Rediscovered Nostalgia?

I finally got to the end of Gravity's Rainbow and feel like it's going to be at least another read-through before I fully get to grips with the text. It really needs a more careful reading and I'm too impatient (in reading, as in other things) to give it the attention it requires. I failed to find my nostalgia quotation too although with the help of Google and Google Book Search, I think I may have found it:

For this crew, nostalgia is like seasickness: only the hope of dying from it is keeping them alive.

The quotation isn't the same as I remember but it has the same contradictoriness so I can only assume that my nostalgia for the perfect quotation was sadly misplaced. Also, I already looked this up on Google Book Search and couldn't find it so they must have added a page or two.

Good. Mystery solved. Only, it isn't half as satisfying as I imagined. Anticipation and pleasure reigning again... C'est normal.

Trembling Mounts and Early Morning Escapes

Yesterday morning, we rose early and drove out to the Mont Tremblant National Park, two hours north of Montreal. We had ordered a subcompact rental car but, as usual, they were out of reasonable-sized cars so we ended up with a mammoth SUV.

Pond Life

I have come to the conclusion that when I am by myself, I am unable to relax - if relaxation is defined in conventional ways (lying down (or at least, sitting down), chilling, listening to music as a primary activity, being lazy, etc.). After five hectic holiday days in New York and Boston, I decided to take it easy today. It was also 32 degrees and swelteringly sticky in the city so I took the commuter train out to the idyllic countryside town of Concord, Mass.

The People's Republic

I spent much of today in the People's Republic of Cambridge, to give it its full title. And oout of respect for my father, I thought I ought to engage in some historical activities while here (though to be fair, I probably did them all when I came in 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005).

The Bostonians (Singular)

Despite the genuinely concerned warnings I received about my decision to travel from New York to Boston by Greyhound ($30) rather than train ($85), the journey wasn't really too bad. The worst part is the fact that it requires leaving from Port Authority in NYC, which is reminiscent of Birmingham New Street but without the charm. It is huge and sprawling with many different wings and spiral staircases descending further down into lower circles of Dante's hell.

La Grande Pomme (September Issue)

Written this morning when the hostel's wireless was playing up...

So, here I am, back in my spiritual home, New York City, after a long absence (well, three months). Obviously this trip is going to be a little different from the majority of holidays I take in NYC but different doesn’t have to be bad. Despite my efforts to get off the plane very quickly at JFK, it seemed that a couple of big flights had also just got in and the queue at immigration was huge. However, by the time I got through security, my suitcase was waiting for me and I hurried on outside.

Ordinarily, my first few hours in NYC would go like this: catch taxi with my parents to a nice midtown hotel, unpack and shower, head immediately to the shops, have nice dinner with parents, go to bed about ten.

Yesterday it was more like: catch AirTrain to subway stop, wait 20 minutes for a Manhattan-bound train to arrive, catch the A Train (now in its 75th year, apparently) all the way to 59th Street, change to the massively crowded 1 Train up Broadway to 103rd Street, check in to crowded but nice enough hostel, not want to take the time to find my toiletries and head straight out to the shops, grab an (excellent, hot, fresh sourdough) bagel from H & H (reportedly one of the city’s best purveyors of bagels), restrain myself from buying The Stuff of Thought, Discover Your Inner Economist and some non-fiction book about teenagers in a New England boarding school (all hardback therefore excellent restraint!), head to a random bar with a guy from the hostel, try to sort my suitcase and ensure all of my worldly goods are safely stashed in my locker, sleep (long and hard).

I felt a million times better this morning after a hot shower and a double espresso. I received a text from Monsieur E telling me he has, “issue with the boarder [sic]. Apparently my UPenn Visa was not cancel.” I told him to text me when he was about to get into NYC but obviously this means our 9 am rendezvous was not going to be kept. Not one to mope, I headed to another top bagelry on my list for breakfast: Absolute Bagels, a few blocks up Broadway from the hostel. My toasted poppy bagel was pretty good but nothing special (and nowhere near as good as H & H’s) but I was extremely impressed by their mini-bagels, reminiscent of Café Boulange’s mini baguettes in San Francisco. I walked up through the campus of Columbia and then back down past St John the Divine Cathedral and through Central Park.

The Park was looking gorgeous with the leaves beginning to turn. I’m not sure what it is about Central Park that makes it so much more exciting than, say, Hyde Park. Perhaps it is that it is so universal: my first experience was a picnic by the pond on a scorching, humid late July day in 1995 but it does equally well at winter activities, with the Wollmann ice-skating rink, which gives you views of the skyline while you skate (best enjoyed on a freezing, December night, with the city lit up and then warm up afterwards with a cup of their hot chocolate in the café).

