The Library

A while ago, I was rereading my collection of Paris Review Interviews. The Paris Review has a wealth of interviews with novelists, artists, poets and playwrights. The interviews are episodes of biography that focus on revealing the artist in her own words. The interviews always start with describing the author’s house or writing room, like a lamp that warms from within and conceives a space where creation takes place. The descriptions set the pace for the interview and for explaining the artist's personality.
Here is my Paris Review inspired free-write describing the classroom where I have my French lessons.
____________________________________________

The workroom is supported by bookshelves (wooden, wrinkled and stable) and a few couches wedged in between. Light comes in through the one big window (the window sill is ornamented by a Japanese bobble head)  over the couch and the sliding glass doors. Red paneled doors section off the bathroom and lead into the main house. The floors are tiled and covered in rugs. Normally we sit at the two tables creating an L shape in the corner of the room, where the laptop sits and hums in open competition with the books. But really there isn’t any competition, because the bookshelves strike me right away.
The books have come here on wings. I imagine them filling hours in airplanes, airports, hotel rooms, trains, waiting rooms. They are aging softly, with pages that cringe and cracked spines. Mademoiselle's books have come from Canada, England, Paris, Hong Kong. From wherever they’ve come, they’ve come to rest here.

I think of peoples bookshelves as results, where the collection of titles tells more stories about the person than the contents of the books themselves. There are four bookshelves in the workroom (the rest man their posts in the main house), each of which I’ve already given personalities. The lean, skinny one which leaps from the wall next to the sliding glass doors speaks in tongues. Here we find fairy tales, fables and history books in French, Spanish guide books, a history documenting the many inventions of China, Italian art and text books. The squat, horizontal fellow stationed on the opposite wall of the sliding glass doors is dedicated almost entirely to art. Coffee table sized monsters with illustrations from museums the world over, art criticism, art sketched and drawn with charcoal and also the occasional psychology or odd reference volume. The next two shelves house my favorites. The grand wooden gatekeeper stands proud and ancient behind the desk. He houses most of the histories, long and sprawling hardcovers detailing and giving shape to countries I’ve never been. I feel like the gatekeeper is whispering their names to me and telling me how to find them.

Directly across, on the other side of the desk and to the right of the big window and the Japanese bobble head is who I save for last. The bookshelf is made from a darker wood, with growth rings, and within its forests I can get lost. His content varies from shelf to shelf. The middle rung cradles the masters, Dante and Proust, Milton and Byron. And then the collection of classics whose spines are numbered, as if they could count down the memories of the earth.

Descartes and Dreams

First, some backstory: How I Found Descartes
When I work together with Mademoiselle our classes are made up of conversations and sometimes driven by the questions I ask. One morning she read aloud to me from Will and Ariel Durant's book 'The Age of Louis XIV' (which is in English). Mademoiselle translated the book into French as she read aloud and I typed up what she told me to practice my spelling and grammar. We translated/dictated/typed the chapter on the philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal was actually an unschooler. During his lifetime, wealthy children were educated by priests or tutors, but Pascal's father chose to educate his son himself. As a child, Pascal was thoroughly influenced, swayed and wooed by philosophy and the mathematical arts. The philosopher Descartes was a visiter of the Pascal household and a friend of Pascal's father.

During the reading, as I typed and  listened to the story of Pascal I felt the detail of Descartes pulling at me. Descartes was mentioned in passing, he only made an appearance in Pascal's life, but I still wanted his story.  It reminds me of a quote from the novel The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson:

"I was always distracted by the esoterica that might appear in a textbook's footnote or a teacher's offhand remark. For example: if my geometry teacher mentioned something about Galileo giving lectures on the physical structure of Hell, it became impossible for me to refocus my interest when he returned to talking about the sides of a parallelogram. I would skip the next three classes to visit the library, reading everything I could on Galileo, and when I returned to the school I would fail the next math test because it did not include any questions about the Inquisition."

