Bookshelf Book Club: D’Argile et de feu

affiche-finale-agathe-212x300 [55473]

posted by Catriona Seth

This recommendation comes via the pupils of Culham School. They visited Oxford for a session at the wonderful Maison Française which is a sort of French cultural centre, open to academics, students and the general public. They had spent time working on a recent novel of which I knew nothing, D’Argile et de feu (Of Clay and Fire). They invited the writer, Océane Madelaine, over to talk about her craft. The session at the Maison Française was the culmination of their preparatory work. They were obviously fascinated by the text which involves two characters both called Marie, one of whom lives nowadays and sets out on a long walk towards the South to try and recover from a traumatic experience, that of a huge fire she witnessed. The other is a long-dead potter, Marie Prat, based on the nineteenth-century folk potter Marie Talbot. The modern Marie hurts her foot and takes refuge in an abandoned hut. She discovers the historic Marie’s art and this gives her renewed strength and energy.
Océane Madelaine was born in the Drôme in 1980, read French literature at university and went on to study pottery in a town near Bourges which is where she came across Marie Talbot’s productions. Here is the beginning of the novel:

J’écris les yeux dans le feu, à me cramer les sourcils, le front, les joues. Je regarde et j’écris, chaque mot vient de la braise. Et chaque mot cuit comme ont cuit les pots de Marie Prat dans le four immense du village. Je regarde encore. Autour de moi il fait jour, il fait nuit, la brume de septembre vient, s’en va, revient, je suis au milieu du monde entre nord et sud, au milieu d’une forêt qui m’a donné de l’argile noire et plus encore, je traque les mouvements des flammes douces ou retorses et une chose est sûre : je sais autrement la sauvagerie du feu. Quinze ans durant je l’ai fui, maintenant à mon grand étonnement il brûle à nouveau et c’est moi qui l’alimente, entasse les bûches et enlève les cendres, c’est moi qui fais.

You probably understand most of it.

“Cramer” is a colloquial way of saying to burn. It has the same root as the much formal term “crémation”.
“La braise” is what the French call the embers (it can also be used in the plural—les braises).
“Retors, retorse” is an adjective which means twisted and is often used metaphorically.
“Sauvagerie” is a noun based on the adjective “Sauvage” and is the equivalent of the English term savagery.
“Alimenter” is to feed, and can be used whether you are feeding a fire or a person.

The students’ enthusiasm made me want to read the novel so it is on the top of my pile! And for those who are fluent in French, here is a digest of some of the questions and answers from Océane Madelaine’s Oxford meeting.

Quels sont les trois mots que vous choisiriez pour décrire votre roman ?
C’est une question très dure. Le premier mot ce serait « pieds », le deuxième, « ferveur » et le troisième, « espace ». Ce sont trois mots assez différents.
Pourquoi les pieds et pas la marche ?
Quand on parle des pieds, on parle vraiment du corps. C’est quelque chose qui me tient vraiment à cœur. La marche, c’est l’activité.

Pourquoi la marche est-elle si importante dans votre livre ?
D’Argile et de feu est mon premier roman. Le départ de ce livre, c’est l’envie urgente d’écrire un personnage qui marche. J’ai avancé avec un plan très flou qui s’est affiné et affirmé au cours du travail d’écriture. La chose à laquelle je me raccrochais, c’est cette envie d’écrire un personnage qui marche.
C’est l’histoire de deux cahiers, un blanc, un rouge. L’histoire de la Marie d’aujourd’hui est dans le cahier blanc. La marche est le début du livre. L’autre cahier contient l’histoire de la potière du XIXe siècle, l’autre Marie. Je me suis demandé ce que moi, humblement, je pouvais ajouter à la littérature. J’ai voulu faire la place au cœur même de l’écriture à la sensation. Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est de faire revenir dans l’espace abstrait du langage le corps, la marche.