If Monsieur E doesn’t arrive soon, I’m going shopping; his loss if he doesn’t get to be my style advisor as I didn’t come to NYC to sit in some youth hostel, however fine said youth hostel may be!

ETA (10 hours later): still no Monsieur E (still having border issues, though he insists he is on his way); instead, I walked 50 blocks to Columbus Circle for J. Crew and Sephora and then over to Bloomies where I made the mistake of asking a cosmetics woman for help. Error. I only wanted a moisturiser and came away with much more after feeling she had invested suitable time (and facialing) on me. The heavens then opened so I took the subway down to SoHo, grabbed a bagel and coffee at Dean and Deluca, shopped some more, wandered and wondered through the Village and then walked all 110 blocks up to the hostel. My feet hurt and I am hungry. I will kill that Frenchman if he doesn't get here soon...

Gridskippin'

In my desperate attempts to plan my impending vacation at the last second, I am now trawling Gawker, my New York City blog of choice (from which I had to unsubscribe as there tended to be too much celebrity gossip and not enough Manhattan), to find new, cool and other places of caffeine and mojitos to add to my Moleskine NYC (now, coming along nicely; the Moleskine San Francisco is most jealous).

One cool site I rediscovered was Gridskipper, which is a travel/city life blog with integrated Google Map mash-up. For example, this post on espresso bars caught my attention and has a few new places for me to get hyper. They have some great posts, such as The Nine Circles of Times Square Hell (featuring the Hard Rock (my favourite restaurant, aged 9), Toys 'R' Us and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co; won't be going there then!), Caipirinhas in the City (my second favourite cocktail) and New York's Best Burgers (as a burger connoisseuse, I am shocked only to have been to #8 on that list and the others will have to work hard to beat Lever House's burger).

Gridskipper is particularly cool because each entry is tagged, so you can either browse by city (NYC, SF, Sydney, Paris, etc.) or by category (restaurants, bars, etc.). I have scribbled down a few entries into the Master Moleskine but as I am a complete tech addict, I couldn't possibly cope without my computer for two weeks and so baby Vaio is coming on holiday too (she's very excited).

Next Guilty Pleasure?

First it was Dawson's Creek, then The O.C. and now, finally, it appears that there is a new TV program to my taste in the form of Gossip Girl. Of course, it premières in the U.S. in just over two hours, which makes it online-only territory for me but then I never could commit to watching a TV show in the same slot every week (I only survived my past habits because of E4 and its frequent repetitions of the same episode throughout the week).

Alessandra Stanley in today's New York Times writes:

It seems preposterous even to type the following sentence: The television version of “Gossip Girl” on CW tonight does not quite live up to the novels.

Some will be relieved, since this series of young-adult novels by Cecily von Ziegesar — about rich Upper East Side teenagers who drink martinis, smoke marijuana, shop and shoplift and cut class to have sex in Park Avenue penthouses — is “Reefer Madness” for parents. It is possibly the scariest tableau of prep school privilege since Robert Chambers requested another round at Dorrian’s Red Hand in 1986.

Effectively, the show could have been named The E.C. (East Coast) or The U.E.S. and indeed is brought to us by the makers of The O.C. (i.e. Josh Schwartz whose neglect of Gossip Girl's Californian predecessor led to fans jumping the shark in Pied Piper-like hoards after season two) and (according to The Ex, who knows I care about these things) apparently has the same music selector as The O.C. who plans to do for pop music what The O.C. did for indie.

I first came across Gossip Girl when the book series was launched about five years ago, again following the lives of the pro-/antagonist, Blair Waldorf (yes, really) and her BFF/biggest rival Serena van der Woodsen (uh huh), which are, by turns, charmed and less than charmed. Sadly, I was far too old to read this when the first book came out, which was a shame because it was as though someone had taken the bollocks pulp fiction I wrote as a teenager and relocated it to Manhattan (infinitely more exciting than Oxford). I felt plagiarised!

I also thought it a great shame that I didn't get to read those books as a book-hungry 12-year-old. Instead, I ploughed my way through vast quantities of Sweet Valley High books, a series following the lives of Californian identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who (we were reminded in every single formulaic book) were blond, blue-green eyed, five feet six and a perfect size six. The books were so very dull and yet I somehow came to possess several hundred of them (now shut away in my parents' storage unit). The books managed to be incredibly naive and very over the top at the same time - Elizabeth, the "good", responsible twin (i.e. the boring one) had a steady boyfriend, Todd, throughout; Jessica, the naughty twin was always getting herself and her sister into trouble and worked her way through a constant stream of boyfriends (to be fair, I can think of at least three of Jessica's boyfriends who died in tragic circumstances during the one year of high school the books were supposed to occupy; that's just careless! You'd think that after a while she'd learn her lesson and stay away!).

