Fracture | Andrés Neuman #InTranslation

What a wonderful reading experience!

From the beautifully designed hardcover dust jacket (the gold seams actually sparkle in real life), to the impressive translation that seems to have captured the beauty and thoughtfulness of Neuman's original story, Fracture is a journey to savour.

I knew I was in for a treat from the very first sentence, “The afternoon appears calm, and yet time is waiting to pounce.” This leads us into the startling realisation that we are about to feel the tremors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Tokyo, along with our protagonist, Yoshi Watanabe.

The fear and shock of the magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by the images of the horrifying tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, take Yoshie back in time.

Time and it's passing, memory and what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget become the central themes in Neuman's story about Yoshie, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by default. Yoshie is a hibakusha, a person affected by exposure to an atomic bomb, in a country unable to talk about it. His life is fractured, broken. He spends the rest of his life trying to piece it back together.

Neuman is a writer not afraid to take a risk with his writing. 

He's an Argentinian man writing about a much older Japanese man, from the perspective of numerous women living all around the world (Paris, New York, Argentina, Madrid). We have Yoshie's narration about life in Tokyo now and his remembrances of the war, and we have these women reflecting on their time with Yoshie. What he was like at that period of his life, their views on how the war affected him and why their relationships with him ultimately failed.

Writing and reading is all about the journey into someone else's world. The oft quoted Atticus Finch saying about 'you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it' is very true about Yoshie's story. Neuman gives us multiple ways to climb into Yoshie's skin, because if he had left it entirely to the very reserved Yoshie, our insights would be greatly diminished. 

For some unknown reason, I've found it very difficult to adequately document my journey with this book. This response has taken weeks to complete.

Fracture was a slow, considered read. Thoughtful and thought-provoking. It delved into many of my favourite themes. From very early on, I considered this book 'a keeper', deserving of a reread and a much coveted position on my groaning bookshelf. I savoured every minute, every word, but I simply don't feel like gushing or raving or shouting about it from the roof tops. It's not that kind of book, I guess. It's contemplative and quietly spoken, much like Yoshie himself.

Sometimes, some books, just need to be sat with quietly.

The Guardian | Lucy Popescu | 9 June 2020

A prolific writer, Neuman – born in Argentina, now based in Granada – delights in language and linguistic ambiguity. In Fracture, he explores the fragmented nature of memory, emotional scars, a city’s wounds after a disaster and the cracks in a relationship caused by cultural difference. He draws profound parallels between collective traumas – Japan’s bombing, Vietnam in 1968, Argentina’s “disappeared”, Chernobyl and the 2004 Madrid train attacks. Recalling Japan’s enforced silence in the war’s aftermath, Yoshie’s Argentinian girlfriend, Mariela, ponders: “Maybe the most brutal thing is not that you were bombed. Most brutal of all is that they don’t even allow you to tell people that you’ve been bombed. During the dictatorship here they would kill one of your children and you couldn’t tell anyone.” 

Facts:

• Originally published in 2018
• Translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia in 2020
• Neuman is a poet, short story writer and columnist. 
• The late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, said of him “The literature of the 21st century will belong to Neuman.” 

Epigraphs:

• If something exists somewhere, it will exist everywhere | Czeslaw Milosz (Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1980).
• Love came...after the kill | Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974 a US confessional poet & Pulitzer prize winner for Poetry 1967).
• I wonder if there is/any operation/that removes memories | Shinoe Shōda (born in Hiroshima 1910, she was a hibakusha. She died of breast cancer 1965. Tanka (II) finishes with Where is a cure/for my pain-filled heart?)
• ...and if my body is still the soft part of the mountain/I'll know/I am not yet the mountain | José Watanabe (1946 - 2007 a Peruvian poet with a Japanese father).

Favourite Quote:

...the ancient art of kintsugi. When a piece of pottery breaks, the kintsugi craftspeople place powdered gold into each crack to emphasise the spot where the break occurred. Exposed rather than concealed, these fractures and their repair occupy a central place in the history of the object. By accentuating this memory, it is ennobled. Something that has survived damage can be considered more valuable, more beautiful. (my highlights)

Maigret and the Killer | Georges Simenon #ParisinJuly

A big part of the reason I love reading Maigret's so much is the glimpse into life in Paris in the middle of the 20th century. Maigret and the Killer opens with Mrs Maigret and her man, dining out with friends discussing the merits of the Madame Pardon's 'unparalleled boeuf bourguignon...filling, yet refined', provincial cookery that was 'born of necessity', whilst finishing off the meal with the obligatory 'coffee and calvados'.

This is the 70th book in the series and the year is 1969. The setting is Quai d'Anjou - the home of the young man killed in the first chapter. His parents are the wealthy owners of a cosmetic company. A stroll around the Quai d'Anjou is definitely on the cards if I ever return to Paris in real life!

As always, time with Maigret is easy. He may be getting stressed out by the details of the crime, but all the reader has to do is simply sit back and enjoy the ride. It's a pleasure watching how Maigret works to solve the case. It's a joy to walk the streets of Paris with him and I never get tired of watching him eat. Whether its a golden tench baked in the oven, or 'rilletes made locally, coq au vin blanc and, after goat's cheese, rum babas' washed down with a little after dinner cognac, Maigret looks forward to each and every meal.

And I look forward to each and every Maigret.

Facts: 

• This Penguin edition was published 2019.
• Originally titled Maigret et le tueur. 
• Translated by Shaun Whiteside.

My Maigret's:

• 23. Signe Picpus (1944)
• 30. Maigret's First Case (1949)
• 43. Maigret's Mistake (1953)
• 61. Maigret's Anger (1963)
• 62. Maigret and the Ghost (1964)
• 70. Maigret and the Killer (1969)
• A Maigret Christmas

#ParisinJuly

Book 6 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

Je ne Parle pas Français | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

Je ne Parle pas Français, or I Do Not Speak French was written in early 1918 and published in Bliss and other stories (1920).

There is a rather long and complicated story about the publication of this particular short story. It started life as a pamphlet published by Heron Press, which was run by John Middleton Murry (Katherine's husband at the time) and his brother, Richard Arthur Murry. They produced only 100 copies of the story in this format. The press was situated in the home of Murry and Mansfield in Hampstead Heath. Of the 100 copies, 20 were damaged. From the 80 left over, about 60 were sent out to reviewers in early 1920.

Anthony Alpers (The Life of Katherine Mansfield |1980) writes that "this little private-press edition in which it first appeared is very rare... Few know the story in its intended form." 

The December 1920 Constable publication of Bliss and other stories, contains an edited version of Je ne Parle pas Français. Apparently the end of the story in the original is rather different. 

The Norton Critical Edition edited by Vincent O’Sullivan (2006) contains the unedited version. The highlighted text below reveals the original story.

One day when I was standing at the door, watching her go (the African laundress who worked for his family when he was 10 yrs old), she turned round and beckoned to me, nodding and smiling in a strange secret way. I never thought of not following. She took me into a little outhouse at the end of the passage, caught me up in her arms and began kissing me. Ah, those kisses! Especially those kisses inside my ears that nearly deafened me. 

"And then with a soft growl she tore open her bodice and put me to her. When she set me down she took from her pocket a little round fried cake cover with sugar and I reeled along the passage back to our door.

My reaction:

• Wow! That's a HUGE reveal!
• The edited version left me wondering why this memory was so significant to Raoul.
• Did the lack of attention from his parents, make the affection from the laundress significant?
• But instead, we have a situation of power and sexual abuse of an older woman over a young boy.

