Last night, Ludivine dragged me out to the cinema, effectively breaking my attempted record of staying in the flat a whole week without leaving. [A bit of lateral thinking, here: must call Alain.] Anyway, she took me to see Just A Kiss, a film that seemed to be called Ae Fond Kiss in English according to the titles which must have been just as obscure to English eyes [and ears] as the French title is over here… [I’m supposing that this is a reference to the poem by the ‘fornicator’ Robert Burns, that was sung in morning assembly at one point. Why then, do they not choose the translation of this poem into French? This would, I suppose, respect the authorial intent. It appears—and I have groused on this point at many times in the past—to have been slapped onto the film with no consideration of the author… small argh.]

Anyway, it was a sweet little film that very cleverly juxtaposed the rules applying to the hiring of teachers for a Catholic school in Scotland to underline what we might consider to be ‘unacceptable’ practises in the Asian family in the film, when viewed with western eyes; arranged marriages, for example, being just the tip of the iceberg.

[Aside: inevitably the following may contains spoilers. I have tried to be as vague as possible, and don’t think that I give away anymore than a decent film review.]

Ludivine said that Patricia was disappointed by the film’s lack of ‘social’ content; this is probably because—and I don’t mean this bitchily—Trotskists see social issues in economic terms, and not cultural ones. Overall it reminded me no end of My Beautiful Laundrette, [conflict with the Asian family, and a need to preserve the family at all costs, this being considered hypocrisy by the love-torn party] but I suppose that is inevitable considering the relatively large numbers of films dealing with people of Asian origin living in Britain. Or, at least, those that I have seen…

The film was constructed with great care and grace, and it was obvious that the usual very human, and very talented, fairies had been peeping into the cradle and heaping blessings on the baby’s head; all the minor parts shone beautifully as large as life as they often manage to do with Ken Loach. There was an interesting construction of ‘The Evil Priest’ and ‘The Nice Head’ playing those little devils and angels that one sees on Tintin’s shoulders in the Hergé books. With, of course, in this case the roles reversed.

The most interesting/complex person in the film was, in my opinion, the DJ’s sister, Tahara, and the film makers knew this too; she was given all the best scenes in the beginning, and she also managed to advance through the film while staying faithful to herself and to both sides in the conflict, as she saw those sides, but without giving in. [Tahara puts me in mind of a wonderful Romain Goupil film, Sa vie à elle, that I saw on arte one night; this tells the story of a girl living in a “well-integrated” french muslim family who decides, one day, to start wearing a headscarf to school, and the consequences of that action, at home, at school, with her friends; a provocative, well-done, wise, and very funny film.] Thus Tahara is very unlike Casim who wishy-washes all over the place. Perhaps if they had spent more time building him up, rather than her, we would have understood his struggle better, rather than just seeing its consequences. As it was, apart from the upcoming arranged marriage, and the final row with his father, we understood his dichotomy very little.

The scene that summed up my disappointment—I can almost hear the script-writers saying: OK, we need a conflict and a separation here, to prepare for the final scenes…—comes where Roisin wants to be consoled for losing her post [and not her job as she says; it is clearly said that she starts in a new school on Monday], while Casim must see the investors for his club. Now we can suppose at this point that they have been living together for at least a month [the extension being built on the house serving as a clever time-progression device throughout the film]. She knew how much he needed to invest in the club even before they started going out together. She knows how important all that was to him. And we are expected to believe that she, in some monstrously selfish moment, wants him to forgoe all that in order to console her for something that, while a profound disappointment, is just a setback, and will, probably and ironically, result in a better situation for her, away from the control of the ‘evil’ cigarette-smoking, blackmailing, Catholic Taliban. Sorry, I don’t buy this. I can accept, and try to understand Casim’s indecision and inability to talk, to emote even; I cannot accept this tantrum. Nor the importance that it is blown up to become.

So go see the film and make up your own mind.

