A young girl in a Red Polka-Dotted Dress with a Vanilla Dream

“I took the opium of dream in order to face the hideousness of life.”

The body is a curious thing, we breathe air, we walk on our feet on the constructed path ways of civilization, we close our eyes to the truth but can let our bodies go to a point where are subconscious dreams come alive, these dreams of the events, facts everyday faces and things we see, we have restrictions, we are not boundless, limitations are shown by the outer layers of our skin, but the body can let go completely where the back arches in a cry of pleasure in a moment of pure ecstasy. 

The body is a curious thing, we are produced by a body, we exit the womb, into a world produced by bodies, then exit the earth engraved into the dirt of the world, cells, microscopic bits of our previous body remain as a piece of the earths history that has been developing for centuries on end. The cycle happens again, and in each life you have you become something else, develop an aspect you were in a previous life, I believe that when one dies you wake up as someone else, a new born about to start in this world all over until you reach a point of understanding and of serenity you had not achieved in your past lives. Dreams allow you to venture into all aspects of your life, they allow you to feel and experience things that you might never do in reality. Like Miller who says he " believes that only a dreamer who has fear neither of life nor death will discover this infinitesimal iota of force which will hurtle the cosmos into whack- instantaneously" (Miller). This idea of achieving a certain level of discovery of ones inner workings will allow you to move forward. The way Miller goes about in his writing for Walk Up Down China shows just how much this idea of liberty of the body has, how far can one venture into their subconscious of dreams, how one is able to explore the unknown territory that is of the human body, an unusual specimen that has achieved so much over centuries. We are an animal by nature, we derive from an animalistic past, and we are drawn by the unknown always entering uncharted waters.

This concept of freedom and liberty is something that ties perfectly with the body, knowing just how free are we? Just how much freedom do we get as a human, we have been pre enrolled into the mankinds idea and perception of how this civilization should function. We came out of the womb into a pre determined world that one day one would have to follow the past and its present, moving future, staying between the lines of the body and the civilization one lives in. A nation where we are at “a pre natal condition- the born man living unborn, the unborn man dying born” (Miller). Understanding the limitations of the body and its interaction with its surroundings is one that Henry Miller focuses on in his piece of Walk up down China, an exploration of the dreams and the mind of a man, understanding where one lies in this world, what is ones place, “the more I think of it the more I am convinced that what disturbs me is not whether I am dreaming or insane but whether the man on the sidewalk, the man with arms outstretches, was myself”(Miller).

Freedom. What does this world signify? How does one let themselves go to a point of no return, how is one to exceed the expectations of oneself, and allow thyself to venture into your darkest desires and brightest dreams. How do we know to what point is ok to explore our imagination in reality, can we only explore the pleasures and desires and dreams we have within the lines of our mind our can we tare apart this civilization and rules and laws to experiment with the ideas of the creative, the outsiders. Henry Miller perfectly questions this idea of dreams and how one it to go about it, how one finds oneself in dreams, for dreams is a place where our body doesn’t even control, our mind doesn’t control the images we see, our subconscious the depths of our mind is the one that allows us an inch of freedom every night if we’re lucky. Miller poses  “if it is possible to leave the body in dream, or in death, perhaps it is possible to leave the body forever, to wander endlessly embodied, unhooked, a nameless identity, or an unidentified name, a soul unattached, indifferent to everything, a soul immortal, perhaps incorruptible, like god- who can say?”(Miller).

This idea of liberation, a state of freedom, allowing ones imagination run wild and explore the jungle of the mind, letting their visions comes through their creativity by means of paintings, writings, music, performance etc. Often American expatriate writers coming to Paris during the 19^th -20^th century felt that they could achieve their explorations of their pleasures far greater there than where they came from. That “of itself Paris initiates no dramas, they are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of the artificial births. Rocking her in the cradle each one slips back into his soul”(Pizer). As Donald Pizer says in his text the Sexual Geography of Expatriate Paris, demonstrates that Paris cuts this connection to the rules and laws one perhaps faced in a different place and allows them this feeling of limitless exploration. He explains that authors such as Hemingway, Stein, and Alice Toklas and so on created in their works this idea that Paris allowed them to explore their dreams with pen and paper. They were allowed to dance in their minds, explore the pleasures of life, and explore the desires they shared.

