Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

A talk with author Dominique Godrèche about An Ecology of Consciousness

 

 

UNE ÉCOLOGIE DE LA CONSCIENCE

DOMINIQUE GODRÈCHE

 

 

In her new book, An Ecologie of Consciousness, French author Dominique Godrèche bridges cultures to explore the impact of meditative practices on mental health and society in a time of pandemic.

a Paris Writers News Interview

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PWN: What is Une Ecologie de la Conscience about?

Dominique Godrèche: The book is a philosophical, anthropological, existential road trip from India to Europe and the United States. A transcultural vision of contemporary societal, ecological issues about psychology, spirituality, with a global perspective. It starts in India, where I followed the Buddhist Vipassana meditation sessions with the Indian master Satya Narayan Goenka, then proceeds to Paris, where I opened the first consultation in France based on meditation, in the department for addictions of Professor Claude Olievenstein, during its experimental phase. It continues in the United States, at the Marc department of UCLA University (the mindfulness research department) where I researched on the use of mindfulness in an institutional context, and the adaptation of eastern philosophical practices to western societies. It relates to Native American culture, while at SAR in New Mexico, the School of American Research of Santa Fe, ( now School of Advanced Research) as an associate researcher during my PhD of anthropology. It describes how different cultures envision health in a broad perspective: individual, collective, societal.

 

What is mindfulness and why is it important?

Mindfulness is the adaptation of ancestral Buddhist meditation to western societies. It was introduced in the United states by doctor Kabat Zinn, who told me during our interview (for Buddha News), “meditation is a way to free oneself from suffering. I looked for a way to introduce this practice without identifying it as Buddhist, because the majority of people do not wish to become Buddhist. So I taught the essence of Dharma without the Buddha dharma, in order to transmit it without the Buddhist connotation.»

Mindfulness is important as it became a way of life today, because it provides peace, serenity, develops the attention, awareness of the present moment. And ultimately prevents violence, through non violent communication. It has replaced the teachings of Buddhist or Hindu meditation, as a secular modern tool to access inner calm and peace of mind, a non medical way to heal anxiety, without the consumption of pills. Because of its multiple usages, it has been adapted to multiple professional contexts –for therapy, but also business…As it helps focusing, and allows to become more efficient, by developing a better quality of attention.

Thus its success and expansion. Also, it is accessible, because it does not imply a religious or spiritual adhesion, and proposed as a simple mental exercise. I have been able to observe that in Los Angeles, in the huge amphitheater of UCLA: hundreds of people were receiving an initiation given by the Marc team in order to access a quick state of relaxation. That is what my book addresses: how sophisticated long term teachings from eastern cultures have been reduced to simple exercises, with no cultural background or philosophical connotation attached. The psychiatrist Dan Siegel, from UCLA, was telling me, “it is just a way of training a muscle”. And Robert Thurman, “Buddha was the first scientist; because Buddhism is a science. Thoughts are a driving force, so we must train our minds. It is neither religious, or dogmatic. But scientific”. A pragmatic approach developed in the United States; so much part of the life style that “mindfulness eating sessions” are advertised.

And with today’s technological addictions, the over use of iPhones and social networks, -Tik tok, Instagram- etc. we have entered a new era of virtual reality, time, and space: the meaning of time changed drastically with the intensive use of technology, a shelter for loneliness. It has replaced live communication, modified usual perceptions. So much that applications have set up time-limit reminders to avoid over usage, and maintain people in a “regular” time frame. In this context, mindfulness is a precious tool as a reminder of real time, versus “elastic” virtual time and spaces. And the “here and now” concept became a mental health help.

 

You've studied the culture and art of Indians of the American southwest for many years. Did this influence this book?

It did; the title, “an ecology of consciousness”, refers to environmental ecology, as much as personal, mental, emotional ecology. Those notions, inherent to Native American culture are reflected in the “Navajo way of beauty”, and its prayer “walking in beauty “ :

“In beauty I walk, with beauty before me I walk, with beauty behind me I walk, with beauty above me I walk, with beauty around me I walk…Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me. I will have a light body, nothing will hinder me. beauty all around me may I walk.”

This approach is illustrated in the Navajo sand painting, which addresses the way the body, the mind, and the universe are interrelated. A holistic concept based on harmony and balance: in the Navajo sand painting, the patient’s body is in contact with a painting drawn on the earth.

 

Harry Walters, a Navajo anthropologist, explains, “Hozho, the Navajo word, describes peace, harmony, balance. The word beauty is related to healing and balance, not to art, a word that does not exist in Navajo; when we say beauty, we mean religion, philosophy, health. For us, everything is related.”

 

I was able to observe this correlation between health and the earth in New Mexico, at the Santuario de Chimayo, a healing place where I was brought by Imogene, a Native American friend. There, I watched the people in search of a relief, a cure, applying the Santuario “healing” dirt on their arms, their legs...A special atmosphere; an experiential situation, where human needs, the earth, and faith meet in a church. This perception of the earth as a healing factor is shared by various Native cultures.

Native American art commonly relates to the concept of Mother Earth, the notion of harmony and balance between the human existence and the land, its health. It addresses the concepts of “life ways”, its philosophy. I felt this power of the land in New Mexico, its physical, mental, spiritual impact. And when I was told my feelings to Godfrey Reggio, -the Santa Fean film maker of the series “Qatsi”, ( the Hopi concept of balance)-, he answered, “it is because the earth here has a special power, and gives you strength. It is a source of energy”.

