Learn French With Benjy!

Benjy may have become an accomplished Californian dog, and his mastery of English includes such favorite words as "A treat" and "Fetch!", but let's not forget that he is originally French...
He shares this citizenship with another pooch I adore, the great writer Colette's adorable black Toby-Chien. A passionate lover of nature and animals, Colette always lived with dogs and cats, but it's Toby-Chien who inspired some of her best pages - for instance when she staged him, naive and good-hearted chatting with a wise-cracking cat, Kiki-la-Doucette in Dialogues de Bêtes (Barks And Purrs in English), a book I already mentioned here.
Chiens de Colette, which I'm currently reading, is pretty much an anthology of Colette's writings featuring dogs; it includes many pictures of Colette's precious four-legged companions.

Toby-Chien is a prolix beast whose polished vocabulary reflects Colette's always exquisite, precise and often poignant expression. So beginners should learn a first few words of French with Benjy rather than with Toby. Here is the basis of Benjy's vocab:

La balle The ball
Où est la balle? Where's the ball?
À la maison! (Let's) go home!
À la voiture! (Let's) go to the car!
À la plage! (Let's) go to the beach!
Au lit! (Let's) go to bed!
Non, non, non! No, no, no!
Tais-toi! Be quiet!
Sois sage! Be good!

"Any art is essentially a prayer" (Joseph Brodsky)

I am continuing my exploration of Russia through books... I loved Solomon Volkov's extraordinary Saint-Petersburg: A Cultural History, which brings to life many of my heroes such as Dmitri Shostakovich, the dancers of the Marinsky, and Gogol. Volkov also discusses great authors who are little known in the West, such as Mikhail Zoschenko, whose Galosh And Other Stories, with its graphic Soviet-style cover, is poised between the tragi-comedies of Gogol and Bulgakov; it's one of the funniest, most biting and simply best collection of stories I ever read.
Volkov also focuses on one of my favorite poets and freedom icons, Joseph Brodsky - with whom he discusses Russia, poetry, prison and much more in Conversations With Joseph Brodsky. Humorous, heart-wrenching (Brodsky's prison and mental hospital memories) and scholarly, this book is something of a precious encyclopedia.

This fall, I am awaiting two movies with trepidation, and it so happens both have to do with books. Of course, there is the universally anticipated Where The Wild Things Are (do watch the trailer!), based on Maurice Sendak's masterpiece of children literature. But there's also Bright Star (watch the beautiful trailer here). Directed by Jane Campion, who broke my heart with her early features Sweetie and An Angel At My Table, it tells an episode in the life of Keats. And as AUREA regulars know, I am a poetry lover, a verse muncher, a beast of poems.
Magically, I scored an invitation to a preview screening - held up thanks to my Gaynor Minden magnets, the invitation graces my fridge. Tomorrow is the day.
And until then, let's read a passage from Keats's Last Sonnet, which starts with the words "Bright Star!":

The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:—

I Love Huckleberry

While I do adore Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's genius novel, the Huckleberry I want to share with you today is a bakery and café in Santa Monica, brought to my gourmet attention by Joanna, from Lark, a pretty and bookish blogger who's always willing to share tips on the city she knows so well.
I have been on a quest for good bread in Los Angeles - I am half French after all, and this is one of the very few places where I find excellent bread. Though for $4.50, their multigrain baguette better be fabulous!
At Huckleberry, I love the decor (those red chairs!), the menu on a blackboard, the flowers everywhere. The quality of the ingredients is really top-notch - taste for instance from the extraordinary mozzarella di buffala used in sandwiches. I also love their fresh salads and of course... the desserts. Oh the mini cupcakes!
The wholegrain scone is served with whipped cream, and their chocolate pudding (on a pie crust or in a glass) is sheer bliss. Sigh. I promise to try many more treats to report on them truthfully.

