Monday, December 24, 2007

Americans Discovering Themselves in Europe

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The only way to truly know your own country is to travel to some other country. The only way to understand or find yourself is to abandon your "self" and realize that the "self" is an invention and an illusion.

--Robert Dente - 10:14pm Jun 15, 2002 EDT (#15047 of 38607)

It is an American tradition to leave America. In the famous movie and the most recent remake, Sabrina said "I found myself in Paris". Appropriately, La Vie en Rose was playing in the background. Fiction, perhaps! Nevertheless many Americans have found and continue to find "themselves" abroad: James Whistler, John Singer Sergeant, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Mark Twain. For many it is a Jungian journey of self-discovery as is life itself.
I had been to Europe five times now; each time I had come with delight, with maddening eagerness to return, and each time how, where, and in what way I did not know, I had felt the bitter ache of homelessness, a desperate longing for America, an overwhelming desire to return.

During this summer in Paris, I think I felt this great homesickness more than ever before, and I really believe that from this emotion, this constant and almost intolerable effort of memory and desire, the material and the structure of the books I now began to write were derived.

--Thomas Wolfe, The Story of a Novel quoted in The Creative Process

The great American exodus may have begun with the "expulsion" of Tories during the Revolutionary war. Most went to the Canadian provinces, but between seven thousand and eight thousand went to England --notably Thomas Danforth who had practiced law in the colonies.

Later, Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War and Secretary of State, fled to England and became a successful lawyer. Other "confederates" fled to Canada, Japan, Australia, Egypt, Mexico, and Central and South America.

The most famous expatriates were the "lost generation": Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Julian Green, William Seabrook, E. E. Cummings, Harry Crosby, Sidney Howard, Louis Bromfield, Robert Hillyer, and Dashiell Hammett. They shared with the Dadists and the Surrealists an almost universal disillusionment following the "Great War".
Most of the expatriates congregated in Paris, France where they lived for several weeks, months, years, or even for the rest of their lives. During the 1920s, Paris was a bustling cosmopolitan hub where a rich history converged with a blossoming artistic community.

It was considered to be the cultural capital of the early twentieth century. Attracted by this atmosphere, the expatriates settled in Paris hoping to establish their literary identities and find a market for their work. Nevertheless, each author found a varying degree of success while living and writing in Paris. F. Scott Fitzgerald, as compared to his friend and fellow author Ernest Hemingway, was much less productive in the mid-1920s.

--American Expatriates in Europe: The Lost Generation

John Singer Sargent was of another type, born of American parents in Florence. He grew up speaking several languages, most certainly English, French and Italian.

His 1884 portrait of New Orleans born Virginie Avegno Gautreau --better known as Madame X --became his most famous portrait. It's hard to imagine how one succeeds in scandalizing a society in which men were expected to have mistresses. Nevertheless, a single strap off the bare shoulder was too much for polite society. The hubbub persuaded the artist to quit Paris for London. He would not see America until 1887.

Many expatriates returned to US but --in the early 1920s --many returned to Europe. Their complaints about postwar American culture --standardized and vulgar --reverberate today in contemporary criticisms of FOX, football, and Limbaugh. For them --as well as contemporary American critics --Europe represented ancient wisdom, a sense of history lost amid post-modern Americana and suburban sprawl, mass media, Walmarts, and super-sized fries.

Though not an expatriate, William Wordsworth wrote of London:
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
My first such impressions of London were not from Westminster Bridge looking east but Blackfriars looking west in the damp gray cold --London weather at its worst. That the Thames looked like gray slate did not deter the intrepid racers rowing quickly upstream.

Later, of course, I would find Wordsworth's "London" from Westminster, just below the statue of Boudicca, a symbol of every people's revolt against tyranny and empire.

Indeed, what American, longing to find what had been lost in him/herself, could pass the piazzas of Florence, the cafés of Paris, the coffeehouses of Vienna, the cabarets of Berlin, the pubs of London and not be inspired to rediscover those parts not nurtured back home in Indiana or perhaps deliberately scorned in Texas? The tradition is not passive flight; it is the active embrace of life itself.


Elizabeth Taylor interprets William Wordsworth's 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge'

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez...

Len wrote: "Indeed, what American, longing to find what had been lost in him/herself, could pass the piazzas of Florence, the cafés of Paris, the coffeehouses of Vienna, the cabarets of Berlin, the pubs of London and not be inspired to rediscover those parts not nurtured back home in Indiana or perhaps deliberately scorned in Texas? The tradition is not passive flight; it is the active embrace of life itself."

Yes Len, like all practising and crypto-fascists these petty minded, doctrinaire, vicious control freaks hate the free expression of any aspect of the human spirit that they can't heel beneath their jack-boots.