 

Do you have a personal meditation practice? If so, how did you get started?

I left for India at the age of 17, having studied Indian philosophy, music, and art. I was a great fan of the filmmaker Satyajit Ray, and discovered India through his films. And had the chance to meet him at his home in Calcutta, on my way to Rabindranath Tagore Art School, Shanti Niketan, that he had also attended. Over the years I traveled all over India, looking for spiritual ways and teachings, including yoga with Geeta, the daughter of B. K. S. Iyengar. During my travels, I met fascinating people: the niece of Aldous Huxley, Olivia, in Dharamsala, the American-Russian princess Zina Rachevsky. Both had become Buddhist nuns, and I stayed with Zina, at the Kopan monastery she had founded. I visited various ashrams, from the most utopian

–in Pondicherry (Sri Aurobindo)-, with its city Auroville, to the most traditional, like the one in Tiruvannamalai, where I walked the sacred mountain…I encountered incredible meditators, secluded since decades in the mountains of Rishikesh...Then a friend suggested I join Goenka’s sessions, though he did not know where to find them, as they were itinerant, with no headquarters, like today.

So I started to search for Goenka. His teachings took place in a different location every ten days, and he traveled constantly. But one day, in an airport near Bombay, I was chatting with a gentleman while waiting for my luggage: he asked me the reason of my visit to India. I told him I was looking for Goenka, he smiled, and answered, “I am Goenka ». This is how I attended my first Vipassana session with him soon after; I was 19. I describe this experience in the chapter

«Carnets de Vipassana», a diary of the session explaining the various techniques of meditation.

 

How did you research this book?

The book covers three periods and places: the first one in India, «Santana, a Vipassana diary”. The second, “Return to France, encounter with professor Claude Olievenstein». The third one in the United States, “mindfulness, a north American invention”, at UCLA, an analysis of the north American approach of Oriental meditative practices, and their adaptation to the American culture. It also refers to my research in Santa Fe, at the Navajo psychiatric department, among other internships. I published a comparative approach of French and American psychotherapy, an analysis of memory and time in the therapeutic process of both cultures, and among bicultural populations (Native American, Hispanic American). So the research covers Buddhist philosophy, American anthropology, French and American clinical psychology.

 

Why this book now? Did the pandemic play a role?

Indeed. The book started during the pandemic: my publisher wanted to launch a new edition of Santana (Albin Michel). And I had noticed how the techniques of self control, calm… were advertised online during that period in order to fight the anxiety of the lock down. Also the way the pandemic was reactivating, a “no future” atmosphere, a grim future, lacking dynamics, an absence of projections, addressing the difficulty of living in closed spaces, etc.…in that context, meditation, or philosophical practices, were advertised like well being techniques, gymnastic, with no philosophical connotations attached, but predominantly the sale of sport accessories, - clothes-, etc.…A very materialistic approach of ancestral spiritual technics transformed into commodities. So I decided to write a new book related to the time of the pandemic, and included Santana the Vipassana diary, with a philosophical vision of the lock down, and its impact on our minds in that situation of closure, since we were not allowed to go out, except one hour a day.

It addresses the transformation of spirituality in today’s era in the West. Stuck in the house, I wrote the first part of the book, linking the confinement of the pandemic to the philosophical confinement during a Vipassana session, where we could not go out for 10 days, and introduced my research in New Mexico, and UCLA. The book ends after the confinement, in the south of France, in “Beauty”. It follows different phases: total confinement, philosophical confinement, liberation. It addresses the issues of closure, health, the capacity to stay locked at home, and in ourselves. It questions the issues of inner and outer space, and how they interrelate in different cultures -Asian, European, American-. It ends during the post confinement, with the rediscovery of freedom, -like after a Vipassana session-, when we go back to «normal life», and nature…with a feeling of wonder. So it really followed the process of the confinement. The pandemic has opened new doors of consciousness: about health, our resilience, the relation between ourselves and the environment, survival in today’s world... emphasizing our relationship to the environment. To quote Allen Ginsberg, “Earth pollution identical with mind pollution, consciousness pollution identical with filthy sky”. Goenka used to say that meditation was a way of “cleaning one‘s mind”: an ecology of consciousness.

 

Who did you write 'Une Ecologie de la conscience' for? What are you hoping your readers get out of it?

Une écologie de la conscience is written for a wide category of readers, as it addresses philosophical, psychological, environmental, existential, spiritual issues, on a global scale; in India, in Europe, the United States…it is a story about a personal experience, but beyond: it questions collective contemporary anxieties and life-balance, to which everyone can relate. I see the book as a tool to reflect on health in a holistic sense: mental, emotional, societal…And the relation to the environment, the memory, the status of philosophical practices in the modern globalized world. How to deal with pain, dependency, post traumas, inter cultural relations, identity, time and space…It is conceived as a platform to engage into a debate on various topics, a starting point to address multiple aspects of our lives, -contemplative, or active-. It questions the way we inhabit this world, our ability to cope with extreme, or difficult situations. And how specific practices can lead to a harmonious state of consciousness; to ultimately create, -if not ”a better world”-, a better quality of life, and communication, on a day to day basis.