Raoul never yet made the first advances to any woman:

"Curious, isn’t it? Why should I be able to have any woman I want? I don’t look at all like a maiden’s dream . . . ."

My reaction:

• By this point of the short story, I was convinced that Raoul was gay. 
• The extra sentence would seem to suggestion that perhaps he was bisexual.

Towards the end of the story Raoul says goodnight to a prostitute:

Not until I was half-way down the boulevard did it come over me—the full force of it. Why, they were suffering . . . those two . . . really suffering. I have seen two people suffer as I don’t suppose I ever shall again. . . . And . . . . ‘Goodnight, my little cat,’ said I, impudently, to the fattish old prostitute picking her way home through the slush . . . . I didn’t give her time to reply.

My reaction:

• One of the few times in this story where we see Raoul thinking about others.
• The extra sentence reminds us that he inhabits a fairly squalid part of Paris, despite his higher aspirations.

And so on and so on until some dirty gallant comes up to my table and sits opposite and begins to grimace and yap. Until I hear myself saying: ‘But I’ve got the little girl for you, mon vieux. So little . . . so tiny. And a virgin.’ I kiss the tips of my fingers—‘A virgin’—and lay them upon my heart.

My reaction:

• Without the 'virgin', this paragraph reads like a boast.
• With the 'virgin' it makes Raoul sound like a pimp!

The story’s original ending continues on from the 1920 censored text:

I must go. I must go. I reach down my coat and hat. Madame knows me. ‘You haven’t dined yet?’ she smiles. ‘Not, not yet, Madame. I’d rather like to dine with her. Even to sleep with her afterwards. Would she be pale like that all over? But no. She’d have large moles. They go with that kind of skin. And I can’t bear them. They remind me somehow, disgustingly, of mushrooms.

My reaction:

• The edited end, just ends.
• A man in a cafe, thinking about his next meal.
• The original reasserts the sexual nature that infuses the whole story.
• As well as reinforcing Raoul's ambivalence about the female body.

Francis Carco 1923

Raoul is apparently based on Mansfield's lover Francis Carco, a man with whom she had a brief affair with in 1915. Alpers claims that Mansfield is referring to Carco's cynical attitude towards love and sex via Raoul. 

Her story An Indiscreet Journey (1915) is also based on her journey through the war zone to spend four nights with Carco in Eastern France. 

I wonder if Mansfield was writing a homage to Carco's style of writing or did she think that Carco was gay but didn't know it, bisexual or was this her dig at a failed lover? Either way, Raoul is about as camp as you get in 1918 literature. And a not very pleasant fellow. I suspect the affair did not end well (I hope to know more when the bio about Mansfield that I've ordered finally arrives).

Raoul's penchant for stylish clothes, his flamboyant mannerisms, delusions of grandeur, cutting remarks, and his love/lust infatuation with Dick, the Englishman are all textbook versions of Havelock Ellis' sexual inversion theory, that was prevalent at the time.

My name is Raoul Duquette. I am twenty-six years old and Parisian, a true Parisian. About my family - it really doesn’t matter. I have no family; I don’t want any. I never think about my childhood. I've forgotten it.

Raoul was a gigolo, a dandy, crass, conceited, superficial and sexually ambiguous. He was an unreliable narrator with huge gaps in his story. The whole time I was reading this story, I had a Carly Simon earworm of 'You're So Vain' playing in the background. Raoul loved being front and centre and seemed to be playing to an imaginary audience the whole time. At the same time he was a social outcast, with no family that he will speak of, hanging out in seedy bars and cafes, pretending to be something he isn't, or just hoping that acting the part will make him so.

If a person looks the part, he must be that part.

He pretends to take us into his confidence, but we can never really trust him. He ends up revealing more than he thinks, although we're still left in the dark about pretty much everything. Perhaps this is how Mansfield felt after her brief affair with Carco?

There were a number of themes explored from the use of public and private spaces, the English vs the French and life as a stage (a homage to Shakespeare perhaps?). Metaphors abound with dogs, cats and a mouse, suitcases (to be unpacked) and mirrors (that reflect the surface not the substance).

‘But after all it was you who whistled to me, you who asked me to come! What a spectacle I’ve cut wagging my tail and leaping round you, only to be left like this while the boat sails off in its slow, dreamy way . . . Curse these English! No, this is too insolent altogether. Who do you imagine I am? A little paid guide to the night pleasures of Paris? . . . No, monsieur. I am a young writer, very serious, and extremely interested in modern English literature. And I have been insulted – insulted.’

Ultimately, Raoul is not very likeable.

He's selfish and mean and judgemental. 

He's careless and thoughtless. 

One feels pity for him and fears that he will never find the love and happiness he is so desperately searching for. He may speak French fluently, but he does not know the language of love. And maybe never will.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)

#ParisinJuly

Book Stop #2

Book Stop is an occasional meme that allows me to travel and indulge in a good bookshop browse, during these strange, strange times when we cannot travel outside our home state, let alone the country. I plan to combine my bookish instincts with my itchy feet and explore the world via bookshops.

I have a number of bookstores on my to-visit wish list, if I am ever in that country, state or neighbourhood. This is the perfect time to share some of them and my reasons for wanting to visit (beside the obvious reason, of course!)

This edition of Book Stop will also be combined with Paris In July as we head off to Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris.

In July 1991 I spent three days in Paris. Nowhere near long enough, I'm sure you will all agree. 

We arrived late afternoon and went straight to one of the camping grounds that ring outer Paris. The plan was to set up camp and drive into Paris at sunset so that our first view of Paris proper would be at night, all lit up with the lights that make it so magical. We boarded a Seine River cruise and ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the lights as we glided past all those famous sites I'd only ever read about until that time.

The rest of the evening was spent wandering around the Left Bank, trying to work out how to order and pay for pastries.

Paris was my very first experience in a foreign speaking country. I was 23 and travelling alone within a group. I was rather overwhelmed by the whole thing. So much of my time in Paris is a blur. My photos and a few brief notes in my journal are the only record I have. 

I know I climbed all the stairs up the Eiffel Tower. The lines for the lift were long, even first thing in the morning, and I was young and fit. So climb I did!

1991 was the middle of the Gulf War and we were told that the city wasn't as full as usual with tourists as the war was keeping the American tourists at home. (I had already enjoyed the benefits of this in London during the past 5 months. I was nannying and tripping around the country on the weekends. The weekends I stayed in London, I was able to access last minute tickets for all the West End shows by lining up half an hour before the start. Every show had oodles of returned tickets thanks to the no-show of American tourists. I saw some amazing productions at a great price. No-one likes to perform to a half empty room!)

I still experienced Paris as being busy with bustling, hustling crowds, but apparently, most years it was worse!

The other problem with 1991 travelling, was the smoke haze from the fires in the Gulf. At the top of the Eiffel Tower our view was greatly impaired by the haze. The haze followed us all around Europe that summer.

I also remember climbing all the steps up the belfry of Notre Dame Cathedral in the stifling heat. I tasted escargot for the first (and last) time. I loved buying little cheese snacks at the corner convenience stores. I went through the Musée d-Orsay, walked up the Champs-Élysées and did a dash around the Louvre. But generally, I wandered the streets in a bit of giddy daze. I promised myself that one day I would return, and take my time. I would stay in one of the nicer apartments (not a tent), I would have more money and be a more confident traveller.

