Movie Night #6

Am I terribly old fashioned?

A couple weeks ago I watched Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008). It's based on a 1938 book I read in 2011, with the same name. I absolutely loved reading it, it was fast paced and the story was interesting - it's about a governess, Guinevere, who can't hold down a job. She keeps getting fired, she's poor and she's homeless. She manages to steal a card from a lady who needed someone at her home from the employment office and shows up in the address saying she was sent from the employment office - and instead of kids, she finds Delysia, a young cabaret singer with tons of lovers - one whose beautiful apartment she lives in, one who's the son of a West End producer and who she's hoping will give her the main role on a musical; and her musical partner at the cabaret, Ned the Pie Maker (I used to love that show! so sad it only had one season!), who is the only one who tryuly loves her but doesn't have a penny. Guinevere is then hired as Delysia's personal manager or something, and accompanies her to various social gatherings trying to avoid that her lovers discover about each other. Guinevere ends up discovering there's a lot more to her than she thought, and although I guess it's just chick lit I do feel like it's different with two strong, feminine main characters who go after what they want and work hard for it haha. The movie changes the plot a bit but was still cool, and actually had a happier ending than the book. It was interesting reading about the military "trials" (when the army and air force practice fighting before a war? I don't know how to explain it) in London, as the book was published in 1938, a year before World War II broke out - I didn't know people knew there was gonna be a war so long before it actually started and then practiced for it!

 :(( so sad. 

How should a person be?

Hello, children. Today's book is called How Should a Person Be?, by Sheila Heti.

I first heard about this book in an interview with Lena Dunham, I think. It had been on my "to read" list ever since, but it was just non-existent in Brazil (I mean, I couldn't find it for sale anywhere). Fortunately, my new internship allows me to download almost all the books in existence bwahahah <3 Anyway, when I first saw the description, I was like, "ew, a self-help book", but then it totes wasn't. Actually, this book does not offer any answers of any kind. To be completely honest, I think I finished reading it feeling more messed up than ever. Thus, the subtitle "a novel from life" fits it quite well.

I had the pleasure of highlighting some of my favourite excerpts from the book, and I hope by reading them you'll feel a deep desire to read the book as well. I personally have never felt so connected to anyone as I did to the main character (whose name I can't remember! Go me!). Which I guess is sad. It reminds me of when my psychologist asked me to list 10 boys I'd like to date and like 7 of them were fictional (like Link from the Legend of Zelda, Goku from Dragonball Z and Kyo from a manga called Fruits Basket). "Hopeless", was what her facial expression said.

You can admire anyone for being themselves. It's hard not to, when everyone's so good at it. But when you think of them all together like that, how can you choose? How can you say, I'd rather be responsible like Misha than irresponsible like Margaux? Responsibility looks so good on Misha, and irresponsibility looks so good on Margaux. How could I know which would look best on me?


I had spent so much time trying to make the play I was writing - and my life, and my self - into an object of beauty. It was exhausting and all that I knew.

my paintings look so good when I'm wearing your special glasses. Thank you.

It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.

Standing alone at the bar, I wondered if I could love the boy I noticed at the end of it - the one with curly brown hair, who was like a washed-out, more neutral version of the first boy I loved. When he stepped out into the front steps, I thought, if he has gone out there to smoke, I will love him. But when I got outside, though I could see a cigarette dangling from his lips, I did not love him.

If they can just remember this - It is their everlasting switching that is the dangerous thing, not what they choose - they might discover themselves saved. The problem is the puer ever anticipates loss, disappointment, and suffering - which they foresee at the end of every experience, so they cut themselves off at the beginning, retreating almost at once in order to protect themselves. In this way, they never give themselves to life - living in constant dread of the end. Reason, in this case, has taken too much from life. They must give themselves completely to the experience! One thinks sometimes how much more alive such people would be if they suffered! If they can't be happy, let them at least be unhappy - really, really unhappy for once, and then they might truly become human.

May the Lord have mercy on me for I am a fucking idiot. But I live in a culture of fucking idiots. I cannot be saved if not everyone is saved. if everyone around me talks nothing but shit, how can I hold myself aloof? My fate is not separate from everyone's fate. if one man or woman can stand up and call themselves saved, that means we all are. And I know I'm not, so no one is. 

Recently, Margaux had been trying to reassure me that I had a good brain. My brain had not worried me when I was younger, but over the past year I had become convinced that I did no think as well as other people. No, that was putting it gently - that I didn't know how to think at all. Other people knew how to think, I thought, had opinions on things, a point of view. I did not.

