In Which We Write To The Ones We Love

Lovers of the Page

The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. In a relationship extending over twelve years, including the trying period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, these extraordinary personalities disclose the aspects of their diverse natures which are best worth the remembrance of posterity.

Flaubert may have been a better disputant; he had a talent for writing. George Sand may have chosen her side with a truer instinct; she had a genius for living. This faith of hers sustained well the shocks of many long years, and this sentiment made life sweet.

TO GEORGE SAND

Dear Madam, I am not grateful to you for having performed what you call a duty. The goodness of your heart has touched me and your sympathy has made me proud. That is the whole of it.

Your letter which I have just received gives added value to your article and goes on still further, and I do not know what to say to you unless it be that I QUITE FRANKLY LIKE YOU.

It was certainly not I who sent you in September, a little flower in an envelope. But, strange to say, at the same time, I received in the same manner, a leaf of a tree. As for your very cordial invitation, I am not answering yes or no, in true Norman fashion.

Perhaps some day this summer I shall surprise you. For I have a great desire to see you and to talk with you. It would be very delightful to have your portrait to hang on the wall in my study in the country where I often spend long months entirely alone. Is the request indiscreet? If not, a thousand thanks in advance. Take them with the others which I reiterate.

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Paris, 15 March, 1864

Dear Flaubert, I don't know whether you lent me or gave me M. Taine's beautiful book. In the uncertainty I am returning it to you. Here I have had only the time to read a part of it, and at Nohant, I shall have only the time to scribble for Buloz; but when I return, in two months, I shall ask you again for this admirable work of which the scope is so lofty, so noble.

I am sorry not to have said adieu to you; but as I return soon, I hope that you will not have forgotten me and that you will let me read something of your own also. You were so good and so sympathetic to me at the first performance of Villemer that I no longer admire only your admirable talent, I love you with all my heart.

George Sand

TO GEORGE SAND

Paris, 1866

Why of course I am counting on your visit at my own house. As for the hindrances which the fair sex can oppose to it, you will not notice them (be sure of it) any more than did the others.

My little stories of the heart or of the senses are not displayed on the counter. But as it is far from my quarter to yours and as you might make a useless trip, when you arrive in Paris, give me a rendezvous. And at that we shall make another to dine informally tete-a-tete.

I sent your affectionate little greeting to Bouilhet. At the present time I am disheartened by the populace which rushes by under my windows in pursuit of the fatted calf. And they say that intelligence is to be found in the street!

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Paris, 10 May 1866

M. Flobaire, you must be a truly dirty oaf to have taken my name and written a letter with it to a lady who had some favors for me which you doubtless received in my place and inherited my hat in place of which I have received yours which you left there. It is the lowness of that lady's conduct and of yours that make me think that she lacks education entirely and all those sentiments which she ought to understand.

If you are content to have written Fanie and Salkenpeau I am content not to have read them. You mustn't get excited about that, I saw in the papers that there were outrages against the Religion in whose bosom I have entered again after the troubles I had with that lady when she made me come to my senses and repent of my sins with her and, in consequence if I meet you with her whom I care for no longer you shall have my sword at your throat.

That will be the Reparation of my sins and the punishment of your infamy at the same time. That is what I tell you and I salute you. They told me that I was well punished for associating with the girls from the theatre and with aristocrats.

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Palaiseau, 14 May 1866

Dear friend, I must tell you that I want to dedicate to you my novel which is just coming out. But as every one has his own ideas on the subject — as Goulard would say — I would like to know if you permit me to put at the head of my title page simply: to my friend Gustave Flaubert.

I have formed the habit of putting my novels under the patronage of a beloved name. I dedicated the last to Fromentin. I am waiting until it is good weather to ask you to come to dine at Palaiseau with Goulard's Sirenne, and some other Goulards of your kind and of mine. Up to now it has been frightfully cold and it is not worth the trouble to come to the country to catch a cold.

I have finished my novel, and you? I kiss the two great diamonds which adorn your face. 

TO GEORGE SAND

Don't expect me at your house on Monday. I am obliged to go to Versailles on that day. But I shall be at Magny's.