And just because I love Huckleberry Finn, too, here are the first lines of the novel:

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

In My Suitcase (2)

On airplanes, on the Thalys between Paris and Amsterdam, in the garden at Lafitte, this past month I had a lot of time to read:
War and Peace, a treasure I discovered many years ago, but which I was thrilled to read again in the acclaimed translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky; I loved it all over again, and was smitten with Natasha Rostov anew - dear, dear Natasha...
La vie rêvée des plantes, a cryptic and haunting modern Korean novel by Seung-U Lee - I just adore its cover!...
Jacques Drillon's tribute to the great harpsichord player and baroque music specialist Gustav Leonhardt, whose parents gave him a choice after dinner every evening when he was a child: to help do the dishes or practice his instrument: he soon became a virtuoso...
Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing: set in South Africa her first novel is a tale of frustration, heat and murder...
The letters of Marguerite Yourcenar, 1951-1960 - the author of the sublime Mémoires d'Hadrien, her erudition, her lawsuits, her adoration for animals...
More letters: those my dearest Colette wrote to her lover Missy; Colette's genius for writing comes through spontaneously, so fresh and whimsical...
Sam Savage's novel Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife tells the story of a wise rat who lives in the basement of a used books store, and devours his way, both figuratively and literally, through books that transform his life... Books have also transformed mine; they are my haven and a path towards more knowledge.

My New (As Yet Nameless) Bike

As you know, I just moved to California's Venice. With the beach 6 blocks away, the super cool Abbot Kinney boulevard's trendy vintage stores (and my favorite bakery) about as close, with nearby yoga studios and with a huge Whole Foods supermarket a couple of blocks away, I thought that it may be a good idea to get a bike. On Craigslist, I found this used black Schwinn Beach Cruiser - a cult model. I love its sleek, curvy lines.
Though LA is known to be the city of car life, it is also pretty eco-conscious. Buses for instance, many of which run on natural gas rather than on oil, feature kinds of racks at the front, allowing you to load your bike on the bus as you commute.
I have always named my bikes. My favorite ever was a classic Raleigh I bought from an Irish girl in Paris; I named it Ulysses after Joyce's divine novel: a reference to my bike's Irish origins and urban voyage nature - Joyce indeed fetes the city of Dublin in the book. Now I'm wondering what to name my Angeleno beach cruiser; any suggestions?

Bell Jar 1rst Edition from EquatorBooks

At Equator Books, a Venice bookstore that offers old editions and out-of-print books, vinyl albums and photography exhibitions (above, a dog shot by Martin Cohen), I was stunned and delighted to find a first American edition of Sylvia Plath's only novel, The Bell Jar. How could I resist?
Plath indeed is an author I adore. I think she is generally very much underestimated as a poet because she was so beautiful, because her life was so very dramatic, ending in a suicide in the dark cold of a London winter, and because of the cult teen following that attached to her after she died. All this, I suspect, made academics weary of her work, yet it is truly exceptional.
This edition of The Bell Jar reveals yet another aspect of her extraordinary talent - in the field of art, as the book features Plath's very own illustrations. Sylvia, endlessly gifted.
I love her.

Speaking of illustration...History fans, art fans, illustration fans, Maira Kalman fans, do not miss, and I mean do not miss Kalman's superb, quirky and funny In Love With A. Lincoln, a tribute to the great president, in The New York Times!

And speaking of books, check out this fabulous round couch with surrounding bookshelves designed by Irina Zhdanova. I want it!!

Taschen Books

Who doesn't like Taschen's beautiful art books? They were having a major sale at their Beverly Drive boutique last week and I couldn't resist three volumes.
I chose a book about the divine Audrey Hepburn. It is little known that she got her big break when spotted by my favorite French writer, Colette, who was then looking for a girl to be her Gigi onscreen. I love the picture of a lithe, childlike Audrey curled up against theatrical Colette reading her own sublime prose.
I also went for the Dürer and Caravaggio monographies.

There are very few works of art that brought spontaneous tears of emotion into my eyes the first time I saw them. One was Praxiteles's Aphrodite of Cnidus, another was Mantegna's "Agony in the Garden", and the last one was Caravaggio's "Taking of Christ" - sadly and oddly not featured in the Taschen book.
Caravaggio is indeed one of my favorite painters. He is so supremely human; his depiction of the flesh, his focus on expressive hands and the eyes of his characters all reflect emotions at their utmost degree. Hallowed and voluptuous.

Of Cats And Dogs

Colette is my favorite French author, and Benjy can't stop reading over and over again her short Dialogues de Bêtes, whose title was smartly translated Barks And Purrs in English. I recently bought the English language edition of the book as a present, and was also delighted by its lovely illustrations.
In Dialogues de Bêtes, animal lover and poignant explorer of the heart Colette transcribes the conversations between Toby Chien, an artless, spontaneous Boston terrier, and Kiki La Doucette, a sarcastic and wisecracking cat, as they go about their pet business and argue about their masters (the "two-paws") or other philosophical issues.

And since we're on the subject of cats and dogs, I thought I'd introduce two creatures I met recently: a happy Jack Russell terrier Benjy and I met on the beach, as well as GoGo Boots, Los Angeles's prettiest kitten.
Can't get enough about animals? Check out the Los Angeles Times's Unleashed blog for fun and/or informative posts.

My Dream Catcher

Ever since I was a little girl, my sleep has been fraught with nightmares. I am regularly awaken by my very own screams. So I was more than delighted when a friend gave me this Navajo dream catcher - pinned up above my bed, it will intercept nightmares in its net.
Its design however is so exquisite that I think I may also wear it as a pendant, on a longish and very thin silver chain...

Coincidentally, Dream Catcher is the title of a book I have just read, Margaret Salinger's memoir of her father, the recluse J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher In The Rye among others; a moving and tender book, it also taught me much about the USA's chilling antisemitism in the early 20th century.
I am also about to finish have just finished reading the infamous At Home In The World, in which Joyce Maynard betrays a most elementary, unspoken and sacred rule of relationships, keeping what's private private. If Maynard's relationship had not been with with Salinger, I doubt anyone would be interested in this endless, blandly written account of her life. I feel guilty about having read it, and it's not even the guilty pleasure of reading a gossip column...
J.D. Salinger turned 90 on January 1.

More Reading

I have been reading a lot lately: Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, Jonathan Lopez's The Man Who Made Vermeers, an engrossing true story of forgery in the Netherlands during World War 2, as well as Irene Pepperberg's extraordinary memoir Alex & Me, which chronicles her discoveries about a parrot's brain and cognitive abilities.
Composer John Adams's recently published Hallelujah Junction recounts his life and musical path. With humility, humor and a penetrating intelligence, Adams examines not only his own work but also 20th century music, putting enlightening words on many things I felt and couldn't (or wouldn't dare to) articulate. If you love music or any American adventure, this is a must-read - definitely one of the best books about music and the artist's creative struggle that I ever read.

More from my dear Nancy Mitford! Many of her books are out of print, but I finally managed to get my hands on copies of her first 2 novels, Highland Fling and Christmas Pudding. Her humor is supreme, and her portrayal of the 1920's Bright Young Things so much more insightful that Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies...

I love the former's retro cover.

Reading list

A couple of days ago, I was delighted to meet the beautiful and bookish Joanna from Lark; we discovered a shared passion for literature and it made me realize I hadn't posted a reading list in quite some time. So here are the volumes I perused since arriving in Los Angeles...
On the plane, I read my dear Iris Murdoch's comic novel Under the Net - very Buster Keaton-ish... The Balanchine Variations is a wonderfully stimulating slim volume about the master's most important pieces... I found the Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing a bit disappointing, though the first chapter is excellent and funny... I am fascinated by Greek art (ah, Praxiteles!), but didn't know much about it or about ancient Greek history, so I enjoyed The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World... I've saved the best for last: Alison Light's Mrs Woolf and her Servants is an extraordinary study not only of Virginia Woolf's complicated relationships with her cooks and maids, but also a fascinating history of servants in England from the late 19th century to the 1940's - a must-read, really.

And if you're not up for all that, there's always Teen Vogue! It's smart and stylish without the snottiness of regular Vogue. You're allowed to love it even if you've been a post-teen for a long time; my sister, however, would sigh "Oh grow up!"
On my copy of the mag is a lipbalm I bought at the Santa Monica Farmers' market. Bill's Bees brings us super fresh honey as well as all-natural honey and wax lipbalm, isn't that great?

Poetry Books, And A Playlist

As I'm heading for a new destination, I've had to leave my Paris apartment and could only bring a few books with me, of the hundreds that I have collected over the years, transforming my living room into a library... It took me a surprisingly short time to select the ones that will be in my suitcase - all three of them poetry. Shakespeare's Sonnets of course. Sylvia Plath's musical Ariel. Sappho's fragments, in Mary Barnard's landmark translation, radiating with Grecian sun and violently shaded with the abysmal darkness of the heart.
I wish I could have brought my Emily Dickinson volume, but it was a bit weighty.
What books would make it into your luggage?

