completed a senior thesis in the humanities, I am all to familiar with this specific conundrum of note-taking as a non-activity, as the mere self-imposed roadblock to that work you tell yourself you should and you need to and you want to be getting to. Whereas formerly I had always been impressed with those who so meticulously color code and label and organize such copious amounts of notes whether it's on a legal pads or an iPad, my conviction that this is at least partly a waste of time has now been justified thanks to Dyer. And yet here I am again, taking notes on someone else's work in order to postpone the work I originally intended to set out to do, to write some original thoughts on the nuances and particularities of taking note.
As one who had always been passionate about drawing and painting, one who was always sure that this was the talent or the interest that set her apart, I often oscillate between kicking myself and contently accepting the fact that my four years at a liberal arts college has turned me away from the practice of visual arts and towards the analysis thereof. Whether or not this was indeed an unfortunate turn of events should probably be left unanswered for it remains a fact that I have spent the majority of my last four to five years, instead of using my pencil and pen to outline the forms I see, I have been using ink and graphite to underline the work of others, of course with the purpose to comment upon later. However, as Dyer has adroitly pointed out, the latter half of the note-taking experience, the thought of return to comment further, to add one's own critique or insight, often never comes to pass. For this reason it is the quality of the line, and not the contents it supposedly aims to highlight, to which I am now drawn (forgive the pun).
The quality and thickness of an underline, its slight waver, the measure of a check mark or question mark, and the range of a ballpoint as compared to a fountain pen, have all become greater parts of my daily life as a liberal arts student. I've turned from sketching everyday scenes to this even farther removed form of gleaning. My last recourse towards beauty and creation in this act is the quality of my line, my underline. Of course the quality of the underline is cursorily related to the content being highlighted if only in the perfection of the line of the printed word, expressed more fully when juxtaposed with my unsteady, imperfect highlight (I could say organic versus machine but I won't). The act of underlining is a promise to that content that I will return, that this phrase or part of a thought merits careful, sober, and heavy inspection. But if we are all being honest with ourselves we would admit that such a promise rarely reaches its fruition.
To what do we then owe this "forgotten" content? Is it truly forgotten? Perhaps not if you consider that your edition of this collection of essays or novel may eventually make its way into the hands of an unsuspecting college freshman buying his or her spring semester reading list off amazon for the used, discounted price. However, I believe that for me it is only partly about this often unfulfilled promise to that obscure passage of Benjamin or Kracauer, it s also a manifestation of an unfulfilled promise to myself to continue to create my own original content, visual or literary.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Chaos and Cosmos
As many people know, traveling can be an extremely stressful experience. For some the lows outweigh the highs. The sleepless airplane rides, never knowing where to get a decently priced meal, never knowing how to act, how to dress, but also soaking every bit of new information up, trying to absorb it all so you will never forget, and feeling yourself changed by it all.
Now imagine living abroad. There are some differences but also many similarities to traveling. It is like traveling for the however many months you are abroad for. The same highs and the same lows, over and over again. You have to consciously work at being comfortable. Nothing comes easily. That is both the fun and the anxious part of being an expat.
I particularly have had to work extra hard at settling into France. When I went away to college for the first time that transition took nearly a year until I felt comfortable and confident again. This transition has been somewhat eased by the fact that I did study abroad in the same country as well as that I live with my boyfriend here. I imagine it would be much more difficult doing this experience alone for the first time. Even so, I believe that no matter if you are alone, with your friends, or if this is your first or tenth time coming to France, there will always be an unsettling of yourself at first.
However, as a 22 year old recent graduate I find many of these unsettling feelings could also be attributed to the fact that I have just been dumped out into the world after living all my life with the reassuring structure of education. This structure has given meaning to my life and now I find myself asking: now what? What is the point now?
To anyone who may be experiencing these kind of unsettled anxieties I would highly recommend watching the much-acclaimed thirteen-part series from 1980, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, created by astronomer Carl Sagan (the entire series can be viewed on Netflix and YouTube free of cost). I find astronomer to be too small a title for Sagan however. I might rather say astronomer-philosopher-scientist-existentialist-atheist-therapist-dreamer, among many other admirable qualities and accomplishments.
Now imagine living abroad. There are some differences but also many similarities to traveling. It is like traveling for the however many months you are abroad for. The same highs and the same lows, over and over again. You have to consciously work at being comfortable. Nothing comes easily. That is both the fun and the anxious part of being an expat.
I particularly have had to work extra hard at settling into France. When I went away to college for the first time that transition took nearly a year until I felt comfortable and confident again. This transition has been somewhat eased by the fact that I did study abroad in the same country as well as that I live with my boyfriend here. I imagine it would be much more difficult doing this experience alone for the first time. Even so, I believe that no matter if you are alone, with your friends, or if this is your first or tenth time coming to France, there will always be an unsettling of yourself at first.
However, as a 22 year old recent graduate I find many of these unsettling feelings could also be attributed to the fact that I have just been dumped out into the world after living all my life with the reassuring structure of education. This structure has given meaning to my life and now I find myself asking: now what? What is the point now?
