Tag: Women Writers

Paris Day 13 and 14

On By judith zinisIn An Itinerant WriterLeave a comment

Thursday February 27

At breakfast, we (the three female artists in residence and I) discussed Freudian and Jungian theory.  Each woman artist found Jung insightful.  I have my doubts: I’m skeptical of theories that have little basis in data but seem to be fabrications of the theorists’ world view.  Considering that Freud and Jung believed women were the lesser sex and lived in a world that supported that notion, how can I subscribe to their ideas?

My breakfast companions observed that many artists find Jung of value.  I know Samuel Beckett who once lived around the corner at Rue d’Ulm found him useful in the writing of his novel Murphy.  As Deirdre Bair, Beckett’s biographer explains,

The patient sinks into the unconscious altogether and becomes completely victimized by it.  He is the victim of a new autonomous activity that does not start from his ego but starts from the dark sphere.  

Beckett found a way to explore the protagonist’s, Murphy’s mind.

I posed the question why there wasn’t a woman analyst with the same recognition as Freud and Jung.  Interesting as men were raised by women.  How does that affect their theories and practices?

One of the artists mentioned the book, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by the Nobel Prize winner, Olga Tokarczuk.   Her description excited me perhaps because the main character is a reclusive- a life that appeals to me.  I wanted to read it immediately.  The closest bookstore with English language books is Shakespeare and Company which I usually avoid as it’s a tourist trap.  To get there I had to walk down Rue Galande a charming street once an old Roman road, then, inhabited in the 15th Century.

IMG_7443Rue Galande

After I returned to the Irish Cultural Center, I got ready to go out again, this time, to the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris located in the Marias.  It has a beautiful reading room where I hoped to spend the afternoon writing.  On my way out, one of the artists asked if I’d like to go to the kitchen and finish off the pastries from the night before.  Mais oui!

While we were feasting, we met a filmmaker, Norah Dineen, who had been living on the third floor for over a month but never seen by any of us.  She can no longer afford to stay and would be couch surfing until some monies “turned up” to finish her film.  It’s subject is love in three cities: Berlin, Athens, and Los Angelos.  Whenever, she makes a film, she lives in the country for a month, immersing herself before writing, casting, and filming.  That’s the way to do it.  I’m just getting settled and I have to leave.  Why do I think I can just drop down in Paris and begin?

The rest of the afternoon was spent in libraries.  At the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris,  I had to get a library card in order to use the facilities which entitled me to all the public libraries in Paris.  Magnifique!  However, the woman assisting me decided to go beyond issuing a card: she would help me with my research.  What was I looking for?  What names did I have?  I was unprepared as we went from French to English to French.  All very confusing.  She assured me there was nothing there for me as she quickly went through databases, none of which I understood.

UnknownReading Room  Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris

Back to the mediatheque (a library with digital access) at the Irish Cultural Center.  As my great grandfather was a physician, it might mean he had attended a medical school in Paris.  I told the librarian I now had a library card and asked if there were records of 19th century medical students studying in Paris.   He found that the National Archives did have such a list which could only be accessed at the Archives themselves.  A plan for tomorrow.  I moved on to my Irish side and took out Social Change and Everyday Life in Ireland, 1850-1922.  It provided some interesting information on clothing, education, farming.

I ended the day with another writer from the center.  We met for coffee at Numero 220 on Rue Saint Jacques.  Her local.  Delicious coffee and a friendly owner.  She thinks someone should write a novel about women of a certain age- their struggle to be independent, that is, from familial demands.  Saying no to requests poses problems.

Unknown-1Numero 220

Friday February 28

Several of the artists have come to the end of their residency, so we arranged for a farewell dinner Saturday night.

I needed a pair of jeans, and, on my way to the National Archives, went to Cos, a clothing store in the Marais.  Success.   Since it was Fashion Week, the narrow streets were crowded.  Before people entered the shows, they were given an electronic temperature reading to exclude those who might have the coronavirus.  Many Italians were there although there had been were rumors that a travel ban on trains from Italy might be forthcoming.

I saw a small elderly woman and her companion making their way towards me.  I pushed myself against the building to give them room.  As they passed, this “frail” woman elbowed me- hard.  I turned towards her as she walked away, dumbfounded.  Then she cursed me.  I replied “Vous n’etes pas tres gentile Madame.” You are not very nice, Madame.

Unknown-3                                                           Rue des Rosiers

Although I had success buying a pair of jeans, my luck didn’t hold at the Archives. The receptionist informed me that I was at the wrong library.  This library only had records from before the revolution, that is, before 1789.  I asked if the correct library was open tomorrow, Saturday.  Yes, she said but the request for records had to be put in before 3:00 P.M. today.  It was 2:58.  I had forgotten the rules which I had once known by heart when I used the Archives d’outre Mer in Aix en Provence.  A bust.

But not completely.  I got the best fallafel in Paris.  No room at the inn, so I leaned against a building and chowed down.  Delicieux.

