March 2014

March 1, 2014   Saturday

4:46 pm Time for Gouté but no call yet from 33.  We both took naps.  I woke at 8 in a terrible grump.  We didn’t eat until noon at Le Piquet over on Suffren. 

Finally finished the beloved Hollinghurst novel and felt decidedly less excited by it than I had been at mid-point.  It seemed to become more and more tedious in its oh-too-cleverly-cleverness.  Slowly poring over the treasures in the junk house that it had piled up so magnificently as if to answer with a final thumb to the nose, “yes, gays can now marry but we are still the guardian protectors of all the great junk of yesteryear.”  Something like that.  It is so British and so gay and so class-conscious and so many other things, that once again I feel shut out, never quite sure I’m getting even the basic gist let alone enough of the subtle and secret nuances buried within the whole fabric.   My tweet today on the subject quotes a line from page 423  @HollinghurstPT  “The feeling of secrecy and safety was shadowed by a childish sense of unease." I’ll have to look over reviews to find out who said what about it and to find out where my response fits on the spectrum.  Glad to have finished it at last.  Might be my grumpy mood today.  Late heavy dinner with the fam last night at the place with country style food, scumptuous but salty and Dave and I shared two-thirds of a bottle of good burgundy. That’s what upset my equilibrium and gave me almost no sleep during the night. 

10:22 pm  Back from delightful dinner at Alchimie.  Earlier we went to the apartment and gave Emma the baby doll (American Girl Bitty Baby) and the couffin, baby carrier.  She took of the pjs and put the pjs for her that match on to the doll.  She seemed to like all of it. 
No rain today after the rain we had in the l0ng cold walk to Le Piquet, which was my fault because I forgot how to go from Dupleix to Suffren and I failed to look it up on the maps. 

Hurray James Wood agrees with me.  Moi! 
“Given how thickly trafficked this corridor of English literary history has been in recent years, a writer like Hollinghurst can spin yards of this soft stuff practically in his sleep. I found myself trying while reading much of the book, to waken Hollinghurst from this diligent slumber by muttering into his ear one of Wyndham Lewis’s revolutionary modernist maxims, designed to stir England up in the nineteen-teens: “Kill John Bull with Art.” For Hollinghurst also pulls in the elbows of his prose and too often produces a kind of polite professionalized filler. “

Indeed, me and Wood are right on the same money!  Hooray again.
“Unfortunately, perhaps because Hollinghurst is so intent on uncovering the machinery of decorous repression, his own writing about this buried homosexuality is full of decorous repression—it inescapably recalls Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction, especially “The Remains of the Day,” and Hollinghurst can seem to be treading once again over English ground that has been well worked. It is hardly a revelation that literary young men of the Rupert Brooke era were often drawn more to each other than to women, and that this attraction had to be delicately negotiated in a wider world that did not always indulge it. The velvety fumblings and occlusions of George and Cecil are fairly tame, especially by the standards of Hollinghurst’s own previous fiction, which has often been breathtakingly carnal. And as the novel paces steadily toward its revelations it gets flatter. Far too much time is spent on Paul Bryant’s circular, sidelong interviews with George, Daphne, and Jonah the servant; and Hollinghurst fills the last two hundred pages of the book with what amounts to literary gossip: a portrait of the Times Literary Supplement in the early nineteen-eighties, a funeral “celebration,” a scene in an antiquarian bookshop, and a Cecil Valance conference at Oxford, where we get to meet Paul Fussell and Jon Stallworthy. (“He realized that the man standing near him was Professor Stallworthy, whose life of Wilfred Owen had fought rather shy of Owen’s feelings for other men.”)
“The Stranger’s Child” is a frustrating book, both a large and a curiously small novel—it trembles for a time on the verge of moving beyond the parochialism of its very familiar literary setting, and is finally happy to fall back into the comfy and the known. Reading it, I was put in mind of a phrase from Larkin’s “Church Going,” which envisages a certain kind of latter-day, fogeyish church visitor—“some ruin-bibber, randy for antique.” This novel is randy for antique; I hope its successor, like its predecessor, is randy for the present.” ♦
New Yorker Oct 17, 2011
I was especially pleased to see him say that the last two hundred pages fall really flat, and to say that it falls back into the same closet about gayness that it claims to be tracing the opening of.  Also that the middle section about Paul is the best and we then find it irritating to have Paul lowered so much in the later sections.  The book seems to be its own worst enemy.  “Randy for antiquarianism” in the most clichéd of ways.
Sunday morning  Bolted out early to get Starbucks yogurt and coffee and bread and pan auy chocolate at a bakery.  Bright and sunny, might be the best weather day yet. 
Theo Taitt in the Guardian gave it a bit more generous a review but noted too that it is merely very good.  Should I telephone Greg and tell him not to bother with it??  Or should I just let him decide on his own?  I’ve now given him two suggestions that have not measured up to his measure---Marías and Hollinghurst.  I could just leave it at that and not worry about calling him. 
Night  Decided on the latter.  Great concert for us and select friends today.  Two new songs---one about superheros and one bluesey one. 
Monday morning March 3 already.  Early walk to get breakfast supplies.  Va worried about getting a kidney stone.  Rich restaurant meals.  Last day here.  Concert last night with the small coterie of young parents and their kids was a delight.  Met a Jewish journalist from New York who has been an editor here for the NYTimes Paris bureau for ten years now.  Three young daughters with a Korean wife.  My guess is that he is in his mid-fifties, sort of Woody Allen-ish. 

