It's a zoo dans le metro!

The Paris metro is running a series of ads to encourage good behavior among passengers. For the most part, it seems to be working:

I like the chewing-gum-spitting llama the best!

No worries. I'm still here.

This was a very busy week. On Sunday evening, my Austrian friend Marie got into town, on her way back home after spending the summer working in Antibes. We spent a fair bit of time hanging out together during the week. Here she is, looking horrified at the lack of respect accorded her king:

You'd think that the pigeons would show a little more respect towards the "roi de la valse". But no.

On Monday evening my friend Michael came to stay for the week, on his way home to San Jose (he left this morning). Fortunately, the sofabed was comfier than it looked. Here he is, at dinner yesterday evening:

The profiteroles were excellent, as usual. I would gladly have shared them with Michael, but he is gluten-intolerant, so was not interested. I made the ultimate sacrifice and ate them all myself, as he noshed on his creme brulee, a dessert whose appeal I have never fully understood.

Mmmm. Delicious profiteroles.

Another high point of the week was lunch on Tuesday at "Les Deux Canards", with Marie, Michael, my friend Ellen from Genentech, and Vincent, the other Irish guy in my class at school. Ellen has signed up for classes at school as well, starting on Monday.

Another reason I didn't get around to blogging during the week was that, in addition to my morning group classes (still excellent), I had ten hours of individual lessons in the afternoons. So I really didn't have a spare minute. Tonight I am going over to Ellen and Leslie's for dinner. Then tomorrow it will be homework all day, maybe with a side trip to visit the toy exhibition at the Grand Palais with my former classmate Hee Eun. I will be continuing with the afternoon individual classes next week, right up to my departure for Cork on Saturday, to catch up with friends and relatives in Ireland.

After taking Michael to the airport bus this morning I came back and slept for another three hours. Because all this French is exhausting. But lots of fun.

Here are Titania and Puck, from last week's "A Midsummer Night's Dream":

During our morning classes this week, we studied French politics. One of the exercises was to come up with our own new political party, and to develop a party platform. Merrill, a new student (also from San Francisco), and I decided our party should be the Inquisition Francaise, whose platform would be based on continuing the important work of Torquemada. In addition to weekly public burning of heretics at the Place de la Bastille, we renounced this guy, and all of his works:

I know I keep repeating myself, but this week was the most fun I've had in ages.

Book Review : Tain Bo Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid at Cooley, aka "The Tain")

The Tain: A New Translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge by Ciarán Carson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I learned that China Mieville had appropriated the title "The Tain" for one of his little apocalypto-dystopic excursions back in 2002, my reaction was something like this:


BACK OFF, MIEVILLE, YOU PLUNDERING, PLAGIARIZING SASSENACH GIT! THAT TITLE'S ALREADY TAKEN.


Because, as every cultured person knows, "The Tain" (pronunciation "Thoyne") is the name given to the most important story in ancient Irish literature, the collection of tales also referred to as "The Ulster Cycle", or "The Cattle Raid of Cooley".


I sputtered with indignation at the thought that someone would steal the name of Ireland's best-known legend for some weirdo post-apocalyptic novella about a race of wraith creatures that humans have subjugated by trapping them in mirrors. Then I learned that "tain" is a legitimate English word meaning "the tinfoil used as backing in mirrors" and I felt pretty stupid. SORRY, CHINA!


Like any self-respecting national saga, the (Irish) Tain lacks a single definitive version. Most versions draw on two different ancient manuscripts, from the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively, but its origins are far older. Some of the language dates back as far as the 8th century, and most Celtic scholars believe the the story had a long oral existence before eventually being committed to writing by monastic scribes. Both the content and the style of the narrative place the events in a timeframe that predates the introduction of Christianity to Ireland in 432, possibly as far back as the first century.


Most Irish people of my generation are familiar with the 1969 translation of the epic by the poet Thomas Kinsella (with brush drawings by Louis de Brocquy). I read the Kinsella translation at some point when I was in college, largely from a sense of obligation. Its brilliance was completely wasted on me at the time. I recently stumbled across a more recent (2007) translation of the Tain, by the poet Ciaran Carson. I really liked Carson's translation of Dante's Inferno, so I was interested to see what he would make of the Tain. So this past weekend I sat down with both the Kinsella and Carson translations, to reacquaint myself with the legendary exploits of the Celtic heroes of the Tain.


