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Impressions d’Ecosse :

Tout au long du voyage, j’ai été frappé par la prolifération de nouvelles usines ainsi que par la nouveauté de leur style. Pour la première fois depuis le début de la révolution industrielle, les usines (ou les architectes de ces usines) font un effort pour les insérer harmonieusement dans le paysage.

Autre nouveauté, ou plutôt un renouveau : le retour et la prolifération des murs en pierre sèche. Un immigré Afghan a réussi à intéresser sa commune Écossaise au fait qu’en Afghanistan, presque toutes les propriétés sont entourées de murs en pierres sèches. Les murs champêtres écossais s’effondraient car personne ne savait comment les réparer. C’est loin d’être aussi simple que ça en a l’air. Cet Afghan a mis sur pied un atelier pour rénover les murs. Succès foudroyant : c’est maintenant un chef d’entreprise qui emploie d’autres Afghans dans toute l’Ecosse et jouit d’un excellent niveau de vie. 

Un petit cocorico : hier il a fait chaud (oui, même en Ecosse) et j’ai eu envie d’un jus de fruit. Au bar de l’hôtel, j’ai demandé un jus d'abricot. On m’a regardé comme si j’arrivais d’une autre planète. J’ai essayé pamplemousse, puis mangue… même réaction. Jus de tomate ? Kif-kif ! J’ai dû me contenter d’une sorte de jus de fruit qui aurait pu servir de rince-bouche chez le dentiste. Cela m’a remis en tête l’une des conclusions du Hudson Institute : la France jouit de la meilleure qualité de vie pour les gens aux revenus modestes. 

La France et l’Ecosse se sont toujours bien entendues. Au début de la guerre de cent ans, Froissart, l’historien attitré de Louis IX, se trouvait à Sterling. Le roi écossais David II, ayant eu l’occasion de voir des tapisseries de Paris venant de la manufacture qui deviendra plus tard Les Gobelins, demanda à Froissart de lui en commander une. De retour en France, Froissart n’avait plus qu’une idée assez vague du château de Stirling (trop de whisky, peut-être), si bien que la tapisserie, censée représenter le château vu depuis la prairie des tournois, est assez loin de la réalité, mais David l’a aimée quand même. Elle se trouve maintenant dans la salle à manger de l’hôtel où je suis descendu. J’ai essayé de trouver sa valeur sur le Net : aucune chance, seulement le prix d’une reproduction pour 450€. Et l’original ? Il faudrait probablement ajouter deux zéros. Les propriétaires de l’hôtel s’en accommodent volontiers. 

Note un peu triste : sur les 97 distilleries de whisky écossaises, 24 ont été rachetées par la firme italienne Campari, et cela parmi les plus importantes. Pourquoi ? Trop de taxes ? Le whisky se vend moins cher en Italie qu’en Ecosse. 

Dans l’imagination populaire, les trois symboles les plus frappants de l’Ecosse sont : le kilt, les binious et le haggis.

Je n’ai vu que deux kilts : le premier visiblement porté par un touriste américain, le deuxième par un authentique Ecossais. Il y a une façon de marcher qui ne trompe pas quand on sait porter un kilt. Je ne me suis pas risqué à en acheter un.

En 10 jours je n’ai pas entendu un seul biniou.

J’ai essayé le haggis. Un seul essai n’a certes pas valeur de statistique. Disons simplement que le plat n’était pas désagréable, et restons-en là. C’est un peu comme l’architecture urbaine. Elle n’est pas à 

proprement parler laide mais désespérément lourde et froide. 

Et les paysages dans tout cela ? Magnifiques : 20/20. J’ai eu la chance de ne subir qu’un seul jour de pluie (juste du crachin). La brume qui parfois effleure les lacs ainsi que leurs rives emmitouflées de sapins ou de feuillus vert sombre, évoque des grondements de violoncelles et des lamentations de cors de chasse. Pas étonnant que Mendelssohn & Bruch y aient puisé de l’inspiration. 