To anyone who may be experiencing these kind of unsettled anxieties I would highly recommend watching the much-acclaimed thirteen-part series from 1980, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, created by astronomer Carl Sagan (the entire series can be viewed on Netflix and YouTube free of cost). I find astronomer to be too small a title for Sagan however. I might rather say astronomer-philosopher-scientist-existentialist-atheist-therapist-dreamer, among many other admirable qualities and accomplishments.
The beginning credits start. A soft chorus of strings and a piano accompany the beginning of your voyage through an array of interstellar dust and clouds. I know what you're thinking. Are we in some hokey new-age relaxation film? I assure you that you are not. Sagan is a rigorous believer in the scientific method. He dispels all validity of astrology and alien abduction. As a bonus, Sagan is an incredibly talented at the art of elocution. I could get lost in the cadences of his voice -- the extended vowels and the reassuring hand gestures.
Each episode is done on the grandest scale imaginable: "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean," "Voice in the Cosmic Fugue," and "Harmony of the Worlds," are some of the chapters that mark this epic journey. It's this grandiosity that might turn some people off at first, but if you give Sagan a chance you realize that this scale is our scale. It is the scale of the universe of which we are a part of. Take, for example, this photograph taken of the earth from one of the distance shores of our galaxy.
Sagan famously refers to Earth here as the "pale blue dot." He points out that "all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel (shown here inside a blue circle), which is our only home."It is an incredibly humbling realization that all of human existence is only a pale blue dot in comparison to the vastness of the cosmos.
However, the most astonishing realization Sagan made for me in Cosmos, was the realization that we are the universe reflecting upon itself. We rose out of interstellar gasses and evolved over billions of years and have come to reflect upon our place among the galaxies. And after this realization I had the most peaceful sense of calm, as if I finally knew my place in the world, as if for the past twenty two years my perspective had been completely out of whack.
So if you are drowning in the seeming chaos of post-grad or expat existence, I would recommend looking to the organization and perspective that Cosmos gives as a much simpler and cheaper form of therapy. Yes, many of the series' preoccupations are outmoded and come from a time when relations between the Soviet Union and America were quite different. As any film it is an artifact of its time. But to me Cosmos still offers perspective in the midst of chaos. Just keep looking up.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Contentment: A Recipe for Mediocrity or Happiness?
I recently read one of the most insightful pieces on an America's view of living in Europe and on socialism that I have ever come across. In his article, Going Dutch, written for the Times Magazine, Russell Shorto details his impressions as an American living in Holland. Many aspects of this piece resonate quite strongly with me as an American living in a small city in Normandy, France. But it was towards the end of the article when I came across a section that instantly clarified the bulk of my frustrations concerning living in France:
It's true that I have grown to appreciate many aspects of this system. But honestly compels me to reveal another side. There is a mood that settles into me here, deepening by degrees until its deepness has become darkness. It happens typically on a Sunday afternoon. I'll be strolling through a neighborhood on the outskirts of Amsterdam, or cycling in a nearby small town, and the calm, bland streets and succession of broad windows giving views onto identical interiors will awaken in my mind a line form Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus" that struck me to the core when I first read it as an undergraduate: "A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive."
This is my overwhelming experience of Rouen. The seeming contentment with the status quo, of those people to whom the question, "Where would you like to travel?" makes no sense, confronts one with the absurdity of existence. Shorto calls it an "existential rage" and rage seems an appropriate description. Any given Sunday I will be walking to the grocery store before it closes at 1pm and I will pass shoppers briskly walking down the sidewalk, almost running me over, and I constantly return to that nagging question: Where are you going? I've remarked many times about a paradox I have experienced in France. It is true that the French are much better dressed than Americans. But for whom do they dress? Where are they going to be seen?
The French cherish their free time. They cherish the hour-long lunch breaks and the three hour conversations held over beer or coffee after work. But where are they going? What is the point? What is the point of an evening off when the stores close at 6pm, precisely the time when I may want to buy something or perhaps peruse your wares? These laws put in place to protect the workers and laborers, of scheduling short hours, mandatory days off, and long lunch breaks, a sign of social progress perhaps, but also a huge retardant to daily progress, of daily activities. I am confronted with the absurdity of existence here.
I do not see struggle here like I do in the United States. I do not see the poverty or wealth gap. I see contentment. But with such contentment I do not see drive, I do not see passion, and I do not feel motivated to create or think. I often find myself seeking out escapist activities -- mostly watching television and reading books. I do not see a point in my existence here. I feel caught in a strange limbo where time has stood still. The temperature has not dramatically decreased since I arrived over three months ago. Everyday it is clouds and rain. Everyday I go to the grocery store. Everyday I exist. But why? The sense of struggle I used to have has gone and I am left somewhat empty.
Perhaps it is a particularly American view to think that contentment breeds mediocrity. This isn't me siding with those conservatives who lament over "creeping socialism," or is it? It is true that I have seen many positives about the way of life here I want to bring home with me to America. Living abroad the excesses and selfishness of much of the American way of life becomes absurdly obvious. The French do not waste food, they do not waste water, and they cherish that face to face time with family and friends as well as time to simply do nothing and think. But I cannot help but be troubled by those students of mine who look at me with bewilderment when I ask them if any of them would like to live somewhere other than Rouen. Where is the drive? Where is the curiosity?