Like any self-respecting national saga, whole chunks of the Tain are unreadable. But much of it is hilarious; I had forgotten how weirdly entertaining the story is. A successful national epic will presumably reflect the concerns of the listeners -- people who make a living by taking to the sea in boats worry about sea-monsters, lost ships, threats of a maritime nature. In Argentina, cattle are central to economic survival, no surprise then that the gaucho is the hero of Argentina's national epic, Martin Fierro. Cattle were important in pre-Christian Ireland as well -- at its heart the Tain is the account of a cattle-rustling expedition gone terribly, terribly wrong.


The story of the Tain is straightforward; its particular charm lies in the telling. Here are some of the details I find totally kickass:


The opening scene, in which Ailill and Maeve, the king and queen of Connacht get swept up in a competitive enumeration of the wealth and possessions each has brought to the marriage, is referred to as the "pillow talk" scene. Maeve loses the competition by a bull and vows to get even; this is the McGuffin that launches the whole disastrous expedition to steal Donn Cuailgne, the great Brown Bull of Cooley, from the neighboring kingdom of Ulster.


The men of Ulster are all laid low by "the pangs". Because of a previous incident, involving a distinct lack of chivalry towards a pregnant lady, nine generations of Ulstermen have been cursed to suffer the pains of childbirth for five days and four nights "at their moment of greatest difficulty". So, just as the marauding Connacht army reaches their border, all the men of fighting age take to their beds, howling as if each was about to give birth to twins. Oops, make that "all but one" of the men.


For unspecified reasons, the hero CuChulainn (aka the hound of Culann the blacksmith, aka Setanta) is exempt from the curse, so it falls to him to keep the marauders at bay until his fellow Ulstermen have recovered from the pangs. It's roughly 30,000 to 1 out there. In other words, a completely unfair set up. The Connacht soldiers don't stand a chance.


CuChulainn isn't your average 17-year old. He's Ireland's version of Hercules. Super-endowed physically, not particularly bright, poorly developed emotional control, no impulse control, the boy has some serious combat skilz. With a couple of nifty superpowers thrown in. That cloak of invisibility, for one thing. Those heightened sensory powers. But the worst thing you can to is to make him angry, because that can trigger the riastradh, (the twisting, or contortion), a Hulk-like physical transformation that is followed by a killing frenzy. Kinsella translates this wonderfully as the "warp spasm"; in a rare misstep, Carson tries too hard and comes up with the the "torque" (he wants to evoke the kind of Celtic collar known as a torque, but why?). The killing frenzy proceeds by repeated implementation of the "thunder-feat", wherein enemy soldiers are taken out in increments of 100. I can't imagine that there's not already a video game.


CuChulainn's deadly kill-weapon, the Gae Bolga, totally rocks (as does its name). And the passage where he ultimately has no choice but to use it to disembowel his beloved childhood friend Ferdia is simultaneously devastating (OMG, he is forced to kill his best bro Ferdy) and provocative (explicit homoerotic imagery in ancient Celtic texts, who'd a thunk it?)


There's also an entertaining array of secondary characters -- backstabbing relatives and courtiers, wild women with the gift of prophecy, assorted figures from Celtic mythology, including the very nasty shapeshifting morrigan, a kind of unpleasant Celtic valkyrie you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.


Both the Kinsella and Carson translations are highly readable. There are slight differences in their choices of what to include. Kinsella's coverage is greater, because he includes full translations of certain key remsceala (backstories), where Carson limits himself to summarizing them briefly in his endnotes. Both authors comment on the particular difficulties posed by certain sections of the manuscript, those written in the specific verse form known as rosc. These sections are apparently so obscure that both authors felt obliged to include an explicit disavowal of accuracy for their attempted translations. Carson tries for a greater fidelity to the original verse form, which makes for a much choppier, less intelligible translation. Obviously I can't judge the accuracy of either translation, but I thought both authors did an impressive job in terms of clarity, fluidity, and readability. Neither translation seems clearly superior - they are just different.


