pumpkinstrokemarrow

Nearer home, I am now into my second reading of 'La Carte et le territoire' - see December 24th. We had an untitled prologue of 23 pages, a part 1 of 89 pages, a part 2 of 143 pages, a part 3 of 105 pages and an epilogue of 48 pages. The prologue and epilogue being divided into untitled and unnumbered chapters, the parts being divided into untitled but numbered chapters. No table of contents or anything like that.

The prologue is introductory, as one might expect. After that the story jumps around a bit but part 1 is mostly about the productive part of an artist's life - one Jed Martin, whom I think to be fictitious. Part 2 is about the relationship between Jed and the author. The portrait of the author looks to have been drawn from life, which given that this life was rather odd, was rather odd, as mentioned in the previous posting. Part 3 is about solving the particularly sanguinary murder of the author and only seems to have a rather loose connection with the rest of the book. The epilogue runs the artist down into death from cancer.

Some listing of facts about things. So we get to learn quite a lot about cameras and films. About the suppliers of artists' materials. About how to put on an exhibition of modern art. A fair amount of blog worthy flannel about art and literature generally. French not really good enough to judge this last.

Some interesting snippets. Such as the suggestion that the Dignatis clinic in Zurich is a few doors up from a fancy brothel. And that, should you be visiting the clinic for terminal purposes, you might have to wait in a waiting room full of other clients, just as if you were visiting your GP. I found this rather shocking; although on reflection I do not know why. But I do know that in the better brothels of fiction the management take great care that a client coming in does not meet a client going out. Quite separate arrangements.

As noted before, much interest in big festivities such as Christmas when celebrated in a solitary or near solitary fashion. Which does not appear to be as bad in Paris as it is in London; at least some places stay open. Much interest in the lives of near solitary middle aged white males. Some good looking black females get parts too.

Generally, much interest in death, decay and body fluids. Perhaps the author is mates with our own Damien who gets, in any event, quite a few lines in the book. Or that German doctor who dissects dead bodies in an unpleasantly flamboyant way.

But geography was important too. I was moved to get out my Michelin street map of Paris to follow the protagonists around. I was moved to get out a couple of Michelin maps of départements of France. These last are, indeed, rather handsome things and probably a more fitting subject for arty photography (this being what first made Jed famous) than our own Landranger maps. But a puzzle how you do an arty photograph of something sold folded and which would probably never be completely flat again. Perhaps Jed bought them as sheets rather than folded, but the book is agnostic on that point.

And I learned that one advantage of French map folding over English map folding is that you can get at any part of the French map by opening a single fold, in the same way as you would open a book at the required page. This, together with their using thinner paper, makes the things a lot easier to use. Much less map flapping about in the rain. Much easier in a cramped car. OK, so at four times smaller scale there is less detail but there is still plenty to drive or cycle on and nearly enough to walk on. A good compromise between our Landranger maps in folding form and our route maps in book form.

PS: Houellebecq can't be all bad. I noticed some foreign looking chap reading another of his books on the tube yesterday. 'Les Particules élémentaires'; probably in the cheap 'J'ai Lu' edition.