Then again, what is wrong with being happy where you are? I can only speak from my limited and subjective viewpoint, but I find life in the struggle. I am more alive struggling with a painting that I hate, that I just cannot get right, than I am gazing contently on a piece that is "good enough." So does contentment breed mediocrity? Is it better to lean towards a socialist perspective? To tax high, to spread the wealth out evenly, so everyone is at a general level of contentment? Or is it better to struggle to the top, in a system that favors entrepreneurs and passionate go-getters, where the chances of succeeding are made more difficult and less likely, but with greater rewards to be had? This is a delicate question. Is it moral to insist on "one for all" or "all for one"? I don't believe I have an answer.
Perhaps this satisfaction out of struggle is merely an illusion. Perhaps that man you see talking on the telephone in Amsterdam, behind that class partition, has just as little to say as that one speeding down the streets of Manhattan, racing to his next meeting. This is probably true. Life does go on in Rouen just about the same as it does in suburban Pennsylvania. But for now I still have a taste for struggle and purpose and I cannot wait to get back to it.
It's true that I have grown to appreciate many aspects of this system. But honestly compels me to reveal another side. There is a mood that settles into me here, deepening by degrees until its deepness has become darkness. It happens typically on a Sunday afternoon. I'll be strolling through a neighborhood on the outskirts of Amsterdam, or cycling in a nearby small town, and the calm, bland streets and succession of broad windows giving views onto identical interiors will awaken in my mind a line form Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus" that struck me to the core when I first read it as an undergraduate: "A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive."
This is my overwhelming experience of Rouen. The seeming contentment with the status quo, of those people to whom the question, "Where would you like to travel?" makes no sense, confronts one with the absurdity of existence. Shorto calls it an "existential rage" and rage seems an appropriate description. Any given Sunday I will be walking to the grocery store before it closes at 1pm and I will pass shoppers briskly walking down the sidewalk, almost running me over, and I constantly return to that nagging question: Where are you going? I've remarked many times about a paradox I have experienced in France. It is true that the French are much better dressed than Americans. But for whom do they dress? Where are they going to be seen?
The French cherish their free time. They cherish the hour-long lunch breaks and the three hour conversations held over beer or coffee after work. But where are they going? What is the point? What is the point of an evening off when the stores close at 6pm, precisely the time when I may want to buy something or perhaps peruse your wares? These laws put in place to protect the workers and laborers, of scheduling short hours, mandatory days off, and long lunch breaks, a sign of social progress perhaps, but also a huge retardant to daily progress, of daily activities. I am confronted with the absurdity of existence here.
I do not see struggle here like I do in the United States. I do not see the poverty or wealth gap. I see contentment. But with such contentment I do not see drive, I do not see passion, and I do not feel motivated to create or think. I often find myself seeking out escapist activities -- mostly watching television and reading books. I do not see a point in my existence here. I feel caught in a strange limbo where time has stood still. The temperature has not dramatically decreased since I arrived over three months ago. Everyday it is clouds and rain. Everyday I go to the grocery store. Everyday I exist. But why? The sense of struggle I used to have has gone and I am left somewhat empty.
Perhaps it is a particularly American view to think that contentment breeds mediocrity. This isn't me siding with those conservatives who lament over "creeping socialism," or is it? It is true that I have seen many positives about the way of life here I want to bring home with me to America. Living abroad the excesses and selfishness of much of the American way of life becomes absurdly obvious. The French do not waste food, they do not waste water, and they cherish that face to face time with family and friends as well as time to simply do nothing and think. But I cannot help but be troubled by those students of mine who look at me with bewilderment when I ask them if any of them would like to live somewhere other than Rouen. Where is the drive? Where is the curiosity?
Then again, what is wrong with being happy where you are? I can only speak from my limited and subjective viewpoint, but I find life in the struggle. I am more alive struggling with a painting that I hate, that I just cannot get right, than I am gazing contently on a piece that is "good enough." So does contentment breed mediocrity? Is it better to lean towards a socialist perspective? To tax high, to spread the wealth out evenly, so everyone is at a general level of contentment? Or is it better to struggle to the top, in a system that favors entrepreneurs and passionate go-getters, where the chances of succeeding are made more difficult and less likely, but with greater rewards to be had? This is a delicate question. Is it moral to insist on "one for all" or "all for one"? I don't believe I have an answer.
Perhaps this satisfaction out of struggle is merely an illusion. Perhaps that man you see talking on the telephone in Amsterdam, behind that class partition, has just as little to say as that one speeding down the streets of Manhattan, racing to his next meeting. This is probably true. Life does go on in Rouen just about the same as it does in suburban Pennsylvania. But for now I still have a taste for struggle and purpose and I cannot wait to get back to it.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Traveling as a Creative Action
As a friend of mine, a now-veteran expatriate living in Spain, has informed me, it is about one to two months into living abroad when the homesickness kicks in. I am on a slightly different timetable than many of my colleagues in that I am not going home for Christmas this year and in six weeks time I will still be residing in Europe. This put me squarely on schedule to begin the sporadic waves of tenderness and nostalgia for Pennsylvania and of course my dearest and fluffiest friend, my cat Daphne. However, this spell of mal du pays was temporarily broken when I re-discovered the charm of France this past week.