I feel obliged to include a caveat. There are certain aspects of the text that make some portions eye-glazingly unreadable. Two features in particular come to mind. The first is a kind of listmania -- the number of warriors taken down by Cuchulainn is enormous, and the authors of this manuscript want you know each one by name. This leads to this kind of incandescent prose:

These are the names of their chiefs and commanders: two Cruaids, two Calads, two Cirs, two Ciars, two Ecelss, three Croms, three Cauraths, three Combirges, four Feochars, four Furachars, four Casses, four Fotas, ....(varying numbers of 18 more family names)...., ten Fiachas and ten Fedelmids.

The second issue is related. In Carson's words, the Tain is obsessed by topography, by place-names and their etymologies . It's hard to convey just how deep this apparent obsession runs. At times it seems as if the entire manuscript is nothing more than an effort to come up with a (dubious) etymology for the name of every topographical feature of the Irish landscape.

Lethan came to his ford on the river Nith in Conaille. Galled by Cuchulainn's deeds, he lay in wait for him. CuChulainn cut off his head and left it with the body. Hence the name Ath Lethan.

This kind of stuff is both extraordinarily dull and highly questionable, particularly when one takes into account that the word "lethan" means "broad". One begins to suspect that the brave warrior "Lethan" might not have existed at all. There are huge swaths of this kind of material scattered throughout the Tain. The good news is that it is eminently skippable.


Bearing this caveat in mind, I think anyone would enjoy the Tain.



View all my reviews

Come into the garden, Claude

Every weekend this spring I would think to myself "I really should go to Giverny this weekend", but somehow I never got around to it. Today I rectified that omission, and was there bright and early at the Gare St Lazare, ready to take the train to Vernon, and the bus on to Giverny. It was a nice little excursion, but I must confess to having been a little underwhelmed by the experience.

Monet's house was by far the best part -- I loved the kitchen and dining area, as well as his studio, and really liked all the Japanese prints, scattered unexpectedly throughout the house. (Unfortunately, taking photos inside the house was verboten). The gardens, on the other hand, were definitely not at their best, and had a decidedly ratty feel to them. It didn't help that the weather was overcast the entire time.

As a result, I was in and out of there in under three hours, including lunch, which would have been mediocre, had it not been for the sublime mango and blackcurrant sorbet. I wanted the profiteroles, naturally, but didn't feel that my saunter through the gardens had been sufficiently strenuous to justify them.

Nonetheless, it was a pleasant excursion, and I can now cross Giverny off my list. Maybe next weekend I can go to Fontainebleau and reimagine the first scene of "Don Carlos", where Carlos and Elisabeth meet in the forest outside Fontainebleau and fall in love at first sight, giving rise to some of the most glorious love music in the entire operatic repertoire. (Have I mentioned that "Don Carlos" is my favorite opera?)

I have posted photos from today's outing over on Facebook, though they are no great shakes:

Giverny photos

Another fine week

Looking back on the week, as I sit here in my little apartment, watching yet another French cooking show out of the corner of my eye (it's a mild addiction, I admit it), I'm hard put to pick out anything all that special to write about. But it seems important to point out that, on each of the three last mornings, as I made my way along the canal to school, the thought crossed my mind each time that I cannot remember a time when I've been as happy. Which bolsters my conviction that one doesn't need constant stimulation, or extraordinary levels of excitement, to be happy -- it's the little things in life that make the difference. And here in Paris, right now, I couldn't be happier.

It helps, of course, that I have been lucky enough to stumble across interesting, engaged classmates, and that Bruno, our new professor for this week, and the coming weeks, is altogether extraordinary. But it's also the fun of shopping at Monoprix, of stopping for a coffee at the cafe at the corner, where the waiters actually acknowledge my presence with a smile, of watching French TV, of reading Carson McCullers or Inspector Morse in French. Life is lived in the details.