It also addresses a transcultural approach of health and consciousness, through the eyes of Native cultures, in Mexico, and New Mexico, related to my encounters with traditional medicine people, whose practices are intimately associated to the consciousness of nature and its role in our life balance. And how different times, places and cultures meet on this matter.

 

Is writing a form of meditation? What is your writing practice like?

Writing catalyzes a state of mental absorption. Not “meditation” per se, as meditation consists in emptying one’s mind from any thought. And writing requires a lot of thinking…But the process of mental absorption creates a state of concentration close to meditation, because of the focus needed; and in fine, puts you in a state of deep mental absorption. I write every day; stories for medias, a diary. Notes while walking, mentally; when in a cafe, or a garden, I imagine a story: watching someone, ideas come to my mind about life situations…Writing does not start when I physically write. I might want to write a story about someone by looking at the person talk, walk, or move, by the way she interacts with the space. The environment and the space I find my self in have a lot to do with my writing process and inspiration: in Venice, I constantly have ideas when walking, looking at the houses, the architecture, a square, a “campo”…the people gathering, the sounds of the canals. The space -geographical, architectural, with its sounds…is inspiring. The way people move in this space -narrow streets, endless bridges, small squares, gardens-… Creates a variety of silent and musical environments.

 

Which artists or writers inspire you?

J.M.G le Clezio, Antonin Artaud, André Breton, Paul Eluard, Marguerite Duras, René Guenon, Michel de Certeau, Vladimir Jankélévitch. Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, J. D Salinger, Henri Miller, Lawrence Durrell, Primo Levi, Fyodor Dostoievski... The artists Rothko, Yves Klein, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Anish Kapoor, sculptor George Jean Clos. Native American sculptors Roxanne Swentzell and Craig Goseyiun in New Mexico; conceptual artist Charlene Teters. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin, composer Philip Glass. Movie actor Benicio del Toro, whom I interviewed; film makers Carl Dreyer, Wim Wenders, Godfrey Reggio… And many others !

 

What books are you reading?

La maladie de la mort by Marguerite Duras, l’Extase matérielle by Le Clezio, Arcane 17 by André Breton, les Tarahumaras by Antonin Artaud, la Prise de Parole by Michel de Certeau, le Non Lieu by Marc Augé.

 

What are you working on now?

The Jerusalem Syndrome, a religious pathology I studied in Jerusalem with psychiatric, religious, and cultural experts, on which I published articles in Paris Match, Ca m’interesse, le Point among others. It questions the status of religion and faith nowadays, and the impact of religious architecture and sacred geography on the psyche. The book project addresses art, esthetics, history, beliefs, psychology, anthropology, and politics.

Une écologie de la conscience is related to faith and spiritual anxiety in the 70’, 80’, when people were searching for a new life style, in that societal, political era, of a “peace and love” trend originated in the united states, with a large adhesion to oriental disciplines, and the later creation of counter culture communities based on extra European philosophy (mostly Asian). In India, most of the westerners I met were Americans; I met the same groups later in the united states, in communities like the Naropa Institute in Boulder. “An ecology of consciousness” addresses this quest for non violence, for a peaceful mind, and the encounter between Asia and the United States.

This new project analyzes blind, desperate “faith”, the need to believe at any cost and how it can lead to addictive scenarios of violence. It takes place between Jerusalem and the West, addressing transcultural and interfaith interactions, and the role of the “here and now“ concept: real time, real space, versus an imaginary one. It questions life between fiction or reality, how one wins over the other, and the consequences. Ultimately, it interrogates the sense of identity: what does “being one self” mean in today’s society, and the choices people make to create their identity.

 

About the author

Dominique Godrèche is a writer, ethno psychologist, graduated from EHESS Paris, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris, specialized in issues related to identity, art, faith and beliefs, in the Middle East, United States, Mexico, Europe. Awardee of Le Prix de la Villa Medicis hors les murs in Literature for her essays on contemporary Native American culture, she was the correspondent of Indian Country Today magazine for Europe, and is a contributor to French medias, including Libération, Paris Match, le Point, Le Monde Diplomatique, and We Demain. 

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émissions de radio/Radio

https://frequenceprotestante.com/events/pour-une-ecologie-de-la-conscience/ "ET MAINTENANT LA GRANDE TRANSITION"  FREQUENCE PROTESTANTE 

 

https://www.airzen.fr/dominique-godreche-pour-une-ecologie-de-la-conscience/ "L'INSTANT PRÉSENT"  AIR ZEN RADIO 

 

Une Ecologie de la Conscience

Publisher: TREDANIEL

Language: French

Pages: 223

Available at bookstores and online

FNAC

DECITRE

AMAZON

 

 

 

A talk with writer, filmmaker and producer Michael Mandaville

Recently Victoria Cyr had the pleasure to meet with writer, filmmaker and producer Michael Mandaville at a charming cafe near Edgar Quinet. 

 a Paris Writers News interview

 

Victoria Cyr: What inspired you to write your novel "A Cold Death -- An Aristotle Witzer Mystery" and set it in Paris?

