"Merde!"

As I left work yesterday, my last day of work before my Master's exam, I was treated to a heartfelt cries of "merde!" by all of my co-workers. When it comes to luck, the French are as superstitious as theater people, so the only words of encouragement they permit themselves is this (rather vulgar but amusing) variation on the "break a leg" idea. (My supervisor, however, followed her exclamation with a look of fear--"you do know that we say that right? Ok, good. I just realized how confusing that could be to a foreigner...") So in the spirit of Merde...

During my reviewing this month, I have permitted myself brief pilgrimages to the burial sites/monuments of some of the writers whose work I admire. I saved the photos for now, to offer as a last-minute tribute to their ghosts, who I hope will provide me with inspiration (not to mention hand endurance and cramp resistance!) in my furious writings tomorrow.

In the Latin Quarter's Saint-Etienne du Mont church, in the shadow of the Pantheon, I found Racine:
And Pascal:
And outside the same church, their compatriot Corneille:
Diderot, beneath the Pantheon's dome:
In the Pantheon's catacombs, Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas on the left, and Emile Zola on the right:
Also in the catacombs: Rousseau...
...and Voltaire:
The entrance to the Pantheon's catacombs bears an inscription in honor of the "writers who died for France"
Flaubert, in his family vacation spot of Trouville:
Moving on now to the Montparnasse cemetary, the shared grave of kindred spirits and love and philosophy, Sartre and De Beauvoir:
Close up of their grave, bearing Oscar Wilde-like kisses:
And of the metro ticket and centime tributes left by visitors:
Marguerite Duras:
Baudelaire (who, unfortunately, was forced to share a tomb with a stepfather he hated):
Beaudelaire's tributes:
My favorite absurdist, Eugene Ionesco:
And his anglophone contemporary, Beckett:
And, last but not least, Guy de Maupassant...
...and a hand-written note of appreciation, shoved into a crevice in the stone:

Morbid moments in Montparnasse

In desperate need of a study break, I took a stroll in the nearby Montparnasse cemetery. Although not quite as epic and scenic as Père Lachaise, Montparnasse was, as all French public spaces, nicely manicured, full of polite, elderly and well-educated upper-middle class French people (one man, seeing I was looking for a specific tomb, asked if he could help--apparently he had the layout of notable graves memorized, even down to a picture drawing science!) and unnecessarily difficult to navigate (it only had maps posted at select entrances, and the numbered sections of the yard spiraled out in a snail-like way, not unlike the Parisian arrondissements). Despite being rather lost most of the time, I still managed to snag a few good pictures.

Here is the little garden in the center of the spiral:
I found this Gargoyle watching over tombs on the Eastern side of the graveyard:
Some tombs incorporated works of art. This Venetian sculptor chose to have a bust of the Mona Lisa placed on his tomb, in honor of his fellow Venetian artist, Da Vinci :
Another grave had a copy of Canova's "Psyche revived by Cupid's Kiss", one of my favorite Louvre pieces:
Sculptor Cesar's tomb had one of his own bizarre pieces:
I don't know if it's appropriate to "aww" a grave, but..."awww!" A sleepy kitty:
I always love the overgrown ones the most:
Oddly spacey cross--looks like something out of Star Trek:
Cool close-up on the detail of a shiny, mobile-style modern art tomb:
A pretty tacky tribute to a fellow Kiwi:
The grave of much adored French crooner Serge Gainsbourg was stacked with fan tributes:
Close-up of some of the shrine-like offerings:
The madonna, watching over the Tour Montparnasse in the background:
The winner of 'creepiest grave' (yes, those are giant hands):
and the award for best grave. Simple yet elegant:

Deadpan

After the literary appreciation part of my cemetery tour was over, I moved on to the more entertaining making-light-of-the-graveyard part of the day. First off was the über-creepy wall outside of the cemetery, which featured what appeared to be a banshee holding back the dead in a mossy wall (many of the bricks have howling faces carved into them). Oh, and one of those "why do they have this?" signs, reminding people that "chillaxing and exaggerated dog-walking" (Tom's words) are not appropriate cemetery pastimes.