Yesterday, we watched The Virgin Suicides; Ludivine had very nicely rented the video for us last Friday. In fact, the cassette was in very bad shape, showing only snow initially, but this settled down to just the occasional flurry once the film started. Having very much enjoyed Lost in Translation [and not giving a damn about the current backlash saying that it is just a minor, wishy-washy film. OK, it is, and always has been. And that was its attraction and charm; as it is a most charming film, and I am wonderfully happy to leave it at that]. Having heard quite a bit about TVS, I knew what to expect, more-or-less, and wasn’t disappointed. It was nicely made, and, like LIT, the music was excellent. I had never noticed before how much Air’s music, when heard in short sequences like here, resembled mid-period Pink Floyd [post-Syd Barrett, but pre-DSOTM] in tone and sensibility. This was most appropriate to the feeling and the moment of the film. And one fragment even sounded like the Floyd playing Imagine; highly unlikely, but appropriate considering the time.

The original music from the time was also right on. So much so, it was distracting. I was there, jumping up and down saying: “The Air That I Breathe, The Hollies. Simply Red did a cover about five years back”, “Ouch. The BeeGees?”, “Hello, It’s Me... Oooh. Tood Rundgren”, “10cc, I’m not in Love...” Ludivine, of course, rightly treated me as the extra-terrestial that I was being.

But the overall feeling that I got from the film was the author’s voice. I haven’t read the book—though I will seek it out now—but I have read Midddlesex, and the voice of both of these came over so clearly. And so similarly it was eerie…

If all goes according to plan, just above this text should be the photo of the wonderful and lovely, post-birthday, Nadja taking a very brief pause in her study schedule to spend 10 minutes with us. A photo that I sneaked today by holding the camera quickly above her when she was lying down, relaxing in the park. We had agreed to meet near the exit to Métro station Javel and walk from there. Kim and I were only 15 minutes late, for questions that we won’t go into here, but let me just say it was Kim’s fault not mine. So there.

Once we found each other, and gave her a belated 23rd-birthday hug, we set off in the grueling sunshine to the André Citroën Park. When we first arrived there, the sprinklers were blowing full force, watering everything; so it was a pleasant, if mucky, walk through dripping vegetation in the mists from above. You just had to beware of the drips and occasional spurts as the system misfired and tried to drwon you. We found a bench in a relatively dry and shadowy place, and pic-nicked. Predicatably, we were soon assaulted by a gang of pigeons offering some protection racket in exchange for half of our lunch. We just laughed, set Kim on them, and dodged the occasional outraged tentative for revenge—oh, and the pigeons, sensing the weakest link, did come back to intimidate me when the girls went off to wash hands in the toilets. But luckily for me, the girls came back quick and scared them off. How great it is having strong adventurous daughters who aren’t at all frightened by pigeons.

Then we set off for a walk in the park. The part that we were in was very overgrown and quite pleasant, except for large greenhouses suspended over our heads at regular intervals. Then suddenly we arrived in an area that looked like La Défense if that had been a park and not a long platform/walkway surrounding by buildings. It was a long lawn/walkway surrounded by buildings and very square, regimented shrubs. Sort of Le Nôtre with a computer. It was weird and very hot, offering little in the way of shade. We wandered around the edges, skipping from shadow to shadow, seeking solace in the occasional splashing of waterfalls and fountains, and watching the enormous sponsored passenger-carrying balloon [we couldn’t decide if it was hot air or helium] going up and down its rope.

Eventually we managed to escape the park and jumped into the Métro off to the area of Nadja’s old haunting grounds [drinking grounds, she told me… My daughter drinking? What is this…] just behind the Panthéon and the Sorbonne. From there, and an incredibly overpriced coffee, we wandered around narrow, smelly streets to the Ile Saint-Louis where we feasted on deliciously sticky Italian ices. Kim insisted on a big one. I bought her the smallest pistachio I could, and even then she couldn’t finish it.

We finished up on the banks of the Seine, before going our different ways. And I came home, drank a couple of litres of water, and collapsed and slept for about three hours. Oops.

I have started typing up Pirates. I’m not a very fast typist, I’m afraid as I’m only halfway through Chapter Two. And I haven’t typed Chapter One, and I have been at this for two days already.

The two days is a bit of a white lie. In fact I work on this in the morning before Kim gets up, and now, at night when she is asleep. Plus this isn’t just transcribing from paper to word processor; I am working out the knots, the awkwardness, the changes that are in that notebook just behind my forehead. So far, I am amazed; this is a lot less bad than I imagined. And no, I’m not being pessimistic or modest. A lot less meant that I was prepared for purple prose, for an aftermath of adjectives and adverbs, and long, long phrases that went on forever losing all focus and purpose, so that at the end, people have completely forgotten where we started. Of course, all this is just starting days, I have plenty of time to get things wrong later, but for the moment, I feel good about this.

As to Chapter One, I have my latest set of notes, but as this chapter and the last one ‘speak’ to each other like bookends—well, that is my intention at the moment—I feel all right about leaving it that state in case I need to have to add, or change, material.

Speaking of Kim, I fear that she got a little bored today; I sought out the phone numbers of her friends and in doing so had to sort through so much mess I just got down and started making piles on the floor. Now things should be easier to find, and a list of ‘common’ phone numbers is pinned up over the pegs where we hang coats just inside the front door. But we did make a great list of all the free concerts and shows in Paris this summer, and added them to the day planner that we made. Most of the things start on the 14th, so we should be a bit more active towards the end of the week.

All we need now, is to find a good firework display tomorrow night…

This evening while reading our night’s story [still Leon Garfield] to Kim, she turned to me and said, I really like this holiday, papa. Now I know well enough that kids’ reactions are a bit like the weather at the moment, one minute storms, the next bright sunshine, to swallow this completely, but it did feel nice. Precisely, I think, because it echoed my own feelings.

A comment in Neil Gaiman’s blog yesterday, while I’m on the subject of Kim, reminds me of our brush in with the Tooth Mouse. Yes, here in France it is a mouse who has the duty of hauling coins around, and disposing of all those wobbling small teeth. At one point we started finding dried, or worse still, sticky, bits of cheese under Kim’s pillow. She was leaving them for the Tooth Mouse. She’d taken to heart a passing remark when one day the Mouse missed a tooth and had to catch up later; we’d said that it was normal, she was probably just fed up with people taking her for granted, I mean, when do you think about her except when you have a tooth to exchange… So Kim had started setting out food and leaving thank you notes. I had to write replies—imitating French schoolchildren’s ugly school-taught joined-up writing with my left hand so that it wasn’t anything recognisable as her parents’ handwritings—thanking her, and asking her to please stop.

The opening chapters to Leon Garfield’s The Empty Sleeve have so far been wonderful. So full of ideas, sparse and pleasantly written, and that little sinister noise rustling at the edge. Kim stops me from time to time to ask about a word, but that’s fine, shows that she’s listening. I just hope that she’s enjoying it as much as I am.

Kim is with Emiline, who is getting quite rounded, this afternoon. I can believe that she’s pregnant seeing here like that [of course, it could be a very severe case of indigestion, but let’s not go into that]. They have gone to see Shrek2. For some reason this does not tempt me, and so I am quite happy to let them enjoy it together.

I am profiting from the peace and quiet to make the notes for the rewriting of Chapter One that I should have done three days ago. I always thought the psychology of this chapter was weak. But there again the lack of psychology is not necessarily a bad thing, I was aiming for Beowulf and that just seems more Thomas Hardyish than Henry James. Anyway, I have now found glimpses of 19th century Medieval slipping in: sort of The Lady of Shalott [which makes me think of this more precisely this ] meets Beowulf.

[complete aside on this subject. This brought to mind one of my first visits to the National Gallery when I must have been around 16. I rushed along to see the pre-raphaelites—probably getting distracted by the John Martin paintings that I discovered there; wonderful stuff for 16-yr-old boys…—and in front of, I believe that it was The Lady of Shalott, was a very beautiful girl, 18 to early twenties, a very pale pre-raphaelite style type of pretty, gazing up in awe at the paintings; she had a great plaid of thick red hair that stretched down to her bum. At the time I was utterly knocked out by the effect. About twenty years later, I realised that she probably posed in an around that section for most of the day, as it all seemed a little ‘too much’, both as an effect [affect?] and a coincidence…]

Anyway, I will continue with my Tennyson meets Beowulf and see where it leads. I wanted some Arthurian references around the place [there are others already there], so this isn’t too bad. It reads, at the moment, like something that one could have read in Arthurian stuff, but not quite able to put one’s finger on. That is, I confess, the sort of feeling that I’d like.

As I take the time to think things through in preparation for redrafting, other parts are also coming together: changes, bits that need adding. I am also realising that there are some more stories hanging around the edges of this one. I will resist until I have finished this—and, of course, then I have Died to write—but it might be interesting to explore some of these places again. We’ll see.

. . . . .

Note to myself: iTunes Precursors and Contemporaries is pretty dismal. I was wondering how hard it would be to put together a good recommendation engine. Have to think that through some time. Could be easy to do badly…

Just set up a blog for Kim at thepowerfactory.com/kim/
I haven’t been working these last few days [going crazy noting things in my head…] as I’ve been trying to spend some time with her. Thought that blogging might be an interesting summer project for her. She always seems to forget what she is doing as soon as she has done it [what did you do today/at thingy’s house/on your holidays..? Can’t remember], and her spelling is pretty rotten—there again, mine would be too if I was learning French I imagine…

So far so good. [She’s typing as I write.] She has just learnt about ‘Cut and Paste’. This allows her to correct a word in one place and then paste the good spelling over the other occurrences. Useful. I also showed her how to do emoticons, which she found funny, especially as Pivot maps them to icons.

Yesterday, we went and raided the library now that Kim has her own card for the one here. I grabbed a couple of Leon Garfield books [ ‘À l’enseigne du diable’—The Empty Sleeve, and ‘The Berceau volant’—The Sound of Coaches] to read to her at nights. I remembered him as a wonderfully evocative writer of rip-roaring historical mysteries. Let’s see if he still stands up well.

Nadia telephoned me Wednesday asking me to call Kim’s school and say that, as she had taken Kim away on holiday, could I telephone the school and say that Kim wouldn’t be attending any more this year. She handed the phone to Kim who promptly said, “Hello Papa, I’m in Tunisia…” As Nadia was using her mobile phone the call must have cost her a pretty penny. Of course, I was not consulted on this. Probably as I would have said that having cheap holidays in other people’s miserable dictatorships is not a good thing. Especially as the Customs [who, as one would expect there, are corrupt powercrazed bastards] already gave Nadia a bad time years ago went she went before because she had an Arab-sounding surname. At least I shall have no qualms in taking Kim with me if we decide to pop off somewhere abroad this summer.

We also managed to agree—cross Mediterranean style—on my dates for Kim, so that will be July 7 to 23 and August 15 to 29. That’s that.

I also received a mail from Beatrice giving me Nadja’s exam results for her DEA in Law, which was 13,75 overall. Emiline tells me that this is wonderful as a good score at Nana’s University is about 12. We’re all inclined to say, well, yes, that’s Nadja, but it is true that she has done very well for herself so far. On the otherhand we have all seen the hard work and toil that she puts into it. She has a determination and a capacity to just keep on going that I believe many would admire. If she does become a Judge she would probably be fearsome—in all the best senses…

While chatting with Emiline she said that she must relax things a little and will be having her 5-month sonograph next week, but apart from that—and the fact that she is only two buttons from bursting her jeans—all is going well. She has got her school for next year—Creteil—and Nico will be teaching at Orléans again, which was what he seemed to be after. So that’s them too.