Walking down the streets in my little red polka doted dress with my red youthful curls bouncing as a took each step, holding my fathers hand and a vanilla ice-cream in a brown caramelized cone we walked down the streets of Paris. My ten-year-old feet in their black little rounded shoes braced the cobbled stone pavements; my sweet innocent eyes admired the illustrational lamps shining above our heads. In each little window had a display of some new novel, delicious chocolates, beautiful chandeliers, or a fascinating painting, and the smell of the sweet, oh so sweet mouthwatering pastries being crafted from the boulangeries. It was the first time I was in Paris, the beauty and femininity of the city played with my mind, I wanted to visit more, I was enchanted by the narrative aura of the architecture, the way the women in their café chair with their red Chanel tinted lips, gazed at the handsome men, their laugh and their quick tongues effortlessly displaying their knowledge for various subjects in French. At that point I was in a French lycee in Norway, (a colder more reserved place, business, law dominated), and was beginning to understand it and speak it, but hearing it for the first time from a Parisian man and woman was exciting. Ever since I was younger I was drawn to stories taking place in a Victorian time but always-fictional novels. I was never interested by the non-fiction stories; I’d rather see an image of someone’s imagination placed by words on a paper than seeing someone’s biography stated on a sheet. With this love for romantic stories I picked up on the qualities of such endeavors when I was a young girl walking through the Eiffel tower park at night as the lights began to sparkle, it was a city I could feel bursts with life, art and creativity. I was young with an innocence, no sexual connotations. Yet within this purity I could feel the passion the city held, I could sense the romantic, fictisious aura of Paris was evident, however as I come back from the various countries I’ve lived in and been too, this romantic view of Paris has always remained, and has enhanced, for Paris truly manages to capture beauty and art in one. However by reading numerous authors works I can see how they take this romance one step further to love, to love making, this sexual connection between Paris and an artists is a theme that often conjures up.  

Artists I feel no matter where they are positioned will always want to venture into the world of the unknown, will forever want to explore their bodies and experiment with this boundary of life. Paris will help bring this out “a late afternoon and the heavy whiteness of it are stifling. A heavy somnolent whiteness, like the belly of a jaded woman. Back and forward the blood ebbs, the contours rounded with soft light, the huge billowy cupolas taut as savage teats.”(Miller). In this piece Miller compares Sacre Coeur to a woman’s body, this relationship between Paris architecture is easily compared to feminine traits, this city lends itself to such ideas and perceptions. Miller even goes to say that wandering around Paris if one gets lost you have a way of coming back to where you wanted to be, Paris lets you get lost in your imagination, it’s a canvas for many authors, painters, musicians. Paris does have a way of capturing the artist, has a way of teasing the artists with her beauty and rich culture and history, it intises the viewer, it’s said to be one of the most romantic cities in the world, if not the most romantic city in the world. Thus evidently expatriates will read the novels by the great American writers and think that these authors somewhat fictious realities will be their truths. I think Paris is a beautiful place, and can lend itself to rather sexual and passionate view and ideas, however the experience you have in Paris shapes the way you perceive it. I have had a great experiences here and it continues to surpass my expectations and wildest dreams, thus for me this city is a place of great seduction and allure and permits me to with its restrictions roam freely in her realm. Like Miller once said “the streets swarm through my fingers, I gather the whole of France in my one hand, in the honeycomb I am, in the warm belly of the sphinx”(Miller).

Unreliable Narrators in the European Jungle

"Old Hulbird took the opportunity to read to me a full blooded lecture, in the style of an American oration, as to the perils of a young American girlhood lurking in the European jungle" 

(Three Soldiers Ford)

The perceptions of places based on an experience of a person often leads to the differences between them, the simplicity of altering one perceptions of a place by a quick glance, a quick note of judgment is something that tends to create untruthfulness or to not demonstrate the whole entire picture. Like a photograph cutting the reality into a square box where all you see is what you choose to see, not cutting the corners or venturing further, but leaving this view of ones, to the deteriorating and accumulation of dust that forms on the creases of the now abandoned photograph. This European jungle that the father of Florence in the Three Soldiers by Ford Madox shows just how a squared orientation can sometimes cause to rebel, to have a wantingness to see the other sides of the story. “ He said that Paris was full of snakes in the grass, of which he had bitter experience, he concluded as they always do, poor, dear old things with the aspiration that all American woman should one be sexless, though that is not they way they put it…”(Madox). This desire to walk the lands of where the most famous artists, poets, writers, performers, and musicians roamed like free spirits all intertwined in this drug like passion that filled their every desire. Like Florence who dreamed and wanted a husband that would bring her to this European atmosphere, this new place where she could grow in society, be well off, and make a good life for herself, a dryness that often resembled the attitude to love with how the Americans encountered in Ford Madox’s reality, perceived the truth and love. “On the 1^st of august Florence apparently told her aunts that she intended to marry me” (Madox), this harshness and bluntness of the decision to marry lacks a exoticness, lacks that lust, that desire for him.

The way they talk about one another is with a taste of bitterness, it makes the reader feel the real dislike that he has for her, describing her as if he “Had been given a thin shelled pullet egg to carry on my (his) palm from equatorial Africa to Hoboken” (Madox). This view of his wife rather degusts one, perhaps she is frail and small and frightened, but love is not meant to bring you down its mean to bring you up. The style of writing shows a one sided view, one of injustices and perhaps not the truth of the situation. It shows a lack of understanding of what love even means, or what it is to love, the narrator seems to have no real grasp of what this in factious thing called love is. Said to be an unreliable narrator, this objectification of this women is something that frustrates the reader, when one doesn’t truly love one and just sees as a trophy to have evidentially if a cheating act happens the dislikes come together for that person and create great turmoil. However if he had truly loved her, the way he would have written abut her cheat would not have been the same way perhaps. For to love is something that encapsulates you, with feelings of desire of beauty of a calmness that someone knows all of you and accepts that and will continue to be with you and care for you. To love is something so rare, so innocent, like a child’s mind, it has a purity that humans are lacking today, the embrace from your lover can fill the deepest holes buried deep within you, make you feel whole, like a ripe, luscious peach on a summer’s day, or the beauty and simplicity of one snowflake in the multitude of snowflakes in a raining sky.   Evidently the way she cheats on him in the story conjures up a sourness, however he never loved her really, and thus the accumulative dislikes he shared for her seem to rise like a stubborn child and unleashes itself on the pages of the Three Soldiers.

However Ford Madox when describing Paris there is a greater love found there, which is ironic for through the character of his Three Soldiers it shows this dislike for it. The ways of communication can alter in each writers pieces, like an artist, each painting is never always happy or sad, there is a mix of the subject matter. When one learns ones perception alters with it, the truth is uncovered and the real reality comes through. Taking away the eyes of love and hatred its becomes easier to perceive what the truth is, often a challenge for judgment runs through the veins of humans, its what this whole world runs on. What, who and whom we dislike or like, why we like or dislike it, all these relate to one another. Our visions are all based on the experiences we’ve had with someone or something that perhaps resembles the object in front. Like A Paris Letter, the perception of Paris as a female and her embodiment is one of great admiration for her capabilities to remain so beautiful despite constant bashes; “It is really the most wonderful of international phenomena. For she is the unchanging heart of a land that has survived unnumbered invasions” – “she has survived because the imaginations her poets in ink, colours, sounds of stones, have given to her vision o an unrivalled clarity, a frigid rectitude, an almost unthinkable resilience”- (Madox). A paradise for artists, Madox sees truth, sees the magical body that of which is Paris, “Her poets have at once breathed into her life and inspiration and conferred on her unchanging immortality”- “not so much by chanting land of hope and glory but by crooning those little songs to the hurdy gurdy that are Paris and France”(Maddox). The style of writing alludes to great vision of Paris; he demonstrates his reality with a straightforwardness view. I feel this is similar with communications between a European and an American, the American writer I feel will spare the details and be rather blunt with the facts whereas the European writer will go beyond and search for every detail, even if it seems unnecessary, it is the words that aid the reader to get a better illustration of the writers truth or fictional truth.

