James Salter: A Sport and a Pastime (documentary)

The documentary James Salter: A Sport and a Pastime is now available free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

This 54-minute documentary traces the writer James Salter's lifelong love affair with France, unforgettably expressed in his 1967 masterpiece, A Sport and a Pastime. The film captures the great purity of Salter's prose and the essence of his power to evoke the erotic. Salter's own reflections on his writing and life offer rich insights for reader and writer alike.

If you enjoy it you may also like this history of The Paris Review, also free on Prime video.

See also James Salter, James Salter (1925-2015), and The Life of this World.

The excerpt below is from his 1993 interview for Paris Review's The Art of Fiction.

INTERVIEWER

When A Sport and a Pastime came out you were hailed as “celebrating the rites of erotic innovation” and yet also criticized for portraying such “vigorous ‘love’ scenes.” What did you think of all that?

SALTER

The eroticism is the heart and substance of the book. That seems obvious. I meant it to be, to use a word of Lorca’s, “lubricious” but pure, to describe things that were unspeakable in one sense, but at the same time, irresistible. Having traveled, I also was aware that voyages are, in a large sense, a search for, a journey toward love. A voyage without that is rather sterile. Perhaps this is a masculine view, but I think not entirely. The idea is of a life that combines sex and architecture—I suppose that’s what the book is, but that doesn’t explain it. It’s more or less a guide to what life might be, an ideal.

INTERVIEWER

People seem to have different opinions of what the book is about.

SALTER

I listen occasionally to people explaining the book to me. Every few years there’s an inquiry from a producer who would like to make a movie of it. I’ve turned the offers down because it seems to me ridiculous to try and film it. To my mind the book is obvious. I don’t see the ambiguity, but there again, you don’t know precisely what you are writing. Besides, how can you explain your own work? It’s vanity. To me it seems you can understand the book, if there’s been any doubt, by reading the final paragraph:

As for Anne-Marie, she lives in Troyes now, or did. She is married. I suppose there are children. They walk together on Sundays, the sunlight falling upon them. They visit friends, talk, go home in the evening, deep in the life we all agree is so greatly to be desired.

That paragraph, the final sentence, is written in irony, but perhaps not read that way. If you don’t see the irony, then the book is naturally going to have a different meaning for you.

INTERVIEWER

It has been said that Dean’s desire for Anne-Marie is also a desire for the “real” France. It’s a linked passion.

SALTER

France is beautiful, but his desire is definitely for the girl herself. Of course she is an embodiment. Even when you recognize what she is, she evokes things. But she would be desirable to him even if she didn’t.

INTERVIEWER

There’s a postmodern side to the book. The narrator indicates that he’s inventing Dean and Anne-Marie out of his own inadequacies.

SALTER

That’s just camouflage.

INTERVIEWER

What do you mean?

SALTER

This book would have been difficult to write in the first person—that is to say if it were Dean’s voice. It would be quite interesting written from Anne-Marie’s voice, but I wouldn’t know how to attempt that. On the other hand, if it were in the third person, the historic third, so to speak, it would be a little disturbing because of the explicitness, the sexual descriptions. The question was how to paint this, more or less. I don’t recall how it came to me, but the idea of having a third person describe it, somebody who is really not an important part of the book but merely serving as an intermediary between the book and the reader, was perhaps the thing that was going to make it possible; and consequently, I did that. I don’t know who this narrator is. You could say it’s me; well, possibly. But truly, there is no such person. He’s a device. He’s like the figure in black that moves the furniture in a play, so to speak, essential, but not part of the action.

...

INTERVIEWER

What do you think is the ultimate impulse to write?

SALTER

To write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be the prose and poems, the books, what is written down. Man was very fortunate to have invented the book. Without it the past would completely vanish, and we would be left with nothing, we would be naked on earth.

Paris 2018: Global Capital and Its Discontents

Is she shooting video of the riot outside, or is she video chatting with a friend, oblivious? Did she just have the Royale with Cheese? :-)

My suggested title is Global Capital and Its Discontents.

Amazing work by this photographer.

Paris in happier times.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

A meal by the Seine.



Les Deux Magots.



Le Louvre.







View from Sacre Coeur.

Hemingway's cafes

WSJ: Hemingway’s Favorite Parisian Cafes, A tour of the literary Parisian cafes Hemingway’s generation made famous. For some reason they don't mention Les Deux Magots!

See also With Pascin at the Dôme:

I always wondered who Hemingway had in mind as the dark sister when he wrote the short story With Pascin at the Dôme, which appeared in the collection A Moveable Feast. According to the article Who Was With Pascin at the Dôme?, it was the model Bronia Perlmutter (on the left, below). The early 20th century precursor to Natalie Portman?

With Pascin at the Dôme: ... I went over and sat down at a table with Pascin and two models who were sisters. Pascin had waved to me while I had stood on the sidewalk on the rue Delambre side wondering whether to stop and have a drink or not. Pascin was a very good painter and he was drunk; steady, purposefully drunk and making good sense. The two models were young and pretty. One was very dark, small, beautifully built with a falsely fragile depravity. The other was childlike and dull but very pretty in a perishable childish way. She was not as well built as her sister, but neither was anyone else that spring.

'The good and the bad sisters,' Pascin said. 'I have money. What will you drink?' 'une demi-blonde,'I said to the waiter. 'Have a whisky. I have money.'
...

Can anyone identify this third wave coffee place I visited last week? Hint: it's in the east bay.

With Pascin at the Dôme

I always wondered who Hemingway had in mind as the dark sister when he wrote the short story With Pascin at the Dôme, which appeared in the collection A Moveable Feast. According to the article Who Was With Pascin at the Dôme?, it was the model Bronia Perlmutter (on the left, below). The early 20th century precursor to Natalie Portman?