Unknown-4L’As du Fallafel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paris Day Two

On By judith zinisIn An Itinerant WriterLeave a comment

Sunday February 16

At breakfast, one of the residents asked If I’d like to go to Mass held at the chapel every Sunday.  I considered going, having watched The Two Popes last night.  Although somewhat cliched in dialogue and structure, I liked it: the acting, the discussion between the characters, some of the cinematography especially the black and white scenes in Buenos Aires.  Mercy and forgiveness played a large part in the film.  To whom should I show mercy?  And, there was call to help the poor.  What can I do?  Perhaps the priest’s homily might have held some insight.
However, “the book” or writing here about “the book” won out.  I finished at one o’clock barely in time to meet Christiane Makward author of Mayotte Capecia which examines Capecia’s novels,  Je Suis Martiniquaise and The White Negresse. Professor Makward took me under her wing last year when I followed Capecia’s life in Paris as a transplanted creole.  The plan was to meet at Gare de L’Est (a 3 mile hike), then, walk to Canal Saint Martine for tea with her friend.
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      Viewed from Place de Petit Pont on my way to Gare de L’Est
I arrived at the stroke of three and we made our way to her friend’s apartment which faces the canal.  After introductions, he invited me to look around.  As usual, I headed straight for the book case.  I sighted a biography of Derek Walcott which he had written.
Serendipitous.  A good sign.  Here I am trying to piece together my grandmother’s life in Saint Lucia while breaking bread with someone who spent ten years writing Walcott’s biography and visiting that very island.  I learned that my great grandfather, Armand de Jorna, may have left Martinique for Saint Lucia as it offered more opportunity.  The de Jorna’s had been in Martinique for 150 years before he was born.  Maybe he decided it was time to move on.  But he ended up being a doctor, so does that scenario fit?
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Canal Saint Martine
After sharing an eclair, a tart citron and a tarte de pomme (my lunch and dinner), Christiane and I walked along the canal to her apartment to retrieve Paris Creole, a book she had purchased for me at Musee Branly.  It traces the lives of creoles born in the French West Indies and living in Paris from the 17th to the 20th century.
At her suggestion, I walked home using Rue Temple. The street has many charms and with a fine mist falling, Paris was particularly romantic.  Malheuresment, by the time I got to Notre Dame, the mist became a downpour.  When I took refuge at an oyster bar, the waiters encouraged me to join them under the heat lamps, but I was tired and wanted to get home.  Not my best idea.  Il pleut, il pleut!  My umbrella kept turning inside out: by the time I got to Rue des Irlandais (Irish Cultural Center),  I was soaked.
Once dry, I began reading Paris Creole, slowly: it’s in French.
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Some “creole” boys, ages 10 and 11, who were sent to France for an education, stayed to become lawyers and doctors, and, then, returned to the islands of their birth.  Could this have been Armand de Jorna’s journey?  Maybe I can find him in Paris, after all.
A good start, or so I thought until I tried to find the file I had begun on this infamous book of mine. Nowhere to be found.  I had written a rough draft of an introduction and hoped to work on it over the next few weeks.  But I’m empty handed and, it seems, empty headed.  I never attached the file to my email.  A Freudian slip of sorts?  Verlaine’s poem seems very apropros:
Il pleut dans mon cœur,
Comme, it pleut sur la ville.
It rains in my heart,
like it rains in the city.
Bien Sûr!

Paris, Day One

On By judith zinisIn An Itinerant Writer2 Comments

Saturday, February 15

F5E21414-6138-4CFE-9891-3426E2E46EC4                                     My first flowers: Centre Culturel Irlandais

I’ve been busy proclaiming my intention to write a book.  Staying at the Irish Cultural Center in Paris often means people “want to know,” that is, what are you up to?   Not only does the Center have artists in residences, it attracts fellow travelers: writers and would be writers.  I explain to those who ask that I’m working on a “project.”  If more is required, I describe the book I aiming to create.  “It’s an exploration of my grandparent’s experience as immigrants, background history of the times, anthropological theory, and fiction.”  This idea sounds ridiculous to my ears let alone theirs.  But I say it none the less.  As I told one of the administrators who politely inquired, “I admit to what I’m doing as a way of keeping my feet to the fire.”   To another inquisitive writer, I lamented that since the book encompasses vast amounts of material, the notion of sorting through it overwhelms me.  She described her approach as plowing through and seeing where it leads.  I agree.  What choice do I have?

I managed to avoid my nemesis, the blank page, by searching for a set of glasses: one for flowers, one for drinking, one for toothbrush and toothpaste, one for pens and pencils.  But this is Paris where like stores often live side by side: book stores, furniture stores, plumbing stores, sock stores.  I thought I was up to locating the street of houseware “magasins”: this is not my first foray.  But after several turns around the neighborhood, no success.  What to do?   I knew the Monoprix on Boulevard Saint Michel didn’t have them.  Been there, done that.  Then, I remembered the outlet or overstock stores catty corner to the Luxembourg Gardens.   I purchased two which fit the bill and was able to buy L’Official, the weekly bible of goings on in Paris, at the kiosk.  Now I can avoid that blank page by perusing all that Paris has to offer.

Having walked five miles and been awake for 36 hours, I made it home, had a long nap, and, then, a very good dinner at my old stomping grounds, La Méthode.

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Finishing with an impressive cafe gourmand.
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Then, a walk home.  Pas mal.
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