My classes with Mademoiselle sometimes benefit me as invitations to make new discoveries. I told Mademoiselle I was interested in Descartes and she suggested I prepare a presentation on him to present in our next class. I made the French presentation, researched and read, and did free writes on my thoughts about Descartes' philosophy.

Descartes' Story
Descartes (1596-1650) had a particular stance coming into the world as a philosopher while discovery and the new observations of science unraveled and aligned. He is considered the father of modern philosophy because he applied his worldview and meditations to what was being uncovered in science. Philosopher extraordinaire Bertrand Russell observes: "Descartes writes, not as a teacher, but as a discoverer and explorer, anxious to communicate what he has found."

Education
Descartes was educated at a Jesuit college, where he received his foundation in studying modern mathematics. He was fragile and sickly as a child so he was allowed to remain in bed until 11:00 am while the other students began their studies in the early morning. Descartes spent these mornings in meditation, a habit he would remain faithful to for most of his life. Descartes' life would be directed and haunted by his dreams, so these mornings gave him time unlock them.

After finishing school, Descartes spent some time traveling and hunting for the solitude that would lead to meditation. In 1619, while in Germany, Descartes had a series of three dreams which had the same power over him as visions influence saints. The dreams colored through his mind and then seized him. From the dreams, Descartes determined that his life's work would be in pursuit of science and in search of truths.

Philosophy
"Je pense, donc je suis." I think, therefore I am.
This is the core idea of Descartes' philosophy. Descartes went about his search through what is the called the Method of Doubt. I think that the Method of Doubt was Descartes' way of teaching himself to think critically. He realized that he couldn't accept the ideas he was surrounded by at face value--so he began to question, evaluate and rebuild his realities. Descartes states the need  “to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations”. He saw the Method of Doubt as a means “to reach certainty — to cast aside the loose earth and sand so as to come upon rock or clay”. Descartes writes, "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."

It makes sense that since dreams set Descartes' on his path, they would also shake him out of his former way of thinking. Descartes writes in Meditation I:

"Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars--namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth- putting of the hands--are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at all events, namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire body, are not simply imaginary, but really existent. For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real.''

Descartes concluded that because he questioned, he was a thing that existed. He writes, working out his beliefs, "I understand by the sole power of judgement, which resides in my mind, what  I thought I saw with my eyes."

His philosophy sounds familiar, as it's an idea that we've seen played out in pop culture and movies. Descartes' wondering at reality heavily influenced The Matrix.

My Thoughts on Descartes
Descartes' search was personal. It involved him and trusted only himself (Je pense, donc je suis. Meaning the world comes to me through my thoughts/perception.) What's interesting to me is the way Descartes allowed his dreams, realities and truths to mingle. He saw his mind as one battleground, a place of history, a singular ruin. If dreams are mangled realities that come to us as memories when we're awake, what filters our truth? Our mind defines us. It's memories, wonders, self direction and our world as we choose to remember and perceive.

Baudelaire: The Musician

 This French poet I've been reading, his name is Baudelaire and he's like a musician of the French language. His poems feel like they've been written to be read aloud and Baudelaire's words feel like waves coming off of your tongue. Memorizing his poetry is chanting it over and over, working into a kind of harmony. Can the 'waves of a poem' be translated into another language?

 Words hold the culture of a language and the memories of a people behind them. Word for word translation, passing meaning from one language to another, is impossible. For instance, in French, they have like eight different words describing different layers of darkness. And using the French words vous or tu (both meaning you. Vous is the formal 'you' and tu is the kind of 'you' used to address a lover or a child) reveal the relationship between two people. How do you capture these kinds of nuances in English? 

So really, translation is finding a substitute for a word. My French teacher was saying how poems are musical, but more people are drawn to music, because music is more easily understood. In a song, the music of the song is a reference point, the music tips you off on whether the song is sad or happy. Poetry doesn't have this reference points, which makes poetic translation even more dangerous. The poem is translated through what the translator sees. The 'reference points' of the translator are the translator's knowledge of the history and culture of the language, and the translator's knowledge of the poet he's translating.