This idea of what is true and what is false, what is an exaggeration is something that the past readings have conjured up questions about what is right and wrong. In the passage in Hemingway’s a Moveable Feast, sitting in a little café Hemingway is joined by Madox, and his reaction is not necessary the kindest gesture, “I took a drink to see if his coming had fouled it, but it still tasted good” talking about Maodx- bringing foulness wherever he goes. However “He was a good companion until he drank too much and, at that time, when he was lying, he was more interesting than many men telling a story truly” (Hemingway). This idea of telling the truth and exaggerating a fact, can aid to create something that is far more interesting- often when writing or telling stories exaggeration, or enhancement of the object, is always a little more interesting and more enjoyable to read. The reality is never perfect, or as romantic as we say it is, but we find symbolism that can influence the way we perceive things that allude to a more romanticized view or a more negative view, a sadder view, or happier view. Perceptions of a reality is very personal and allows to reader to get in touch with the mind of the writer, it perhaps is altered or people have been left out like a ‘cad’, but it allures the reader to want to read more.

Saturday 17 2014,

Applying my last touch of dark rouge lipstick I walked down the winding stairs on the uneven wooden boards, slightly creaking with each step when touched by the short heels on my new velvet boots. It was a cooler night, summer was ending and we had begun to enter the fall mood, walking with anticipation to meet him. The streets were alive with hustle and bustle, I could hear music coming from the open apartment windows, and groups of friends laughing as I walked past them, passing galleries that were packed with characters of the night sipping on wine, the metro a whole new underground world. Musicians playing their instruments while the youth gets tipsy on cheap wine, adults looking down on them yet keeping a twinkle of remembrance in their eyes of the times they were there. Hoping off the metro I walked to this little bar where he was waiting for me, walking in my heart beating faster, there I saw him, smiling at me while he walked towards me and with a kiss, I knew this was going to be a great night. Being a part of a group of friends laughing, discussing topics from arts to math’s, as the night went on I began to grow tired from this nights endeavors, he looked at me and took my hand, stepped outside and got in a taxi. With my hand in his we looked out the window of the dark musty taxi, the views of Paris in my blurry state were undeniably beautiful. Passing the delicately lit up seine, and moonlight lit trees, dim lighted apartments, and comedic drunks attempting to walk straight. He kissed by neck and whispered “tu est aussi belle que la cite”, Paris with its imperfections and cracks remains to be so beautiful and bright, even in the dark there is still beauty to be found. 

This view of Paris as this beautiful place, unaltered from the past, it feeds a hunger that artists desire, the style of writing between Hemingway’s Paris and madox’s Paris, shows great similarity. Yet the way of writing is very different, the harshness and dryness of madox’s writing is rather stubborn and blunt however the way Hemingway describes it is with great admiration even though she is not perfect, he remains infatuated by her. Communication is something of a myth, for there always seems to be perceptions and opinions that all alter the way people see things, when people communicate we often hear differently from what the person is saying, or understand what wed like to understand. Communication is not as easy as most people would like to think, there are differences in each culture how to express oneself, there is a constant debate wither what is being said is in fact what you see, what you mean, what you feel or if its an exaggeration or a illusion or a mask of what is truly inside ones head. Like In Hemingway’s a moveable feast, Madox being rude to Belloc, Hemingway being embarrassed thinking that it’s rude of madox to not be kinder to an author that he inspires by. Yet when Hemingway discusses with someone who is close to him and who admits that the one to be thought Belloc was in fact Aleister Crowley;  “the diabolist, he’s supposed to be the wickedest man in the world” in which he replies ‘sorry’. Perception is a great thing and wither the reality of these authors are true or not, it shapes our perceptions of the characters and places they discuss, like what I write here will give someone a perception of one of my nights out in Paris. Each writer here has a different view of this city yet they all in agreement with raw nature of her being, as they sit at cafes and ponder on the world they live in while sipping on Chambery vermouth and cassis, they remain indulged in their own reality, and will remain writing about how they perceive to be this European Jungle. 

