Fashion Parlor

Autumn can be described as “golden,” “melancholy” or “rainy,” but I like the Japanese epithet of autumn as “the season for reading,” dokusho no aki. There is something particularly inviting about the image of sitting down with a book and a steaming cup of tea on a rainy day. Or I like to take a favorite book of poetry to a park and read a few stanzas as I wade through the fallen leaves. This fall, however, I’ll more likely be reading at train stations and airports as I have several trips lined up. Whatever the circumstances, I made a list of books to read. For the Bois de Jasmin fall reading list, on the other hand, I want to share the books I’ve read and enjoyed. As always, I look forward to your lists and recommendations.

Homer, The Odyssey

I’ve decided to re-read The Odyssey after I finished Mary Beard’s Civilisations: How Do We Look/The Eye of Faith. Beard observes that certain works of literature influenced our culture to such a great extent that we take it for granted. Two of the most important books in the history of Western literature, as well as the oldest, are Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey. I’ve selected The Odyssey, because it was my favorite when I was a student, and the copy we had at home was a French translation by Leconte Lisle circa 1860’s. It’s a translation in prose, but I found it beautiful and suspenseful.

Yet, once I finished it, I happened upon a new English translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson, and I liked the several passages I read enough to recommend it here. Wilson’s translation has musicality and a beautiful rhythm. Consider this passage, describing the grove concealing the cave of the nymph Calypso.

The scent of citrus and of brittle pine
Suffused the island. Inside, she was singing
And weaving with a shuttle made of gold.
Her voice was beautiful. Around the cave
A luscious forest flourished: alder, poplar,
And scented cypress.

The Odyssey is often described as a story of one man’s delayed homecoming, but re-reading it, I find the poem to be more complex–about love and loyalty, duty and patience, and above all, about Penelope. Though in several passage she’s told in no uncertain terms by her son to remain quiet, her character has strength that many others lack. Odysseus (or Ulysses) too is a complex character. Homer underlined it by giving him the epithet of polutropos, which translates from Greek as “much turning.” Wilson renders it as “complicated,” which describes the protagonist of the epic well.

Laura Jacobs. Celestial Bodies: How to Look at Ballet

I remember watching a documentary on the Paris Opera ballet, and one of the dancers interviewed confided that she originally wanted to become a nun, but having experienced ballet, she felt that she could channel the same emotions through dance as through service to God. At first, I found the idea surprising, but as I reflected longer on it, I realized that it made sense. Ballet demands complete devotion and discipline. It also requires passion to work through pain and to aim for perfection.

Explaining it to someone who hasn’t been through ballet training–much less to someone who doesn’t have much familiarity with ballet–is difficult, which is why the book by Laura Jacobs, Celestial Bodies: How to Look at Ballet, is such a discovery. It gives an excellent introduction to this art form through personal stories and descriptions of famous ballets, but above all, Jacobs conveys her own passion for dance, which makes this book an absorbing read. Jacobs is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the dance critic for the New Criterion, and if like me, you find yourself missing her voice after finishing the book, you can always turn to her column.

Honoré de Balzac, César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau)

Part of Balzac’s Human Comedy series, The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau is the story of a Parisian perfumer. He owns a fashion boutique called La Reine des Roses, The Queen of Roses, and as the novel opens, he’s at the peak of his fame. He decides to launch a new product, a hair oil, and then his empire comes crushing down.  Reading it reminded me how much I love Balzac’s satire.

Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom

“Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear,” the great Greek historian Thucydides said more than 2000 years ago. His words ring eerily accurate for our times. (Do you need another reason to re-read more classics?) Snyder’s book is an examination of how we arrived at our current world of fake news, post-truth and mixed messages.

At first glance, The Road to Unfreedom is the history of Russia, but Snyder’s narrative runs deeper to examine how a certain constellation of ideas in the Russian political sphere has been exported to other countries. A prominent historian, whose book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin won the prestigious Hannah Arendt prize, Snyder examines how democracies fall apart and why we live in dangerous times.

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, Black on White

In 1928, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki wrote three novels, two of which-—Some Prefer Nettles and Quicksand—became famous. The third, Black on White (Kuroshiro), has been translated at last, both into French and English. It’s a dark, obsessive and brilliant detective novel about a writer who creates the perfect murder plot, only to find himself drawn into it. Like many of Tanizaki’s character, the protagonist is flawed, and the deeper he descends into the hell of his own creation, the more gripping the plot becomes.

Odysseus and Penelopeby Francesco Primaticcio (Wildenstein Collection).

I’d love to know what you’re reading these days and what books you’d like to read next. On my list is another Balzac, La Peau de Chagrin, and a new novel by Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire. Please comment if you’ve read them.