So how did France get her charm back you ask? It may be a small let down to learn I have re-discovered France's charm at one of the most predictably charming places imaginable: Versailles. I am referring to the palace of Versailles and not the surrounding locale. Yes, the gardens, the tapestries, the statues, the perfectly manicured bushes, the rococo wallpaper, the wall decor that took eleven layers of varnish! It was with the swoop of François Boucher's damsels on swings that I re-entered the throngs of Americans in envy of France's refinery.
Again I have to cite Adam Gopnik and his endlessly quotable guide to all experiences expat in France, Paris to the Moon. I wrote in my first post about how coming in with no expectations is the best way to approach this experience. However, Gopnik writes, "There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more." When I first re-read this quote I wanted to disagree. How can you experience a place if you already have a fixed idea of what you want it to be? But upon further reflection I realized that this is what creation is, this is how humans engage with the world.
Gopnik's idea is to think of travel as a creative action. As a painter and sometimes-writer I think it is a beautiful idea. When we travel there is a dual "direction of fit": our minds trying to match the world while simultaneously constructing the world to match our minds. Anyone who has ever drawn or painted a self-portrait will understand this concept. When you create an image you are gleaning both from what you see (or look for) and what the world shows to you. It is a combination of active and passive engagement. This was my experience of Versailles.
I really should be thanking Sofia Coppola for making her beautifully-crafted portrayal of Marie Antoinette in her eponymous bio-pic of the Austrian princess and her life at Versailles. It is the distinct power of the image, of the photograph or the film screen, to present itself as an ontological truth, as plain fact. But again, as many of us know, historical films are prone to hyperbole and dramatic flare--Coppola's is no exception. The cinema is performative, whether that refers to the actor's image or to the theatrical production and arrangement of the mise-en-scene. Coppola begins her film with an anachronistic image. While Gang of Four's "Natural's Not in It," a punk anthem to hedonism, plays in the background, Antoinette has her feet pampered by a maid wearing a servant's uniform out of the 19th century. We already have three centuries manifesting within a single frame, the 16th century Marie Antoinette, the 19th century housemaid, and a 20th century soundtrack. And yet the image speaks to a truth of Coppola's creative conception of the Antoinette as a relatable, rebellious, spoiled child.
Thanks to Coppola's film I entered into Versailles with a fresh, 21st century sensibility as to the wildness of the by-gone parties, the pressure of Antoinette to perform and conform to her new life as both an Austrian and a French queen, and the tragedy of such decadence among the poverty of the outside world in 1783. While the sky was clouded and the light entering the chateau muted and grey, I could nevertheless see the vivacity and vividness of Coppola's film images in Versailles' flowered wallpaper, its shining mirrors, and its the lacquered furniture.
The ontological truth of the film image became my own ontological truth. Antoinette slept in this bed, she ate with this silverware, and she fled through this door just before she was taken by a French mob and beheaded in Paris. Versailles is a perfectly overwrought distillation of all that is refined about French culture and history. The ridiculous refinery of French desserts, of multi-tiered pyramids of macaroons and intricately iced cakes and pastries of all shades of pink, make sense within the walls of Versailles. What might usually make me cringe as overwrought and over-refined feels perfectly natural next to the paintings of Boucher, next to the chairs whose upholstery matches the wallpaper and the mise-en-abyme of chandeliers reflected in the hall of mirrors.
Equally appropriate were these two jeune filles, so bored with the refined decadence of the chateau that their cell phone screens were the only locus of attention they had the energy to focus on. One might imagine the fifteen year old Antoinette had some of the same feelings of boredom among the everyday decadence of her existence.
Coppola's Marie Antoinette, for me, crystallized the best of Versailles, the best of this chapter in French history. I realize many may disagree with my loud approval of this film. Admittedly the plot line had little motivation and was somewhat meandering. The complexities of either M.A. or Louis XVI had difficulty shining through the makeup and the kicky soundtrack. But Coppola took full advantage of being granted a great privilege of filming on-location. She brought the main character of the story, Versailles itself, to life in her images. Each drape, each carpet, each duck on the pond, worked to fulfill a romantic ideal of Antoinette. Without Versailles the King and Queen of France would just be another European royal couple. Versailles speaks volumes through its architecture, its decor, its furnishings, about what it was to be the highest example of a French arbiter of culture.
Lastly, my favorite part of my visit to Versailles was something I found unexpectedly, one of many idiosyncrasies that this palace of French refinery had to show me that I could have never imagined myself. The most charming thing I found that day was in the gardens. Each statue had been wrapped up for winter, as if hibernating. Among the fall foliage, each sculpture and flower pot had been cozily secured under a thick tarp and securely wrapped with string such that one could easily guess the shape and form of the underlying figure. Leave it to the French to uniquely and charmingly wrap each one of the hundreds of sculptures within the gardens of Versailles. The result was an extremely charming eeriness, of both the presence and absence of these statues. It is reminiscent of the many ghosts of history that roam these manicured pastures and of the many invisible curators of French history, the gardeners and conservators, who work to keep Versailles alive.