When I returned home to Australia four months later, I started a travel wishlist. Whenever I watched a tv program, or read an article, or a book, I would note down places of interest that I wanted to see for myself.

One such note was for the Shakespeare and Company bookstore.

Describe by many as controlled chaos, a place for dreamers and poets, the Shakespeare and Company has a well-known history and an enviable list of famous patrons.

Jeanette Winterson writes in the LitHub,

There’s Hemingway, flexing his fists from the boxing ring, stopping by to pick up a book. James Joyce never arrives before noon and usually needs to borrow money. The big woman with the white poodle is Gertrude Stein. By the stove, beautiful and tired, Djuna Barnes is talking about her novel Nightwood to T. S. Eliot.

Scott Fitzgerald likes to sit and read on the stoop in the sun, and Sylvia Beach has made up her mind to publish Ulysses, because no one else will.

Started by Sylvia Beach in 1919 and now run by George Whitman and his daughter, Sylvia, Shakespeare and Company has changed owners, address and been forced to close due to war and more recently Covid-19. It is now part of Parisian folklore and a must-see for many book-loving travellers.

I, for one, (if international travel ever resumes, and we can return to Europe without quarantining for two weeks), will make Shakespeare and Company my first port of call.

In the meantime, I will endeavour to read one of the many books written about this iconic bookshop.

• Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop | Krista Halverson
• Shakespeare and Company | Sylvia Beach
• Sylvia Beach & The Lost Generation – The History Of Lit Paris In The 20′s & 30′s | Noel Riley Fitch
• Time Was Soft There | Jeremy Mercer
• Sylvia's Bookshop: The Story of Paris's Beloved Bookstore and Its Founder (As Told by the Bookstore Itself!) | Robert Burleigh & illustrated by Katy Wu 
• Down and Out in Paris | The Guardian | 7th March 2009 | Jeanette Winterson

Book Stop #1

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas was read for yet another successful readalong hosted by Nick @One Catholic Life. I know that readalongs are not for everyone, but I love them for a few, very good reasons.

1. They motivate me to read a book (usually a classic) that has been languishing on my TBR pile for far too long. Given that my day job encourages me to read contemporary books, reading my much loved classics is a bit of an indulgence at this point in my life. A well-timed readalong, makes me work out a way to fit it into my schedule though.
2. I love the social nature of a readalong. Most start off in a flurry of twitter activity & posting before settling down into a slower but steadier pace, especially the longer readalongs, which have become my personal preference.
3. Readalongs encourage me to delve into a book and its author, in far greater detail than I normally would.
4. The shared knowledge and constant support of a readalong can keep me going when my enthusiasm flags or we hit a tricky patch.
5. These long range classic readalongs tap very nicely into my slow reading philosophy. Most of the contemporary stories I jump into, are read quickly, before moving onto the next. I also tend to read several books at once. Having a much anticipated classic book that can travel with me leisurely for several months feels like a luxury of the highest degree. 

So, how did I go with this particular readalong?

After bailing halfway through the previous readalong of Don Quixote, I felt determined to not let another classic defeat me. The sense of relief I felt as I quickly realised that this story was much more accessible than Don Quixote was huge. Here was an incredible, melodramatic story full of adventure, twist and turns, that was going to grab my attention and drag me all the way through to the end in a froth of excitement, disbelief and suspense. Given the original serialisation of this story, reading a chapter at a time, allowed me to experience some of the anticipation that the reading public must have felt in 1844. The urge to read ahead onto the next dramatic scene was strong...and I confess, irresistible at times.

I loved this story of intrigue and derring-do. Memory and the act of remembering where strong features. I also appreciated that Dumas did not wrap everything up in a neat tidy bow at the end. Lessons were learnt, people changed and every decision had consequences. But he left us with hope, 'wait and hope'.

Edmond Dantès story is all about justice, punishment, revenge and mercy. It has everything. From wronged imprisonment, lost love, unexpected friendships, nail-biting escapes, sudden wealth, revenge, kidnapping, manipulation, slavery, regret, arranged marriages, murder, second chances, loyalty, deception, revelations, benevolence, forgiveness and lesbians. Dantès original plan to seek revenge on the four men who plotted to imprison him, naturally had unexpected consequences, not only on the four men, but their families and on Dantès himself. Revenge is not sweet, but bittersweet.

The trickiest thing for me to get right with this particular story was the names. People changed their names, remarried and intermarried at a rate of knots. Dantès was also a master of disguise with multiple aliases. I especially struggled to remember who were the four original 'bad guys' who were responsible for getting Edmond arrested in the first place.

Image source

The political elements within the novel intrigued me. Reading so many Zola's in recent times as well as reading Les Misérables last year has given me some appreciation of French revolutionary history. But trying to get my head around the Second Empire and the Second Republic still confuses me. It was obviously also a difficult subject for Dumas and his family.

His father Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born on Haiti in 1762 to a French nobleman, the Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a slave woman of African descent. Thomas-Alexandre was taken to Paris by his father in 1776 to be educated. According to wikipedia, his father sold Marie-Cessette and their three other children before arranging to take Thomas-Alexandre with him to France!

When his father remarried, Thomas-Alexandre decided to take his mother's surname as his own. His son, Alexandre also chose to use Dumas throughout his writing career. Despite their personal successes and aristocratic heritage, both men faced discrimination and racial slurs. Alexandre is famously quoted as saying to someone who insulted him about his African ancestry,

My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.

Thomas-Alexandre entered the army as a private, at age 24, eventually rising to a position during Napoleon's revolutionary army as,

one of the highest-ranking men of African descent ever in a European army. He was the first person of colour in the French military to become brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army. (wikipedia)

Thomas-Alexandre was married in 1792 to Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret from Villers-Cotterêts. They had three children - two daughters Marie-Alexandrine (born 10th September 1794) and Louise-Alexandrine (born January or February 1796, died 1797) and a son, Alexandre Dumas (24th July 1802 – 5th December 1870).

Dumas and Napoleon had a falling out when he criticised Bonaparte for invading Egypt, questioning his leadership skills. He asked to sail home early. On the way his ship was sunk and Dumas was imprisoned in Naples. Bonaparte apparently did very little to help and Dumas was eventually released nearly two years later, malnourished, impoverished and physically broken. Bonaparte ignored all his requests for a military pension and he died five years later. Alexandre was only three years old.

Despite the later amity between Bonaparte and Dumas, it was fairly clear that he held republican beliefs throughout his career.

Alexandre Dumas circa 1832

Alexandre Dumas married in 1840 actress Ida Ferrier but he then followed the custom of many French gentlemen of that time by having numerous affairs (up to 40, so the story goes!) and multiple children with various women including;

• Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895), son of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794–1868). He became a successful novelist and playwright.
• Marie-Alexandrine Dumas (5 March 1831 – 1878), the daughter of Belle Krelsamer (1803–1875).
• Micaëlla-Clélie-Josepha-Élisabeth Cordier (born 1860), the daughter of Emélie Cordier.
• Henry Bauer, the son of a woman whose surname was Bauer.

Young Alexandre started work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans where he began writing articles and plays. In 1830 he participated in the revolution that deposed Charles X to replace him with Louis-Phillipe, the Citizen King. When King Louis-Phillipe was then ousted by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Dumas fled to Belgium in 1851. Around 1859 he moved to Russia for two years where the French speaking elite welcomed him and where his writing was hugely popular. In 1861 he moved to Italy for three years to participate in the movement for Italian unification. He eventually returned to Paris in 1864.
He died 5th December 1870.

