Zest for Life

A zest for Life seems to me the most admirable of qualities. So many of the people I have blogged about in the past year – eg Naomi Mitchison, Dennis Healey, Dervla Murphy, Diana Athill , Tisa von der Schulenberg, Georgy Faludy (1910-2006) all had it in buckets – and so, I think, did Iris Origo (1902-1988) whose incredible Images and Shadows I found this week in the Vasil Levsky branch of Knigomania (for 4 euros).  The blurb tells us that -

Iris Origo was born in 1902 and was instantly catapulted into a life of "unfair advantages of birth, education, money, environment and opportunity." But she used this birth-right wisely, and her legacy includes a string of books apparently beloved and admired equally by historians, biographers, and readers.
Iris spent her youth in the ancestral estate on Long Island and in her grandfather's castle in Ireland. Her father died tragically when she was eight, and she continued her peripatetic life with her indefatigable mother and beloved governess. A woman who always knew her mind, in 1923 Origo bought La Foce, an entire valley, almost feudal in organization, in the Val d'Orcia of Tuscany. There for fifty years she worked tirelessly with her (Italian) husband, improving the land and the lot of the peasants, saving endangered children from the brutal incursions of the Nazis, and writing history and memoirs that are still considered classics of the genre.
Origo was at once a woman of action and introspection, of boundless curiosity and endearing innocence. She writes beautifully, thoughtfully, and lucidly.

The introduction to her memoir is typical of her style: "It has sometimes been pointed out to me that I have had a very varied and interesting life, have lived in some extremely beautiful places and have met some remarkable people. I suppose it is true, but now that I have reached `the end game', I do not find myself dwelling upon these pieces on the board. The figures that still stand out there now are the people to whom, in different ways and in different degrees, I have been bound by affection. Not only are they the people whom I most vividly remember, but I realise that it is only through them that I have learned anything about life at all. The brilliant talk that I heard at I Tatti in my youth, in Bloomsbury in the thirties, in New York and Rome in later years, has lost some of its glitter. All that is left to me of my past life that has not faded into mist has passed through the filter, not of my mind, but of my affections. What has not warmed by them is now for me as if it had never been."

Born into an international family, Origo spent her childhood years between her paternal grandparents' estate in Westbrook, Long Island, her maternal grandparents' home in Great Britain, and her mother's villa in Fiesole. Although her father died early, he made sure his daughter grew up devoid of limiting national identity and open to different cultural influences. Her mother instilled a passion for travel and books. While grateful to her family for the comfort and care they provided, Origo portrays certain aspects of her upbringing with restrained criticism. 

Her proper British mother, for instance, insisted on Origo's private education by governesses and tutors, opposed her desire to enroll in university, and committed her to a tasteless, nauseatingly ``healthy'' diet. In hindsight, Origo considers her period of ``coming out'' into high society a considerable waste of time. Readers, however, will appreciate her colorful accounts of balls and theater visits as a glimpse of elite diversions in bygone days. Origo's descriptions of early 20th-century American magnates and patrons of the arts and her detailed reconstruction of Italian landowners' traditional life are among many other engaging passages. Sketching her own character in an irreproachably modest tone, she commands respect for her ability to apply her superb education, knowledge of the world, and financial means to worthy causes. She helped modernize devastated farmland in Tuscany, volunteered in the Red Cross during WWII, and sheltered orphaned children at her home after the war. This active, creative attitude arises out of Origo's profound sense of being ``singularly fortunate,'' despite some personal tragedies a rare and therefore doubly appealing trait. Along with its exquisite style and thought-provoking digressions on the philosophy of writing, this autobiography documents fascinating experiences of the modern European and American aristocracy.
She is marvellous at nuances of place and personality, writing with a subtle mingling of candour and affection that lingers in the mind.

