Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Glory, Marcel Pagnol, thyme

I wake up with two words in my head - "glory" and the French equivalent gloire. I consider the two side by side. Glory seems to be something, which, in England, we are rather suspicious of. It's not the thing we admit to seeking, although when the glory is applied patriotically as in Hope and G, well that's another thing. The French, I suspect, have no hang-ups about gloire. I wonder if one reason why, is that a noble river mianders through the word, with ancient towns on its bank and many fine castles, famous wines from Pouilly Fume and Sancerre to Chinon and Bourgeil to Muscadet to be drunk with the seafood of the estuary. Meanwhile, lose the "l" from the English word, and you almost have "gore", which is dispiriting.

Sometimes, books which you are looking for turn up just when you want them in a charity shop. I have been reading Marcel Pagnol's overwhelmingly beautiful and funny autobiographical works contained in Souvenirs d'enfance, and had ordered DVDs of the films which had been made of the books. Today the DVDs arrive in the post, and in the Mind shop in the High Street, I find the two volumes of the work in English.

The smell of thyme in the wet garden , when I cut it to flavour the rabbit for tonight's supper.

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