A thousand fond greetings from your G. Flaubert 

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Paris, 4 Aug. 1866

Dear friend, as I'm always out, I don't want you to come and find the door shut and me far away. Come at six o'clock and dine with me and my children whom I expect tomorrow. We dine at Magny's always at 6 o'clock promptly. You will give us 'a sensible pleasure' as used to say, as would have said, alas, the unhappy Goulard. You are an exceedingly kind brother to promise to be at Don Juan. For that I kiss you twice more. 

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

It is next THURSDAY, I wrote you last night, and our letters must have crossed.

Yours from the heart, G. Sand

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Paris, 22 August, 1866

My good comrade and friend, I am going to see Alexandre at Saint- Valery Saturday evening. I shall stay there Sunday and Monday, I shall return Tuesday to Rouen and go to see you. Tell me how that strikes you. I shall spend the day with you if you like, returning to spend the night in Rouen, if I inconvenience you as you are situated, and I shall leave Wednesday morning or evening for Paris. A word in response at once, by telegraph if you think that your answer would not reach me by post before Saturday at 4 o'clock. I think that I shall be all right but I have a horrid cold. If it grows too bad, I shall telegraph that I can not stir; but I have hopes, I am already better. I embrace you.

G. Sand

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Saint-Valery, 26 August 1866 Monday, 1 A.M.

Dear friend, I shall be in Rouen on Tuesday at 1 o'clock, I shall plan accordingly. Let me explore Rouen which I don't know, or show it to me if you have the time. I embrace you. Tell your mother how much I appreciate and am touched, by the kind little line which she wrote to me.

G. Sand 

TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Croissset Paris, 31 August, 1866

First of all, embrace your good mother and your charming niece for me. I am really touched by the kind welcome I received in your clerical setting, where a stray animal of my species is an anomaly that one might find constraining. Instead of that, they received me as if I were one of the family and I saw that all that great politeness came from the heart. Remember me to all the very kind friends. I was truly exceedingly happy with you. And then, you, you are a dear kind boy, big man that you are, and I love you with all my heart. My head is full of Rouen, of monuments and queer houses. All of that seen with you strikes me doubly. But your house, your garden, your citadel, it is like a dream and it seems to me that I am still there. I found Paris very small yesterday, when crossing the bridges.

George Sand and Gustave Flaubert are contributors to This Recording.

"A Forest" — British Sea Power (mp3)

"Boys Don't Cry" — Lostprophets (mp3)

"Love Song" — The Big Pink (mp3)

In Which I Have Been Reading A Lot of Science Fiction Lately

  The Extreme SF of Robert Heinlein

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Let me tell you of all the worlds I've left behind. — John Scalzi

My therapist Todd says I tend to focus on the unlikely future because I can't face my real future. I wish I actually had a therapist named Todd, it's not easy to look that up in a phone book. You just go to an office, hoping that some sweet secretary will utter the golden word, "Todd."

I will read anything with a tit in it, by and large. Sometimes I will read things and stop reading, quite often in fact. But usually I know within the first couple of pages whether or not I'm going to read the entire thing to find out what happens.

Once I was at a David Mamet lecture and he asked someone to roleplay with him. He said, "I'm making a movie," and the guy said, "What's it about?" The point illustrated is the only important things are what it's about and what happens, those are the only elements of anything that sustain us.

I was reading a particularly bad Robert Heinlein fantasy novel (there wasn't a lot of good fantasy to model yourself on back then) and I had to know the one secret one character had, so I just skipped to the end and read that part. If I had a therapist, he would instruct me not to do that.

That book is Glory Road, and since I recently read all of Heinlein on a whim, you won't have to make some of the mistakes I made. It's a horrible fantasy, one of Heinlein's worst projects. It's so dated first of all, and so implausible as to not be enjoyable. There is one good scene with aliens, and I'll show you it if you ask me.

Heinlein doesn't have many misses, so let's start with his most widely-read masterpiece, Stranger in a Strange Land. The perfect alien meets Earth tale, it is almost all dialogue as such it flies on by. Heinlein's only problem is that he intermittedly falls in love with the sound of his own voice, and the later chapters, once they start travelling the country and some such aren't as entertaining. But the rest of it is so perfect you can read until you're bored and feel satisfied, plump, like a snozzberry.

Heinlein wrote all these novels called juveniles, but they were the opposite of juveniles. They were some of the best short science fiction the genre would ever offer. This one is about Bill and his Dad, who set out to colonize Jupiter's moon Ganymede. It's an incredible, touching story about love and exploration in a harsh environment, and if it were released today, it might win the Hugo.

Heinlein's most overarching series was his Future History, which featured him as the long-lived Lazarus Long, who went around saving the world from various crises real and imagined. It was the first serious take on immortality and it ranges incredibly in quality, and is at times a breathtaking vision and at other times an incestuous hodgepodge of his idea of utopia. Methusaleh's Children is one of the good ones, an amazing tale of what would happen if a sect of humans were forced from Earth and had to repopulate elsewhere. It's a magical journey with a very appropriate ending.

Time Enough for Love was written in the middle of the 1970s, and it's quite close to a magnum opus. There are parts of it which are quite recognizably the best science fiction ever written; other parts pale in comparison. Heinlein was obsessed with women, their marvelous shape and texture. He falls in love with his female characters, usually to the detriment of the narrative at hand. Love needs to be edited so badly it's not funny, Greg Bear called it his least favorite Heinlein. It's more entertaining read as a fantasy.

Heinlein tackles the conventional science fiction premise of the generational starship more subtly than you might expect him to. This starship is the whorl itself, and to navigate it elsewhere will entail much sacrifice and death. Heinlein was great at finding the right ending as a general rule, and this story's is both sad and beautiful.

Citizen of the Galaxy is the kind of improvised brilliance you can barely believe as you're reading it. The author just nails everything: the setting, the characters, the plot, and the drama flows effortlessly. Sometimes Bob was at his best when he was doing the all male thing, although some female characters play an intriguing role. But really this is all about being a man and what Bob thought it was all about. Like in most of such stories, the boy joins the military and it goes from there. One of the most magical novels of the 20th century, a mysterious classic

The best book about the Moon ever written, the best book about the virtues of libertarianism, the tightest story he ever wrote. It's not crazy to put Harsh Mistress on the list of the best books ever, because he practically rewrites English into a dialect and creates something so remarkably realistic it boggles the mind. Opening the pages plunges one into a dream world that is more real than any world they've known. Heinlein identified for all time in this novel what we are up against.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is two books. The first 250 pages are an adventure on par with Heinlein's best. The rest of it is pretty terrible, connecting the spare plot with Heinlein's larger Future History. Our hero, Richard, is compelling in that first part, and he's a writer so god knows it's easy to identify with him. This is basically Heinlein describing himself a crippled veteran interstellar hero, and that at least is the purest fun.

Heinlein probably thought (correctly) he couldn't write women very well, but he wrote a great one in Podkayne Mars, showing how know-how and industriousness — and faith in yourself is every bit as meaningful as technical knowledge. The title character is Pod, a dainty tween who holds off on sex and says yes to the perils of interstellar travel. She journeys away from Mars to other planets in her universe where humans maintain societies that alarm her with how familiar they are.

The first American journey to the moon that mattered was Rocketship Galileo which enchanted a generation of those who loved space flight every bit as much as The Right Stuff would decades later. It's the essential story of how a childlike obsession with rockets was all it really took to make dreams a reality.

Heinlein's best pure comedy, Double Star takes an inspired premise and makes the details perfect. Our man's an actor, so there's not much at stake, but by then there is plenty. Showing how small things add up to tragedy while not seeming sad in the details. A relentlessly smart effort.

A broad commentary on Christianity,  Heinlein proves to know it better than Christians themselves. I grant you that I'm amazed that is true, but since I myself don't have much interest in the subject, J.O.B.'s funny and strange adventures don't add up to much. It does have —  for Heinlein — a lot of good jokes.

Heinlein's Future History was great because it was quite probable, turning Venus and Mars into savage libertarian paradises, and setting up Earth as a big patsy, colonizing the land beyond. Heinlein's point about the future largely revolved around the fact that it was necessary, and that it could be what we made of it, and that eternal life isn't all bad.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls right here.

"Take a Chance With Me" — Jason Falkner (mp3)

"Princessa" — Jason Falkner (mp3)

"Feeling Much Better" — Jason Falkner (mp3)

"Start Over" — Jason Falkner (mp3)

this recording: without it there is no future

In Which You Can't Do What Exactly On Television

That's Just The Jets Baby

by MOLLY LAMBERT

"Like a melted Barbie" is how one ONTD commenter described the face of murdered "Playboy representative" Jasmine Fiore. An insult with the sting of truth, what would have been merely snarky days before, becomes horrific having learned that Ms. Fiore was killed and her body stuffed inside a suitcase.