Michael Mandaville: I actually saw an article which I still think I have some place which talks about a hidden movie theater in the tunnels under the Trocadero. That little article was so intriguing. Apparently the civil authorities were completely unaware that there was a mini movie theater under there complete with electricity and a bar. People would go there to watch old movies particularly the people who loved the underground tunnels in Paris. Of course, I also mix in a fair amount of some World War II history because I'm a World War II history junkie and the plot starts on its way! 

 Was it challenging to find the right locations for the story?

 The locations are not really the problem. Finding exact elements around the location by doing research, visits, using Google maps was the key. I have been to — at one point or the other –- most of these locations. But there are some places where I extrapolated what I'd read or discussed with some people about the underground, and then used a writer's imagination to work out what would be in the various catacombs and underground areas.

 Congratulations, I understand it's being turned into a series that will be filmed in Paris — can you tell us a little more?

 Well, we're in the formative stages of the process. Like any costly media project, it takes some time to assemble all the data. So I finished up working on the pilot based upon the novel. I could also break down the novel further into the remaining nine or so episodes. We are talking to several people about the talent, the budgeting process, and other resources that would allow us to shoot here in France.

My background is primarily motion pictures where I worked on all the” Taken” movies with Luc Besson’s company so I understand quite a bit of the process that's for darn sure. One of the elements that I'm trying to do is the balancing in my head between the creativity of writing and the necessity of working within budgetary bounds. For example, when you write a certain location or set into the novel or a TV show, then you want to try and come back to that in some way or use a set if it can be modified because that's a cost-effective strategy for doing media projects. In today's world with the advent of mass streaming programs, many companies want to do things for a specific price. So, I do have an advantage in terms of the creativity plus the ability to understand the budget process. 

How did your experience working with Luc Besson deepen your connection with Paris?

For one thing, I now have friends over here that I can talk to and ask a lot of questions whether it has to do with filmmaking, the Paris filmmaking scene, the European sensibility, etc. When you work with people in the film it's usually a very short intense period of time. You get to see people at their best and their worst. And that's when you get to really make friendships that are deep and affirming because you've got a chance to really see what kind of person this is under this kind of pressure. In addition, you also could see people who are very creative…not just at their craft of cinematography and production design, but also very good at problem-solving.

You're also writing a sequel to "A Cold Death" -- when will it be published?

I am aiming for later this year or early next year. It depends if I have a film that I have to work on in the meantime. But I do write quite a bit and fast, especially once I get it into my head on the direction I'm going. For the most part I look at it as a job where you have to report for work every day and accomplish so many tasks. So in that regard I am a diligent little factory worker pounding away on my keyboard.

As a filmmaker and director, how does this influence the writing in your novels?

What I like to think is that I am using my filmmaking capabilities to create a story which is both visual and exciting for the audience — the story itself should be as we call it — a page turner so that the essence of the plot compels one to move forward quicker and quicker. That being said, I am also a lover of history and endlessly curious about how history has informed the present. That's when I allow the novelist to take over and write about whatever interests me as small diversions into areas of interest. 

In “A Cold Death” one of the characters worked at a chocolate factory so I dive into the history of chocolate because it interests the character and they are proud of their time spent in making chocolate. Now that was an interesting moment, but that's what the character wanted to say. One of the characters in my novel Mrs. Fauntleroy talks endlessly and will go on for pages and pages. I needed the scene to be about three or four pages with her discussing an item with the main character, but darned if she just wouldn't be quiet in the scene and so it extended to nine pages in that particular draft. I believe I cut the scene back to four pages maybe five or so, but it was so pleasant as a writer just to let her talk for a little bit! That's when you know your characters are coming alive because you are the medium through which they talk — and you can shut them up!

 

I read that you have a degree in philosophy. Does this influence your writing, and if so, how?

Philosophy, for one thing, is probably a pretty dangerous background to have. For one thing you look at characters in people and see what drives them. What is their philosophy of life? Is it entirely based upon physical attributes of pleasure or the mental attributes of accomplishment? Or something in between? Does the person live a life dedicated to a particular ideal? I think in many ways that’s helped me examine or always remember to examine – the motivations, point of view and ideals of that individual. And by ideals I do not necessarily mean a good person. A criminal has certain ideals – just not the one’s most of society would agree with.

The other interesting part about philosophy is that you break down people's arguments into logical components and questions, then you find out how poorly constructed their arguments or belief systems are. Many are based upon cultural norms, acquired belief systems without substance, or the last several decades rise of political correctness so that we have a” social contract" where you must remain within the norm or be verbally ostracized by your peers. So the question is do your characters have a logic to their system or do they want to do something despite it being illogical? In addition, the use of logic and philosophy has helped create puzzles for plotting and I found it very useful there.

What is your approach to writing on a daily basis?

I write every day, one way or the other. It might be writing down notes in several pads that I always have going on or a more formalized process of outlining or still a more dedicated work on a script or a novel. It's just a compelling habit that I have now which is also quite therapeutic, creative and – wherever I am – productive. I certainly can feel comfortable in any place in the world, just working away on my own little idea which I have done from virtually every place I've ever visited.   

I tend to work with various methods. There is the nonlinear brainstorming part where I'm just scribbling away things and lines in letting the pieces of the puzzle come off the page and through the pen. And then there's the outlining part where I put it in a sequential order. And then where I can also start fleshing out everything in terms of certain scenes to see how to bring it alive. The fun part of writing in that arena is that sometimes I've written a scene in the middle or the end of the beginning which is this little anchor point that allows me to launch the bigger picture.

