Page 89 - The Economist Asia January 2018

The Economist January 27th 2018
American poetry Books and arts 73
Wordsmithing

John Ashbery: Collected Poems 1991–2000. with impermanence. His ideas are at
The Library of America; 838 pages; $45 once both inscrutable and sublime. He
once said his poems aim to capture “the
HE first livingpoet to have his work experience ofexperience”. Searching
Tpublished bythe Library ofAmerica high and low through the English lan-
was John Ashbery, and this is the second guage, he appears to have lifted stone
volume ofhis collected poems. He died afterstone until there was nothing left
last September, about a month after he hidden. As Ashbery was originally from
turned 90. So this bookserves as a dual Rochester, New York, home to Kodakand
celebration, memorialisinghis sprawling Xerox, he was certainly no stranger to
life and his many accomplishments. representations ofrepresentations. “Girls
The inaugural volume appeared in on the Run”, in particular, was inspired
2008, and it contains his first12 books of by Henry Darger, an artist who used
poetry. This second volume compiles the photocopies and collage to make compo-
seven collections—includingAshbery’s sitions just as Ashbery, also an accom-
two book-length poems from the 1990s, plished collagist, did with language, as
“Flow Chart” and “Girls on the Run”. Like this briefpassage so memorably shows:
Memoirs of the second world war the first book, it brings togethera wealth The oblique flute sounded its note of resin.
Indomitable spirit ofuncollected poems that answerthe In time, he said, we all go underthe fluted
inevitable question ofwhat a B-side
Ashbery poem might looklike. Even in covers
ofthis great world, with its spiral dis-
the minorpoems in his collections, the sonances,
stamp ofhis voice is always present. and then we can see, on the otherside,
In the 1990s the constellation ofwork, what the rascals are up to.
as well as the variety ofform and in-
No Place to Lay One’s Head. By Françoise vention ofAshbery’s art, shifted and
Frenkel. Translated by Stephanie Smee. grew exponentially to release more and
Pushkin Press; 299 pages; £16.99
more energy in his writing. “Flow Chart”
N 1921 Françoise Frenkel, a young Polish introduced that new epoch, and lines
Iwoman of Jewish faith, opened the first from it begin this new volume:
French-language bookshop in Berlin. She
described it as a “calling”. A friend termed Still in the published city but not yet
it a “crusade”. The venture drew authors, overtaken by a new form ofdespair, I ask
artists, diplomats and celebrities. For the diagram: is it the foretaste ofpain
many at the beginning, the bookshop was it might easily be? Oran emptiness
so sudden it leaves the girders
a vibranthub forthe exchange ofideas. For whangingin the absence ofwind,
others during the darker years of eroded the sky milk-blue and astringent? We know
liberties and stifled thought, it became a life is so busy,
haven, a place to rest the mind and breathe but a largeractivity shrouds it, and this is
easy. In July 1939 Frenkel finally realised something
that, whereas blacklisted authors and con- we can neverfeel, except occasionally, in
fiscated newspapers once jeopardised her small signs
livelihood, escalating persecution and put up to warn us and as soon expunged, in
violence now threatened herlife. part
orwholly.
Frenkel shut up shop, fled the country
and spent four years in occupied France. Ashbery’s poems carry Western thought
Miraculously she lived to tell her tale. “No to such an extreme that it almost begins
Place to Lay One’s Head” was written and to appearEastern in its preoccupation History will be a kind judge
published when Frenkel was in exile in
Switzerland. It then disappeared for de-
cades, resurfacing only in 2010 in a flea wits and later on the comfort of strangers, sier add further context. However, Fren-
market, after which it was republished in Frenkel moved from one refuge to another. kel’sstorycan be read withoutthese props.
French. Frenkel died in Nice in 1975. This is She relatesthe challenge ofobtaining a res- It stands as both an illuminating depiction
the firsttime hermemoirhasbeen translat- idence permit and the injustice of arrest. of wartime France and a gripping and af-
ed into English. She evokes the agony of being cut off from fectingpersonal account ofendurance and
The book’s opening chapter touches on family and friends and the horror of Nazi defiance. Frenkel writes candidly through-
Frenkel’s book-filled childhood and her clampdowns and roundups. Tension out about her fears and ordeals (at one
studies in Paris, before covering the highs mounts when she is hunted and faces de- point even considering taking “the ulti-
and lows of the bookshop years. The re- portation, leaving her no alternative but to mate way out”), but she soldiers on, refus-
mainder—indeed the majority—of the nar- plan a desperate escape across the border. ingto be beaten. Whethershe isevacuee or
rative isdevoted to herstruggle for survival A preface by Patrick Modiano, a Nobel refugee, fugitive orcaptive, the reader roots
in the south of France. Relying first on her prize-winning author, and a 30-page dos- forherevery step ofthe way. 7