Images and Shadows seems to be one of a few of her a books which are still in print (or rather reprinted in a lovely 1999 Nonpareil edition). It is time her other books saw the light of day again eg her 1953 biography of the Italian poet Leopardi whose proliferous Notebooks have just been published in a huge translated version, 

Through Tourist eyes - and taste buds

A hectic few days as my youngest daughter and her husband flew in for a long weekend. Sofia and Bulgaria were looking at their best – with the early morning mist, later sun and autumn foliage much in evidence as we visited the isolated redoubt of Koporivishtica village to the east of Sofia and, the next day, Rilski Monastery two hours’ drive south of Sofia.

Koprivshtitsa is a captivating mountain town, unique with its cobblestone alleys, houses painted in bright colors with expansive verandahs and picturesque eaves.
During the Ottoman rule, Koprivshtitsa withstood many a raid- although it was reduced to ashes several times and its inhabitants were frequently robbed and driven away.
The wealthier townsfolk managed to “ransom” Koprivshtitsa from the Turkish rulers and win some special privileges, thus keeping the Bulgarian traditions and atmosphere of the town intact.
In this way Koprivshtitsa was able to preserve its freedom-loving, patriotic spirit and hand it down to its children. Quite a few Bulgarians who laid down their lives for the liberation of their country were born here.

The April Uprising, which broke out in Koprivshtitsa on April 20, 1876, gave voice to the desire and efforts of the Bulgarian people to win back its freedom after five centuries of Ottoman oppression. A lot of foreign journalists reported the events of the spring of 1876 and showed the world that there was a people on the Balkan Peninsula who had not lost their identity and were willing to strive for independence. Eventually, in 1878 Bulgaria won the freedom it had so long yearned for, at least partly helped by the publicity of the April Uprising and its subsequent brutal suppression.

We were not the only ones to visit Rila – one of my favourite ex-pat bloggers about the Sofia scene (now sadly back in the US) was there at the beginning of the month (and also at Plovdiv)

Rilski Monastery is now a UNESCO site and, much as I enjoyed this time the exuberance of the recently repainted artwork,

I felt that it was actually a bit over the top and inconsistent with the soul of the place. The screams of hordes of kids shattered what little calm the Saturday crowds allowed the monks in their warren of cells.

The only calm element were the postures of the 3 Japanese visitors who sketched the buildings.

 In between times a bachanalian  feast of Bulgarian dishes and wines was enjoyed – particularly at the two restaurants in my area, one of which is vegetarian and cooks superb black bread on the premises,

Words ....and silences

I suppose I live an odd life – for the past 23 years in countries whose languages I don’t speak (although I had a good stab at Russian during the 7 years I spent in its old empire in Central Asia and the Caucasus). But the last 6 years I’ve been living alternately in Bulgaria and Romania and confess to have made no real effort to learn their languages - which are just so much musical background for me. I note the different intonations, stresses, voice and delivery pitches as if I was listening to a symphony….

I think, read and write in English – and am spoiled by having access to great English bookshops in Bucharest and Sofia (the latter the second-hand “Elephant” just a few minutes’ stroll from my flat). It was my first port of call the day of my arrival and I quickly picked up a couple of books - Dennis Healey’s Time of my Life (a 1989 hardback) and Dervla Murphy’s Silverland – a winter journey beyond  the Urals . Murphy has become a favourite of mine and I have always had a soft spot for Labour statesman Healey - he may have been a bruiser but he was (indeed is - going strong at 95 like his friend Helmut Schmidt) a highly cultured man with a real European perspective - working in the Socialist International in the 1930s - a taste of poetry and paintings and strong opinions. 

The next day I was back and left with three interesting books  - Tony Benn’s More Time for Politics- Diaries 2001-2007 ; Arthur Marwick’s British Society since 1945 (2003) ; and Roy Jenkins’ Gallery of 20^th Century Portraits (1988)

Coincidentally I came across an excellent Bulgarian online bookstore which gives short resumes in English and actually has a short list of books in English on Bulgarian topics. The resumes give me precisely the glimpse of Bulgarian life I need.

I don’t mind not being able to read the newspapers (which contain noise in every country we are better off without) but I do miss not being part of other conversations on matters literary and artistic.

And, while on the subject of noise, let me draw your attention to a fascinating read - A Book of Silence by Sarah Maitland

The sculpture is one of the bronze ones which are in the grounds of the Sofia City Art Gallery.
The oil painting I got for 50 euros from my antique dealer Alexander Alesandriev and is by an unknown. The sketch (also from the AA gallery) is apparently by (or of?) Petr Chukovsky, a teacher of Ilyia Beshkov.

Two who died too young

Two wonderful exhibitions – first the Sofia City Gallery’s one of Jules Pascin’s amusing erotic drawings from 100 years ago.

I wrote about Pascin last October - referring to a dedicated website  and a blogpost about his oil portraits, The gallery's coverage says - Julius Mordecai Pincas, known as Jules Pascin, was born on 31 March, 1885 in the city of Vidin. In 1892, his family moved to Bucharest. Pascin graduated from high school in Vienna. Between 1902 and 1905 he received training at the art academies in Vienna, Budapest, Munich and Berlin. He contributed to the “Simplicissimus “ magazine published in Munich. In 1905, he moved to Paris, where he met his future wife, Hermine David. In 1907, he organized his first solo exhibition at Paul Cassirer’s gallery in Berlin. In 1914 he left for New York, where he lived until 1920. He travelled to the Southern states and Cuba. Then he went back to Paris, where he lived until his death in 1930. Pascin reflected in his paintings the influence of Art Noveau, and later – of expressionism. The exhibition includes artworks belonging to all major themes and genres but particularly the nude body,

There is an exhibition catalogue in Bulgarian and French, including all artworks featured in the exhibition. The research paper “Jules Pascin and Artistic Developments at the Turn of the 20th Century”, compiled by the exhibition’s curator Maria Vassileva is also available (again in Bulgarian and French) as a separate edition.

I then paid a visit to the School of Art in Vassil Levsky Boulevard – and was very touched to view a small exhibition of the aquarelles of a young man - Margarit Tsanev - who committed suicide in 1969 at the age of only 25. 
The curator told me that they had been found only in the 1980s (?) and donated to the School - which exhibits them annually on a rotating basis. Pity the exhibition ends tomorrow!

Remembering Europe

Drove up to the mountain house at the end of last week – the village is under half a metre of snow and was shivering in minus 13 during the night. But the place was beautiful. 

Had to check out the alarm – which had been triggered either by the powerful high winds early last week or by mice. Everything was in order and properly operational. 

A log fire had the bedroom snug and warm in no time – the heat lasting in the brick-stove for a good day. So two books (and some Bulgarian and Romanian wine) were duly consumed – the former being the spell-binding The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal; and Hilary Spurling’s gripping Matisse – the Life 

Both books evoke the worlds of the late 19^th/early 20^th Century – but using very different approaches.  De Waal’s book is a one of a kind – using a collection of small Japanese ivory artefacts to weave a highly personal story of an emblematic banking family in first Paris, then Vienna and, finally, Tokyo. A whole era is superbly captured in his taut prose – culminating in the destruction of family fortunes in one week with the Nazi putsch of Austria in 1938. 

I also have a (small but) lovely collection of Uzbek terra cotta artefacts which I treasure - so I can understand the fascination.

Spurling’s purpose is more biographically conventional – but the tale she tells of the courage of Matisse in facing outrage and frequent migrations in the first half of the 20^th century is a vivid one. His powerful sense of colour was apparently developed as a child in the environment of the silk-weaving towns of NE France and she paints a wonderful picture of a man driven with his own sense of what was right.
This is the sort of detail I need when I meet a painter whose work speaks to me; and which I would love to develop for many of the Bulgarian and Romanian artists of the same period.
I have become an avid collector of books about such artists but the cyrillic of the Bulgarian texts totally defeats me. The Romanian texts I can make stabs at!
You can therefore imagine my delight at being presented yesterday with a large book in English - Bulgarian Art; 120 years - 1892-2012 - Unions, Societies and Groups - published in 2012 with superb reproductions.So many new names!! Although, sadly, no details are given of their lives - instead we are fed a general drip of references to internecine squabbles between the various artists's associations - with no attempt made to explain them.
There is one blog which does sterling work in sketching vignettes of the lives of interesting older artists - its called my daily art display

Early Sunday morning a significant earthquake (5.2) was experienced by people in central Romania - my partner was in her Ploiesti flat and had to seek shelter under the eaves of the hallway as the place trembled. Very frightening - particularly as everyone is fearing the next big one to hit Bucharest........ 

Back Monday in Sofia after a gap of 5 months – a beautiful run down, just 5 hours in a Kia loaned by the nice management by way of apology for the delay in my car’s arrival.

Georghe Stefanescu

It’s a curious fact that most of the Romanian painters I have come to know and appreciate in the past few months were born in the 1860-1900 period – whereas almost all of the 150 Bulgarians who figure in the little book I produced last year about realist Bulgarian painters were born a generation (30 or so years) later. What, I wonder, does that say about cross-national influences? Thanks to Theodor Aman, Bucharest certainly attracted some Bulgarian  painters at the turn of the century – but it was the city of Munich which had the pulling power for Bulgarian artists then.    

Georghe Stefanescu (1914-2007) is one of the few new faces in Romanian circles of that interbellum period. Earlier this week I found an attractive painting attributed to him in one of the Bucharest antique shops. I cannot, of course, be sure whether the painting is actually one of his - but he certainly had a lovely sense of colour - and the composition I saw (for 300 euros) has a mastery which appeals - this picture gives a sense. If I buy it I will put it online.

This facebook entry has some nice photographs of the guy in his studio.

Kia "service"

The Kia car company markets itself very well with its 7-year guarantee – but my experience of trying to buy one of its cars here in Romania makes me wonder what this guarantee is actually worth.

In early July I placed a deposit for one of its Ceeds and was assured it would arrive in late August. That date came and went – without anyone from Kia bothering to get in touch. 

On 2 September I sent a formal letter of complaint to one George Damian at the sales office here in Bucharest – but have not even received the courtesy of an acknowledgement. And I am also still waiting for details of their service network which I asked about in July. 

My experience has now raised some doubts in my mind about the type of service I am likely to receive when I need to activate the guarantee – whether for emergency repairs of the regular annual service. How far will I need to travel to find one of their service points? And will they bear the transport costs of an emergency repair?

This casual (if not contemptuous) approach to customers is, sadly, typical of most (if not all) companies in this part of the world, I have been amazed when approaching estate agents in both Bucharest and Sofia about purchasing property to find how little they seem to care about us. How, I wonder, do they make their money?

Update; I wrote this morning to the Managing Director of Kia Romania and was very impressed to receive an apologetic response within the hour from him promising a detailed explanation and outcome.......watch this space.....
further update; on 7 October (the day I left Bucharest) I received a message from the MD indicating that the car had arrived!

My happy days in Hell

Last week I mentioned Simon Winder whom I knew to be a book editor as well as author of the well-researched and literate Germania and Danubia books. I had not, however, realised that he is the genius behind the Central European Classics series of books issued by Penguin

I’m rereading one of them - György Faludy's autobiography My Happy Days in Hell, first published in 1962 - and finding it one of the most powerful bits of writing I've ever encountered. Far better than Gregor von Rezori's slightly surrealist evocation of an earlier generation - The Ermine in Czernopol - which I had been trying to read earlier in the week, its picaresque descriptions and musings occasionally give me glimpses of Voltaire's Candide.....
Faludy's 2006 obituary gave this vignette

This is the Hungarian-Jewish poet's story of his flight to France and Africa in the late 1930s, his years fighting as a volunteer in the US air force, and his return after the war to Hungary, where, after refusing to write a celebratory poem for Stalin's birthday, he was interned, emerging three years later as one of a very small number who survived. Often at risk of death, even flirting with it in his encounters with Nazis and communists, Faludy revelled in the sheer sensation of being alive. Born in 1910, Faludy spent most of his highly productive later life in Canada and died in 2006 in Budapest where he returned in the late 1989. An exultant sensuous verve jumps from the pages of this sometimes bleak, never deceived and yet always life-affirming book.

The book is a supreme example of a "poetic" book - with detailed and insightful observations scattered on every page, whether about the day he departed America (after 5 years there); or arriving back to the nightmare of 1945 Budapest before the 3 years he languished in prison there. This interview some 25 years ago catches catches his waspish tone

Well, look. I am 77 years old. When I was growing up there was still such a thing as Western Civilization, something I love almost as much as life itself. In any form in which one could recognize it, it's largely gone now. Or rather is transmuted into the bizarre society one finds now everywhere from Sâo Paulo to Singapore, with far too many people, a general subliteracy and, at the top, the hierarchy of technocrats, most of them — except for their technical specialties — as uneducated as the proles working for them at minimum wage, or less

Two Hungarian literary sites give a very good summary of this incredible man’s life - here and here  I just missed the anniversary of his birth - September 22 (1910 ).

Hungarians are attracting a lot of critical press at the moment – but we should celebrate the amazing contribution they have made to intellectual life in the 20^th century. Here is one of the best tributes to Faludy

BOOK after translated book, a soft-spoken poet who spent a long life writing in an awkward, minority language is taking his rightful place among the giants of world literature — even in his homeland.György Faludy was born in Budapest in September 1910. He was a Jew who wanted desperately to be a Hungarian, but had to spend some of his best writing years in exile or in prison. His poetry, circulated at home illegally during the grim years of Nazi and subsequent Soviet occupation, kept alive the flame of freedom and decency for generations of his adoring public.Despite two decades since the advent of democratic rule in Hungary its literary establishment has managed to keep Faludy’s name out of the schoolbooks. Entirely in vain, for his poetry has now become a potent force in the struggle of post-Communist Europe to liberate itself from the lingering spirit of its bygone tyrannies.Penguin Modern Classics has just released Faludy’s autobiography My Happy Days in Hell , an elegant tale celebrating the triumph of the human spirit. First published in English in 1962, the book anticipated Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago by more than a decade.

A natural teacher and spellbinding raconteur, Faludy leads his reader across a blood-drenched landscape, sharing his enjoyment and surprise at morality, friendship, loyalty and sheer physical as well as aesthetic pleasure that have somehow overcome the carnage. His autobiography is an essential literary document of the 20th century, the testimony of a writer whose stature is comparable to that of his beloved Auden, Lorca, Rilke and Yeats. Faludy, who died in 2006, was my teacher for most of my life and my close friend towards the end of his. I have discussed the book with two of its principal characters, also close associates of the author, who were impressed with the veracity of Faludy’s recollections. Many of the events of My Happy Days in Hell are also described in Faludy’s poetry, written during or shortly after their occurrence. These contemporaneous testimonies confirm the accuracy of the later work.All his life, Faludy was relentlessly pursued by the hostile agents of repression while being well loved by a devoted public. He burst onto the literary stage of Budapest just before the rise of Nazi oppression with a collection of ballads exuding the love of freedom, adapted from the mediaeval French of Francois Villon. 

The Penguin autobiography covers a lively and horrendous 15-year period from Faludy’s first exile to his release from prison in 1953. But the camp never left him. It reappeared, for example, in a poem of 1983.

Learn by heart this poem of mine,

Books only last a little time,

And this one will be borrowed, scarred,

Burned by Hungarian border guards,

Lost by the library, broken-backed,

Its paper dried up, crisped and cracked,

Worm-eaten, crumbling into dust,

Or slowly brown and self-combust,

When climbing Fahrenheit has got

To 451, for that's how hot

it will be when your town burns down.

Learn by heart this poem of mine

He had opted for poetry early, seduced by Budapest's cafés and literary life, but his scientist father would have none of it. Budapest already had 20,000 poets, he said, none of whom could support themselves. The young Faludy was packed off to Vienna to study chemical engineering. He remained unknown to his professors, publishing instead the translations of François Villon, a rebellious 15th-century French poet, that launched his literary career. He also wrote a poem against Hitler that would have earned him 14 years in prison, but he was tipped off and escaped. He fled Hungary in 1938 for France and, when war broke out, took a boat to Morocco, finding eventual sanctuary in the United States and enlisting in the American army. The book opens with a description of the country of his youth, a semi-feudal backwater locked in bitter resentment then as now over Hungary’s territorial losses suffered after the First World War. The author fled to Paris after a Hungarian parliamentary deputy had suffered a heart attack on reading one of his poems, lampooning the politician’s pro-Nazi voting record. The poet thought this was his greatest literary achievement.

In Paris, Faludy wrote and starved a lot, and met many people who later influenced European history. As the Nazis advanced, he retreated first to French North Africa and then to the United States where he served the Free Hungary Movement as its honorary secretary. He later enlisted in the US Air Force to fight the war in the Far East theatre against Japan. He astonished his hosts afterwards by declining their offer of American citizenship and returning to his war-torn homeland at the first opportunity. He soon found himself in prison on trumped-up charges.The poet endured torture in the dungeons of the Communist state security organization AVO, which had been used earlier for the same purpose by the Hungarian Nazi movement, the Arrow-Cross. Eventually he “confessed” to being a CIA spy, but laid a trap for the planners of a prospective show trial by identifying his alleged American minders as Captain Edgar Allan Poe and Major Walt Whitman. He spent his final night in that building — now a museum open to the public called The House of Terror — awaiting his promised execution at dawn before being dispatched instead to serve a 25-year forced labour sentence handed down without a trial.He saved many of his poems composed in captivity by entrusting them to memory. He was assisted in this by his fellow prisoners — including my two informants whom I eventually interviewed in Toronto — who memorized and recited Faludy’s poems during work. On their release from prison in the confusion following Stalin’s death in 1953, the same comrades helped Faludy to compile the poems for publication.

Faludy chose exile again after the collapse of the 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet rule, edited a literary journal in London, taught at Columbia University in New York and received a Pulitzer Prize as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto. He was nominated for a literary Nobel Prize.Faludy returned to his homeland yet again at the age of 78, together with his lover Eric Johnson, an American classicist poet, to witness the implosion of Communism and the birth of democracy. He was greeted by a tumultuous welcome and more literary prizes. More than a decade later, he married Fanny Kovács, a poet then aged 28. This was his fourth marriage, in which he spent his final, extraordinarily creative years.English translations of Faludy’s poetry have been collected in East and West (1978) and Learn This Poem of Mine by Heart (1983), both ed. John Robert Colombo, and Selected Poems (1985), trans. Robin Skelton. Faludy’s irreverent Hungarian adaptation of the Villon ballads has been adapted further in my own English Free Women (1991).His poetry is rich in unforgettable, romantic or flippant turns of phrase that unfailingly draw their power from keen perception. The poems are often composed in delicate, chanson-like tones that can unexpectedly give way to heart-chilling horror, without ever compromising the highest standards of literature.

Yet Faludy has remained an irritant to many Hungarian teachers, critics and editors. I think this is because of his irrepressible voice in praise of freedom, an anathema to the very nature of the literary establishment here that has evolved through the long decades of rigid regulation under successive tyrannies. Perhaps he flouted social conventions too often, sometimes by provoking his detractors to embarrass themselves.The literary elite tore into Faludy’s reputation after his death by questioning the veracity of My Happy Days in Hell. While the world mourned the passing of a brilliant mind, a minor Hungarian writer opined in an obituary published by The Guardian newspaper of London that the book contained “picaresque adventures and saucy anecdotes… even if it is uncertain how much of it is based on fact”.