As a writer and filmmaker, what are the 10 essential items you won’t travel without?

Good one. I have to have certain kinds of pens which I like that have a wide tip. This is the Pilot G2 #10. Those are my favorite pens to write with so I definitely have to have a good handful of those. So being a sneaky writer, I will say that I need five of those with me at all times so I can only answer five more essential items. I definitely need a pad that will fit in my pocket which is a spiral-bound index card set. The index cards are strong enough to take a beating, whereas thin little pad paper will tear off and not last. I also always have a notebook which is always a grid and never lined paper. And that way I could think out of the box and not” stay between the lines”. 

Filmmaking wise, I have my camera on my iPhone which is better than a bulky camera in many ways. I've added to it with the unique little lens system which allows me to have fisheye, polarizer and wide angle. That is incredibly useful. The last item is always going to be some kind of physical map of the location where I am at. Even though we have the convenience of an iPhone and Google maps, it's not the same as holding a map in your hand and being an explorer. There is something old school about having a physical map and having to learn it. You also keep opening up the same map over and get to know it. That allows you to make better and deeper connections with the space I think. From a military standpoint, they call that learning the ground that you’re going to be fighting on. And if you’re writing about Paris or any other physical location that is the ground you are fighting on — to get your writing done!

Where can we buy your books?

You can buy them on Amazon where I would certainly appreciate you doing so and hopefully if you like the book then you will leave a nice positive review and I will take it in either English or French!

 

About Michael Mandaville

Michael Mandaville works as a Line Producer/Unit Production Manager on feature films and TV. He followed in the footsteps of his aunt, Molly Mandaville, who worked as Darryl F. Zanuck's script consultant for thirty-five years during Hollywood's Golden Age. He has worked on films such as "Taken" produced by Luc Besson, "Havoc" with Anne Hathaway, "The Kiss" with Terence Stamp and Billy Zane, and "American History X" with Edward Norton. He’s written several scripts and novels. 

 

About Victoria Cyr

Victoria Cyr is a Paris-based American poet, actress, and singer/songwriter.

French War Brides: a talk with author Hilary Kaiser

 

Hilary Kaiser and Mary Duncan

After years of research and interviews, Paris writer Hilary Kaiser wrote several notable books on the history of French women who married American soldiers after World War II.  French War Brides, originally published in hardback, has now been reissued in new ebook and paperback editions. 

Mary Duncan talks with Hilary Kaiser about writing history, and the stories of French women and American soldiers in the Second World War.

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a Paris Writers News interview

A talk with Simon Goodman, author of The Orpheus Clock

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The Orpheus Clock  is both a fascinating read and an extremely valuable addition to the literature of  the Nazi era. It details two interlinked histories:  the story of the Gutmanns, a Dutch family of Jewish origin who was robbed and murdered under the Nazis, and the story of their descendants, the British Goodmans who have for decades struggled to uncover the truth and reclaim their heritage despite well-financed opposition by the indirect beneficiaries of Hitler's policies. 

Against intense opposition, the Goodman brothers fought an epic court battle to force the powerful Chicago billionaire Daniel Searle to admit the truth about the provenance of  a painting, a Degas, that had belonged to Goodman's grandparents, Friedrich and Louise Gutmann. In 1943, the Gutmanns were deported to Theresienstadt: Friedrich was beaten to death and Louise murdered in Auschwitz. 

What I discovered in Simon Goodman's outstanding book, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis, was that the immense Chicago battle was only the first of many, many battles that were to come,  each one demanding incredible reserves of time, money, effort, patience and courage, not only to recover the Gutmann/Goodman family's lost legacy of art treasures, but, equally important, to reestablish its history, which had been deliberately obliterated.

 

 Simon Goodman, author of The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

a Paris Writers News interview

 

Paris Writers News Selected Author Interviews Nbr. 1

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THE ART OF FICTION NO. 1

Nicola Keegan (2009)

On the care and feeding of poets, snow, and Michael Jackson's body

 _____________________________________________________________________________

THE ART OF NON-FICTION NO.12

Anne Marie O'Connor (2014)

On Maria Altmann's efforts to recover Klimt's portrait of her aunt: "In those days people never got back stolen art."

 

______________________________________________________________________________

THE ART OF FICTION NO. 34

Steven Sampson (2013)

On writing in French, Philip Roth and Satire

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 THE ART OF THEATRE NO. 5

Miranda Crispin (2013)

On English language musical comedy in France

 

 

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THE ART OF TRAVEL WRITING  NO. 45

Gary Lee Kraut  (2011)

On revisiting Paris as a writer and an editor

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 THE ART OF MEMOIR NO.31

Matthew Fraser (2013)

On faith, hope and the meaning of home,  in Paris' Poodleland, favored by James Joyce.

 

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Diane Johnson talks with Rosalia Gitau about Writing Paris

Authors interview Authors:

   Diane Johnson shares with Rosalia Gitau for Paris Writers News

 Diane Johnson is a pretty big deal as far as writers go. She’s the type of writer with multi-book contracts and movie deals, the type of writer whose work you likely own without perhaps knowing it. This is because Diane Johnson is a writer- that’s it, she writes. Writers who have reached her status are often celebrities in their own right- the kind of people you recognize sipping champagne with Lindsay Lohan in some very hip New York nightclub, shakily straddling their obligations of the pen with publicity. But Diane Johnson seems to shun that attention. She is a true academic parsing our profundity in life’s seemingly mundane social rituals. As she explains, she lives the life of a writer and not an artist. Her coterie of work, rather than a reflection of her life, stands alone and speaks all for itself.

 I met Diane Johnson at Les Editeurs cafe, an old haunt of the Saint-Germain writers’ scene. She’s just finishing a Proust lesson with her tutor, in French of course.

 

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RG : What made you want to read Proust in French?

DJ : Everyone wants to read Proust, I think. You know, it’s very amusing. It’s such a wonderful view of 19^th century France and since I’m interested in 19^th century literature, generally, it’s just kind of an addition to my life.

 

RG : What is your background? I heard you went to UCLA- is living in LA what got involved in screen-writing?

DJ : I went to a woman’s college in the mid-West, Stephens College, and then I went to UCLA for grad school. I haven’t written many screenplays…only one that was made into a movie. It was Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

 

 RG : How did you get involved with that project?  

DJ : Stanley Kubrick was thinking of making this horror film of my novel the The Shadow Knows, and so we got acquainted while we were thinking that over, and then he decided to do the Stephen King [book] but he just asked me if I would [write the screenplay].

 

RG : Were you always a writer? 

DJ : I started as a child.

 

 

RG : You have obviously published a lot-  how did that whole process come about?

DJ : I was publishing already by the time I went to [graduate] school. I had married quite young and had little children. I was 19 [when I married] which was sort of the fashion in those days. So I had these four little children and I needed a reason to get out of the house. I took classes at UCLA, and if you take enough classes you get your PhD.

 

RG : And did you teach?

DJ : Yes, I taught at Davis for a bunch of years. I published a couple of novels [whilst there].

 

RG : And how old were you when you published your first piece?

DJ : I was about 28, I was maybe 28 when I wrote it… I can’t remember when it was published. So I was continuing my creative writing at the same time that I was in graduate school.

 

 RG : A lot of life has to do with chance. I hadn’t pursued writing for a long time because I feared risking everything on chance. Do you think pursuing and succeeding at writing is a luck of the draw?

DJ : There is luck involved. In my case one of my professors at UCLA was a novelist so he knew an editor, and so on. For me, it was not a difficult process.

 

RG : Did you just get to work then?

DJ : Yes, it was more like that. I did have the good luck of having a professor who knew an editor he thought highly of and he just kind of sent this novel to this editor. So that was a ‘big break’. But after that, it was cumulative, just doing the work.

 

RG : After you published your first book, was there a lull until your next publication?

DJ : No, I was just writing the novels and having a literally life. Doing your work and publishing. I write for the New York Review of Books so that’s a sort of the critical side that I quite like.

 

RG : What have you critiqued lately?

DJ : I have two assignments at the moment- one of them is about [three] books about marriage. Elizabeth Gilbert is one of them- it’s her second book, I guess- and the other is Lori Gottlieb, and [the last] is about a sociologist or statistician of some kind with statistics on American marriage.

 

RG : I have to say, I’m not surprised that you were chosen to critique a handful of books about marriage. In you ‘trilogy’ [Le Divorce, Le Marriage, and L’Affaire] you paint a very complex picture of marriage. I found this interesting because you have been married for so long.

DJ : I would not have said that my books were about marriage at all- even when it is called Le Mariage… I think that one observes. The story in Le Divorce was a story I heard over and over again from other people about American girls who come to Paris, marry the Frenchman and either get dumped or break up for whatever reason and then they stay. And so that was kind of a universal story. But the things I write about I think about more as political: Americans abroad and what some of their assumptions are.

 

RG : Are we, as American women who move to Paris and fall in love with a Frenchman, doomed to repeat the same mistake?

DJ : I don’t think so. Sometimes it works out…my daughter however is still married to her French husband. They came here [to Paris] they lived together and they had kids and it seems pretty stable, I hope so. It’s lasted 20 years.

 

RG : So these books you’re critiquing…

DJ : So, I wanted to actually ask you about something: what really has surprised me about them is the huge change of sensibility since I was getting married and settling down. In, let us say, the ‘world–as-described-by- Betty-Friedan’, where women were expected to stay home and if they worked, they would just work until they got married, or that they would have some career but not really after they had children. It was more what we think of as ‘traditional’. And then with the sort of ‘empowerment of women’, women now expect to work…and not only to work, but they expect to have children [and] to have careers. But Lori Gottlieb presumes that women are now very fussy because they come from a position of strength, they have an agenda and if the guy doesn’t quite measure up to this they will move on.

 

 RG : Are you referring to  the Atlantic Article [by Lori Gottlieb] about settling?

DJ : It is. It created a stir. [However] what she is saying is nothing revolutionary: it’s ‘look around at the guy you have always liked that you’ve been coffee with for ten years. Yes, he’s losing his hair but why not look again?’

 

RG : The reason it caused such a stir, I think, is because she wasn’t just saying settle for whatever is around but rather look at the expectations you [as women today] have created. It’s not them, it’s us…

DJ : That’s Lori Gottlieb’s [idea], this idea of entitlement, but also self-regard. People have been taught to think well of themselves and to not sell themselves short, there’s a buzz-phrase which is escaping me. It’s not self-regard, it’s self-esteem, that’s it, that has gone too far and [consequently] people have unrealistic self-esteem. In fact they’re not seeing their own position…and then they’re 30 and their biological clocks are ticking and then they’re 40 and panicked and it has all these consequences that people haven’t thought through because they have unrealistic expectations.

 

RG : I’m curious where these expectations come from.

DJ : Well, me too because it is a great change in sensibility among women since my time in college.

 

 DJ : Where do you think that these women get these criteria?

RG : Sex and the City. They buy into the four single girls living in the city looking for love.

 

DJ : And having great clothes.

RG : If you ask young women today who is the male character on the show whom they prefer, they will almost always say Mr. Big. For me, he was the worst of the lot. If I met a guy like that on the streets, I would run.

DJ : What I’ve got to do is rent some DVDs of Sex And The City.

 

RG : I think you’ll better understand what these women want. They run after these aloof men in the hopes that one day, he will turn around and say…

DJ : It is you I always loved.

 

RG : Funnily enough, that’s actually how the series ended. When Mr. Big finally tells the protagonist Carrie: ‘you’re the one’.

DJ : That is so interesting.

 

RG : Unlike the tidy ending of Sex and the City episode, in your books, you do a really good job of laying out a story with seemingly disparate elements that always seem to come together in a unique way at the end. As a writer, do you start off with a plan?

DJ : I think as a writer it helps to have as much of a plan [as possible] so you start out with clarity. It’s going to change and you’re gong to make discoveries along the way and there will be a whole lot of changes… but to get yourself started and to know the basic thing, like the narrative, is important because otherwise you’ve got an infinity to work with in terms of subject. You should know your characters, where it’s set and you should know basically what its about, and then maybe there’s something else you want it to be about too, so… set up another kind of plot that’s going to elaborate about some other issue- some related issue.

 

RG : Do you draw this out?

DJ : I do because I like diagramming, so I try to make a little plan.

 

RG : Do you know all your characters ahead of time?

DJ : Yeah, pretty much. It helps to get them in place.

 

RG : You use a lot of recurring characters- do you have a favorite?

DJ : No…I usually like [all of] them. I bond with them and I don’t like to give them up- even the villains.

   

RG : Just to tie up some loose ends: may I ask what happened at the end of L’Affaire- why did Amy Hawkins (the book’s protagonist) suddenly disappear? She wasn’t done with her studies yet.

DJ : No, she wasn’t done with her studies yet, though she probably had to go back to her ‘real life’ and Paris had just been a fantasy. She’s got this on-going boyfriend that she’ll see, I think it does say they will meet over the years. I didn’t think that she should get married.

 

RG : So is this [Paris] a fantasy?

DJ : Being a dot com millionaireness is (smiling).

 

RG : One of the things I really like about L’Affaire is your discussion of French women and their toiletry rituals. Do you do perform ‘toiletry’ as described in the book.

DJ : I suppose the more I’m in France, the more I’m in French life. I don’t think I have any perfume with me [right now] but yes, it becomes the ambience of the zeitgeist.

 

I think, you get comfortable with your Americaness and you realize you’re not going to be French. But then you find a good balance of taking the best of both.

 

RG : Do you have French girlfriends?

 DJ : Yes.

 

RG : What do you find different about your friendships with French women and other women.

DJ : They are a little more guarded. And that may be just because they’re more used to competition between women rather than sisterhood.

 

RG : Why do you think they’re competing?

DJ : For male attention. I have this theory but I don’t know if it’s true because I don’t really know the details… but it’s true in both England and France that the divorce laws and basic protections for women are rather inferior to America. And so, still a great part of their [French women] security is related to their relationship to men. They pretty much have to get married or live together in some sort of [arrangement]. They don’t have security that we [American women] have, they don’t have jobs as high-ranking. [Ffor example] there are hardly any French female executives. They just don’t have as secure a place. I think that’s one of the things sort of in a transition now.

 

RG : And is that one of the reasons why the French women in your book seem as though they are settling- you often refer to them practical.

DJ : Yeah, I think so. See what you think as you get to know more French women.

 

RG : What are you working on now?

DJ : I’m working on a kind of a memoir collection; it’s stuff I’ve already written and someone said ‘you should really put that together’. So I started to put that together and I thought ‘well, this is really interesting to do’.

It’s a collection of short pieces that might be about different things like a Morgan car that I once had or a particular uncle or my mother’s hometown and I’m trying to make them fit together in a sort of way that will say something about the mid-West- which is where I grew up- and about the insularity of Americans.

 

RG : What do you mean by ‘insularity’?

 

DJ : Just the fact that most Americans- if you look at political movements in America, like the Tea Partyists- they are [comprised] generally [of] people who have never left America, who have no perspective of the world or how other societies might do things better. Trains, for example, that’s my example, in something I have written [about]. They are just very very ‘deleted’ and this is some of the [stuff behind the election of] George Bush- and that was a disaster for the country. So, without sticking to that point specifically, I’m trying to comment on the country.