• The Count of Monte Cristo was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Serialization ran from 28 August 1844 to 15 January 1846. The first edition in book form was published in Paris by Pétion in 18 volumes with the first two issued in 1844 and the remaining sixteen in 1845.
• Dumas used a collaborating ghost writer, Auguste Maquet, who was responsible for suggesting plot outlines.
• The story was probably based on the real life events of a shoemaker from Nimes, Pierre Picaud.
• My 2012 Coralie Bickford-Smith designed Penguin Classics edition was originally translated into English by Robin Buss in 1996. According to wikipedia,

Buss' translation updated the language, making the text more accessible to modern readers, and restored content that was modified in the 1846 translation because of Victorian English social restrictions (for example, references to Eugénie's lesbian traits and behaviour) to reflect Dumas' original version.

A huge thank you to Nick for hosting another fabulous readalong and for all my fellow readalongers who have tweeted, commented and generally been friendly and supportive throughout our time together. Tackling these chunkster classics in such fine company is a huge part of why I continue to join in despite personal time pressures, work commitments and new release overload.
I can't wait to see what Nick has in store for us next year!

Book 22 of 20 Books of Summer Winter.

Maigret and the Ghost #62 by Georges Simenon

Reading a Maigret or two during Paris in July has now become one of those things that I look forward to with a great deal of anticipation each year. Because of this though, I now associate Maigret with dreary, winter nights and rainy days (although not so much of the rain this year). My last two Maigret's, which were both set in Paris in high summer, had me all turned upside down and seasonally confused.

Fortunately Maigret and the Ghost takes us back to winter in Paris, and it feels like the seasons (if not the months) are back in sync for now.

This was mid-November and it had rained all day. Maigret hadn't left the stiflingly hot atmosphere of his office since eight o'clock the previous morning. Before crossing the courtyard, he turned up the collar of his overcoat.

I classify these crime stories as cosy, simply because even though people die we don't then have detailed forensic information or grisly crime scenes raked over by specialists using all sorts of forensic jargon. This type of gory story seems to dominate many of the modern crime stories, which is why I don't read (or watch) them. It's not my thing.

The Maigret's are pure detective story. The books are about the man, more than the crime. He is our hero that we come to admire, if not love, with each book. We get to know his techniques and his moods. The pleasure in reading comes from watching Maigret untangle the clues. His psychological methods and intuition become familiar and reliable.

In this case, we see Maigret, weary after coming off an all-nighter solving another unrelated crime, suddenly being informed of a shooting incident involving an inspector from a neighbouring precinct. Maigret quickly realises that his colleague was onto something big and that time is of the essence to stop another major criminal act from taking place. Art smuggling, forgeries, kidnapping and blackmail are the crimes with missing witnesses, nosy neighbours and deceptive suspects the spanners in the works.

It may be a little weird to say a crime novel was a lot of fun, but when Simenon gets it right, watching Maigret piece it all together is such a joy. This is one of the Maigret's where Simenon gets out of the way and lets Maigret do all the work instead.

Highly recommended.

Series:

• 1. The Strange Case of Peter the Lett, The Case of Peter the Lett, Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett (1931)
• 2. The Crime at Lock 14, Maigret Meets a Milord, Lock 14 (1931)
• 3. The Death of Monsieur Gallet, Maigret Stonewalled (1931)
• 4. The Crime of Inspector Maigret, Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets (1931)
• 5. A Battle of Nerves, Maigret's War of Nerves, A Man's Head (1931)
• 6. A Face for a Clue, Maigret and the Concarneau Murders, Maigret and the Yellow Dog, The Yellow Dog (1931)
• 7. The Crossroad Murders, Maigret at the Crossroads (1931)
• 8. A Crime in Holland, Maigret in Holland (1931)
• 9. The Sailor's Rendezvous (1931)
• 10. At the "Gai Moulin", Maigret at the "Gai Moulin" (1931)
• 11. Guinguette by the Seine, Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine, The Bar on the Seine (1931)
• 12. The Shadow in the Courtyard, Maigret Mystified (1932)
• 13. Maigret and the Countess, The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Maigret Goes Home, Maigret on Home Ground (1932)
• 14. The Flemish Shop, Maigret and the Flemish Shop (1932)
• 15. Death of a Harbo(u)r Master, Maigret and the Death of a Harbor Master (1932)
• 16. The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
• 17. Liberty Bar, Maigret on the Riviera (1932)
• 18. The Lock at Charenton (1933)
• 19. Maigret Returns (1934)
• 20. Maigret and the Hotel Majestic (1942)
• 21. Maigret in Exile (1942)
• 22. Maigret and the Spinster (1942)
• 23. To Any Lengths, Signe Picpus, Maigret and the Fortuneteller (1944)
• 24. Maigret and the Toy Village (1944)
• 25. Maigret's Rival, Inspector Cadaver (1944)
• 26. Maigret in Retirement (1947)
• 27. Maigret in New York, Inspector Maigret in New York's Underworld, Maigret in New York's Underworld (1947)
• 28. A Summer Holiday, No Vacation for Maigret, Maigret on Holiday (1948)
• 29. Maigret's Dead Man, Maigret's Special Murder (1948)
• 30. Maigret's First Case (1949)
• 31. My Friend Maigret, The Methods of Maigret (1949)
• 32. Maigret at the Coroner's (1949)
• 33. Maigret and the Old Lady (1950)
• 34. Madame Maigret's Own Case, Madame Maigret's Friend, The Friend of Madame Maigret (1950)
• 35. Maigret's Memoirs (1951)
• 36. Maigret and the Strangled Stripper, Maigret in Montmartre, Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper (1951)
• 37. Maigret Takes a Room, Maigret Rents a Room (1951)
• 38. Inspector Maigret and the Burglar's Wife, Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1951)
• 39. Inspector Maigret and the Killers, Maigret and the Gangsters (1952)
• 40. Maigret's Revolver (1952)
• 41. Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard, Maigret and the Man on the Bench (1953)
• 42. Maigret Afraid (1953)
• 43. Maigret's Mistake (1953)
• 44. Maigret Goes to School (1954)
• 45. Inspector Maigret and the Dead Girl, Maigret and the Young Girl (1954)
• 46. Maigret and the Minister, Maigret and the Calame Report (1955)
• 47. Maigret and the Headless Corpse (1955)
• 48. Maigret Sets a Trap (1955)
• 49. Maigret's Failure (1956)
• 50. Maigret's Little Joke, None of Maigret's Business (1957)
• 51. Maigret and the Millionaires (1958)
• 52. Maigret Has Scruples (1958)
• 53. Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses (1959)
• 54. Maigret Has Doubts (1959)
• 55. Maigret in Court (1960)
• 56. Maigret in Society (1960)
• 57. Maigret and the Lazy Burglar (1961)
• 58. Maigret and the Black Sheep (1962)
• 59. Maigret and the Saturday Caller (1962)
• 60. Maigret and the Dosser, Maigret and the Bum (1963)
• 61. Maigret Loses His Temper, Maigret's Anger (1963)
• 62. Maigret and the Ghost, Maigret and the Apparition (1964)
• 63. Maigret on the Defensive (1964)
• 64. The Patience of Maigret, Maigret Bides His Time (1965)
• 65. Maigret and the Nahour Case (1967)
• 66. Maigret's Pickpocket (1967)
• 67. Maigret Takes the Waters, Maigret in Vichy (1968)
• 68. Maigret Hesitates (1968)
• 69. Maigret's Boyhood Friend (1968)
• 70. Maigret and the Killer (1969)
• 71. Maigret and the Wine Merchant (1970)
• 72. Maigret and the Madwoman (1970)
• 73. Maigret and the Loner (1971)
• 74. Maigret and the Flea, Maigret and the Informer (1971)
• 75. Maigret and Monsieur Charles (1972)
• A Maigret Christmas

Book 14 of 20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 19℃
Dublin 23℃

Maigret's Anger #61 by Georges Simenon

Maigret's Anger is my fifth Maigret. It was probably the lightest, easiest one of the lot so far, but it was also very atmospheric. Paris in summer hummed and sweated along in the background as Maigret worked a case around his old beat, in Montmartre.