Why are you all reading? I don't understand this reading business when there's so much fucking to be done.

I untangle myself from the sheets and get up and go to the mirror to start my day. I produce a haughty, superior expression to intimidate myself into thinking I'm cool, cooler than I am. I make my eyes as world-weary as possible, like a fashion model's, I think, You're a charlatan. You love everything you were ever given. 

 Hope you have a lovely week! Have you figured out how should a person be?

V. 

Une année studieuse

Last week I finished reading Anne Wiazemsky's autobiography, "Une année studieuse". I must confess that when I bought the book I had no idea who she was, nor that it was an autobiography haha, I think I read something about it online and put it on my "To read" list and now here we are. The book covers one year in Anne's life, a young student who is studying for her BAC (which is sort of France's SATs, I guess) while picking plums in France's provence during the summer months, at a friend's house. Then we find out she had acted in a movie the previous semester, one called Au Hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson, and that she had then met several famous people, like Jean-Luc Godard - to which she feels she has been continuously rude in their 2 or 3 encounters in Paris. Thus she sends him a letter saying how much she admires his work, specially Masculin Féminin and Pierrot le Fou, and apologized for always being so rude. Who'd have thought that not only he did he forgive her but that he also would come to pick her up in southern France because he had been in love with her since seeing Au Hasard Balthazar in the movies?

"Oui, je souhaitais ce mariage et en même temps, j'eus soudain une étrange intuition: "Je veux vivre le plus longtemps possible avec toi. Mais je sais que ce n'est pas pour toute la vie, que j'aurai d'autres amours et d'autres vies", lui dis-je dans un souci d'honnêteté."

The story goes on for the year following their encounter, when she starts studying philosophy and Jean-Luc goes on shooting films. My favourite part was definitely reading how Jean-Luc was while filming, how did he feel about the way things had to be, how did he treat actors and crew, etc. And also, of course, reading about all their friendships to Famous Intellectuals of the time, like Cournot and Truffaut.. She mentions Sartre's work all the time, which was cool because I love reading his books too (not that I actually understand what he's trying to mean though). Also, it goes on in 67, so we see how things are hitting up to what one day would be May 68.

"Puis, je me glissai nue dans le lit, bien décidée à ne pas le réveiller. Satisfaite, je m'apprêtais à sombrer dans un profond sommeil quand je sentis une main étrangère se poser sur mon épaule et une voix, qui n'était pas celle de Jean-Luc, marmonner: "C'est toi, Sabine?" Mon effroi fut tel que je crus que mon coeur s'arrêtait de battre. Je connaissais cette voix, je l'avais souvent entendue au cinéma et au théâtre, c'était celle de Jean-Pierre Cassel qui occupait avec sa femme la chambre voisine de la nôtre. Je demeurai quelques secondes paralysée à l'idée qu'il se réveille complètement et me découvre dans son lit. Mais heureusement Jean-Pierre Cassel me tourna le dos et se rendormit. En une seconde, je fus devout. J'attrapai mon linge, ma mini-robe, mon pull et mes sandales qui traînaient éparpillés sur le plancher et me retrouvai, toujours nue, dans le couloir de l'hôtel. Un peu de lumière filtrait sous la porte de la chambre voisine et j'y entrai précipitamment. Jean-Luc lisait sagement dans le lit et de stupéfaction lâcha son livre quand il me découvrit, collée contre la porte, nue, avec mes vêtements serrés sur ma poitrine."

The whole book reads as fiction though (I'm not sure if all biographies are like this, but it was a pleasant surprise) and we're inside Anne's head all the time, while she ponders if she's really in love with Jean-Luc, if he's not gonna fall back in love with Anna Karina, if she should pursue higher education, etc. I liked seeing how she fluctuates around loving him to death or wanting to be free, because I think that if I ever fall in love with someone (never have) I'd be scared of growing too dependent on them as well. And how awesome would it be to date Jean-Luc Godard in Paris in the 60s??? I felt so nostalgic about Paris that I decided to download an app called Fake GPS and set my location to my old apartment there, and then turned Tinder on and started talking in French to all these hot french guys. Still not sure if that's too crazy or not, but hey, at least I'm practicing my French! (They do get disappointed when they find out I'm not going to have sex with them though haha).

Anyway, it's a great book and I totes recomend it if you like:
1. the 60s
2. Paris (or France in general)
3. Godard
4. all the options above.

A pleasant day to you,
V.