The realization that France is not just what is shown to me, but also what I look for in it, is a liberating concept. After Versailles I do not feel as solitary and boxed in as a foreigner living in France. I can be a foreigner both experiencing and making this year into the experience I want it to be. Coppola and Godard, Monet and Duchamp may all have insights into what France is or was. I walk among their invisible gazes everyday and feel less alone because of it.
So how did France get her charm back you ask? It may be a small let down to learn I have re-discovered France's charm at one of the most predictably charming places imaginable: Versailles. I am referring to the palace of Versailles and not the surrounding locale. Yes, the gardens, the tapestries, the statues, the perfectly manicured bushes, the rococo wallpaper, the wall decor that took eleven layers of varnish! It was with the swoop of François Boucher's damsels on swings that I re-entered the throngs of Americans in envy of France's refinery.
Again I have to cite Adam Gopnik and his endlessly quotable guide to all experiences expat in France, Paris to the Moon. I wrote in my first post about how coming in with no expectations is the best way to approach this experience. However, Gopnik writes, "There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more." When I first re-read this quote I wanted to disagree. How can you experience a place if you already have a fixed idea of what you want it to be? But upon further reflection I realized that this is what creation is, this is how humans engage with the world.
Gopnik's idea is to think of travel as a creative action. As a painter and sometimes-writer I think it is a beautiful idea. When we travel there is a dual "direction of fit": our minds trying to match the world while simultaneously constructing the world to match our minds. Anyone who has ever drawn or painted a self-portrait will understand this concept. When you create an image you are gleaning both from what you see (or look for) and what the world shows to you. It is a combination of active and passive engagement. This was my experience of Versailles.
I really should be thanking Sofia Coppola for making her beautifully-crafted portrayal of Marie Antoinette in her eponymous bio-pic of the Austrian princess and her life at Versailles. It is the distinct power of the image, of the photograph or the film screen, to present itself as an ontological truth, as plain fact. But again, as many of us know, historical films are prone to hyperbole and dramatic flare--Coppola's is no exception. The cinema is performative, whether that refers to the actor's image or to the theatrical production and arrangement of the mise-en-scene. Coppola begins her film with an anachronistic image. While Gang of Four's "Natural's Not in It," a punk anthem to hedonism, plays in the background, Antoinette has her feet pampered by a maid wearing a servant's uniform out of the 19th century. We already have three centuries manifesting within a single frame, the 16th century Marie Antoinette, the 19th century housemaid, and a 20th century soundtrack. And yet the image speaks to a truth of Coppola's creative conception of the Antoinette as a relatable, rebellious, spoiled child.
Thanks to Coppola's film I entered into Versailles with a fresh, 21st century sensibility as to the wildness of the by-gone parties, the pressure of Antoinette to perform and conform to her new life as both an Austrian and a French queen, and the tragedy of such decadence among the poverty of the outside world in 1783. While the sky was clouded and the light entering the chateau muted and grey, I could nevertheless see the vivacity and vividness of Coppola's film images in Versailles' flowered wallpaper, its shining mirrors, and its the lacquered furniture.
The ontological truth of the film image became my own ontological truth. Antoinette slept in this bed, she ate with this silverware, and she fled through this door just before she was taken by a French mob and beheaded in Paris. Versailles is a perfectly overwrought distillation of all that is refined about French culture and history. The ridiculous refinery of French desserts, of multi-tiered pyramids of macaroons and intricately iced cakes and pastries of all shades of pink, make sense within the walls of Versailles. What might usually make me cringe as overwrought and over-refined feels perfectly natural next to the paintings of Boucher, next to the chairs whose upholstery matches the wallpaper and the mise-en-abyme of chandeliers reflected in the hall of mirrors.
Equally appropriate were these two jeune filles, so bored with the refined decadence of the chateau that their cell phone screens were the only locus of attention they had the energy to focus on. One might imagine the fifteen year old Antoinette had some of the same feelings of boredom among the everyday decadence of her existence.
Coppola's Marie Antoinette, for me, crystallized the best of Versailles, the best of this chapter in French history. I realize many may disagree with my loud approval of this film. Admittedly the plot line had little motivation and was somewhat meandering. The complexities of either M.A. or Louis XVI had difficulty shining through the makeup and the kicky soundtrack. But Coppola took full advantage of being granted a great privilege of filming on-location. She brought the main character of the story, Versailles itself, to life in her images. Each drape, each carpet, each duck on the pond, worked to fulfill a romantic ideal of Antoinette. Without Versailles the King and Queen of France would just be another European royal couple. Versailles speaks volumes through its architecture, its decor, its furnishings, about what it was to be the highest example of a French arbiter of culture.