It was almost as hot that evening as it had been during the day. Maigret went for a walk with his wife and sat outside a cafe in Place de la Republique, nursing a glass of beer for almost an hour.

They talked mainly about their holidays. Many of the men passing by had their jackets over their arms; most of the women were wearing cotton print dresses.

The case was fairly simple to solve, but it got extremely personal when Maigret realised that his good name had been taken in vain by a blackmailing lawyer playing a very lucrative game with his clients. Maigret's anger is of the steely, self-contained kind. He brooks no arguments or discussion. The guilty flounder (and confess) before his quiet fury.

Fortunately Maigret has his favourite Sunday treat to look forward to - a visit to Morsang-sur-Seine with Madame Maigret and his favourite hotel: Vieux-Garcon.

Reading up on it, he had discovered that Balzac and Alexandre Dumas had once been regular visitors, and that later the Goncourt Brothers, Flaubert, Zola, Alphonse Daudet and others had attended literary lunches there.

They ended up spending a peaceful Sunday by the river...around ten o'clock, as they were finishing their breakfast under the trees, watching the sails manoeuvring on the water, Madame Maigret murmured: 'Aren't you going fishing?'

As a starting point for my #ParisinJuly 2019 campaign, it was ideal. To the point and a reminder of warmer, gentler times.

Favourite Quote: because it sums up Maigret perfectly.

He had the heavy, stubborn look he wore in the doldrums of an investigation, when he didn't know how to proceed and was half-heartedly trying every angle.

Facts:

• Translated by William Hobson (who I've just discovered also translated Max Gallo's Napoleon series into English.)

New Word:

• belote - a popular 32 card, trick-taking, card game invented in France around 1920.

Series:

• 1. The Strange Case of Peter the Lett, The Case of Peter the Lett, Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett (1931)
• 2. The Crime at Lock 14, Maigret Meets a Milord, Lock 14 (1931)
• 3. The Death of Monsieur Gallet, Maigret Stonewalled (1931)
• 4. The Crime of Inspector Maigret, Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets (1931)
• 5. A Battle of Nerves, Maigret's War of Nerves, A Man's Head (1931)
• 6. A Face for a Clue, Maigret and the Concarneau Murders, Maigret and the Yellow Dog, The Yellow Dog (1931)
• 7. The Crossroad Murders, Maigret at the Crossroads (1931)
• 8. A Crime in Holland, Maigret in Holland (1931)
• 9. The Sailor's Rendezvous (1931)
• 10. At the "Gai Moulin", Maigret at the "Gai Moulin" (1931)
• 11. Guinguette by the Seine, Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine, The Bar on the Seine (1931)
• 12. The Shadow in the Courtyard, Maigret Mystified (1932)
• 13. Maigret and the Countess, The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Maigret Goes Home, Maigret on Home Ground (1932)
• 14. The Flemish Shop, Maigret and the Flemish Shop (1932)
• 15. Death of a Harbo(u)r Master, Maigret and the Death of a Harbor Master (1932)
• 16. The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
• 17. Liberty Bar, Maigret on the Riviera (1932)
• 18. The Lock at Charenton (1933)
• 19. Maigret Returns (1934)
• 20. Maigret and the Hotel Majestic (1942)
• 21. Maigret in Exile (1942)
• 22. Maigret and the Spinster (1942)
• 23. To Any Lengths, Signe Picpus, Maigret and the Fortuneteller (1944)
• 24. Maigret and the Toy Village (1944)
• 25. Maigret's Rival, Inspector Cadaver (1944)
• 26. Maigret in Retirement (1947)
• 27. Maigret in New York, Inspector Maigret in New York's Underworld, Maigret in New York's Underworld (1947)
• 28. A Summer Holiday, No Vacation for Maigret, Maigret on Holiday (1948)
• 29. Maigret's Dead Man, Maigret's Special Murder (1948)
• 30. Maigret's First Case (1949)
• 31. My Friend Maigret, The Methods of Maigret (1949)
• 32. Maigret at the Coroner's (1949)
• 33. Maigret and the Old Lady (1950)
• 34. Madame Maigret's Own Case, Madame Maigret's Friend, The Friend of Madame Maigret (1950)
• 35. Maigret's Memoirs (1951)
• 36. Maigret and the Strangled Stripper, Maigret in Montmartre, Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper (1951)
• 37. Maigret Takes a Room, Maigret Rents a Room (1951)
• 38. Inspector Maigret and the Burglar's Wife, Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1951)
• 39. Inspector Maigret and the Killers, Maigret and the Gangsters (1952)
• 40. Maigret's Revolver (1952)
• 41. Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard, Maigret and the Man on the Bench (1953)
• 42. Maigret Afraid (1953)
• 43. Maigret's Mistake (1953)
• 44. Maigret Goes to School (1954)
• 45. Inspector Maigret and the Dead Girl, Maigret and the Young Girl (1954)
• 46. Maigret and the Minister, Maigret and the Calame Report (1955)
• 47. Maigret and the Headless Corpse (1955)
• 48. Maigret Sets a Trap (1955)
• 49. Maigret's Failure (1956)
• 50. Maigret's Little Joke, None of Maigret's Business (1957)
• 51. Maigret and the Millionaires (1958)
• 52. Maigret Has Scruples (1958)
• 53. Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses (1959)
• 54. Maigret Has Doubts (1959)
• 55. Maigret in Court (1960)
• 56. Maigret in Society (1960)
• 57. Maigret and the Lazy Burglar (1961)
• 58. Maigret and the Black Sheep (1962)
• 59. Maigret and the Saturday Caller (1962)
• 60. Maigret and the Dosser, Maigret and the Bum (1963)
• 61. Maigret Loses His Temper, Maigret's Anger (1963)
• 62. Maigret and the Ghost, Maigret and the Apparition (1964)
• 63. Maigret on the Defensive (1964)
• 64. The Patience of Maigret, Maigret Bides His Time (1965)
• 65. Maigret and the Nahour Case (1967)
• 66. Maigret's Pickpocket (1967)
• 67. Maigret Takes the Waters, Maigret in Vichy (1968)
• 68. Maigret Hesitates (1968)
• 69. Maigret's Boyhood Friend (1968)
• 70. Maigret and the Killer (1969)
• 71. Maigret and the Wine Merchant (1970)
• 72. Maigret and the Madwoman (1970)
• 73. Maigret and the Loner (1971)
• 74. Maigret and the Flea, Maigret and the Informer (1971)
• 75. Maigret and Monsieur Charles (1972)
• A Maigret Christmas

Book 11 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

Sydney 19℃

Dublin 20℃

The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola

Le Ventre de Paris (also known as The Belly of Paris - a direct translation, or The Fat and the Thin
referring to one of the main ideas explored in the story) is not only an extremely visual story, but a visceral one too.