Monday evening.  Nice lunch with Cécile at the creperie.  Special word in French for how the rains behave in March.  One moment sunny and lovely, next moment downpour.  We managed to walk in-between them.  Just took naps. 

March 8
Saturday evening, hanging out in Javea.  Va snoozing.  Me sleepy too but refusing to nap for some weird reason.  Beautiful day once more. 
End of the first week, almost. 
Email news earlier this week of Maggie Reed’s death in Cumberland.  Suicide by alcoholism is what the cousins have rumored.  Vicky Carty on Facebook told me she (we) went to the funeral.  42 yrs old. 
We’re trying to get settled and more ready for visitors in a week.  Cecile reports that she had lots of contractions last night but that Igor is still waiting. 

March 12  Wednesday  7:18 pm  Javea
Video visit with the Parisians this morning.  Emma put on her Princess crown and got out the Cinderella book to go with the picture on the card.  She blew out the candles on the one card and they all could see that putting the stickies on the cake could be fun.  Most fun was when the trotinette came forward for unwrapping and first tries.  She had her baby in the porta-bebe too.  They were all set to go out in try the scooter on the street--on the playground I hope.  The casque/helmet should arrive any day. 
Then we drove to the Valencia airport.  Took us hour and a half, even with getting lost a bit right upon entry.  Now we know where and how to go into the P1 Blue parking garage right away.  Sunday we have to do this super early to pick up Chuck and Louise.  We lunched in the town of Manises, classic little restaurant right down the street from a huge glass and concrete building.  We asked a woman what it was and she didn’t know.  Rather she explained it was intended to be a concert hall of some sort but it has sat there unfinished for a while and no one knows quite what there is going on about it now.  Just driving back through the city you could see other abandoned apartment towers and projects so it’s no wonder Gwen and Paco panicked and moved to Omaha.  Main trigger was getting their son into a school for kids with his challenges (not sure what they are---learning difficulties.  He loved the place they found and then they all moved.  Elisa is due to graduate from university in the fall so they will come back for that visit. 

Thursday March 13 9 pm
Memorable day.  Around noon we started out.  Dropped the trash at the Fenix area and set off for Xacero, decided to take N-332 all the way to see the sites and the landscape.  Heavy rain clouds to the north.  Gandia not much to look at and in fact up on the mountain west of town a hugh abandoned development, hundreds of empty, unfinished little units.  Looked like a cliff dwelling, pre-historic or futuristic, both at once.  Instant ruins.  Storm broke and we drove in blowing and pouring rain to Xeraco.  Stopped at a big gas station for info.  Very pleasant and helpful fellow.  We drove back to Xeraco, located the RENFE station and then got on the AP-7 and headed back to the shopping mall at Ondara.  Got lost in the town and finally got into the underground parking of the Marina mall, a huge oval or boat-shaped total capsule of consumerist ecstasy.  Even a Danish furniture design store.  Huge supermarket.  All of it ready for summer hordes.  Bought an outfit for Emma at Desigual.  Lunch at a Spanish place in the food court.  Walked some of the railings, which were perfect.  Merienda at the Gelato place.  Superb gelato and good coffee.  Bought things at the supermarket, including two little trash receptacles for the bathrooms.  Dr Oetker pizza for dinner here, spinach and cheese.  Post on Facebook where Dave says he’s interviewed on a radio station in Berlin. 

Friday March 14  6:13 pm
We checked out the pool.  Just up the road.  Could do.  Before we left, Joan King stopped, prez of the association.  Had a heart attack six months ago, local hospital saved her life even though it is Spanish, put in a pacemaker.  Wife of British military fellow.  They’ve lived all over.  Here steadily now about seven years.  Year her husband wanted to retire his buddy said no, have a new job for you in Afghanistan and you will make so much money in one year you won’t refuse the offer.  He went.  So both King and Webster profited big from this war.  Billons thrown at it, all around it. 
No one has said anything about the global economic collapse in 2008 but you wonder if it was because the two wars were about to end.  World economy propped up for ten years by these wars. 
We set off to find the holy muesli of Moaira, Alan told us that’s where he got it.  Had a burger on the terrace of the beautiful little bay there.  Silvery skies, cloudy, bit cool.  Nice waves.  A bird that looked uncannily like a loon.  Going to examine the photos up close later on.  Looked for the sacred store, Pepe La Sal.  A barman down the road finally told me exactly where it was.  Not at all what we expected from the outside.  Big concrete building, four stories, parking garages underneath.  Inside a true palace to expat cuisine, mainly German, Dutch, Scando, and British.  Expat hunger would put it better.  We bought the wonderful muesli, the one with red berries and mainly oats, rolled oats.  Drove back to the Arenal of Moraira, had a splendid coffe and cherry tart at Kafti right on the walkway.  Beautiful German woman served us.  Blonde, blue eyes with perfect black liner, sparkly blue ear rings, turquoise stretch blouse, black tights, dainty white clogs on her feet.  Beautiful smile.  We walked some more on the esplanade in front of the stone tower rebuilt in 1955, saw the memorial tile to Chester B Himes, Missouri-Moaira.  Have to look up his dates. 
Black author, detective novels, amazing life. 

Saturday night  March 15
Va walked 2 miles today, nearly 10,000 steps.  I walked 4.  From the Arenal to the playa and back.  Earlier a fine spa morning or mini-spa since showers instead of bath.  A little shopping in prep for Kigers arrival.  Chuck emailed that they will have to do customs here so we should sleep in and aim for a 10:30 pick-up instead of 9:30.  Hooray. 

Wednesday March 19 
5:41 pm  News early this morning that
Eliot Garlitz was born in Paris.   Father’s day here in Spain, St Joseph’s feast day. 
Louise and Chuck in Valencia for the Fallas.  We took them to the train in Xeraco.  Staying the night, return tomorrow.  Feels like a breather day.  Power went out here in the house.  Mike and Keith at number 10 helped me turn the key breaker back on.  Why could I not have done that simple thing?  It all looks and feels so fragile and tiny I was afraid I would break it off.  Doing a bit of laundry.  Va napping.  We got in at 1 am this morning from a long day and delightful evening in Alicante with their old friend, Tor Opendal. 
We never guessed “Eliot.”  We think it is spelled with two Ls in English, but don’t really know.  Simple facebook check shows plenty of one-L Eliots. 

Sunday March 23
Watching Mr Selfridge even though we don’t know quite what is going on.  Week’s visit with Chuck and Louise went well.  They went to the Fallas on the train on Wednesday, stayed the night at the Senator hotel, returned late the next afternoon.  Chuck was disappointed with the bullfight.  The toreros on horseback, rehoneros, performed in the morning and not in the afternoon.  Guess the search for the tickets was more memorable as a tale than the results of having them.  It took us all to Alicante to pay back the price of the tickets to their old friend, the Norwegian dentist who stayed with them his senior year of high school twenty years ago, Tor Opendal, from northern Norway.  I was glad he had heard of Karl Ove Knausgaard and asked him to pronounce the name a few times but I cannot now say it properly, especially the last name. 
Called Donald for a brief hello while we were at La Esquina this afternoon.  We’ve had a steady stream of photos of Eliot and Emma thanks to Dave’s iphone and the magical iCloud.  Read 12% of the biography of Steve Jobs since both C & L read it and had interesting things to say about it.  I wanted to find out how weird Jobs was, after Louise talked about him.  Turns out he was a full-fledged young hippie, LSD and all plus being just strange in what we’ve come to know as the geeky ways of Sheldon Cooper.  Fruitarian and other diet issues and ways---vegetarian, barefoot, and clear to all who met him, exceptionally brilliant and creative. 
Great dream about Eliot last night.  I put him in a shopping cart, the upper basket, and he beamed and loved being pushed around in it. 
Thursday March 27   We walked all the way to the Parador, had lunch there.  Beautiful day but cool wind continues.  Chuck just called from Madrid.  They will meet Marga tomorrow to give her 600 euros for me.  They were very apologetic for having lost the check---got pick-pocketed in Madrid but managed a bus tour of Toledo, Fallen, and Segovia. 
Earlier we facetimed in the morning with Dave while he was walking to either the metro or to the British school.  Then this evening we facetimed with Cécile and Emma to celebrate C’s birthday today.