It's busy here in Paris.
I'm feeling just a little overwhelmed, but in a guilty way, rather than in a panicked way. Because of the lack of set goals, and the open-ended nature of readings, I don't know how much time I'm supposed to be spending on classwork, and as a result, am spending a lot more time on what I'll call "obligatory enjoyment," or maybe "lessons outside the classroom," such as time spent with Francophone friends and acquaintances, time spent in museums, time spent at the theater, and time spent in miscellaneous cultural activities, such as the French "atelier de cuisine" I'll be participating in this weekend. Then there's also the mandatory French tutoring sessions that I'm taking, ironically because I did well enough on the placement test that I didn't need to take a French class.
I don't even quite know how to budget my time for practicing French: do I look up and practice unfamiliar words that I encounter readings? Do I practice pronouncing nasals? Do I read the packet on liaisons? Do I read Baudelaire aloud, and hope I understand what the French tutor called the melancholy of his nasals? Do I track down one of my francophone friends, and ask him or her to spend the evening with me? Do I schedule an additional tutoring session at EDUCO? And what about my schoolwork? When do I take a run? My refrigerator is empty, and I only have two pairs of underwear left (and there's only one washing machine, for around 180 students)? When do I meet my partner at the library, to work on our project on Louis XIV's ministers? I have my first expose in just under two weeks, which is supposed to be about a very short passage in Montesquieu's Persian letter; how much time do I spend working on that? Has anyone ever read "Memorandum," by E.B. White? Here's the link to the first page (the essay is in One Man's Meat).
I sound like I'm whining, don't I? Don't worry, all is well: I had a very good birthday, thanks to all of my well-wishers, electronic and otherwise. Madame Pla, the house manager, "m'a fait les bises," that is, she gave me the French quadruple-kiss (not to be confused with French kissing, which is entirely different). Last night was the hall meeting, followed by a long party, where I finally succeeded in meeting some people, and might have made a lasting friend (fingers crossed). The fact that there was a party on the night of my birthday was an absolute coincidence, but I am not going to pass up free wine, dates, plums, and grapes, and a whole room full of friendly francophones, if I can. Because I brought up the problem of the lack of recycling facilities, it turns out that I volunteered to improve the situation, which won't I think, be as bad as it sounds. One of the highlights of the day was receiving the card my parents sent me! Thank you so much, Mom and Dad!
I spent the night before at the theater, going to a play called Le Horla (pronounced lor-la), by Guy de Maupassant. I walked through the Jewish quarter on the way, which made me feel a mixture of loneliness and homesickness, when I saw children selling etrogim for Sukkot, and elderly Jewish men hobbling along. In the southeast of the 9th arondissement, there is a whole crowd of kosher butcher shops, kosher restaurants, Hebrew and Judaic bookstores, and, of course, synagogues. The theater where the play was held was tiny, and I sat in the front row (did I mention that the tickets were, as always, free, but that nobody was free to go with me?). The play is a one-man meditation on the frailty of the human body and spirit, on the nature of madness, and on the truth. It left me with a bit of a shiver, although no nightmares. Maupassant, after finishing the novella in 1887 (the "play's" original format), wrote in a letter "Today I sent the manuscript of The Horla to Paris; before eight days have passed, you will see that all the newspapers will have published that I am made... It is a great work of imagination, which will strike the reader, and will cause more than one tremble to climb up his back, for it is strange" (my translation). Well, he was right. I think, however, I'm going to need to cut back on the theater, unless I can rationalize my attendance on cultural grounds. So, I'll finish up this blog with a description of the last two plays I've visited, since l'Avare. Arno, are you reading this?
Cyrano m'etait Conte: An adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, itself a play. For those of you who don't know, the gist of the play is that the main character, who is intelligent, clever, cultured, skilled in arms, a brilliant writer, but cursed with a long nose, finds himself first cultivating the love between the woman whom he madly loves, and a less-deserving rival, and then engineering their marriage. The rival dies on the battlefield, before his wife can realize that he had ceased to lover her, and that it was Cyrano who had been sending her elegant, flowing love letters. At the end, Cyrano grows old (thirty-five, to be precise), without ever revealing the secret. This production, however, was full of cameo appearances of various characters from the early 17th century, including the Three Musketeers, Corneille, Moliere, the Grand Conde, and Pascal. A five-comedian show, in which every one of the four male actors played the lead character at a different stage of his life. One of the best plays I have seen since I arrived, like Le Horla, but for entirely different reasons.
Petites et Moyennes Entourloupes: A two-comedian play, in a very hot theater on a very hot night! A satire of employer-employee relations, and of family matters, an obnoxious boss of a small cookie, Beurrafour, business is held captive in his office by a seemingly desperate woman looking for work, who later agrees to take care of the horde of children resulting from his four marriages and multiple affairs, during Christmas Break. The title, which I believe is meant to resemble the phrase petites et moyennes entreprises, or "small and medium businesses," literally means "small and medium dirty tricks. The actors spoke very, very quickly, and though there were many, many jokes I did not understand, I got enough to laugh a great deal. As I've mentioned before, the French appreciate a good penis joke just as much as anybody else. Not bad, but not fabulous.
In case you haven't notice, six of the eight plays I've attended have had five or fewer actors. Of the two exceptions, one was the enormously-prestigious Comedie Francaise, and the other was filled with rich people. I think that most Parisian theaters can't afford to put on costly productions, so deliberately choose write or choose plays with minimal casts. Still, people attend these little productions; Le Horla was packed with 20-30 audience members, I'd say.
Chag Sameach!
~JD
"Ah, Rome! Ah, Bérénice! Ah, prince malheureux! / Pourquoi suis-je empereur? Pourquoi suis-je amoureux?" [Oh Rome, oh Berenice, oh unhappy prince! Why am I an emperor, why am I a lover?] (Racine, Berenice, Act IV scene vi).
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