Zola's descriptions of the food markets at Les Halles are colourful, very detailed and lengthy! He leaves no basket or barrow unturned. Every smell is documented including the decaying, the over-ripe and the composted.

The political and social injustices of the times are also symbolised in the Les Halles markets and reinforced by the various natures of the people who live and work there.

Many of Zola's standard themes are explored here - moral ambiguity, excess, waste, realism, gluttony, materialism, decadence, the haves and the have-nots. Consumerism, in particular, is placed under the Zola microscope in The Belly of Paris, as is the whole idea of spying, voyeurism, surveillance and gossip. Everyone watches everyone else and everyone discusses it with anyone who will listen.

One of the curiosities, for me, in this story and the previous Zola, La Curée is the whole push & pull against the renovation of Paris by Haussmann. On the one hand there is a real sense of loss and nostalgia for 'Old Paris', yet there's also an appreciation of the improved sanitation and open spaces that the clean up achieved. Zola writes about the tension between the corruption and the dynamism inherent in this process in all of his books.

It makes me think of the current concerns many Sydney-siders feel for the major road work and light rail projects happening around the city right now. I hear lots of people bemoaning the changing face of Sydney and the loss of old Sydney and that things will never be the same again. That it will make things worse not better. As a devotee of museums and history, I know that these exact same sentiments were expressed in the 1920's when large areas of The Rocks and North Sydney were pulled down to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

No-one in Sydney, or visiting Sydney, could now imagine it without our beautiful, graceful bridge spanning the harbour. It is instagrammed and hashtagged on an hourly basis all around the world. Just like we now love and appreciate the beautiful, graceful boulevards and open spaces created by Haussmann in Paris. Neither city misses the slums or narrow, crowded streets that were razed to create these beautiful new spaces.

At the time, the fear of change and sentimentality stopped many of the locals from seeing the possible beauty or improved functionality that would result from the change. They could not imagine that future generations would be grateful for the sacrifice and upheaval required to update, move forward and 'future-proof' their city.

I'm not suggesting that our current west connex, north connex & light rail projects will ever be considered beautiful, charming and elegant by future generations, that might be stretching the friendship too far, but they will add (in part) a functionality to our city that is currently lacking. Sadly our particular project is not being managed by a larger-than-life character like Haussmann. His bold vision is sadly lacking in Sydney. But then a large factor in his work was to make it easier for governments to police the city and stop the barricades - a practical, controversial consideration that upset many at the time. Yet the Champs Elysee was born. And who could now imagine Paris without the Champs Elysee?

Une Boutique de Charcuterie (1873) by Edouard Jean Dambourgez

To get back to Zola's main theme in The Belly of Paris, though, let's start with Claude Lantier (the artist based on Paul Cezanne) during his 'Battle of the Fat and the Thin' discussion,

In these pictures Claude saw the entire drama of human life; and he ended by dividing everyone into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other and grows fat and sleek and endlessly enjoys itself.

'Cain', he said, 'was a Fat man and Abel a Thin one. Ever since that first murder, the big eaters have sucked the lifeblood out of the small eaters. The strong constantly prey on the weak....Beware of the Fat, my friend!'

Gavard is Fat, but the sort that pretends to be Thin....Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Lecœur are Thin, but the kind to beware of - Thin people desperate to be Fat. My friend Marjolin, little Cadine, La Sarriette, they're all Fat. They don't know it yet, because they're so young and innocent. It must be said that the Fat , before they get older, are charming creatures.

Zola not only sees the modern trend in a division between the haves and have nots, the takers and the givers, but relates it back to the very beginning of human story. Since the beginning of time, we have been creating stories to bring to light our differences; what does it say about us, I wonder, that we are still telling the same stories thousands of years later?

Are we slow learners? Do we never learn from the lessons of history? Does every generation have to re-invent the wheel? Or are we just eternally interested in ourselves and our stories?

References to Les Halles are everywhere throughout the story and read like paintings. Fortunately many, many artists have painted these scenes, including the one chosen for the cover of the Oxford University Press edition by Victor-Gabriel Gilbert, The Square in Front of Les Halles 1880.

Brian Nelson in his Introduction explains that Zola 'combines the vision of a painter with the approach of a sociologist and reporter.' Below are a few of my favourite examples.

Les Halles 1895 by Léon Lhermitte

The opening to the Rue Rambteau was blocked by a barricade of orange pumpkins in two rows, sprawling at their ease and swelling out their bellies. Here and there gleamed the varnished golden-brown of a basket of onions, the blood-red of a heap of tomatoes, the soft yellow of a display of cucumbers, and the deep mauve of aubergines.

Les Halles

That church is a piece of bastard architecture, made up of the death agony of the Middle Ages and the birth pains of the Renaissance....There it is with its rose windows, and without a congregation, while Les Halles keep growing next to it.

Les Halles 1879 by Jean Beraud

A huge arcade, a gaping doorway, would open to his gaze; and the markets seemed to crowd up one on top of the other, with their two lines of roof, their countless shutters and blinds...a vast Babylonian structure of metal wonderfully delicate in its workmanship, and criss-crossed by hanging gardens, aerial galleries, and flying buttresses.

Les Halles and St Eustache by Eugene Galien-Laloue

The giant markets, overflowing with food, had brought things to a head. They seemed like some satiated beast, embodying Paris itself, grown enormously fat, and silently supporting the Empire.

Still Life with Cheese 1870's by Antoine Vollon.

The warm afternoon sun had softened the cheeses; the mould on the rinds was melting and glazing over with the rich colours of red copper verdigris, like wounds that have badly healed; under the oak leaves, a breeze lifted the skins of the olivets, which seemed to move up and down with the slow deep breathing of a man asleep.

Favourite Character: Maybe not my favourite character, but certainly, for me, the most memorable was La Belle Lisa 'she was a steady, sensible Macquart, reasonable and logical in her craving for well-being.' Quietly ambitious, determined, hard-working, voluptuous. Lisa embodies the bourgeoisie sensibility of looking out for oneself and turning a blind eye to the larger problems within society as being none of her business and beyond her control to do anything about anyway.

Favourite or Forget: As I slowly read Zola's books in chronological order for Fanda's #Zoladdiction each year, they all become forever burnt onto my memory. The abundance of food descriptions and Zola's play with homographs (trifle, ripening, fruit, sweetly etc) made this one a fun read. I think this particular OWC cover is my favourite of all the Zola covers.

Facts: Le Ventre de Paris was serialised in the daily newspaper L'État from 12 January to 17 March 1873. It's the third book in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series.

A Maigret Christmas by Georges Simenon

A Maigret Christmas contains three very different stories by Georges Simenon - A Maigret Christmas, Seven Small Crosses in a Notebook and The Restaurant near Place des Ternes - yet they all share a similar sense of melancholy and loneliness.

In Simenon's world, Christmas is not a time for goodwill and cheer, so seasonally well-adjusted readers beware! Instead, in these three stories, we visit long, cold night shifts, suicides and lonely prostitutes. The title story (first published in 1950) is the only one that features Maigret though. The other two are set in his world, his time and his place and provide an interesting backstory or subtext to his other stories.

