Tag Archives: Dreyfus Affair

human oh too human

A funny and peculiar war it was. Especially in wartime Vichy Paris which stretched the lexicon of all the imaginative permutations that plumbed the bottom of French culture. The complexities of that particular context were splendidly shrewd and also quite … Continue reading

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balzac: from appearance into essence

Rodin’s memorial to Balzac, the great writer offended decency, and the prevailing taste of the public and a good part of the French establishment. Auguste Rodin’s statue of Honore de Balzac is an imaginary figure, conceived and sculptured half a … Continue reading

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what is and what it seems may be: manufacturing contentment?

Was he really the connoisseur who by accident sleepwalked into history? William James, the nineteenth-century psychologist wrote that “the greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.” In … Continue reading

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FREE SPEECH MASH-UP

What are the limits of free expression. At a recent conference Salman Rushdie and Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel agreed that laws against blasphemy are problematic, thorny and surprisingly, subject to some form of revisionism. In this information age, the … Continue reading

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EXILE BY THE RIVERS DARK: OU EST LE SOLEIL

”His profile, pitched in a precisely preconceived profile of a pose, the enormous ear, the prominent nose. His chin – smooth, not yet his signature unshaven chin— juts serenely, sagely, slightly upturned. The lips, sensual-soft, poised in mid-exhale. As if … Continue reading

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THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

In Marcel Proust’s ”Remembrance of Things Past”, there is a strong sense of familiarity making the narrator lose the sense of ecstasy he felt when the Faubourg was out of reach; that impenetrable social enclave on the right bank of … Continue reading

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CULTURAL PREROGATIVE

In no other country has the great writer received such adulation or the lesser one such respect. To write in France is to make a stake for glory, and ”la gloire” can be a very heady affair since they are … Continue reading

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