Lastly, my favorite part of my visit to Versailles was something I found unexpectedly, one of many idiosyncrasies that this palace of French refinery had to show me that I could have never imagined myself. The most charming thing I found that day was in the gardens. Each statue had been wrapped up for winter, as if hibernating. Among the fall foliage, each sculpture and flower pot had been cozily secured under a thick tarp and securely wrapped with string such that one could easily guess the shape and form of the underlying figure. Leave it to the French to uniquely and charmingly wrap each one of the hundreds of sculptures within the gardens of Versailles. The result was an extremely charming eeriness, of both the presence and absence of these statues. It is reminiscent of the many ghosts of history that roam these manicured pastures and of the many invisible curators of French history, the gardeners and conservators, who work to keep Versailles alive.
The realization that France is not just what is shown to me, but also what I look for in it, is a liberating concept. After Versailles I do not feel as solitary and boxed in as a foreigner living in France. I can be a foreigner both experiencing and making this year into the experience I want it to be. Coppola and Godard, Monet and Duchamp may all have insights into what France is or was. I walk among their invisible gazes everyday and feel less alone because of it.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
The Language Barrier
There are many quotes about the value of speaking more than language that I could reproduce for you here. I could mention Charlemagne's: "To have another language is to possess a second soul." Or Geothe: "Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own." And while I cannot argue with either of these illustrious agents of literature, my liberal arts education, of which I am still a fresh recipient, has led me to adopt a less romantic and somewhat more cynical viewpoint on the subject.
Like many Americans, my days of high school French focused on both quickly memorizing vocabulary for my exams and quickly forgetting it afterwards. Could I form a coherent sentence by the end of my senior year? Would you count "Le cheval est sur l'avion," or, "The horse is on the plane"? I thought not. Of this fact I always remind myself whenever I become frustrated with my French high school students. Whenever compelled to leave the more surly and taciturn aspects of their French upbringing at the door, these students can actually hold a conversation with me. More importantly, they at least seem to understand what I am talking to them about..mostly.
Were it not for my training in French during my college days and my semester abroad in Paris I would not dare to stand in front of a room of French schoolchildren with such confidence. Thanks to my undergraduate education I now have a confident command of French -- oral, written, you name it. Now, when I stand up in front of a classroom I have the comfort of knowing what it takes to learn a new language, an appreciation for the deficiencies of the Western educational system, and the unique satisfaction that comes from carrying on a lengthy conversation in a non-native tongue. I can walk into a restaurant and order a meal without experiencing a feeling of dread, I can ask for directions without stumbling over my "R"s, and I can carry on a decent conversation over the phone (anyone who has had to deal with the bureaucracy of a non-anglophone country can attest to the difficult of this last example).
However, it seems that I have arrived at a special point in my French language abilities; one that leaves me wondering about the usefulness of continuing to apply myself towards fluency. It's possible I am mistaken and that this is just the homesickness and apathy talking. But for one, this is my second time living abroad and the thrill of accomplishing everyday activities and moving through life with a new language has evaporated. Two, working abroad and studying abroad are two dramatically different things. Studying abroad is specially constructed to give you the maximum exposure to the language and culture of your adopted country--living in a host family, taking courses in French, attending local cultural events, etc. Three, I do not plan to live here again, which will render much of my abilities moot.
Working abroad as an English teacher poses a paradox. I initially joined this program as a means to live abroad and improve my French. My job, however, requires me to be constantly thinking and speaking in English. I do not live with a host family and when I return home from work, an introvert exhausted from playing the extrovert all day, surprise surprise I just want to lay down and watch my favorite American series and read some Fitzgerald. Perhaps most importantly, I, unlike every other bilingual American woman I know, do not have a significant other of the French persuasion. This seems to be the unifying factor for those language assistants that come here and actually do obtain fluency and settle down.
That being said, whether by choice or by circumstance, the language barrier, though often easily crossed in my case, continues to be one of the largest roadblocks to my happiness and comfort while living abroad. I often find myself imagining hopping a ferry from Calais to Dover just to interact with the anglophones because a shared language is not just linguistic, it is a shared culture and history as well. It is true that a language reveals how people think, feel, interact, and what they value. But does learning a language after eighteen years of speaking English truly give you insight into a country's people and practices? Yes, it does. But it will never be my culture and my extended second stay in France has proved that my values, if not as an American then as an anglophone, do not always mesh with the values of francophones.
This arises linguistically everyday and one need only point to the Académie française to discover the root of my discontent. The Académie française is an elite panel of linguistic judges that states as its mission, the "défense de la langue française." France prides itself on its language and why shouldn't she? The country holds a rich history of literature, art, and culture but that's just what it is: history. Upon entering France I immediately experienced the palpable feeling of a country nostalgic for older times and quite discontent with the present. It seems that in the response to the rise of other developed nations as the arbiters of cultural hegemony France has only clung more strongly to an idea of French identity from its glory days. The Académie française's specific mission is to determine which words it will allow to incorporate officially into the French language. Many anglicismes have been rejected. For example one would not listen to a "walkman" in the 1980s but rather a, "baladeur." This has had the exclusionary effect of producing a language that is strictly introspective and, to an extent, elitest. To exclude the incorporation of English or Arabic into the "official" French language comes with the assumption that these words are inferior or somewhat harmful to French culture. The idea of preservation is strong in France. UNESCO's headquarters are in Paris. But preservation to the point of stagnation and exclusion should be scrutinized.