The descriptions of Christmas Eve in all three were evocative of the season, but the paragraph that has stuck with me is the image of the two Maigret's carefully avoiding a certain topic all day,

He didn't feel depressed exactly. It was just that his dream - which he still could not remember - had left him with raw nerves. And anyway maybe it wasn't the dream but Christmas itself. He was going to have to tread carefully all day, weigh his words, just as Madame Maigret had calibrated her movements as she got out of bed, for she too would be a little more prickly than usual...But enough of that! Don't even think about it! Don't say a word that might bring up that subject. And later on, don't look out on to the street too often when the kids came out of doors and started showing off their toys.

If you love Maigret and his ever patient wife, then this little titbit about their personal circumstances will break your heart. That this particular case involves a young girl, who by the end, will be in need of care and guardianship for a while, is a bittersweet outcome, that sees Maigret saying to Madame Maigret,

"Not ours to keep, no. Just on loan. I thought it would be better than nothing and that you'd be happy."

Seven Small Crosses was first published in 1951 and first translated into English in 1976. It features Lecoeur, one of the night shift 'owls' manning the police control room, taking emergency calls and patching through information to all the stations around Paris.

Lecoeur is hard-working, dedicated and very meticulous. These days he may even be diagnosed with high-functioning autism. A late-night strange set of incidents begins to take on a sinister and very personal meaning when he realises that his young nephew may have witnessed a murder and is on the run. Normally police procedural stories leave me cold, but the personal elements in this one, that were revealed gradually, created a great deal of tension and suspense.

The final, very short story (also referred to as A Christmas Story For Grown-Ups) begins with a suicide and ends with a drunken brawl between a prostitute and a young women attempting to get on the game. The older cynical prostitute guesses what is happening when she witnesses two men slowing getting the young ingenue drunker and drunker in a bar. She intervenes, even though she's not quite sure why. Perhaps it's because they come from the same small village outside Paris? Or perhaps it's because everyone should 'want to be Father Christmas' just once in their life.

'Just imagine if, once in their lives, everybody behaved like Father Christmas...Just imagine it, right?...Just once...And when you think of how many people there are on this earth...'

Yes, just imagine.

For Audrey With Love: Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy by Philip Hopman

Over the years I have developed a rather strong love and admiration for both famous Hepburn's. Katharine for her fierce independence and uncompromising approach to life and love...as well as her wonderful, eclectic movie choices. And Audrey for her style, her big heart and her amazing cast of leading men!

Therefore For Audrey With Love was always going to attract my attention.

Philip Hopman is a Dutch author/illustrator who briefly studied fashion design before switching to illustration. His colourful pen and ink drawings capture Audrey's style and elegance perfectly.

The first few pages are a little difficult to follow as the narrative runs two parallel stories until Audrey and Givenchy meet for the first time. The language is a bit stilted and dare I say, inane. The translation was done by Ann de Clercq-Foley, so not sure if the problem lies with her or with the original.

However, it's the drawings that make this picture book so appealing. They're fun and oozing panache. It's a visual feast of fashion rather than a strict factual story; a loving tribute rather than a faithful biography; a pictorial version of fictionalised fiction.

One of the curious spreads was the one above, where the top row depicts other famous women who also enjoyed wearing Givenchy designs, but the bottom row shows Audrey experimenting with other styles, "but everything she tried was stupid".
Stupid?

I'm not sure if Audrey ever had the need or the opportunity to wear a Dorothy outfit, or Marilyn's revealing white dress or even Maria's convent dress from The Sound of Music. Audrey's My Fair Lady costume was a costume and it suited the purposes of the movie, so I wouldn't call it stupid either. It was an odd choice of word that sucked some of the intended humour out of the drawings.

The gorgeous double page spread showing off Audrey's Breakfast at Tiffany's outfit is stunning, but sideways!

Whereas the Funny Face sequence was a celebration of diversity and normal, everyday style with normal, everyday people. 

The friendship between the Audrey and Givenchy was something I didn't know much about...which caused me to google it...as you do!

From UK Vogue 2011:

Givenchy first met his iconic muse, Audrey Hepburn, in 1953, in a romantic twist of fate that rivals any of her films. He had in fact been expecting Katharine as the Mademoiselle Hepburn he was to dress for the forthcoming picture Sabrina. Audrey is said to have arrived in a tied-up T-shirt, tight trousers, sandals and a gondolier's hat on the day that sparked the beginning of a 40-year friendship. 

Givenchy went on to design the actress' personal ensembles, as well as those made famous by her in timeless films such as Funny Face, Sabrina, and of course Breakfast
at Tiffany's."The little black dress is the hardest thing to realise," he told the Independent in an interview in 2010, "because you must keep it simple." In the words of Hepburn,
Givenchy to her was more than a couturier, and indeed she to him far more than a muse. Theirs was a relationship not only of professional advantages, as they propelled one another into the royalty of their respective worlds, but one of deep and long-lasting affection, that would continue for more than forty years.

Wikipedia had this to say about their collaboration:

In addition to Sabrina, Givenchy designed her costumes for Love in the Afternoon (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Funny Face (1957), Charade(1963), Paris When It Sizzles (1964) and How to Steal a Million (1966), as well as clothed her off screen.  

According to Moseley, fashion plays an unusually central role in many of Hepburn's films, stating that "the costume is not tied to the character, functioning 'silently' in the mise-en-scène, but as 'fashion' becomes an attraction in the aesthetic in its own right". Hepburn herself stated that Givenchy "gave me a look, a kind, a silhouette. He has always been the best and he stayed the best. Because he kept the spare style that I love. What is more beautiful than a simple sheath made an extraordinary way in a special fabric, and just two earrings?"  

She also became the face of Givenchy's first perfume, L'Interdit, in 1957. 

In addition to her partnership with Givenchy, Hepburn was credited with boosting the sales of Burberry trench coats when she wore one in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and was associated with Italian footwear brand Tod's.

I was unable to find an image source for the above photograph - it was all over the interweb - but a lovely tribute to their friendship was in the Harper Bazaar earlier this year and it featured this photo as well.

For Audrey With Love is a lovely picture book about fashion and friendship. But it is Audrey's classic beauty, style and grace that shines from every page.

#ParisinJuly Week 3 update @Thyme For Tea

Miagret's First Case by Georges Simenon

Maigret's First Case is my second Georges Simenon book. I'm not reading the Maigret books in any particular order and so far it doesn't seem to matter. Especially as this one, #30 in the series, is a flashback to Maigret's early days in the police force and, as such, provides an insight into how his particular way of working a case came about.

One of the joys of reading a book during a particular reading challenge like Paris in July is that it encourages me to adjust the lens through which I experience the story. Usually when I read books set in other countries, I have nothing more than a vague sense of the geography or the streets the characters might be walking down. But thanks to Paris in July I googled the address where the main action occurs in Maigret's First Case - 17A Rue Chaptal.

It was seven o'clock when Maigret took possession, as it were, of Rue Chaptal....There are bustling streets full of shops and cafes where it is easy to blend in, but Rue Chaptal is not one of them. Short and wide, it has no shops and very few people use it.

All the curtains of the Gendreau-Balthazar mansion were tightly drawn, as in most of the houses in the street. Maigret loitered on one corner and then another, feeling rather conspicuous.

Luckily the Vieux Calvados on the corner of Rue Henner, almost opposite the Gendreaus', had just opened. It was the only place in the street that offered Maigret a refuge....The place itself was rather extraordinary. In this street of private mansions and expensive apartment buildings, the Vieux Calvados looked like a country inn that had been forgotten when Paris spread. The building was low and narrow with a little step down into a rather dark, very cool room with a dull pewter counter. The bottles looked as if they had been standing there for ever.