 

RG : Do you see yourself as a writer more than an artist?

DJ : I’m a writer. If I understand the distinction, I consider what I do art, because I consider writing an art. I consider myself a professional writer… but it’s about the work. It’s not about living the life of an artist. And I agree that there are people who really want to live an artistic life maybe without doing the work.  My concern is not with the artistic life.

 

RG : I keep hearing people critique my writing saying that there is a restraint. I wonder if I stopped living such a restrained life, would it be reflected in my work?

DJ : If [no restraint] means taking a lot of opium and having opium dreams, that is not good- it’s going to have the opposite effect on your writing. Losing restraint in your writing is something you will have to learn.

 

I consider for example that there is something restrained in my writing. But I could

say much more in my writing that I could say in person or in a social setting. In other words, you can learn to be self-revealing, or frank, or expressive in writing.

 

RG : How did you learn that?

DJ : You just get comfortable. First, there are these social restraints, and then you learn to be less inhibited and more expressive just by doing it and bearing it in mind as a goal. So I don’t think you have to wear bohemian clothes.

 

If you feel like doing that some times, good. But I don’t think its necessary. But if it is necessary then you’ll probably do it. But if it’s not you- you’re not going to pull it off anyway. If you really feel all that inside and you’ve been keeping it back, then you have to learn.

 

RG : Is that where your stories come from- a kind of internal bubbling that comes to the surface?

DJ : I don’t know where the impulse to write comes from, it comes from somewhere and writers all have it. People all have some urge for self-expression.

 

RG : So what’s next?

DJ : I’m going to write another novel, after I’m done with the [collection]…I think it’s going to be about an American going back to America, who has lived abroad for a long time and she goes back and finds that there are ‘girls with lists’ [there now].

 

 

Anna Polonyi, author of Wayword, on pilgrimages, poetry and time

 

With a backpack, a journalist's keen eye for telling detail and a poet's love of language, Paris writer Anna Polonyi set off on the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

Wayword, her stunning new book of poetry, is the result. 

A talk with Anna Polonyi, author of Wayword.

A Paris Writers News interview.

Brushstroke! The story Alice Goldfarb Marquis switched to fiction to tell

Alice Goldfarb Marquis was a fearless master of non-fiction whose books about the art world made headlines, notably Alfred H. Barr Jr: Missionary to the Modern, her revealing biography of the director of the Museum of Modern Art. Unbeknownst to the general public, Goldfarb also wrote a novel about the art world - from all apparences a roman à clef - which she was never able to get published during her lifetime.  It fell to her friend, Larry Jarvik, to bring the novel out, years after her death. 

A talk with Larry Jarvik, publisher of Brushstroke! the only story Alice Goldfarb Marquis turned to fiction to write.

Elizabeth Rynecki on Chasing Portraits of pre-Holocaust Jewish Poland

Moshe Rynecki's paintings depicting Jewish life in Poland were scattered and presumed lost after he and most of his family were murdered in the Holocaust.

Today, three quarters of a century later, his great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Rynecki, has undertaken a quest to reconstruct his life's work and to reconnect with her family's past. Chasing Portraits is her moving first person account of her search for the artistic legacy that her great-grandfather hid in an attempt to save it before the Nazis came.

 A Talk with Elizabeth Rynecki on Chasing Portraits, a memoir at the intersection of art, history, family legacy and the Holocaust.

UPCOMING RELEASE: The Beginner's Cow: Memories of a Volga German from Kansas

 

American Midwest history told with humor and grace

Loren Schmidtberger waited three quarters of a century to tell his stories of rural life in Kansas during the Dust Bowl years.

Now, at the age of 88, Schmidtberger is making his literary debut. Hailed for its "wry humor and gentle grace," his The Beginner's Cow: Memories of a Volga German from Kansas will be published by Truman State University Press in December.

How to write about the past, in particular a now mythical event such as the Dust Bowl? What are the challenges to launching a book project in one's eighties? What is the role of a book group? (And what in the world is a "beginner's cow"?)

A talk with Loren Schmidtberger, Professor Emeritus of English at Saint Peter's University, on leaving a record, humor, grief, American history, and the importance of book groups.

 

Niles Reddick on Writing the Voices of the South

Drifting Too Far From The Shore will be released on September 15

My first encounter with Niles Reddick had me laughing out loud - and a little afraid.

It was in a short story he had written about a shopper who insists that a cheating grocery store honor the discount it had advertised on grapefruits, which, of course, the grocery store does not want to do.  The confrontation is hilarious, frightening and absurdly admirable all at the same time. Boy, I thought wiping my eyes. I never want to tangle with that guy.  Yet I couldn't resist the urge to read more of his writing. Amid stacks of submissions, his was the one I kept picking up and reading for pleasure. Now, nearly two years later, I am delighted to announce the publication of his wonderfully kind and amusing novel, Drifting Too Far From The Shore. It's the story of a southern woman in her late seventies who, like all of us, is attempting to confront the injustices of this life with decency, compassion and a sense of humor. How a writer decades younger and a different gender from his protagonist managed to get her voice pitch perfect is one of those mysteries that makes discovering a new writer such a pleasure.  

 

A talk with Niles Reddick, author of Drifting Too Far From The Shore