 

Urchin

(an extremely short story)

It was her first day in secondary school. She had just turned eleven. Her head cocked to one side, she looked somewhat… dislocated. We found out later that her father walloped her regularly and had damaged her eardrums.

A heavy school bag pulled her shoulder to the right. The buttons on her dark blue cardigan were not set in their proper holes. The hem of her skirt was leaning to the left. One of her socks had collapsed on its ankle. With her greasy hair and tired-looking eyes, Leanne Cornish was, almost to the point of caricature, a living illustration of a nineteenth century street urchin. To complete the picture, she stank like a pile of manure.

Mrs Badger (no need for a nickname in her case), the head of lower school, took Leanne to one side and learned that water had been turned off in the Cornish family flat. Something to do with unpaid bills. Bodies and clothing had remained unwashed for God knows how long. Toilet unflushed.

After talking to Health & Safety at the town hall, Mrs Badger learned - as did the rest of the staff - that denying water to a family was illegal, whether bills had been paid or not. A few days later, they were reconnected.

Meanwhile, Miss Halliday, the girls' P.E. teacher, had been allocated the unenviable task of making sure that Leanne indulged in a good shampoo, shower and scrub. She also found suitable garments among the lost (and never claimed) items of clothing piling up in the back room of the gymnasium.

The five years that Leanne Cornish spent in our school were not easy ones for herself or her teachers. The child was aggressive, bad tempered and contrary. Often in detention, she reminded me of a wild kitten. The staff did not like her, and she did not like them. Nor did she have any friends that I could see.

Social workers kept an eye on Leanne and her family. The Cornish house was a pigsty, they said. You could not see the floor for stains, candy wrappers, shopping bags and crushed pizza boxes. In the living-room, the arms of the couch were shiny black with dirt, and to make matters worse, the television would be blaring twenty-four hours a day, or so neighbors complained. No wonder Leanne could not do her homework, even if she had wanted to. Still, it was not enough apparently to remove the child from her environment.

*

Ten years went by when, one day, as I was coming out of the Post Office, I heard a shrill “Sir, sir !” behind me. I turned round and immediately recognized Leanne. She was pushing a pram. But what a difference ! She looked healthy and she was smiling. I don't think I had ever seen her smile. She was obviously squeaky clean, and so were her clothes, the sleeves of her white top displaying straight creases of military precision.

“Leanne ?” I exclaimed.

“Yes Sir !” Her smile widened even more then disappeared. “I am so sorry ! I was such an 'orrible child in school.”

“No, you were not.” (never thought it would be so easy to lie) “But you were certainly unhappy. You seem to be doing all right now, and with a lovely baby.”

The smile came back : “Her name is Emily.”

There were a few seconds of awkward silence between us. “I found a good man” she went on, “the sort I never knew would be around and I would meet.”

“I am very pleased for you.”

More awkward silence. Then : “Well, good bye Sir. It was nice to see you again. I'm sorry I hated you. Nothing personal, as they say : I hated everybody, I think.”

She swiveled the pram and walked away at a brisk and determined pace.

 ARTISTIC VANDALISM

Bellini’s Norma takes place in 50 BC among Druids in Gaul, which is probably why the Royal Opera House chose to populate it with SS soldiers. The props are made of hundreds of Christian crosses. Characters include choir boys pushing a giant incense burner.

The ugliness of the stage is a proper illustration of the stage director’s own mind. It is all the rage, these days, to “modernise” stage sets and costumes of operas. Cosi fan tutte was recently played in contemporary costumes (well, almost).

What’s the point ? Are spectators too thick to understand what Bellini and Mozart had in mind ?

I could well accept a certain amount of stylisation and streamlining of costumes, but not a deliberate attempt at making them both ridiculous and ugly. Stage directors obviously think of themselves a being so much smarter than the original composers and librettists. They want to “improve” on Bellini and Mozart. Why don’t they also grab brushes and pots of paint, go the Louvres or the Hermitage and “improve” Vermeer’s or Renoir’s paintings ?