Google street view allows you to move around the street to see that, yes, it is indeed short and wide with no shops, just a couple of cafes on the corners. I could hear the cry for help from the second floor windows, I could see Minard banging on the door to try to help, and later, Maigret lurking around trying to be inconspicuous as he works his first surveillance.

I also learnt about sausages, andouille from Brittany in particular. Poor Maigret was forced to eat plates of the stuff as well as down glass after glass of calvodos while he staked out the house above. Andouille is,

a coarse-grained sausage made with pork, intestines or chitterlings, pepper, wine, onions, and seasonings. Tripe, which is the stomach lining of a cow, is sometimes an ingredient in the filler of an andouillette, but it is not the casing or the key to its manufacture. True andouillette will be an oblong tube. If made with the small intestine, it is a plump sausage generally about 25 mm in diameter but often it is much larger, possibly 7–10 cm in diameter, and stronger in scent when the colon is used (andouille). True andouillette is rarely seen outside France and has a strong, distinctive odour related to its intestinal origins and components. Although sometimes repellent to the uninitiated, this aspect of andouillette is prized by its devotees. (wikipedia)

Calvodos is an apple brandy from the Normandy region:

Calvados can be served as an apéritif, blended in drinks, between meals, as a digestif, or with coffee. Well-made calvados should naturally be reminiscent of apples and pears, balanced with flavours of aging. The less-aged calvados distinguishes itself with its fresh apple and pear aromas. The longer the calvados is aged, the more the taste resembles that of any other aged brandy. (wikipedia)

I enjoyed this trip through 1913 Paris with a young, newly married Maigret. I'm not sure if I will ever read all 75 books, but I'll be very happy to read whichever ones happen to cross my path. This particular one was translated by Ros Schwartz for Penguin in 2016.

I'll finish with another of Simenon's descriptions of Paris. This time Maigret had been staking out a suspect around the Arc de Triomphe.

It wasn't until eight o'clock that evening, when it was dark and the avenue radiating from the Arc de Triomphe were outlined by the pearly glow from the gas lamps, that Maigret, who was beginning to lose hope, finally found what he was looking for.

He had a golden memory of that afternoon, Paris at its most beautiful, the spring air so mild and fragrant that people stopped to inhale it.  

Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, watercolor by John Salminen

• 1. The Strange Case of Peter the Lett, The Case of Peter the Lett, Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett (1931)
• 2. The Crime at Lock 14, Maigret Meets a Milord, Lock 14 (1931)
• 3. The Death of Monsieur Gallet, Maigret Stonewalled (1931)
• 4. The Crime of Inspector Maigret, Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets (1931)
• 5. A Battle of Nerves, Maigret's War of Nerves, A Man's Head (1931)
• 6. A Face for a Clue, Maigret and the Concarneau Murders, Maigret and the Yellow Dog, The Yellow Dog (1931)
• 7. The Crossroad Murders, Maigret at the Crossroads (1931)
• 8. A Crime in Holland, Maigret in Holland (1931)
• 9. The Sailor's Rendezvous (1931)
• 10. At the "Gai Moulin", Maigret at the "Gai Moulin" (1931)
• 11. Guinguette by the Seine, Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine, The Bar on the Seine (1931)
• 12. The Shadow in the Courtyard, Maigret Mystified (1932)
• 13. Maigret and the Countess, The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Maigret Goes Home, Maigret on Home Ground (1932)
• 14. The Flemish Shop, Maigret and the Flemish Shop (1932)
• 15. Death of a Harbo(u)r Master, Maigret and the Death of a Harbor Master (1932)
• 16. The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
• 17. Liberty Bar, Maigret on the Riviera (1932)
• 18. The Lock at Charenton (1933)
• 19. Maigret Returns (1934)
• 20. Maigret and the Hotel Majestic (1942)
• 21. Maigret in Exile (1942)
• 22. Maigret and the Spinster (1942)
• 23. To Any Lengths, Maigret and the Fortuneteller (1944)
• 24. Maigret and the Toy Village (1944)
• 25. Maigret's Rival, Inspector Cadaver (1944)
• 26. Maigret in Retirement (1947)
• 27. Maigret in New York, Inspector Maigret in New York's Underworld, Maigret in New York's Underworld (1947)
• 28. A Summer Holiday, No Vacation for Maigret, Maigret on Holiday (1948)
• 29. Maigret's Dead Man, Maigret's Special Murder (1948)
• 30. Maigret's First Case (1949)
• 31. My Friend Maigret, The Methods of Maigret (1949)
• 32. Maigret at the Coroner's (1949)
• 33. Maigret and the Old Lady (1950)
• 34. Madame Maigret's Own Case, Madame Maigret's Friend, The Friend of Madame Maigret (1950)
• 35. Maigret's Memoirs (1951)
• 36. Maigret and the Strangled Stripper, Maigret in Montmartre, Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper (1951)
• 37. Maigret Takes a Room, Maigret Rents a Room (1951)
• 38. Inspector Maigret and the Burglar's Wife, Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1951)
• 39. Inspector Maigret and the Killers, Maigret and the Gangsters (1952)
• 40. Maigret's Revolver (1952)
• 41. Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard, Maigret and the Man on the Bench (1953)
• 42. Maigret Afraid (1953)
• 43. Maigret's Mistake (1953)
• 44. Maigret Goes to School (1954)
• 45. Inspector Maigret and the Dead Girl, Maigret and the Young Girl (1954)
• 46. Maigret and the Minister, Maigret and the Calame Report (1955)
• 47. Maigret and the Headless Corpse (1955)
• 48. Maigret Sets a Trap (1955)
• 49. Maigret's Failure (1956)
• 50. Maigret's Little Joke, None of Maigret's Business (1957)
• 51. Maigret and the Millionaires (1958)
• 52. Maigret Has Scruples (1958)
• 53. Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses (1959)
• 54. Maigret Has Doubts (1959)
• 55. Maigret in Court (1960)
• 56. Maigret in Society (1960)
• 57. Maigret and the Lazy Burglar (1961)
• 58. Maigret and the Black Sheep (1962)
• 59. Maigret and the Saturday Caller (1962)
• 60. Maigret and the Dosser, Maigret and the Bum (1963)
• 61. Maigret Loses His Temper (1963)
• 62. Maigret and the Ghost, Maigret and the Apparition (1964)
• 63. Maigret on the Defensive (1964)
• 64. The Patience of Maigret, Maigret Bides His Time (1965)
• 65. Maigret and the Nahour Case (1967)
• 66. Maigret's Pickpocket (1967)
• 67. Maigret Takes the Waters, Maigret in Vichy (1968)
• 68. Maigret Hesitates (1968)
• 69. Maigret's Boyhood Friend (1968)
• 70. Maigret and the Killer (1969)
• 71. Maigret and the Wine Merchant (1970)
• 72. Maigret and the Madwoman (1970)
• 73. Maigret and the Loner (1971)
• 74. Maigret and the Flea, Maigret and the Informer (1971)
• 75. Maigret and Monsieur Charles (1972)

I hope this post makes sense as Mr Books & I have been suffering under heavy colds all weekend. Like Maigret at the end of this story with his major concussion, we feel befuddled and confused and probably should be keeping to our beds, but like Maigret we're soldiering on. For now.

#ParisinJuly
Book 8 of #20booksofsummer (winter)
19℃ in Sydney
18℃ in Northern Ireland 😃