And if you're wondering where I'm off to, listen to this Destination playlist...

A Few Wonderful Things

Marie is not only a wonderfully talented artist but also a dear friend and a very generous person - she gave me this amazing, delicate necklace...


It's fig season!


I contributed an article (in French) to an anthology of English literature that has just come out. The reason why I'm excited about this is because, to the best of my knowledge, it's the very first time that my dear Nancy Mitford is included in a comprehensive anthology of Brit lit. I hope that she ends up getting the respect her work should earn her - not as chick-lit forerunner but as supremely witty author, the granddaughter of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde.

My Life With Tolstoy

When did I fall in love with Russia? When, at age 9, I rode the Trans-Siberian? The dense birch forests, both graceful and ominous, the little girls' bows holding their braids, the extraordinary kindness of the people of Moscow, the whimsical onion-domed churches...
Or was it 3 years later, when my mum bought me a copy of Anna Karenina?
I have lived with Tolstoy's books ever since, reading Anna Karenina in several different translations. I even made a pledge to re-read that supreme work every summer. It's like being reunited with old friends, and as I mature, I appreciate more some characters, such as Kitty, whom I used to find annoying.
This year however, I bailed out and read instead a new novel, What Happened To Anna K. by Irina Reyn. It's a bold attempt to re-imagine Tolstoy's novel, in the Russian Jewish community of Queens, NYC. Her Anna is much more Emma Bovary than Karenina in my opinion, but I guess that one of the reasons that Tolstoy's work is so extraordinary is because it allows each one of us to read it differently and see things in it others may have not imagined.
Next stop in my life with Tolstoy: re-read War and Peace, this time in the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I'm eager to see Natasha!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

At Lafitte this summer, the many children are rehearsing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (in French), which will be performed this weekend, in the castle's chai, a beautiful stone structure where the wine used to be stored... Meet our three elves!

Here's a passage from this magical play (Act V, Scene 2, Puck's speech):
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.

London shopping

My London booty includes this simple organic cotton Twiggy tote, designed for Marks & Spencer by fashion illustrator David Downton .
I also bought Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" - I was enthralled by the pages I read on the Eurostar, my first foray into her work. Ok, I admit, one of the reasons I chose the book was also this beautiful Vintage Classics edition. I've already mentioned on this blog how much I love Penguin's old covers ("Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005", an anthology of the paperbacks' designs, is a coveted tome) but when it comes to contemporary editions of masterpieces of the past I'll pick Vintage Classics any time...
My bag was much weighed down by the Brit VOGUE. This glossy (a lot heavier than Murdoch's 500-page novel...) features some terrific writing (such a tribute to the late stylist Marit Allen, and pieces about love by 4 writers including Tamasin Day-Lewis), as well as an elegant step-by-step tie-dye project.


Finally, an item from England I haven't bought yet because it's a prototype... I just love Artycho's exquisite and whimsical work (made by this French lady in the English countryside), so imagine how honored and excited I was when I found out that my (admittedly pressing) requests inspired her to create a hat!Merci Artycho! I can't wait to buy and wear this lovely creation!

London skies and Russian Red lips

I love London, where I just spent a supremely sunny weekend (yes, really).
9 a.m.: the blue canvas seen through the roof of St-Pancras - the Eurostar now reaches London in a mere 2 hours, and arrives at St-Pancras rather than Waterloo station (the witty slogan of the ad campaign, featuring Napoleon in front of cheering soldiers, reads "Forget Waterloo!").
Noon: the spindly branches of Russell Square, in literature-infused Bloomsbury (think Virginia Woolf but also Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, who were married in the neighborhood).
4 p.m.: clear skies above the British Museum, where the beauty of the looted Greek exhibits is sure to make me teary-eyed.

I love London, though it's where, a few months ago, what little intellectual self-esteem I had was crushed Humpty-Dumpty style (no words of comfort please, I'm not fishing for solace), into painful shards; appropriately, Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" played on my ipod all weekend, and as a nod to Debbie Harry's hard-edged rock chic, I wore MAC's Russian Red lipstick.

In the days to come I'll share snippets from my shopping booty, glimpses from the British Museum exhibition on Chinese's art fascination for nature and more...