The week's cultural highlight was definitely seeing the hilarious "Avengers" production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" in French. I also caught up with my friends Nancy and Gabriella for lunch in the Marais on Wednesday. As I had no afternoon classes, we had a leisurely meal and strolled around the Marais afterwards. Where Santa has made an early appearance:

And where one felt at times as if one was back in San Francisco:

Tonight I have nothing more ambitious planned than to heat up some delicious pasta in the microwave and watch the NCIS marathon on Channel 6. Certain habits die hard! Weather permitting, perhaps tomorrow will be the day I finally get to Giverny.

I leave you with a couple of photos taken earlier this afternoon in the courtyard at school:

European Pillow Syndrome

It kind of irritates me that I had to go to Monoprix and fork out 35E for two decent pillows and a set of fresh pillowcases to augment the doll's house rag-like things that were here in the apartment. I figure it's worth it to get a decent night's sleep. But so far I've had to shell out almost 100E to make this place habitable.

Actually, I suppose in the scheme of things, that's not so bad. Given that the rent is 200E less per month than the previous apartment. But still - who furnishes "pillows" that look like they have been run over with a freaking steamroller? Not to mention the pathetic "cushions" that languish droopily on the "couch" that looks like a woolly mammoth set up residence on it for much of the Jurassic Era from which it undoubtedly stems. I'm looking forward to my luxurious week in Jury's Inn when I go to Cork in October.

In other news, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was terrific. The theatre, not so much -- apparently banking seats was an alien concept to the designer. And I'm sure it was just my perception that I was sitting behind the only hyperactive giantess in the house. With big hair. Still, both the play and the production were great. Oberon and Titania as John Steed and Emma Peel, and the whole thing done in a tongue-in-cheek "Avengers" style, with lots of 60s go-go-dancers prancing around in the forest. I know it sounds awful, but it actually worked very well. I can't say that Shakespeare sounds anywhere near as magical in French as in English, but that just may be a case of missing what one is familiar with.

But, God, what a terrific play! It's a delight from start to finish, and the plot isn't nearly as complicated as I had remembered.

That's it for tonight. Time to break in those new pillows, and let's hope last night's annoying mosquito doesn't make a return visit.

Culture Vulture

I know that some of my readers like to live vicariously through my assorted cultural sorties when I am away from home, so this post is to reassure you that I have not been neglecting the cultural side of things.

For instance, on Sunday I went to see the fine new Justin Timberlake movie "Friends with Benefits". It was just the ticket on an overcast Sunday in Paris, and helped avoid the frenzied media re-living of the events of September 11th. Although the movie is a rom-com that follows a well-known formula, it was surprisingly well done, with a light touch and an air of not taking itself too seriously. I saw it in English, with French subtitles, and kept wishing I had bought a pen to note down assorted very useful sexual slang terms. As this is a family blog, I'm sure my readers have no interest in knowing that the French for MILF is "mere baisable". Or that .... never mind...

Perhaps tonight's performance of "Le Songe d'une nuit d'été" will garner me more points on the culture scale. I just spent 10 minutes getting reacquainted with the plot on Wikipedia, before giving up with the realisation that most of the point of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is that the plot is so fiendishly complicated that nobody can follow it.

On the literary front, I have been reading the short stories of Carson McCullers in French, which are surprisingly accessible, and just as delightful as I remembered. I bought a paperback edition of her collected works for a mere 25 Euro on Saturday, but am steering clear of the longer works ("Le Coeur est un Chasseur Solitaire", "La ballade du cafe triste"), as these have the kind of melancholy that is potentially wrist-slittingly depressing if you are living on your own in a Paris garret ...

Also, today, I took an important step in the serious phase of learning any language, and bought my first French-French dictionary - "le petit Robert".

In other news, I have finalized arrangements for a one-week trip to Ireland, from October 1st to October 8th. Happy to report that both the Aer Lingus fare, and the rate at Jury's hotel in Cork, were surprisingly reasonable. (Though I could stay with friends while in Cork, the Jury's splurge is my little present to myself, to make up for the slightly spartan conditions here in my little garret).

Anyway, that's the news here in Lake Woebegon, where the quality of profiteroles continues to be extraordinaire. The pigeons, on the other hand, are definitely up to something: