Weekend Review: All That Glitters

All that Glitters / Martine Desjardins;
trans. from the French by Fred Reed & David Homel
Vancouver: Talonbooks, c2005
160 p.

I'm a big fan of Quebec writer Martine Desjardins, who has a novel about Medusa that has recently been translated. This made me think of some of her older books that I've read, and realized I've never shared this novel here; it includes quite a bit of unusual embroidery, so I think some of you might enjoy it too! I first read this book over 15 years ago, but I recall it very clearly. This review first appeared in slightly different form on my book blog way back then. 

All That Glitters is set in Flanders during WWII. It is the story of Canadian and inveterate gambler Simon Dulac, who has enlisted in the military police. His interest in the war is that it gives him the chance to roam around an unsettled France, looking for the treasure that the Knights Templar left buried somewhere in Flanders centuries before. It is a nod to the codes and mysteries of books like The Da Vinci Code, but told in the surreal manner of her previous novel. The two supporting characters are Dulac's Lieutenant Peakes, a man obsessed with metalwork as well as rebuses and secrets, and nurse Miss Nell, who became a field nurse in order to practice suturing wounds, something nurses were not normally permitted to do at the time. She sutures them not with neat black stitches, but with fanciful embroidery, usually in a form of a rebus related to the patient's name. She also practices on herself; she has a feather stitched into the interstice between her thumb and forefinger, and eventually shows Dulac the rebus embroidered within her cleavage - a many-rayed sun with an "N" in the centre.

Dulac struggles to interpret the clues he serendipitously comes across, and thinks he has figured out where to look for the fabled treasure. His lieutenant, injured by a bomb blast and then fitted with a metallic half mask, is now behind lines and has time to use his genius at codes to puzzle out the revealed clues. He finally reveals to Dulac the 'true' interpretation of these clues, and it is a sudden revelation of how the things Dulac struggled to invest with meaning can be seen in a completely different manner. He should have kept in mind the proverb suggested by the title! It's a bit of wink at the obsession with mysterious treasures and conspiracies, but it does feel a bit abrupt, leading to a quick and dire conclusion.

I liked the war setting; it made sense to use this time period for this story, and she paints a clear picture of opportunists at war. The writing style is brief and unsentimental, which adds to the feeling of dissociation from society that all the participants seem to feel. The combination of war, secrets and codes, hidden treasures, and the strangeness of embroidered skin are woven together to make a fascinating reading experience.

Weekend Review: Studio Secrets Millinery

 

Studio Secrets: Millinery / Estelle Ramousse & Fabienne Gambrelle
trans. from the French by Cicero Translations
Tunbridge Wells, UK: Search Press, 2010, c2007.
119 p.

This book is an interesting mix; it features a French milliner, sharing her story and her workshop, as well as a touch of millinery history from France. It even visits the workshop of a 92 yr old milliner who still works out of her home. The second half of the book then shares patterns and instructions for 5 'cut and sewn' hats, 2 that are more complicated and need to be blocked, and some ideas for customizations. 

There are lots of images, particularly for the instructions in the pattern section. This is very helpful if you want to give one a try. There are a variety of styles, from a headband to a cap, beret and wide brimmed hat or even a cloche. They talk about the technique and show each step as well as including a gallery at the end of all the hats being worn on heads. If you have any interest in trying to make a hat, this would be a fun book to check out. 

I enjoyed the French feel of this book as well, particularly in the visit to 92 yr old Madame Galanter's studio -- although this is only two pages she comes across as quite a character. The reliance of hats in general has dropped in our social milieu but the skills are still being practiced by a select few and it was great to read about them here. 

The patterns included are generally wearable ones, and I was pleased that so many styles that can be easily sewn at home are featured. You don't need many specialty items to make them up either, aside from some quality grosgrain or adhesive interfacings. The two that need blocking are definitely for the more advanced amateur as they require more skill and more supplies as well. The only thing that put me off a little was the inclusion of what they called a "Chinese style cap", influenced by the Maoist style. I'm not a fan of taking inspiration from oppressive regimes no matter what purpose. The cap itself is quite nicely made & doesn't look militaristic, and the introduction talks about many different styles of caps, so not sure why they went with this reference.

In any case, overall this was a fun little book with some good patterns and lots of visual inspiration. It was well laid out and would give any aspiring home hatmaker some solid starting points.

Weekend Review: List of My Desires

The List of my Desires / Gregoire Delacourt
translated from the French by Anthea Bell
London : Phoenix, 2014, c2013
214 p.

Jocelyne is 47, slightly overweight, in a dull long-term marriage, and works at a dressmaking shop. She's also just started a sewing blog, and has been convinced by her best friends (twins who run a hairdressing shop) to buy a lotto ticket, for the very first time. And then she wins 18 million Euros.

She is so shocked that she doesn't tell anyone, just hides the cheque in a shoe and starts to wonder what to do with it. She doesn't want this to disrupt her placid life of small desires, even if it isn't that great. She's worried that having so much money will change everything; even the lawyers she met in Paris to pick up her cheque have warned her that sudden wealth can be dangerous. 

Jocelyne had to give up her dreams at 17, when her mother died, and she seems to have boxed herself in to not wanting much because of it. She puts up with her boring relationship, she plods along in her daily routine, and when she suddenly has the chance to change everything up, she's afraid to. 

She begins to make a list of her desires: a new bathmat, a coat, maybe a visit to her daughter in England...small desires indeed. Although, as she notes, these things are important:

Because our needs are our little daily dreams. The little things to be done that project us into tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the future; trivial things that we plan to buy next week, allowing us to think that next week we'll still be alive.

But despite her caution, and her insistence to herself that everything is just fine the way it is, things go wrong and great wealth does indeed corrupt her intimate circle. Jocelyne must carry on, and she does, with her new sewing blog taking off and making her new friends, opening up new opportunities that will improve her life on a more human scale than 18 million Euros would. It's a poignant story of money & desire, questioning whether it's really okay to want more, and what it means to our sense of self to have a sudden change like this. I'm sure everyone has thought about what you might do if you won the lotto, the changes you'd make to your life or the things you would buy or places you'd visit. This book makes you think about your desires and their scope, and would be a great discussion starter. If you don't mind a little French sentiment in your reading, this small book might be a great choice for you.  

Also, one of my favourite elements of the book is the fact that it's Jocelyne's work with fabric and haberdashery, and the creative outlet of her sewing blog, which anchors the book. When she's visiting a large fabric store in Paris the day she is wandering around stunned at her win, she says

My hands plunge into the fabrics, my fingers tremble at the contact with organdie, fine felt, jute, patchwork. I feel the intoxication... All the women here are beautiful. Their eyes shine. Looking at a piece of fabric, they already imagine a dress, a cushion, a doll. They make dreams; they have the beauty of the world at their fingertips.

I think that's a statement that all my readers here can appreciate. 

Weekend Review: The Threads of the Heart

 

The Threads of the Heart / Carole Martinez
trans. from the French by Howard Curtis
NY: Europa, 2012, c2007.
399 p.

I read this book last month as part of the annual celebration of Women in Translation that happens every August. I was drawn to it by the description -- some magical embroidery in there is just what I needed to put this on my TBR, and then my husband found a copy at a thrift store. It was meant to be! 

It was written in French, but is set in a remote hill town in Spain. There are elements of magical realism; the previously mentioned embroidery, for example. It is basically the story of a family, told by Soledad, the youngest surviving child, in her own adult years. 

Frasquita is the mother, the woman who has inherited a gift that is passed on from mother to daughter in her family. There is a blindfolded ritual in the night once a young girl comes of age, and the daughter must then wait to open a box in which her gift resides. Frasquita's gift was sewing, and her gowns can make someone beautiful for the first time in their lives, or hide a pregnancy, or stitch life back into someone on death's door. Her skill attracts the attention of a local aristocrat, however, and he becomes locked into a cycle of rooster fighting and bets with Frasquita's husband José, with his ultimate aim being to gain Frasquita. 

This is a middle aged woman with four children by this time, and an unusual patience for her lumpish husband. But José's greed gets the best of him and he gambles away Frasquita. This is the final straw for Frasquita; she spends the required night with the aristocrat but is done with José. This moment sets her on her own road, and she takes her children and a cart, and sets off walking all across southern Spain and into Africa, dragging her children behind her for years. They encounter civil war, revolutionaries, a kindly Arabic woman who rescues them, and much more. The stories are larger than life, political, romantic, dreadful, fantastical, until finally Soledad decides to end this legacy of the family curse herself. 

Sewing is not only a plot element, it's also a strong metaphor for a lot of what goes on in this book. When Soledad is still young, Frasquita is dying. And this is what Soledad says:

I found this an engrossing read, definitely in the tradition of magical realism, but with a starker setting. It's Martinez's first novel, and it's a strong debut. Apparently it is also going to be made into a film, and it would be interesting to see if that ever shows up in the English world as well. 

If you are also drawn to this kind of storytelling, and the idea of stitching the world in place appeals to you, give this one a try yourself. There is a fair amount of description of her stitch work and its effects both early on and near the end of the book, so anyone who stitches will find this compelling. Just allow yourself some time to get into the rhythm of the book, and you may find that this lengthy book flies by.