The contempt, ridicule and defiance of all human beings who still have the flame of freedom burning in their/our breasts, is integral to the downfall of these Alpha arseholes. Yes, sir! We gonna help prolapse their ugly ideological guts; let 'em spill so that all the blinkered rubes may see them sans the weave and spin of the MSM.

Throughout the intertubes I've surfed and roamed, none have torched the way more than ye, old son. Mightily proud to have been along for La Cause, ie. the application of The Constitution that articulated the last and the greatest....of......human .........dreams.
That precious "goddamned piece of paper" that haunts the callous souls of BushCo and their enablers.
One way or another, their time in the eighth year of the third millenium is nigh.

They're about to tumble and jesus h. christ (happy bithday, kid) are we ready to rumble!

Anonymous said...

As usual, interesting and intelligent insights...thanks for your efforts through out the year Len, have a warm Holidays all.

benmerc

Unknown said...

Fuzz, you give me much to live up to--but many thanks.

Mightily proud to have been along for La Cause, ie. the application of The Constitution that articulated the last and the reatest....of......human .........dreams.

La Cause would not have been the same without your witty barbs.

Thanks, benmarc...and may I pass those wishes along to everyone. Happy Holidays and the next year will consolidate the positive trends that I see taking root.

TSUMRA said...

"The Mean Texas Love of Little Tommy Cryindick"
www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=94221
Love West Texas Style?
and
A Merry Christmas to Y'All!

Unknown said...

Sorry Len. Have to disagree with you on this one. Americans have already done too much damage by meddling in foreign countries. Hope u holidays are grand!

Unknown said...

Zena, your point is well-taken. There was, indeed, much written about the so-called "Ugly American". I am quite sure the "Ugly American" still exists but have hopes that "he" is a relic of those days when trans-Atlantic flights were coming into their own and Europe, for most Americans, was still very, very exotic. The James' brothers, Twain, Wolfe, et al were of another generation, another era.

Business travel these days has made Europe a convenient destination. From the East Coast, it's a mere hop.

Aside from backpackers and business execs, there is still a "gentile" yet affordable way to enjoy and absorb Europe. Some regulars to this board, no doubt, know that I am living in Europe now.

While I have connected with some other expatriates, most of the folk I encounter each day are native French speakers and I am forced to get up to speed quickly. There are many English speakers to be found in native population and I've made interesting contacts.

I had French in college --but as most will tell you: there is no substitute for learning the language from native speakers. My first instructor here was curious about how an American felt about Bush. I think I got an "A" that day when I replied: "Les Etats-Unis sont le plus grand terroriste."

Not just American pop culture is appreciated here. American authors can be found in English in bookstores. The French adopted jazz and rock a long time ago. The Simpsons is a big hit on TV and movies. Sadly, however, Simpsons does not always translate well. The inside jokes about the FOX network are, for the most part, lost on French audiences. Anerican Country and Western is also big. I found Swiss music fans who knew as much about Hank Williams as I did.

American expatriates in Europe fare better when they embrace and appreciate local cultures on their own terms. If I wanted American-style mega-malls, I might have stayed at home. I love the local color and the villages at least as much as the big cities like London. I love wines from the Jura as well as Ale from the Wheatsheaf in Rushden in Northants, England. I like the little cafes in Versoix between Geneva and Nyon. The Wine Snobs I knew in Houston didn't even know that the Jura was a wine producing region. Throughout England, I sought out REAL ale --not the fizzy, pop bottle beers one gets in the US. Once in York, a "Yorkie" entertained the entire pub with a story of how mother duck and all her little ducks in tow stopped traffic all over York. In France, I like the funky, little coffee shops where I order a "renverse". Starbucks, eat your heart out. I also seek out the art. I discovered original Corot paintings of a neighborhood where he lived in Geneva. And, nearby by US standards, two former residences of Voltaire. I was allowed to examine several of his handwritten letters. None were to Rousseau, however, but all were in an impeccable "hand". No one can write like that today. In London, I found Carlyle's house and Whistler's too. And I found several favorite pubs --the Christopher Wren (which I fear succumbed to new development near St. Paul's), The Crown (near the British Museum), and The Thistle near Picadilly. Always seek out the pubs serving "Real Ale". You can get fizzy soft drinks in America.

In Florence, there are some great little coffee shops between between the Stazione di Santa Maria Novella and the Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo). The hotels here are moderate and very comfortable. You are within walking distance of the Piazza del Signoria, the Cathedral (with Brunelleschi,'s dome) the Accademia and Michelangelo's David, the Uffizi where is found Michelangelo's "Holy Family", Titian's "Venus of Urbino" Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", "Primavera", Leonardo's "Anunciation" , "Adoration of the Magi", Henry James' favorite portait --a portrait by Bronzino. It was the inspiration for his "The Wings of the Dove". As interesting as the art, the history, the Signoria, was the four hour lunch I indulged just across the street from San Lorenzo, also by Brunelleschi and the site of the Medici tombs.