Disappointingly, literary muses seldom live up to their fictional depictions. I guess it's because very few struggling writers have good Game ;-) Even the women Hemingway hung around with don't seem exceptionally beautiful..

With Pascin at the Dôme: ... i went over and sat down at a table with pascin and two models who were sisters. pascin had waved to me while i had stood on the sidewalk on the rue delambre side wondering whether to stop and have a drink or not. pascin was a very good painter and he was drunk; steady, purposefully drunk and making good sense. the two models were young and pretty. one was very dark, small, beautifully built with a falsely fragile depravity. the other was childlike and dull but very pretty in a perishable childish way. she was not as well built as her sister, but neither was anyone else that spring.

'the good and the bad sisters,' pascin said. 'i have money. what will you drink?' 'une demi-blonde,'i said to the waiter. 'have a whisky. i have money.'

'i like beer.'

'if you really liked beer, you'd be at lipp's. i suppose you've been working.'

'yes.'

'it goes?'

'i hope so.'

'good. i'm glad. and everything still tastes good?'

'yes.'

'how old are you?'

'twenty-five.'

'do you want to bang her?' he looked towards the dark sister and smiled. 'she needs it.'

'you probably banged her enough today.'

she smiled at me with her lips open. 'he's wicked,' she said. 'but he's nice.'

'you can take her over to the studio.'

'don't make piggishness,' the blonde sister said.

'who spoke to you?' pascin asked her.

'nobody. but i said it.'

'let's be comfortable,' pascin said. 'the serious young writer and the friendly wise old painter and the two beautiful young girls with all of life before them.' we sat there and the girls sipped at their drinks and pascin drank another fine a l'eau and i drank the beer; but no one was comfortable except pascin. the dark girl was restless and she sat on display turning her profile and letting the light strike the concave planes of her face and showing me her breasts under the hold of the black sweater. her hair was cropped short and was sleek and dark as an oriental's. 'you've posed all day,' pascin said to her. 'do you have to model that sweater now at the cafe?'

'it pleases me,' she said.

'you look like a javanese toy,' he said.

'not the eyes,' she said. 'it's more complicated than that.'

'you look like a poor perverted little poupee.'

'perhaps,' she said. 'but alive. that's more than you.'

'we'll see about that.'

'good,' she said. 'i like proofs.'

'you didn't have any today?'

'oh that,' she said and turned to catch the last evening light on her face. 'you were just excited about your work. he's in love with canvases,' she said to me. 'there always some kind of dirtiness.'

'you want me to paint you and pay you and bang you to keep my head clear, and be in love with you too,' pascin said. 'you poor little doll.'

'you like me, don't you, monsieur?' she asked me.

'very much.'

'but you're too big,' she said sadly.

'everyone is the same size in bed.'

'it's not true,' her sister said. 'and i'm tired of this talk.'

'look,' pascin said. 'if you think i'm in love with canvases, i'll paint you tomorrow in water colours.'

'when do we eat?' her sister asked. 'and where?'

'will you eat with us?' the dark girl asked.

'no. i go to eat with my legitime.' that was what they said then. now they say 'my reguliere'.

'you have to go?'

'have to and want to.'

'go on, then,' pascin said. 'and don't fall in love with typewriting paper.'

'if i do, i'll write with a pencil.'

'water colours tomorrow,' he said. 'all right, my children, i will drink another and then we eat where you wish.'

'chez viking,' the dark girl said.

'me too,' her sister urged.

'all right,' pascin agreed. 'good night, jeune homme. sleep well.'

'you too.'

'they keep me awake,' he said. 'i never sleep.'

'sleep tonight.'

'after chez les vikings?' he grinned with his hat on the back of his head. he looked more like a broadway character of the nineties than the lovely painter that he was, and afterwards, when he had hanged himself, i liked to remember him as he was that night at the dome. ...

Le Louvre

A little tourist fun!

Paris conference on black hole information

Gravitational Scattering, Black Holes and the Information Paradox, May 26 - 28, 2008.

Web page here. My slides (pdf).

This is quite a good meeting so far. The atmosphere is informal, with about 50 participants.

Today there were two sessions. The conveners arranged brief talks to stimulate discussion, but the format was mostly open. In the early session the scheduled speakers were Giddings, Hawking, Andy Strominger and me. Hawking ended up not speaking, although he was in attendance. In the second session we had Gary Horowitz, Erik Verlinde and Strominger again.

10h 00 - 13h
What is the BH information paradox/problem/puzzle/question?
convener: T. Jacobson

14h 30 - 18h
Is string theory providing a statistical-mechanics interpretation of BH thermodynamics?
convener: J. Maldacena

I thought my talk went well, but I evidently did not convince either Giddings or Strominger that information loss to baby universes is a viable solution to the information problem :-(

There were a number of interesting exchanges. One in particular between 'tHooft, Maldacena, Englert, Giddings and Hawking lasted for some time. The issue was whether gravitational interactions between infalling particles and pre-Hawking radiation states are strong. 'tHooft maintained steadfastly that they are, with support from Englert. I couldn't quite tell what Hawking's opinion was, and all the others were opposed.

The remaining schedule is as follows.


Tuesday 27/05

10h 00 - 13h
Do quantum BH microstates have something to do with a classical geometry?
convener: D. Amati

14h 30 - 18h
Can the AdS/CFT correspondence teach us how to solve the information paradox?
convener: J. Polchinski


Wednesday 28/05

10h 00 - 13h
What can we learn from the study of transplanckian-energy collisions?
convener: G. Veneziano

14h 30 - 18h
BH and workshop evaporation: did we gain any new information?
convener: TBA

Vive la France!

En route to Paris today. Hope the May 22 general strike doesn't strand me somewhere along the way!

Summer 2008 Conference fun.