Modern

"Anna is 'modern'---I believe that's what it's called when you read unsettling books and admire hideous pictures."

---Edith Wharton, The Reef (1912)

So Awfully Happy

"Did you have to give up all your jewels when you were divorced?"

"Divorced---?" Susy threw her head back against the pillows and laughed.  "Why, what are you thinking of?  Don't you remember that I wasn't even married the last time you saw me?"

"Yes; I do.  But that was two years ago." The little girl wound her arms about Susy's neck and leaned against her caressingly.  "Are you going to be soon, then?  I'll promise not to tell if you don't want me to."

"Going to be divorced? Of course not! What in the world made you think so?"

"Because you look so awfully happy," said Clarissa Vanderlyn simply.

---Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon (1922)

Wharton's novel about the possibility of love in a culture of divorce.  Here, a child who has been abandoned (for all practical purposes) by her mother, mistakes newlywed bliss for the exuberant freedom of the soon-to-be divorcee. 

To Do List

"She wants to, you know, dear--your mother always wants to see you, [...] But look at her list---just for this morning!" the secretary continued, handing over a tall morocco-framed tablet, on which was inscribed, in the colourless secretarial hand:  

"7.30 Mental uplift. 7.45 Breakfast.  8. Psycho-analysis. 8.15 See cook. 8.30 Silent Meditation. 8.45 Facial Massage. 9. Man with Persian Miniatures. 9.15 Correspondence. 9.30 Manicure. 9.45 Eurythmic exercises. 10. Hair waved. 10.15 Sit for bus. 10.30 Receive Mothers' Day deputation. 11. Dancing lesson.  11.30 Birth Control committee at Mrs. --------"

----Edith Wharton, Twilight Sleep (1927)

 Taken from the very first page of Wharton's novel, Mrs. Manford's busy day typifies modernity.  The "birth control committee"meeting sounds especially fun, which is why I have created an entirely new category here on The Bee Dance just for this one element of this fictional to-do list.  For other interesting to-do lists, see the To Do List blog, which "celebrates the world of the overlooked and the mundane." 

Silence/Stillness

"Tu m'as séduit, O Seigneur, et moi,
Je me suis laissé séduire."  


[You have seduced me O Lord,  
and I am seduced."]

---Into Great Silence (2005) Dir. Philip Gröning

Philip Gröning's documentary Into Great Silence offers the viewer  a rare glimpse into the lives of the monks of the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps.  These monks of the Carthusian order take a vow of silence, devoting themselves to prayer and meditation.  The film documents their religious rituals but also their daily work, which is an extension of their meditative and spirtual endeavors.  To capture what is remarkable about their devotion would have been nearly impossible within the conventions of the typical documentary film. This film offers no historical information on the monastery, no interviews with those who live there, no musical score. Instead, it presents a minimalist portrayal of its subjects and the spaces they occupy.  Close-ups on the monk's faces, on everyday objects, on shifting natural light, and on noises and sounds creates an immersive experience for the viewer, for whom familiar experiences are made strikingly unfamiliar, even wondrous.


I am drawn to the notion of seduction, featured within today's quote.  If seduction usually has a sexual connotation, here its meaning suggests the powerful draw of the monk's calling and the role that silence plays in catalyzing this kind of passion.  One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the insight if offers into the connection between silence and stillness (silence is translated as stillness within the textual portions of the film).   We might think of "noise" as the greatest descriptor for modern activity, commerce, sociability--the endless messages, conversations, information, exchanges, and traffic that mark both the temptation and the enervation of our own existence. Sound is linked to motion.  Because we are so distracted--so perpetually in motion-- the kind of seduction that the monks experience is not a possibility for us.  Their seduction might even make us a bit envious, if it were not so risky and so courageous.  The film gives us three hours in which to vicariously experience this kind of stillness. The monks want to be with God.  But to be with one's own self--without the protective armor of daily business and noise--might be frightening enough for the modern viewer.  Or maybe, on a good day, enlightening enough.

Numbness

Jhumpa Lahiri captures at once the displacement of the immigrant and the enervation and ill-fittedness of modern motherhood:

His mother nibbled Mrs. Sen's concoctions with eyes cast upward, in search of an opinion. She kept her knees pressed together, the high heels she never removed pressed into the pear-colored carpet. "It's delicious," she would conclude, setting down the plate after a bite or two. Eliot knew she didn't like the tastes; she'd told him so once in the car. He also knew she didn't eat lunch at work, because the first thing she did when they were back at the beach house was pour herself a glass of wine and eat bread and cheese, sometimes so much of it that she wasn't hungry for the pizza they normally ordered for dinner. She sat at the table as he ate, drinking more wine and asking how his day was, but eventually she went to the deck to smoke a cigarette, leaving Eliot to wrap up the leftovers.

---Jhumpa Lahiri, "Mrs. Sen's," Interpreter of Maladies (1999)