The subliminal messages of this cultural vandalism are on at least 3 levels :

1.      1. People in those days were silly. 2. We are so much better than they were. 3. They didn’t know how to convey the universal appeal and message of their works, so here we are, doing it for them.

What sort of sterile, nauseating, mutual-admiration society is now gravitating in the world of arts ?

You want something revolutionary and aggressive ? Fine : create it yourself, but don’t disfigure previous masterpieces. Trouble is : you are quite incapable of actually creating anything, are you not ?

Book review : Crawdads.

Delia Owens’ "Where the Crawdads sing" is a best-seller. It doesn’t just say so on the cover : it really is a best-seller, and I am very glad that it should be. It’s got everything : social consciousness, condemnation of racism, exposure of domestic abuse, a detective story, a court drama, scathing exposure of snobbery, but also displays of generosity, kindness and humanity.

The main character is Catherine, nicknamed Kya. She is brutalized by an alcoholic father whom everyone avoids, including her own mother. In the end, she is left to live alone in a shack at the age of six, in the middle of the North Carolina marshes. Somehow, she manages to survive. While doing so, she unwittingly becomes an expert on marshland : its waterways, vegetation, fauna and marine life.

You would think that the good, righteous, church-going citizens of Barkley Cove, the nearest small town, would instinctively have organized help for this abandoned child… Not a bit. She is “white trash”, barely above the status of animals. Kya shows up at school, one day, only to be ridiculed and rejected by the other children. The teacher, who could have shown some Christian compassion (makes you wonder if there is such a thing) does nothing to discourage the little bullies. Kya will never go back to school after that. Paradoxically, the only person who develops a soft spot for Kya, is the county truancy officer. She can’t help admiring the ingenuity and survival skills of the child.

Kya grows up alone, with the reputation of a being a wild child. Soon, she is known only as The Marsh Girl, which means, of course, that when a young brutal and arrogant football player is found dead, she becomes the ideal suspect.

Two rays of sunshine in her dark life : Tate, a boy who is a few years older than her, and who teaches her how to read and write. There is also a black couple who run a small boat service station cum grocery shop on the wharf.

Kya loves, understands and studies the marsh ; to the extent that she manages to have several books published on the subject.

What props and sustains the plot and the characters, is Delia Owens’ style. Such beautiful, fluid, poetic prose ! As a reader, you are made to see, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel the mash. To the five senses Delia Owens ads the sixth sense of dreams and exaltation. She is not just a great writer : she is also a scientist. Her style is clear ; the structures of the story are impeccably constructed, all the way to the unexpected twist at the end.

We have more than a masterpiece, here : we have what will become an American classic.

Esclavage

Mes ancêtres les Gaulois (ou Juifs, ou Espagnols ou Irlandais) se sont battus entre eux sans pitié pendant des milliers d’années. À l’époque romaine, ils ont nourri les tigres et les lions des arènes, ainsi que le sadisme des spectateurs. Ils ont été condamnés à ramer sur les galères. Ils ont été esclaves des riches Romains.

Au Moyen-Age, ils ont continué à être les esclaves des riches et des puissants, même si on les appelait serfs. Le vocabulaire ne change pas la réalité. Ils travaillaient pour leur seigneur douze heures par jour, et n’avaient pas le droit de sortir de leur village.

Avec l’arrivée des usines, on a cessé de les appeler serfs. On disait ouvriers, mais c’était encore la même chose. Leurs enfants, parfois enchaînés aux machines y peinaient toute la journée, 7 jours sur 7.

Deux mauvaises actions n’en créent pas une bonne, ni trois mauvaises actions, ni quatre, ni mille ; mais quand un Africain vient me regarder sous le nez, et me serine pour la énième fois : « Mes ancêtres ont été envoyés en esclavage », je peux le regarder dans les yeux et lui répondre en toute honnêteté : « Les miens aussi ».