I found myself in a bookshop at the weekend - as one does - and as ever, was in there far too long.
I always feel as if I’m diving off a high board into a very warm pool every time I step into a book store. I take a deep breath, plunge headfirst inside and launch myself at the shelves.
Nine times out of ten, I window shop because frankly, how many books can a person possess? (This might be the subject of another Mote, so answers on a postcard but it’s probably somewhere between one dozen and 12 million).
This time, however, as I wandered around ‘Crime’, I found myself observing two teenage girls across the way, who were sitting in ‘YA Fantasy’, giggling over one of the books.
It was so delightful and pure to see. The fact that they were casually hanging out in a book store on a Saturday, geeking out, was a marvel to behold.
Equally appealing was the way they were giving off an Eighties goth vibe. Black hair, chokers, heavy eye-liner, purple lipstick and chunky boots. It was punk-lite meets Robert Smith’s dressing up box.
Adult me wanted to so badly Freaky Friday into their world, I can’t tell you.
Their uninhibited expressions of joy, a love for books, their friendship and laughter created the most uplifting vignette. I wish I’d been able to see what they were reading but there’s only so much lurking you can do without seeming weird.
I left them to their youthful giggles and wandered off towards non-fiction where I was immediately immersed into yet another world.
I was looking for Wintering, by Katherine May, which had been recommended to me by Peter Berry, home cook and author extraordinaire. I didn’t find it but I plan to track it down this side of Christmas.
I was, however, instantly intrigued by the cover of Once Upon a Time World: The Dark and Sparkling Story of the French Riviera, by Jonathan Miles.
The book tells the story of how the French Riviera was founded, in Cannes, by Lord Brougham, a former Lord Chancellor and slave trade abolitionist, in 1835.
It takes you on a “dazzling romp” (according to the New York Times), through the region’s history, which encompasses two World Wars, Picasso, Coco Chanel, Sartre, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Rolling Stones and my visit there whilst inter-railing in 1986*.
That’s all, obviously, fabulous but I actually bought the book for the cover.
Don’t tell me you haven’t done that before.
Cursory research tells me that it’s a photo by fêted war photographer Robert Capa, of Pablo Picasso shielding his then lover, the painter Francoise Gilot, from the sun with a beach parasol, on the Côte d'Azur, in 1948. I don’t know who the other chap is. Let’s call him Guillaume.
By all accounts, Picasso was an absolute pig to Francoise but this photo captures a moment of levity. She eventually left him, the only one of this lovers to do so, taking their two children with her. While she settled into her new life on the Left Bank, in Paris, Picasso did all he could to rip apart her life, which included physically destroying her art, her books and her letters from Matisse.
He also launched a lawsuit to stop her publishing her 1990 autobiography, Life with Picasso, which uses the same Capa image on the cover.
We have come full circle. Knowing the backstory makes me appreciate it even more. Life is a series of smiles with the darker stuff lurking in between the cracks, and for me, this photo expresses that perfectly; the gaiety, the location and the celebrity, are all writ large but they boldly tell the wrong tale.
It reminds me of those videos you see on social media of a groom smashing his bride’s head into the wedding cake, even after she implores him not to. The guests laugh but they all know that something more sinister is at play.
“The heart of the problem, I soon came to understand, was that with Pablo there must always be a victor and a vanquished. I could not be satisfied with being a victor, nor, I think, could anyone who is emotionally mature. There was nothing gained by being vanquished either, because with Pablo, the moment you were vanquished he lost all interest. Since I loved him, I couldn't afford to be vanquished. What does one do in a dilemma like that?”
― Francoise Gilot, Life With Picasso
Once Upon a Time World is easy to read, hugely informative and as fascinating as the cover suggests. I’ll be picking it up and putting it down with alacrity over the next few months.
Other current bedside reads include, Ian Fleming’s Quantum of Solace short stories, which I love to dip in and out of, and Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall. I plucked this one out of the to-read pile because, once again, I was drawn to the cover, which is a poster from The London Transport Museum, called For Theatreland Travel, by H.S.Williamson.
Do share any book covers that you are simply besotted with.
We’re all about the words at The TEN but there’s nothing wrong with being a sucker for an enticing image. Especially one with an intriguing back story.
Lisa
*obviously not but should have been because it was awesome.
If you enjoyed Once Upon A Time World, I can recommend The Riviera Set by Mary S Lovell which covers 1920 to 1960 at the Chateau de L'Horizon on the Cote d'Azur with a cast of very, very famous people from Edward and Wallis via Churchill to Rita Hayworth. It also has a great picture on the front too!
I can lend you my copy of Wintering if you struggle to track it down x