Hemingway's Lost Generation and The Olive skinned Young Man

To admit one was ‘lost’ was to wish to be ‘found’

The war had haunted the lives of many young men, it had changed their lives completely, it is what the war did to them, it what they saw that changed the way they perceived life, and what one should get out of it. Once something is seen is very hard to change the way it is perceived, the ghosts of their friends and family haunting in their memory. A new life, a new passion arose from the ashes of the bombed, blooded soil. Soldier returning home lost, no one to understand their experience of bloodshed, cries, gunshots, screams, they had been part of a community of soldiers, a troop. Now let go into the reality, like newborns, free to roam the world without their armor, just scared from the sour sights of war forever lurking in the back of their subconscious. They had a hunger that filled their lungs, their guts when they were at war, now to be replaced by a different hunger, a hunger of life, for life. This idea of feeding oneself on the fruitful juices that of art, literature, music can only satisfy, that could only feed their deepest desires. This yearning of life itself encompassed their imaginations, Europe; a new exotic world where Stein had said was the center of the 20^th century. Paris, a temptation of great fiction, of where a greater fantasy roamed, these new men wanted to explore the values and virtues shared in Europe. That they only heard about from the pages of the books that existed, of the films they had seen, from the music they had heard. They left lost, in hope to find themselves, to emerge themselves into a community where art was their breath of life. The war had brought them experiences, had brought them a different perspective on life, and they were disillusioned, for they had been questioned for everything they had thought to be true or right, this training had directed them towards the destroying of the roots of their soil, they left the war betrayed by their own and could be seen as ‘homeless citizens of the world’.

Thus they dreamed, lost within themselves, what else did they have to loose? Paris a new bright future, where one could dance till the early hours of the morning, girls seen as provocateurs, wearing no longer tight restricting materials but loose silk sequined dresses, slightly touching their bare skin, men awake and letting their passion come through, drinking, laughing, taking what life could offer them, educating themselves about poetry, and literature, see and smell the paint of the painters, embrace the new Jazz movement. La joie de vivre was born, the roaring twenties had arrived, the war was over, and a time for celebration embraced them like a long lost lover.  They could open their eyes again, relax and rediscover life, with wild feelings unlocked from the depths of their armed bodies, a feast they were ready to devour, for Paris is a moveable feast, with each one of them bringing something to the table and taking in return.

They had been so lost, beneath the dust of the bombed earth, rising from the piles of vanished lives of the deceased, the were ready to get out and discover and see the rest of what the world had to give “An activity like alcoholic consumption, as it is used in these stories, can convey the sift in mood from honest enjoyment in the former part of the decade to pure self-indulgence in the latter phase, merely by its impenetrable symbolism; the versatility of drunkenness as a seme for the era is that it may be employed as either a seme of Joy or a seme of Dissipation depending on the context in which it is placed”(Dolan 12). Not looking back they embarked on this new future, loosing one military family to join another where a gun was replaced by a paintbrush, where a bomb, switched for a record, where blood turned to wine, and where loneliness became a trend within a community; “A craze- young men tried to get as importable drink as the hero, young women of good families took a succession of lovers in the same heartbroken fashion- (ERpg3).  The virtues switched, the way life changed, views blurred by a more exotic, more sensual perception of life, where sex, music, dance and alcohol along with performance and stylization became the core of the la vie Parisienne, instead of the ‘progress toward respectability” which is what the previous generation was aiming for it is said that “this narrative logic dictates this blurring of aesthetic and commercial cultures implicitly transformed Ernest the sincere young man into Ernest the two timing weasel”(Dolan 20).  This illustrated that the times were very different, and the 'retrict-ness' of the war caused the youth to rebel, like Andrew in Dos Passos story of Three Soldier. "Oh, I'd like to make the buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping in the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious."(Dos Passos). This idea of ripping through the invisible shield that suffocated the soldiers, rip through the past. To which unleashed within them a hunger for a new life, what would not be appealing about that? Who wouldn’t want to explore a whole new culture, a new being of life, a taste of freedom, and within this freedom find a niche where you belong somewhere? Who would give up an opportunity to find oneself?

It was on a sunny summer afternoon after a class on the history of art in Paris that I found myself walking the streets of Paris with an interesting young man. He had dark hair with olive skin, a well-cut beard masked his lower half of his face, his hazel green eyes looking into the depths of me while I talked, he must have been from an island off of Italy. We walked down the cobbled narrow streets down to the Jardin de Luxembourg, underneath the trees, we sat on a bench, shaded by the leaves of the warm Parisian summer sun we talked about why he had come to Paris, what I expected to discover here. He opened this little black book where the pages were scribbled with thoughts and sketches. I had the exact same one in my bag, I keep it with me everywhere I go, I write down things that came to me, places I’d see, a street I’d want to remember, a sketch. He took this little black book out and read me a poem he had been writing, as I listened I looked out at the Luxembourg gardens, couples kissing, children playing in the sun, mothers lighting their cigarettes relieving themselves for a moment, their red lips touching ever so slightly the outer edge. To the right, old men sitting on park benches with newspapers staining their wrinkled hands. In the background I could see a big gray cloud hovering over the dried out grass, looming towards the serenity of the jardin. The young man's cool, deep voice I noticed had repeated in his poem the word ‘lost’ several times. As I was about to ask him about this idea of being lost and how we are expected to find oneself, or if one every truly does? The first raindrop had fallen on my bare skin, followed by the next and the next and the next. He took my hand and we began to run through the jardin, taking off my sandals and running through the wet grass, I felt alive, I felt like a child, I felt an air of freedom. We ran until we stumbled into this little deserted café, laughing sheepishly at the fact that we got soaked, refreshed by the outburst of a summers rainfall, we ordered two cafes. I began to look around the café, a café that would fit so perfectly into one of Hemingway’s stories, and one that allowed for many to experience a Paris through words on a page. In this deserted Parisian café, with dim lights, and little tables, with photographs of old Hollywood stars bracing the walls. There were stars from the 40’s, 30’s and 20’s, including Charlie Chaplin, Greta Carbo, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, and the young man and myself sat under the images of Marylyn Monroe and James Dean ironically.  The two cafes arrived I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was and realized that the smell of the bursting coffee bean along with his freshly lit cigarette created this hunger within me. Yet I wasn’t hungry for food, the day had been eventful in itself but I wanted more, I yearned for more of this life that found itself in Paris, like a drug running seemingly within my veins.

This hunger, this passion is often talked about in the Novel of A Moveable Feast, “the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the place de l’observatoir to the rue de vaugirad- there you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly empty, hollow hungry” - “it was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry” (Hemingway). Ernest Hemingway believed that he had understood Cezanne’s paintings better when he was hungry, it lead him to wonder wether he had eaten or not when he had painted these paintings “later I thought Cezanne was probably hungry in a different way.” This idea of hunger feeding not only the hunger, but also a representation of hunger that runs through the veins into the depths of ones soul. I have that hunger for art, for the passion of life and what it has to offer. Sitting in a small café with the olive skinned man discussing artists, writers, film directors, along with this idea of finding oneself in a place that you’ve only heard about, and how you make it fit with yourself, is a day that will not be lost. This dark haired, hazel eyed man has now till this day become very close to me and we continue to discuss such things in our lives, we have become a part of community, where youths like us want to explore what the world means, not just touch the surface but dig deeper, where what lies is unknown but what is found will forever hold truth to us as a being.

Every generation is lost someway, however today the morality and values have decreased significantly, it makes me question what the future will hold, the views of todays society is one of a ‘robot’-ian, where technology runs us, we have become a zombified morphology of the humans race. Reading an article about photography by Jacques Ranciere explains “there is no lack of nature in inspiration but of human beings”. Meaning that today’s society it’s rare that the majority truly sees, and view only what they are meant to see rather than venture further into it. It’s become a commercial society, without perhaps appreciating what is in fact in front of them. It’s a dense subject, however for what its worth id rather live within the mentality of the 20’s where things were uncertain, one was lost but at least there was a community where art flourished, where the pure love of it empowered the youths, I know I will forever remain lost in that world. Even if these authors had written in” a “narrative truth” rather than to the parallel domain that he decleanates as “historical fact””(Doland). This mood is the chief historical meaning conveyed by all these stories in the sense that Spence speaks of meaning intertwined with ‘interpretation’ whether they emphasize youth (like Hemingway), cooptation (Like Cowley), or middle aged generatibity (like Fitzgerald). In all the stories the mood is the message and the message is true, whether or not ‘the fact’ are verifiable”(Dolan 18).