I thought before I came to Paris that I would not haunt my old haunts, I would start again, but here I am, haunting, in an average café, with an omelette and a glass of wine, savouring the word Sully on his Hôtel across the street, and reading Anne Carson, a little, watching cyclists turn en masse onto the rue St Antoine.
Anne Carson on The Life of Towns: 'I am a scholar of towns, she says, let God command that. To explain what I do is simple enough.'
The simpler you get the harder it is. Anne Carson leaps about & leaves spaces into which you fit— your omelette—your understanding—her writing hurtles, short talks, diary, things to say.
A large part of the book is a diary written along the camino de compostela. My visit to Paris and Méricourt sur Seine was a diary week. I woke up, made tea, read Anne Carson, wrote my diary and looked at the Seine outside, the barges loaded with sand, gravel, and the bargees' cars.
Have you seen Jean Vigo's film L'Atalante?
Anne Carson is in love with knowledge, she says. Each day of her diary is prefaced with a quote from one of the ancients, eastern or western. The depths and lacunae of ancient texts bring on her lurching style, words pulled from unexpected places, glistening.
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