Author: leh

So Far, So Good … Read On

Here at Chez H we have embarked on a new set of reading adventures, having completed Sarah Bakewell’s hard act to follow of At The Existentialist Cafe.

how-to-live_montaigneOn my own, I am reading Bakewell’s earlier (2010) How To Live, a piece of non-fiction on 16th century essayist Michel de Montaigne.   And loving it.

But we have also been searching for a good read-aloud book (following our success in that mode with Joseph Mitchell’s Up In The Old Hotel).  Now we think we have found it in Jane Gardam’s Old Filth, fiction about a postwar retired English barrister and judge who was once a British Empire civil servant in Hong Kong.  

old-filth_coverA melancholy sort of comedy, I’d say, Old Filth might be worth a movie or series of BBC or Masterpiece Theatre ilk.   This thing is the first in a trilogy, which we will happily move on to if it continues at this rate.  You can hear an audio excerpt on this page, btw.

Existential Developments

A few days ago, I mentioned reading “At The Existentialist Cafe“.  Finished it and now Kim is devouring this wonderful book.  Two items of note:

1. Author Sarah Bakewell frequently refers to books and films with relevant influences and connections.  One she mentioned was the 1949 film “Rendezvous in July” (“Rendez-vous de juillet”) in which French youth, driven by American culture and trends, adopt lumberjack-inspired fashion (a forerunner of today’s metrosexuals?).  Here is a clip from that film:

2.  Herman followed up with his previous mention of having seen Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s gravesites in Paris (about ten years ago?) by sending along photos he made of a postcard that appeared in the grass alongside, apparently from an admirer who had jotted down some sentiments upon a visit to Montparnasse Cemetery.

I am encouraging Herman to send his photos to Bakewell, so we shall see what happens.