The SVH books skirted around the topic of sex as much as possible (the girlfriend of the twins' older brother was allowed to have a pregnancy scare but she was twenty and so permitted to use the word sex), though clearly someone who was as much of a party girl as Jessica would clearly have done it with at least one of her boyfriends. The books were written from 1984 until 2002 but even the more recent, "racier" ones tend to shy away from sex when they can. Gossip Girl is the polar opposite: promiscuous 17-year-olds (God forbid!), an overly sexualised 14-year-old (what?) and plenty of sex scenes, which I am sure will be played up for the screen (not that this is needed).

Young adult fiction just wasn't like this in my day!

Nonetheless, I shall watch Gossip Girl's long-awaited TV début (it was originally to be made into a film before getting picked up as a TV show) with interest.

This Sceptred Isle

Penguin have just reissued a number of popular paperbacks with gorgeous vintage covers (I haven't yet been tempted by any of the mugs, pencils and other paraphernalia they have been adorning with Penguin covers for the past few years). Unfortunately, a quick trek around Borders made me realise that I already owned all of the reissues I would want to read. In the end, a BOGOHP offer persuaded me to buy The English by Jeremy Paxman, which has been on my medium priority list of books to acquire for a while now. I'm finding it compelling enough at the moment, although I much prefer Kate Fox's anthropology-based Watching the English.

Paxman, for the most part, speaks very fondly of England and of the English and although I do have warm, fuzzy feelings with regards to my country, when it comes to elucidating specific examples of what I like about it, I realised that I'm not really very loyal after all. Removing friends/family/acquaintances from the equation, this list is about all I was able to come up with; in no particular order:

1. Oxford. Especially in autumn when the golden leaves fall around the yellow, stone buildings on Magdalen Bridge and the High. The autumn evening light definitely becomes Oxford.

2. The Backs in Cambridge in the summer. Much as I malign Cambridge, you can't beat lazing on a sunny afternoon in the summertime, sprawled out on the grass next to the river drinking Pimm's and laughing at the tourists' attempts to punt.

3. Woodlands and other non-dramatic, non-OTT scenic areas, such as Shotover, in the village of my youth. Not that I ever go for long walks that much these days. It is, however, nice to have the option.

4. Bangers 'n' mash. The French have a mashed potato equivalent but it's far too liquidy and has a funny taste about it. Also, their bangers are too seasoned for my sensitive palate.

5. Not being harassed by the staff on entering a shop/restaurant/any other public venue. Nothing wrong with friendliness when motivated by the right reasons; working on commission doesn't count.

6. Clive Owen. Of course. Enough to make one refuse to skip the country.

7. The OED. A linguist's dream come true and now online too! Oh, how I miss my Athens account!

8. Waitrose. Inspires me to cook properly. Almost.

9. The Beeb. Not that I watch TV, apart from Have I Got News For You (which would make the list in its own right were I capable of remembering to watch it more than twice a year).

I feel rather embarrassed that this is the best lot I can conceive; perhaps I should add this to my long-term project list. Paxman also talks extensively about the lack of understanding about what makes something English, taking the rather holistic view of concepts. A concept should be seen of as more than the sum of a list of necessary and sufficient conditions; someone or something is, thus, English because she or it has an intrinsic Englishness about her/it. I'm sure I should be more loyal. I take little interest in the government of my own country but stay up all night to watch the results of the American elections come in.

The grass is, of course, always plus verte and I'm sure there are plenty of things I take for granted in England that wouldn't be the same in, say, the U.S. or in France. I suppose that at the moment, I have the best of both worlds: living in good old England and frequently visiting America and France. Maybe patriotism is simply a quality one grows into over time.

It is the Confession, not the Priest that Gives us Absolution

It's been a bit of an Ian McEwan whirlwind for me these past few days. After reading a few good reviews and then seeing the trailer for Atonement, I decided that I had to see it as soon as possible but, as I am me, I had to read the book first. Fortunately, my landlord had a copy for me to pilfer borrow and I ploughed through it on Sunday night and Monday morning and it was well worth the effort.

I enjoyed Enduring Love, although it was a little too unsettling even for me, and enjoyed parts of Saturday but had always been put off by Atonement, which I assumed (from the cover) was a war story and my GCSE (1914-1939 and 1945-1973) and A-level (16th Century Europe) history syllabuses meant I never learned much about this period nor acquired much of an interest for it. To some extent, Atonement is a war story but that isn't really the point.

The film opens with its title being noisily tapped out on a typewriter. England, 1935. We see 13-year-old Briony Tallis putting the finishing touches to a play she has written to impress her older brother who is coming home to visit. Indeed, the film is oddly spread over time, the first half being taken up with the events of that day, the second half skipping nervously between various points in the future in stops and starts, back and forth. The sound of tapping keys creates a skittish tension that is echoed throughout the film in the typing, in the sound of nurses' heels on the floor, in the flickering lights of a train carriage and in the background music.

Watching from her bedroom window, Briony sees her 22-year-old sister Cecilia argue with the housekeeper's son Robbie and then strip off her clothes and dive into the fountain in their garden. Later, after intercepting a letter from Robbie to Cecilia, Briony catches them in the library putting the bookshelves to good use. Briony misinterprets the events she has seen, which leads her to tell a lie, the consequences of which reverberate throughout the rest of the film. In short [possible spoilers ahoy]:



Briony accuses Robbie of a crime he did not commit and he is imprisoned and before going to fight in France, where we see him, four years later, desperately trying to get back to Cecilia, now a nurse, whose letters are the only thing that keep him going.

It's easy for us to take sides and to blame Briony for what she has done. We see both sides of the story. Or, at least, we see 13-year-old Briony's side of the story and the side of the story of her older self as she finally comes to terms with what she did and what it meant. Her character's main role is really that of the narrator. We learn very little about Briony herself or, for that matter, about Robbie and Cecilia other than that they love each other very much, despite the stolen moments they spent together being so brief. This is Briony's story, however, and she as the author/narrator gets to choose the ending and if she feels that the real, true ending wasn't the best ending for the novel we later learn she is writing, it is within her power to rewrite history, bringing us to question what is reality, what is truth, what is honesty, guilt, punishment, penance and, of course, atonement. If we hold Briony responsible, it is because she wants us to do so.

Briony must live with what she has done and it is her hope that in finally being able to write down what really happened - to confess her sins - she will finally receive the absolution she seeks. Images of water are repeated throughout the film: the fountain into which Cecilia dives, the river where Robbie "saves" a misguided ten-year-old Briony, the ocean Robbie is searching for when he is in France on his way back to Dunquerque and to Cecilia, the hydration he is desperately seeking after many days of delusional walking, the cottage by the sea to which he and Cecilia will escape once he arrives in England, the view of the Thames from the hospital Briony works in and, towards the end, the violent rush of water through London that changes everything once more. We see Briony cleaning everything in her hospital with meticulous care, especially her hands, which she scrubs and scrubs but to no avail. Her sins cannot be washed away so easily.

We don't get to see whether or not she was finally able to find peace and to forgive herself, although the film ends in the present day when Briony is an old and much-acclaimed writer. The ending works well, I think; as in the book, there is more than one ending and as for which is the real, right ending, we cannot tell. As Cecilia tells her sister, Briony is an unreliable witness. There are many wider implications for this but on a more personal level, I've always been a big fan of the role of the unreliable narrator.

As for the film itself, Saoirse Ronan (13-year-old Briony) and James McAvoy (Robbie) both put in good performances. Keira Knightley did fine too, although she didn't have too much to do other than a) look bored, b) look sad and c) sound posh (her accent was perhaps a fraction too glass-cutting and I feel in a good position to judge) and she did look stunning in her green ballgown, though less so in her nurse's uniform. Beautiful, haunting score music from Dario Marianelli was perfectly done. All in all, a thoroughly good show.

Vanishing Nostalgia

The first time I trawled through Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, one of the annotations I made was a wonderfully contradictory quotation about nostalgia. The trouble is, I no longer have that copy and I can't seem to find the quotation anywhere online, even with the aid of Google Book Search (chances are, the quotation was on a page that isn't available). 

The quotation goes something along the lines of nostalgia for something they never experienced but extensive Googling has brought no joy so I am re-reading. However, as the book is so big and so dense that there is a good chance I will miss it, although I vaguely remember the part in which the quotation appears. 

Meanwhile, in an attempt to read the book before watching the movie, I have been hurtling through Ian McEwan's Atonement today. Somewhere in the first 50 pages, I found a similar quotation on nostalgia, which I had the presence of mind to transcribe: 

...her improbable nostalgia for a time barely concluded.

I didn't, of course, have the presence of mind to write down the page number and now I can't find it, despite scouring through the opening section several times. Nor is a Google search providing any useful results. Am I hallucinating these quotations? If not, why can't I find them? Perhaps I am going mad or perhaps I am too caught up in nostalgia for quotations about nostalgia.

Update (15 years later): It turns out that the quotation I was looking for was actually from Dawson's Creek. In the season four episode A Winter's Tale, Jack talks about, "nostalgia for a time we never really experienced." I should have known really given that the exact same thing happened with a Flaubert quote about anticipation and pleasure that turned out to be a Dawson's Creek paraphrase of a Julian Barnes interpretation of a Flaubert quote about anticipation and pleasure.