Even so there is much cultural exchange that exists and even thrives in France! Look to Paris' 18th arrondissement for one such place. I add this statement as a reassurance that I am not a completely horrid pessimist.
After all, there is still much to be learned and simply experienced by living with a language barrier. Parts of the world you take for granted light up like turning on a closet light you didn't know you had. After holding the door for someone you may find yourself wondering what the best way to say "you're welcome" would be. These experiences teach you not only about the country you are living in, but they hold a mirror up to your own culture and language, allowing you the distance and clarity to ask questions about the American or English or Australian way of life you would have never questioned before. So for better or for worse I am living in France and working in English. But it is also temporary and in seven months I will enter another frame of worldly interaction. To what extent you adapt to your surroundings as an expat and to what extent you stick to the comforts of home, linguistic or otherwise, will always be a personal choice (and I will never judge anyone for clandestinely baking and eating an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies out of frustration with French bureaucratic red tape. No I have not done that yet... but I haven't ruled it out).
Like many Americans, my days of high school French focused on both quickly memorizing vocabulary for my exams and quickly forgetting it afterwards. Could I form a coherent sentence by the end of my senior year? Would you count "Le cheval est sur l'avion," or, "The horse is on the plane"? I thought not. Of this fact I always remind myself whenever I become frustrated with my French high school students. Whenever compelled to leave the more surly and taciturn aspects of their French upbringing at the door, these students can actually hold a conversation with me. More importantly, they at least seem to understand what I am talking to them about..mostly.
Were it not for my training in French during my college days and my semester abroad in Paris I would not dare to stand in front of a room of French schoolchildren with such confidence. Thanks to my undergraduate education I now have a confident command of French -- oral, written, you name it. Now, when I stand up in front of a classroom I have the comfort of knowing what it takes to learn a new language, an appreciation for the deficiencies of the Western educational system, and the unique satisfaction that comes from carrying on a lengthy conversation in a non-native tongue. I can walk into a restaurant and order a meal without experiencing a feeling of dread, I can ask for directions without stumbling over my "R"s, and I can carry on a decent conversation over the phone (anyone who has had to deal with the bureaucracy of a non-anglophone country can attest to the difficult of this last example).
However, it seems that I have arrived at a special point in my French language abilities; one that leaves me wondering about the usefulness of continuing to apply myself towards fluency. It's possible I am mistaken and that this is just the homesickness and apathy talking. But for one, this is my second time living abroad and the thrill of accomplishing everyday activities and moving through life with a new language has evaporated. Two, working abroad and studying abroad are two dramatically different things. Studying abroad is specially constructed to give you the maximum exposure to the language and culture of your adopted country--living in a host family, taking courses in French, attending local cultural events, etc. Three, I do not plan to live here again, which will render much of my abilities moot.
Working abroad as an English teacher poses a paradox. I initially joined this program as a means to live abroad and improve my French. My job, however, requires me to be constantly thinking and speaking in English. I do not live with a host family and when I return home from work, an introvert exhausted from playing the extrovert all day, surprise surprise I just want to lay down and watch my favorite American series and read some Fitzgerald. Perhaps most importantly, I, unlike every other bilingual American woman I know, do not have a significant other of the French persuasion. This seems to be the unifying factor for those language assistants that come here and actually do obtain fluency and settle down.
That being said, whether by choice or by circumstance, the language barrier, though often easily crossed in my case, continues to be one of the largest roadblocks to my happiness and comfort while living abroad. I often find myself imagining hopping a ferry from Calais to Dover just to interact with the anglophones because a shared language is not just linguistic, it is a shared culture and history as well. It is true that a language reveals how people think, feel, interact, and what they value. But does learning a language after eighteen years of speaking English truly give you insight into a country's people and practices? Yes, it does. But it will never be my culture and my extended second stay in France has proved that my values, if not as an American then as an anglophone, do not always mesh with the values of francophones.
This arises linguistically everyday and one need only point to the Académie française to discover the root of my discontent. The Académie française is an elite panel of linguistic judges that states as its mission, the "défense de la langue française." France prides itself on its language and why shouldn't she? The country holds a rich history of literature, art, and culture but that's just what it is: history. Upon entering France I immediately experienced the palpable feeling of a country nostalgic for older times and quite discontent with the present. It seems that in the response to the rise of other developed nations as the arbiters of cultural hegemony France has only clung more strongly to an idea of French identity from its glory days. The Académie française's specific mission is to determine which words it will allow to incorporate officially into the French language. Many anglicismes have been rejected. For example one would not listen to a "walkman" in the 1980s but rather a, "baladeur." This has had the exclusionary effect of producing a language that is strictly introspective and, to an extent, elitest. To exclude the incorporation of English or Arabic into the "official" French language comes with the assumption that these words are inferior or somewhat harmful to French culture. The idea of preservation is strong in France. UNESCO's headquarters are in Paris. But preservation to the point of stagnation and exclusion should be scrutinized.
Even so there is much cultural exchange that exists and even thrives in France! Look to Paris' 18th arrondissement for one such place. I add this statement as a reassurance that I am not a completely horrid pessimist.
After all, there is still much to be learned and simply experienced by living with a language barrier. Parts of the world you take for granted light up like turning on a closet light you didn't know you had. After holding the door for someone you may find yourself wondering what the best way to say "you're welcome" would be. These experiences teach you not only about the country you are living in, but they hold a mirror up to your own culture and language, allowing you the distance and clarity to ask questions about the American or English or Australian way of life you would have never questioned before. So for better or for worse I am living in France and working in English. But it is also temporary and in seven months I will enter another frame of worldly interaction. To what extent you adapt to your surroundings as an expat and to what extent you stick to the comforts of home, linguistic or otherwise, will always be a personal choice (and I will never judge anyone for clandestinely baking and eating an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies out of frustration with French bureaucratic red tape. No I have not done that yet... but I haven't ruled it out).
Monday, November 5, 2012
Introduction
After studying in Paris for six months my junior year I am once again living in France, now as a college graduate. It seems to matter little how and why I came to be here. To say "I am living abroad," is a phrase that comes charged with a host of romantic and adventurous notions and while my descriptions of being an American ex-pat are taken up mainly by dispelling these enchanting rumors, to say I am living abroad remains the best way to describe this experience. One of the cliché notions as to why someone may move to a foreign country is to go on that so-called existential journey to "finding oneself." Personally, I have found that discovering "who you are" mainly arrives from the realization of those cultural influences you have left behind in your home country. To live abroad is to become more fully aware of your place in the world as an "American," -- or "Canadian," or "Frenchman," or what-have-you -- first through the realization of who you are not, and only secondly by the realization of who you are.
While I've taken on blogging mainly as a form of intellectual and literary woodshedding I also hope to share my insights into the already surcharged world of opinions on French and American cultural differences. Adam Gopnik wrote in Paris to the Moon that, "The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped." It is indeed a freeing feeling to know you can pick up and move anywhere you like and you can make it work. You wonder why more Americans don't do this half the time and the other half you wonder why Americans do this at all. Like Gopnik writes, though there is a monumental sense of freedom, of escape, the feeling of loneliness is also inescapable. For the expatriate solitude becomes another kind of invisible chain weighing you down. This is why I believe there are so many books written about the relationship between French and American cultures. To discuss the ups and downs of both frustration, loneliness, misunderstanding, as well as our admiration and romantic fascination with French culture is to participate in a community that can lift the sometimes suffocating feeling of solitude.
I should note that I am here with many other Americans participating in a program known as TAPIF -- Teaching Assistant Program in France. This is the means by which I came to be living abroad. We work twelve hours a week in a French collège (middle school) or lycée (high school) -- in my case both -- teaching English and generally not knowing what we are doing. For me this was a means to an end though many assistants do wish to continue with the teaching profession at the high school and/or middle school level after this program. But I, like so many others, left my experience of studying abroad with a craving for more travel, for more discovery and decided TAPIF was the best way to get here. With the intention of honing my French skills and seeing more of Europe I accepted a position at a school in Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Gladly, I have come in with no expectations and I would urge anyone contemplating moving abroad to do the same. Without expectations you can fully experience the freedom of travel and perhaps begin to understand why Americans move to France in the first place.
While I've taken on blogging mainly as a form of intellectual and literary woodshedding I also hope to share my insights into the already surcharged world of opinions on French and American cultural differences. Adam Gopnik wrote in Paris to the Moon that, "The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped." It is indeed a freeing feeling to know you can pick up and move anywhere you like and you can make it work. You wonder why more Americans don't do this half the time and the other half you wonder why Americans do this at all. Like Gopnik writes, though there is a monumental sense of freedom, of escape, the feeling of loneliness is also inescapable. For the expatriate solitude becomes another kind of invisible chain weighing you down. This is why I believe there are so many books written about the relationship between French and American cultures. To discuss the ups and downs of both frustration, loneliness, misunderstanding, as well as our admiration and romantic fascination with French culture is to participate in a community that can lift the sometimes suffocating feeling of solitude.
I should note that I am here with many other Americans participating in a program known as TAPIF -- Teaching Assistant Program in France. This is the means by which I came to be living abroad. We work twelve hours a week in a French collège (middle school) or lycée (high school) -- in my case both -- teaching English and generally not knowing what we are doing. For me this was a means to an end though many assistants do wish to continue with the teaching profession at the high school and/or middle school level after this program. But I, like so many others, left my experience of studying abroad with a craving for more travel, for more discovery and decided TAPIF was the best way to get here. With the intention of honing my French skills and seeing more of Europe I accepted a position at a school in Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Gladly, I have come in with no expectations and I would urge anyone contemplating moving abroad to do the same. Without expectations you can fully experience the freedom of travel and perhaps begin to understand why Americans move to France in the first place.
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