Ariane: A Russian Girl by Claude Anet (NYRB)

 

Ariane: A Russian Girl" by Claude Anet (NYRB)

"The Garden of Eros: The Story of the Paris Expatriates and the Post-War Literary Scene" by John Calder (ALMA)

ISBN: 9780957452213

Along with Grove Press's Barney Rosset and the legendary Olympia publisher Maurice Girodias, John Calder is part of the powerful trio of visionaries who presented and published remarkable literature in the 20th century.   "The Garden of Eros" is both a literary history of publishing as well as a memoir of those years.  Calder also wrote "Pursuit" which is interesting, but also in the need of some editing.  "The Garden of Eros" is a better book that focuses on a huge subject matter - publishing in the 20th century.  The subtitle is correct, but rather limiting when one reads the book.  Paris is pretty much the focus with respect to the publishing history, but it also deals with the Paris Review crowd to Terry Southern to Alexander Trocchi, who is without the doubt, one of the great characters of the 20th century - both in a good, but a mostly bad way.  In fact, Calder's book may be the best with respect to writing about Trocchi's sordid history as writer and junkie.  The book is gossipy, as well as information regarding Trocchi, but also Girodias, who is an important figure in not only publishing but in his troubled relationships with his writers.  Henry Miller, Beckett, Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Jane Bowles, Alain Robbe-Grillet and so many other writers/ personalities are in this volume of delight.  As a publisher myself, I can easily identify myself with the Maurice Girodias and John Calder passion for making books and presenting authors - even those who wrote DB (dirty books).  An important document on publishing and its incredible personalities that ran into that world. 

August 18, 2014

August 18, 2014

There are numerous ways of looking at one’s life, and it can be measured by the objects one owns, or their sexuality.  For instance, I’m a pussy hound.  Why? That is the million dollar question that I simply don’t have an answer for.  I think the main reason is either a life where one sleeps through the day, and just function whatever is in front of them.  For instance, you wake-up and make a cup of coffee without thinking of it.  I say 90% of my life is on that zone.  The sexual aspect of one’s life are mere moments when you see a woman, and it jabs one into another existence.  An inner-life comes out of you and all of a sudden you’re in a world full of color, and it has absolutely no meaning.  It’s a zone you’re in that has no rules and it is all about the sensuality of the moment.  Each woman is different.  There is no such being where one is exactly like the other.  So if you’re having sex with one, it is totally different from the other.  The truth is that no individual is like the other.  And that becomes obvious when you’re fucking a series of women.

The great thing about a book like “Lolita” is that the intellect is there, but here the British professor of French literature, who has a guideline in life is totally disrupted by the presence of Charlotte’s flirtatious daughter.  All logic is launched out the window, and there lies the problem for our hero of the novel.  Or is the true hero Clare Quilty, the drunk and sometimes incoherent shadow figure that floats into the narrative like Satan looking for a lost soul.  Nevertheless one has to disguise their desires nowadays.  When I was a teenager, all my girlfriends were mostly going out with much older men, and to me, it was more common to know a beautiful girl in school, is clearly dating the questionable male that is waiting outside the campus with his car running.

Sex is passion, but it is also about details.  As they say, the devil resides in the details.   I recently read Alain Robbe-Grillet’s last book, “A Sentimental Novel, ” which is about a professor having a S&M affair with his daughter.  It struck me as being ‘sick, ’ but also I found it attractive because it is ‘sick. ' Usually the older man, who is obviously a pervert - is also a very educated and well-read person.  To dwell into such depraved sexual practices, does one need to be an educated and smart person?  Being a filmmaker and writer, one can easily go into the darkness of one’s sexuality and address those issues.  The problem is the case that the reader or audience member may have trouble either in dealing with those issues, or at the very least, being very judgmental in such an obvious fashion.   I have always been attached to a specific photograph of Robbe-Grillet’s wife Catherine.   It looks like she is a little girl. Yet her expression is totally adult-like, and I feel I’m being pulled into a very precarious position.  Roman Polanski is such a man who has dealt with a bad hand, where he suffered greatly through the loss of his wife and childhood (due to war). Yet his work comes alive with the sensual aspect of living.  In fact to live is the ability to accept and further one’s adventure into the world of sex.

If I had one role-model in my life, it would be Jack Pickford.  He was the younger brother of Mary, and it seemed his life was spent on drink, drugs and a passionate addiction to sex with women.  His first wife was a wild number named Olive Thomas, who had a thirst for the carnal life just like her husband.  Both were talented actors, but according to a source close to both of them “they were more interested in playing the roulette of life than in concentrating on their careers.” She died under mysterious circumstances, and he had two further marriages, that of course, ended up as a failure. I was taken by him, because I wanted to expose myself to all the harm he has done to himself.  The loser is always more romantic than the winner, and it is usually those who lose, that we remember their presence more.  The taboo is what keeps us in line, and to go against the grain is the thrill some look for.  I have fallen for the passion of my times, but I now walk in various shopping centers and imagine what the girl tastes like, and in that small world, in my imagination, I find a certain amount of peace.