Jenkins douchebagging it up on VH1's "Megan Wants A Millionaire"

Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, was a contestant in three episodes of the VH1 reality show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," about a woman trying to land a wealthy bachelor. Fiore's familyhad heard that Jenkins was an investment banker, but police described his occupation as a former reality show contestant.

black hole sun, won't you come, and wash away the rain

The body of Jasmine Fiore, 28, was found about 7 a.m. Saturday in a dumpster at an apartment complex. She had been strangled, police said, and was nude when found, stuffed inside a suitcase. The body was found by a man rifling through the trash for recyclable bottles and cans.

Jenkins thinking Patrick Batemanish things about golddigger Megan

Fiore met Jenkins at a Hawaiian Tropic event in Las Vegas on St. Patrick's Day and fell in love, but later she said she had broken up with him and returned to an ex-boyfriend. Fiore was part of a love triangle between the two for several months.

Jasmine Fiore at The Lingerie Bowl in '08

Fiore and Jenkins had left Los Angeles together Thursday and were bound for a poker tournament in San Diego according to her mother, who had been staying with her. Fiore left with her suitcase "packed to the gills...probably the same one she was stuffed in," says her mother.

actual graph on wikipedia as of me writing this blog, note the purple

Things like this happen all the time in Los Angeles and everywhere else in the world. It is not glamorous. There is a certain particular sadness to the fame-seeking aspect of the case, in order to remind us that Jasmine Fiore is the same species of hot blooming Hollywood flower as The Black Dahlia.

Meanwhile a much discussed sex tape reveals precious little sex but tells us everything about the sad lives of D-List actors Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart. Cocaine and threesomes with former teen beauty queen turned Hollywood madam Kari Ann Penicheare staged like a digicam porn version of "My Dinner With Andre."

A credit card number is recited and bleeped out. Everyone appears far too strung out to fuck. It is a sad scene, smoking cigarettes in the jacuzzi, particularly when you remember that Rebecca Gayheart committed vehicular homicide on a child while talking on her cell phone (probably also coked off her face).

If we record everything, will it help us understand anything about human nature? That a reality show contestant posing as a millionaire would secretly be a murderous scumbag is not shocking. It's surprising that this hadn't happened yet. Reality TV by its nature will attract narcissists from the fringes of society, mostly nuts.

Budd Dwyer was the first person to kill himself onscreen in front of a live TV audience, in front of five news cameras in 1987. He pulled a shotgun in his mouth after handing out envelopes containing various suicide notes he had prepared.

John F. Kennedy died in front of cameras. If we can do it in real life, why can't we show it onscreen? In the future people will demand that their deaths be broadcast.

I've been obsessed for years now with the syndicated show "Cheaters," which purports to show cheating lovers and spouses getting caught in the act. Sleazy host Joey Greco takes the wronged partner along a path of revenge and redemption, leading them to confront the cheater. Sometimes the third party in the love triangle starts a fight, or storms off. Once Joey Greco got stabbed in the stomach.

the line between reality and Tim & Eric is so thin sometimes

"Cheaters" is staged. Or it isn't. Does it make us less morally culpable to watch a staged show that preys on human desires for fairness and accountability in life, things we rarely actually get? Does it matter that the show is so obviously staged, clearly violating lots of laws and always getting a clear shot of the "cheating" couple fucking in front of a hidden camera? What kind of art is this exactly?

morally bankrupt and incredibly Twilight Zone

The last time I remember being genuinely freaked out by reality television was The Swan, the 2004 Fox show where "ugly people" are given "plastic surgery makeovers." If you told me that show was staged (by David Lynch or Cronenberg) I would be relieved, but it was horribly real. That nothing went wrong during any of the surgeries barely seems possible.

China's "Green Dam" censorware program for children on the internet

Is there a line? Where do we draw it? Even if we sanitize TV, there's always the internet, and the internet always shows everything.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here. She twitters here.

"NC Bongo Buddy" — Sparklehorse & Fennesz (mp3)

"Mark's Guitar Piece" — Sparklehorse & Fennesz (mp3)

"Shai-Hulud" — Sparklehorse & Fennesz (mp3)

"If My Heart" — Sparklehorse & Fennesz (mp3)