Quel est le lien entre les deux Marie ?
Les deux Marie sont les deux personnages. J’ai un peu compliqué les choses en leur donnant le même prénom. Le livre est né de l’envie d’écrire sur un personnage qui marche, mais je voulais aussi parler d’une potière du XIXe siècle, Marie Talbot, qui a travaillé en céramique à une époque où c’était un métier d’hommes. Marie Prat est inspirée par le personnage de Marie Talbot dont j’ai vu certaines pièces.
Le lien entre les deux Marie est multiple. Il y a une espèce de filiation. Elles ne se rencontrent qu’à travers les traces. Marie Prat est un personnage fort, une potière, liée à l’argile. Il y a une filiation symbolique, comme si l’une aidait l’autre, sans que ce soit si net. C’est tout ça qui se joue entre les deux Marie. La Marie d’aujourd’hui choisit son héritage. Elle avait au début des souvenirs pesants, très forts, l’incendie. Elle aura l’envie de choisir son héritage, ses souvenirs. On est au niveau symbolique.

Comment les sensations et les éléments interviennent-ils dans le livre ?
Les sensations interviennent de tous les côtés. Il faut que ça circule à partir du corps, vers l’extérieur. Je vois une porosité entre les corps des deux Marie et la forêt. On est dans le personnage et on est dehors. La sensation se situe à l’articulation entre le dehors et le dedans.

Pourquoi vous avez choisi ce titre ? Quel est le lien entre poterie et écriture ?
Parmi les quatre éléments, je suis spontanément attirée par la terre et le feu. L’air et l’eau sont comme des invités. Le titre est venu petit à petit. On a cherché longuement avec mes éditrices. D’Argile et de feu s’est imposé. C’est une histoire de matière. Je voulais laisser la place au corps. J’avais besoin d’accueillir l’argile et le feu qui sont des éléments puissants. Je les connais bien. Je suis céramiste. C’est aussi mon métier. Cela me ressemble bien. Cela ressemble à mon texte. J’appréhende les mots comme je pétris l’argile. Ils deviennent des matières. Dans le texte, la Marie d’aujourd’hui écrit des cahiers. Vers la fin du texte, elle s’adresse à la Marie d’avant : « Je cuis des mots. Il faut qu’ils soient ardents et justes. » Elle met cela en parallèle avec la cuisson des pots par la potière du XIXe siècle.

Pourquoi y a-t-il si peu de ponctuation dans le roman ?
Enlever de la ponctuation me donne une grande liberté dans la phrase. Parfois on ne sait pas qui parle, c’est pour cela qu’il n’y a pas de guillemets. C’est aussi une volonté de laisser de la place au lecteur.

Pourquoi avez-vous choisi d’alterner le présent et les souvenirs ?
C’est une question abyssale. Ce sont aussi des choix. C’est ainsi que les personnages acquièrent une épaisseur. Ils sont dans un présent très fort, mais sont aussi constitués de mémoire, de souvenirs.

Est-ce que vous avez des projets futurs ? Et est-ce que les rencontres avec les lecteurs vous motivent à écrire un deuxième tome ?
Bien sûr, il y a des projets futurs. D’Argile et de feu continue sa route et a pris une certaine autonomie. Cela me laisse la place de me plonger dans un second texte. Pour moi, le travail d’écriture a un rapport assez fort à la solitude. C’est toujours une fête de rencontrer des lecteurs. C’est l’inverse. Ça me nourrit. Un auteur doit amener son texte au plus loin. L’écriture, c’est un artisanat.

Combien est-ce que vous écrivez par jour ? Est-ce que vous écrivez tous les jours ? Est-ce que vous écrivez d’une traite avant de retravailler le texte ?
Chaque écrivain invente sa discipline. Moi le travail d’écriture c’est le matin, souvent tôt, avant la journée d’atelier.

Pichet Marie Talbot [55474]
***

With thanks to Océane Madelaine, but also to Alexandra, Maud, Clémence, Cassandre, Anaïs, Camille, Pauline, Lucas, Agathe, Jean, Lallie-Rose, Euan, Fanny, Elie-André, Brieuc, Giulia, Nicolas, Tomas, Lydia and their teacher, Céline Martin.

Vloggers

OxVlog

posted by Simon Kemp

If you’re thinking about becoming a student at Oxford, one of the best ways to find out what you’ll be letting yourself in for is the Oxvlog project on Youtube. It’s a student-led project to try and let people know what it’s like to apply here and to live and study in Oxford. There are a huge number of videos online, covering all aspects of the Oxford experience, including useful tips for people thinking of applying to study here. They’re also good at giving you the complete, unvarnished truth in a way you probably won’t find in official brochures and university websites (as you’ll quickly see if you click on the videos below…). We’ll be linking to vlog posts by modern linguists from time to time. A couple of the modern languages students on Oxvlog are from my own college, Somerville: Miriam studies philosophy and Spanish and Connor studies German. Here’s a sample post from each of them:

You can find the Youtube channel here, where you can browse for videos that look interesting, or subscribe to a particular vlogger who’s studying on a course that you might be considering.

100 Good Reasons to study modern languages at university: Reason 92

Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, Tom Hollander as Major Corkoran, Elizabeth Debicki as Jed Marshall, Olivia Colman as Angela Burr, and Hugh Laurie as Richard Roper - The Night Manager _ Season 1, Gallery - Photo Credit: Mitch Jenkins/The Ink Factory/AMC Itís the first TV adaptation of a le CarrÈ novel in more than 20 years and the first adaptation of The Night Manager. The novel, originally released in 1993, has been updated as an contemporary interpretation ñ the original novel is based predominantly in South America and Mexico - and sees Roper selling weapons to the Colombian drug cartels. The story has been updated so that it is set in the modern day Middle East ñ it is very current with the first episode opening with the Arab Spring in Cairo. Olivia Colmanís character, Angela Burr, was written as a man in the novel (Leonard Burr) but the decision was made to make the character female to modernise the story. Olivia was also pregnant when she got the part, so they incorporated this into the story too. Susanne Bier (director): ìWe had decided that Burr should be played by a woman, rather than a man as in the book, because we thought there was an exciting chemistry between a woman and a man engaging in the power struggle that Roper and Burr have.î Hugh Laurie has been trying to get the adaptation made for many years, having read the novel when he was young ñ he tried to get the rights but they were owned by Sydney Pollock who originally tried to make the novel into a film. Hugh Laurie (plays Roper): ìI fell in love with this book when I first read it back in 1993. Iíd worshipped le CarrÈ since I was a teenager, but this story, in particular, I found endlessly intriguing, powerful and romantic, mythic almost.î

posted by Simon Kemp

While the Intelligence Services may not recruit their spies with a tap on the shoulder and a whispered conversation any more, they’re still very interested in modern languages graduates. If you’re interested in languages, you might as well bear them in mind as a career option…

Not long ago, The Guardian published an article on the topic. The full article is here, but here’s an extract:

If Kim Philby or Guy Burgess were able to stroll today around the famous Great Court of their old Cambridge college, Trinity, they might raise an eyebrow at the scruffiness of some students, but otherwise little has changed. It’s not just the surroundings that are remarkably consistent; so is one of the job opportunities: spying.

Top universities remain a useful place to find new entrants, not just linguists but also those with increasingly vital technology skills, or with the more varied and nebulous talents needed to be an agent in the field.

However, these days the net is cast far wider. For a couple of days this week if you entered “Russian language” and “university” into Google’s UK search engine, above the results popped a jaunty, paid-for advertisement. “Understand Russian?” it asked. “Help protect the UK.” A link took you to MI5’s careers website.

One Cambridge student said she knew of a handful of the 20 or so final-year Russian linguists who were contemplating the security services. She thought it an unlikely path for her, but still asked to not be named in case she changed her mind.

Another student, in her second year, who received the same email and also asked to speak anonymously, said it was a tempting route for students facing an uncertain economic landscape and laden with significant debts. “It’s probably an attractive career for a lot of people. Everyone is so concerned about not getting a job at all, so if you’re being offered something so secure, why wouldn’t you think about it?”

As a modern job it is not just secure, but also a very different working environment from the often lonely, drink and cigarette-fuelled world of the 1950s traitors. Characters such as Burgess – who spent much of his time during a posting in Washington drunk and was described in an FBI file as “louche, foul-mouthed … with a penchant for seducing hitchhikers” – would not be tolerated for long.

MI6 declined to comment on its recruitment policies but pointed the Guardian to the careers section of its website. This now includes a “wellbeing” page, which stresses a commitment to health and safety, and talks of counsellors being available to staff. Anonymous profiles of intelligence officers include a woman who recently took maternity leave and praises the work-life balance.

MI5 also declined to comment but GCHQ, the Cheltenham-based communications and interceptions centre, said it was “always looking to recruit those with language skills relevant to the world today”. A spokesman said: “A combination of workforce changes and the requirement from government that GCHQ continues to deliver on its mission to keep the UK safe means that we are currently looking for those with skills in a number of languages, one of which is Russian.”

Among ways to attract new people was through “regular engagements with universities”, the spokesman added.

Sitting in a cafe in one of the university’s modern buildings, the Cambridge students who spoke to the Guardian said many more of their peers were applying for the Foreign Office fast-track scheme for budding diplomats, now also much changed, with a first round consisting of internet-based aptitude tests.

Both said returning to Russia as an intelligence operative rather than a diplomat could prove difficult.

“If you’ve spent time in Russia and got to know Russian people it could almost feel a bit strange returning there as a spy,” said the second-year student. “It’s almost as if you’re betraying the Russian people you know, or at least your relationship with them might be very different.”

Her friend echoed this point: “When I was in Moscow I volunteered at a fostering commune, which was amazing. It would be very different going back there as a spy. If you like the country and like the people it could be difficult to do that sort of job.”

She added: “When I started my course Russia wasn’t the big enemy. It’s strange how it’s all changed so quickly. I didn’t expect my degree to be so in demand like this.”

 

Tout finit par des chansons

EUrovision logo

posted by Catriona Seth

            Yes, it’s that time of year again: the daffodils have come and gone, the lily of the valley is blooming, the lambs are frolicking in the fields and… the Eurovision song contest is upon us. As you may know, the French are fiercely patriotic about how much time is given to French chansons on their airwaves. Armed with knowledge of past Eurovision successes in la langue de Molière, like Patricia Kaas’ S’il fallait le faire [If it had to be done] (2009), Marie Myriam’s L’enfant et l’oiseau [The child and the bird] (1977), France Gall’s Poupée de cire, poupée de son [Wax doll, rag doll] (1965) or Belgian Sandra Kim’s J’aime la vie [I love life] (1986), not to mention Céline Dion’s 1988 winner for Switzerland, Ne partez pas sans moi (Don’t leave without me), all of which can be found here, https://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com/specials/rankings/best-eurovision-song-ever/, I trawled the internet to find out what countries which count French amongst their official languages were sending as their musical message to the world. I was in for a severe disappointment. Switzerland is going for The Last of our Kind by a Canadian called Rykka, Belgium for Laura’s What’s the pressure and Luxembourg is not entering this year. France has, perhaps uncharacteristically, gone for a long bilingual song called J’ai cherché [I have looked for] which is here http://www.eurovision.tv/page/stockholm-2016/all-participants. One presumes that the singer, Amir, is hedging his bets and trying to appeal to different constituencies by choosing to sing both in French and in English. Overall, it is a meagre crop for les francophones, you may say. Indeed, so let’s hear it for one candidate who comes from an exclusively German-speaking land, Austria, and is singing in French: Zoë, with Loin d’ici [Far from here].

 

Zoe_postcard_00

 

Zoë Straub is 19 and attended the Lycée Français in Vienna so her French is perfect. Try listening to the song first to see how much of it you catch. It is about a faraway land which is a sort of paradise we should strive for.

Here are the lyrics, with a couple of words explained at the bottom of the page:

Et quand tu chantes, oui moi je chante aussi
Quand tu t’élances, je suis
Et quand tu voles, oui moi je vole aussi
Si tu t’élances, j’te suis

Dans un pays loin d’ici
A la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
A la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante…

Et quand la route nous semble sans issue
Sans aucun doute, j’te suis
Sans aucun doute, même si on s’ra perdus
Sans aucun doute, j’te suis

Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante

On chante et on danse et on rit, on s’élance, réuni, enivré, dans l’imprudence

Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante
Dans un pays loin d’ici
À la recherche du paradis
Dans un pays loin d’ici
On chante, on chante

On chante, on chante, on danse, on danse
Dans un pays
On chante, on chante, on danse, on danse
Loin d’ici.

You will notice the elisions in the sung version (j’te instead of je te; on s’ra for on sera).

Je suis here is the first person of the verb suivre, to follow, not of être.

S’élancer is to rush or dash forward.

Enivré is the past participle of the verb enivrer. Être enivré is to be drunk (ivre). It is used her metaphorically.

A quick note on the title of this post. Tout finit par des chansons: this is the last line of Beaumarchais’ famous Mariage de Figaro. In the play, it more or less means It all ends happily. Literally, it means It all ends with songs.