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Here I am in Paris in 2005, at the Musee D’Orsay, unwittingly breaking the law…

Let me explain.  Apart from a wedding dress, I haven’t owned or worn a skirt since the late 1980s, and believe it or not, the [French] law against women wearing trousers, never enforceable since its introduction in 1800, was finally rescinded in February 2013, after 213 years. So until that date, every day of every time I visited France, four times from 2001 to 2013, I was breaking the law.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.

I learned about this absurd law from reading Anne Sebba’s comprehensive survey of Parisian life during the Occupation, Les Parisiennes, How the Women of Paris, Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s.  In the chapter called ‘Paris Divided’ I learned that the Vichy regime had adopted German notions about the role of women, because they believed that moral collapse was…

Separation

a card arrives 
“happy birthday fondest love” 
i stand it on the fridge 
whilst half a world away 
she has forgotten that she sent it 
but recalls the usual things 
peeling the vegetables making the bed sweeping dusting 
later her head nods over a page and 
the once-friendly words turn away and hide

thin rain oozes from the mossy tiles 
and the bare brown trees stare through the afternoon 
and drip she tries to remember what it is 
that she must thaw for tea 
and the kitchen silent as lino will not tell her

dealt from a well-worn pack of tidy habits 
(what ought to be done rather than the needful) 
hours are laid out in patterns on the day’s thin fabric 
(so much is to do with the turn 
of one moment to cover the last) 
whilst indifferent greedy thieving Time 
gnaws the afternoon

rubbing a hole in…

Spring Night (after Wang Wei)

Among falling devilwood blossoms, I lie
on an empty hill this calm spring night.
The moon lunges above the hill, scaring the birds,
but they’re never quiet in this spring canyon.

Another try at an old favorite…

I consider this adaptation rather than translation, but perhaps appropriation or even remaking might be more accurate.

Here’s the transliteration from chinese-poems.com:

Person idle osmanthus flower fall
Night quiet spring hill empty
Moon out startle hill birds
Constant call spring ravine in

So many choices, none of them exactly right, none of them entirely wrong. How does one imply idleness, what words to use for “flower” (blossom? petal?), or for that matter, “fall” (descend, flutter, spiral)? And how to describe a moonrise that scares the constantly calling birds? My first attempt began:

“I lie among the falling petals”

but it seemed vague. The word “osmanthus” fattened my tongue…

First published in 1935, The House in Paris is probably one of Elizabeth Bowen’s most accomplished novels. It’s certainly the most atmospheric of the four I’ve read to date, an elegantly constructed story of deceptions, infidelity and identity, infused with a sense of secrecy that feels apparent from the start.

The novel is divided into three sections, the first and third of which (both titled ‘The Present’) take place on the same day – a fateful day in the lives of Bowen’s four main characters, as the narrative ultimately reveals. As the book opens, eleven-year-old Henrietta has just arrived in Paris, where she will spend the day with the Fishers before continuing her journey to Menton, where her grandmother is spending the winter. In short, the Fishers’ is a stopover point for Henrietta between trains – a visit arranged by the girl’s grandmother, Mrs Arbuthnot, and her friend, Miss…

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

“Bohemian Photographer” Ida Kar (1908-1974)

1. Ida Kar by Ida Kar, 1933 / 2-1/4 film negative / National Portrait Gallery, UK

2. Ida Kar by Ida Kar, 1955 / Vintage bromide print / National Portrait Gallery, UK

3. Ida Kar by Ida Kar, 1956 / Vintage bromide print / National Portrait Gallery, UK

4. Ida Kar by Ida Kar, c.1960 / Color Agfa print / National Portrait Gallery, UK

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