Next on the list: graves of people with funny names. First up, the B.J. Family (it's the third from the left, with the black door) and the Hickey Family:

Followed by the Big[g]ot and Prud'homme (Prude man) families:

Then, of course, came the zombie virgin Mary eating Jesus. (On the topic of zombies, there were quite a few graves that had sort of collapsed, revealing an empty hole beneath them that was, France-style, closed off from curious children only by a single plastic caution rope. Paris: PANIC. We may have zombies. If I start to write posts solely about brains please send someone after me with a sawed-off shotgun). It's hard to tell from the picture, but Mary really did have a hungry/blank expression, and Jesus looks terrified. She's holding Jesus up to her mouth pretty awkwardly, and as you can see, she's already been to work on his wrists and knee:
Another zombie-like entry. Yes, I understand that some people find it romantic when an undead couple continues to hold hands after burial, but when I die please leave dismembered limbs off of my tombstone:



Then there were some awesome, Addams' Family-esque classics:


And the oh-so-badass spiky, rusty chain approach:
And then there was just inspiration for dos and do-nots when it comes to desigining graves. For the record, Life-size statues of in a saucy playboy pose holding an artist's palette? Hot. (This is romantic painter Théodore Géricault, if you're curious):


Semi-3D portrait etching, however: NOT hot. To me this looks like Jacob Marley coming out of Scrooge's front door (though perhaps there's more of gravy than the grave about him...):And last but not least, the most epic tombstone I saw. Awesome.
(It also, chillingly, sums up my life right now...a crushing granite novel. All it needs is one of my fuzzy sock-clad feet sticking out of the corner, Wicked Witch of the West style.)

Paying homage

I took advantage of the break in stormy weather last weekend to stroll around Père Lachaise cemetery. It wasn't quite sunny (of course), but the gloomy, overcast lighting (and the creepy cawing crows in the skeletal trees) really helped to set an appropriate mood.

Let me start off by saying that I don't have a newfound obsession with death, or anything of the sort--no, Paris hasn't made me emo. A visit to this cemetery has been on my to-do list ever since my arrival, and I've been reminded of this by the fact that it features fairly prominently (*cough Balzac cough*) in the the 19th century literature I've been reading recently. Established by Napoleon in 1804 outside of Paris as an alternative to other, already over-crowded Parisian cemeteries, it was shunned by the French until the remains of beloved writers and intellectuals La Fontaine and Molière were un-earthed and reburied within its grounds. Since then, anybody who is anybody has scrambled to have their loved ones interred alongside these heros. Today the once peripheral cemetery has been engulfed by the Belleville neighborhood (you can just see the distant spike of the Eiffel tower behind the Gothic spire in the photo to the left), and the French and tourists alike pilgrimage to visit its World War I memorials and tombs of countless notable Frenchmen (and women).

I came to visit the tombs of Oscar Wilde, Colette, and Balzac. I'm sure you all know of Oscar Wilde, but here's a brief history of Colette: married to a man who took credit for her first novels. Divorced him to become a burlesque actress and a fairly hi-profile bisexual, eventually remarrying only to have an affair with her teenage step son. Wrote very sensual books with theatrical tendencies and strong female leads. Overall, a kind of wild and scandalous character, and her grave was surprisingly understated, considering. It was better kept and had more tributes than any others I saw, though, which warmed my heart. The classy granite also gave it a much more modern look than the rest of the cemetery.

Oscar Wilde's grave was appropriately campy. An art deco creation with a sphinx-head, it has been adorned with the kisses and love notes of a thousand adoring groupies, whose oily lipstick and "je t'aime, Oscar!"s permanently stain the stone. They've added a plaque imploring visitors not to "deface" the grave, although I have to admit that if I were Oscar I know I'd appreciate the postmortem loving--especially considering that some of those kisses would be from gorgeous men.

Balzac's grave was pretty predictable: respectable but boring. The author of approximately a billion super-long novels (actually just a few under 100, but still pretty insane), Balzac is France's go-to literary hero. His grave featured a copper bust of his rather chubby, boyish face, but then a rather stylish book and plume at the base.


And to finish up, here are a few assorted shots I took: