I first saw A Thief’s Journal on Jan Wasniewski’s bookshelf in Berne, Switzerland, when I was 21. Jan himself had been a commercial seaman who had abandoned his country (Communist Poland) and his family there, and was living with false documents in Switzerland. He had tattoos and played the harmonica. While he was out during the day I would read.

A Thief’s Journal made me think about community, crime, sex and love, dignity, the creation of myth, and the relationship of the artist to social structures. What is it to create one’s self with little more than native intelligence, distance from conventional social structures, and from the rich soil of shame?

The book recounts some of the criminal activities of Jean Genet and others in France in the early part of the last century. Although this is the least difficult of Genet’s books or plays, it begins the exploration of self-creation and transformation through walls of loathing, tender and violent sexual trysts, and outsider communities that are explored later and more metaphysically in other books such as The Miracle of the Rose.

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

In my mid-twenties the poet Mike McCall introduced me to the work of John Berryman. I cannot remember anything about Berryman, now, except for the beautiful line; "I could live in a world of perpetual autumn". Mike also introduced me to Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, and it haunted me for several years. I can still close my eyes and be transported to the woods across the road from my old gambrel-roofed house. Slogging through weeds under a heavy Michigan grey sky, thinking about the world-making difference between "under" and "over", fingering the experiences of space in my mind like gems of rare beauty were gifts of perception given me by Bachelard’s book. What is the difference between a "live" nest and one that is not? Look it up in The Poetics of Space!

An echo of this concept pops up in the poems of John Ashbery. My friends and I went to his reading in a large auditorium at Yale. He read from his book of poems Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror inspired by Parmigianino’s painting in the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna.

Ashbery said that each viewer recreates a work of art through attention. I was drawing in my sketchbook while the reading went on, and didn’t think much about it then, but it seems to me to be related to Bachelard’s idea about recreation. The idea of a self-portrait in a distorted lens is very interesting. That the image of the young Parmigianino would be re-created by every viewer and that the concept of self-portraiture through a distorted glass was recreated by Ashbery in his book of poems is interesting too.

The Renaissance by Will Durant

The World of Venice by Jan Morris

Carol, my best friend, told me to read this book a few years ago, and I am grateful to her for this and so much more. In Border’s recently I saw that Jan Morris has a new book out that reviews her life of travel. Morris wrote The World of Venice back in the 1970’s, and dedicates the book to her daughter Virginia. Interestingly, back in the 1970’s Jan Morris was a man, and the father of Virginia, but is now Ms. Morris, the mother of Virginia. I don’t know when the sex-change operation took place, or how Virginia is doing, but people are amazingly adaptable, and I have hope that everyone is well.

My special relationship with Venice dates back to my first look at La Serenissima in 1975. Jim Bell and I disembarked the train at some early hour that most college students never see, except in passing on their way to bed. There was a deep fog over the canals, and out of the mist floated the song of a gondalier, then the prow of a boat, then, slowly, carefully, a mountain of oranges heaped on the deck. I loved Venice immediately.

More recently, I had a boyfriend in the Veneto. Roberto had the kind of Italian look that messes with the mating urge of genetically susceptible women. I couldn’t resist him until I made repeated efforts, and that took a few years. What I loved and hope never to forget were the icy winds in winter along the Grand Canal, Roberto’s ears so much more sensitive to the cold and so much redder than my Michigan ears. I remember the damp heat of summer, and eating sandwiches in the shade of a church in the Rialto district.

I remember holding Roberto’s hand as we walked home from a soccer game in the stadium down near the Giardino Biennale, the police making sure that the Salernitani and the local residents didn’t get into any fights by separating the crowds and herding the southerners directly toward the station. I remember Roberto very patiently taking me to a church so that I could see a specific Bellini painting I had wanted to see, kissing me on the head at the door of the church, but refusing to pay the fee and enter the church himself, because, "To me, is not too interesting. You understand, ah?" I remember walking home with him at night past San Marco and the grand Christmas Tree standing near the Correr Napoleone, and the fireworks in the Basin of St. Mark’s on New Year’s Eve. I remember first seeing him after some months apart. We met in the Piazza San Marco, and how tan he looked, and how dark his hair and eyes, how sweet his lips looked, and how anxious I was smell his skin! So, there’s that. What I like about Jan Morris’ book is that it in no way competes with my own experience or memory, but adds immeasurably to the pleasure of place by connecting history to the living water and stone.

Morris discusses the ossuary, the island of the dead, the lagoon islands, Torcello, customs, manners, food, bridges, alleys, architecture, art and the history of Venice in clear prose that is worth reading and rereading both for information and for the beauty of the writing. In a passage that notes a number of Venice’s failings, Morris continues:

"But there, love is blind, especially if there is sadness in the family. The Venetians love and admire their Venice with a curious fervency. "Where are you off to?" you may ask an acquaintance. "To the Piazza", he replies; but he can give you no reason if you ask him why. He goes to St. Mark’s for no particular purpose, to meet nobody specific, to admire no particular spectacle. He simply likes to button his coat, and sleek his hair just a little, assume an air of rather portentous melancholy and stroll for an hour two among the sumptuous trophies of his heritage."

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

I had a copy of this book from the time I was ten and found it in a garage sale for five cents until my male cat peed on it some 20 years later and I had to throw it away. The last time I looked at it, I remember thinking how very antiquated were the illustrations of the concepts with stories of businessmen and housewives. When I was ten, I didn’t know how adults lived, and when I was thirty, if they had ever lived that way, they didn’t now, and I certainly never would live in that lost America. Apart from its interest as a document from the past, there were chapters with lessons. Each lesson was summed up: "In a Nutshell". "Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise" was one of the nutshell concepts. His use of the word "hearty" had a wholesome ring to it. I had to look up "approbation" in the dictionary. Carnegie was careful to differentiate flattery from praise. It still seems to me that an excellent way to go through life is to look for good things and to acknowledge good things whenever and wherever you find them. If it is a beautiful day, if your friend has been particularly kind or courageous or generous, or if your colleague has done a particularly good job you ought to shout it out. Another nutshell concept had to do with listening. Even if it doesn’t win you any friends to listen more than you speak, it will win you a more interesting life.

The Art of Florence Andres, Hunisek and Turner, Abrams publishers

This expensive, massive, lavishly illustrated two-volume set seems to me a good investment for anyone who wants to understand the art and architecture of Florence from the example of the Romanesque San Giovanni leading up to and through works of the Renaissance. New scholarship throws light into previously dark corners, and makes clear the timeline, and the political, historical, economic and cultural landscape of Florence from the 13^th through the 17^th centuries.

The authors are fairly strict about sticking close to home: Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo are not followed on their perambulations outside the city. Popes and kings are discussed in relation to their importance to Florence. The net effect is a little frustrating if one is looking for an interrelated worldview. On the other hand, such a wonderful portrait of the city is painted, and such solid representations of its prominent citizens and artists are given that any minor annoyances can be overlooked. After all, the book is called The Art of Florence. Pisano is given good coverage, the role of Arnolfo di Cambio in the building of Santa Maria del Fiore and Santa Croce is explored and the whole evolution of what we call Giotto’s campanile is explained in a clear and thorough way that is quite satisfying.

Perhaps you’ve felt that you couldn’t read one more word about Donatello’s David that overlooks or ignores the relationship between the homoerotic appeal of the young, self-absorbed David and the gory decapitated head of Goliath. I know that whenever I am in the Bargello, the students titter nervously, unable to reconcile the polished bronze girly David with its prominent place in the history of western art. This book confronts the issue head-on and does so intelligently, with a discussion of the then-contemporary real-life Duke of Milan’s winged helmet echoed in the bronze Goliath’s, and one of those bronze wings caressing the inner thigh of David--eroticism mixed with death and decapitation. (Burroughs, anyone?) It’s wonderful the way in which they discuss the somewhat perverse image without ever dismissing its importance or value, and sum up:

"With Donatello, we discover the first modern instance of the fusion of art and autobiography that was to become, in the Romantic era, a fundamental aspect of the artist’s relation to his creations."

Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes

I was reading Under the Tuscan Sun this summer on my way to the Greek Islands after leaving Italy, and finished it while on Rhodes. Our friends in Rhodes, Mihalis and Stephania run a hotel in an old Italianate mansion. Stephania is learning Greek. She is Italian, and had lived in Poggiabonsi near Siena until falling in love with Mihalis. When Stephania saw that I was reading Under the Tuscan Sun, she held the book to her chest and sighed. Although Stephania doesn’t speak English, I understood how much she loved the book. Mihalis and Stephania had been married in Cortona, the setting of the book. They brought out the big album of their wedding photos. They both looked so beautiful, and Cortona looked beautiful too!

I didn’t love the book as much as Stephania does and my other friends do, and I wonder why. I think, first, that reading a book about Italy when traveling in Greece is a mistake. If you are lucky enough to be sitting under an hibiscus-covered trellis in a garden on Rhodes with friends while warm evening breezes bring the scent of night-blooming cereus to your table, and you are having cool drinks and chatting…well, somebody enjoying a similar bliss in a book is not quite so compelling. Then, too, I checked my ego to see if I was jealous of Maye’s good luck in being able to afford to purchase a place in Tuscany. There was and is a fair amount of jealousy, I admit. How much is she making at her teaching job? And, hey, how many books does she need to sell to put in another bathroom at Bramasole? Then, finally, I think that anyone who has traveled to Italy must be a moron if they are not changed forever by the experience, so what’s all the fuss about these books?

Maybe Mayes’ book gives Stephania a voice for all she loves about her home in Tuscany. That is a great gift, and I could understand it if Stephania felt pride for her home and gratitude to Mayes for making clear to the world how beautiful, meaningful, wonderful her home truly is. Maybe people who have not traveled to Tuscany are awakened by the story to another way to live…any book that gives one options is a good thing, yes?

I don’t know why I have such a distrust and loathing of the basic consumer lifestyle. Maybe I will get over it. Frances and Ed Mayes seem like lovely people, and I enjoyed reading about them. So, I recommend these two books. These books have been loved by many, and may be valuable to you. I also recommend the new one with the color photos and the recipes that’s just come out for Christmas. Buy it. You may be helping Frances Mayes to buy more majolica for her dining room, which is illustrated in the new book. Alternately, you could not buy the book and just send her some nice silver teaspoons.

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

Now out for Christmas in a 25^th anniversary edition, is Irving Stones’ biographical novel about Michelangelo. By their nature, biographical novels tell you as much about the author’s imagination as they do about the subject of their work. We know that the writer’s worldview; education, prejudices and passions always color even straight histories, and these colorations multiply a hundredfold in biographical novels. We discount the more dramatic moments as being interesting fictions of the author created to move the story along, understand that almost all the dialogue is fake, and that there really is no way that the author can crawl inside the actual brain and heart of his or her subject. What value can we find in reading an historical novel?

I have been struggling with this issue. In Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy, a reader is likely to read that Michelangelo is cento percento (100%) heterosexual. Nothing in any historical document can support this attitude toward Michelangelo’s sexuality. To the contrary; many viewing the sensual beauty of the white marble, sensual male "Dying Slave", the massive, twisting male forms of the "Ignudi" on the Sistine ceiling, and the strangely repellent female forms of the Medici Chapel will conclude that Michelangelo must have lusted after men. Readers may find Michelangelo’s letters to Thomasso Cavalieri to reveal more than ordinary friendship, and raise an eyebrow. But, not a scrap of evidence suggests that Michelangelo ever had sexual liaisons with men, nor with women for that matter. Unlike Leonardo, who was brought up on charges of sodomy in Florence, Michelangelo has left no paper trail of loves or any sort of hanky-panky for us to follow. Believe me, I’ve looked!

So, here’s the deal:

We live our lives from the inside out. Some 4 centuries and more since Michelangelo walked the earth, it is hard to get to the man. We are naturally curious. What was he like? How did he ever paint the greatest fresco, carve the greatest sculpture and build the greatest building of the Renaissance? Hell, yes, we’re curious. We want to know this genius. Stone’s book offers us an intimacy that we cannot find elsewhere. Even if the details are wrong or doubtful and we throw away much of what is written, still, we are left with a sense of a man’s life. We live our lives from the inside out, and Stone’s book serves to correct our habitual way of looking at the past from the outside. This is of great value. Buy this book, understanding that much of it is cheesy, and only believe a third of what you read. Read Michelangelo’s letters in the new compilation and translation. Be careful with Vasari. Be equally cautious with Condivi. Dream of great things.

Toward a Violent Grave an Oral Biography of Jackson Pollack

A couple of years ago I saw the big Pollack retrospective at the Tate in London. I had just read Toward a Violent Grave. Suddenly, everything made sense. The form of the oral biography is dense, rich and rewarding, with many voices blending to create a composite image. Pollack’s tragic life seems very real in this book. To understand his work, though, you will have to see it. You need to see a lot of it, and see it with enough space to stand back and have the work grab you. You need to be able to slip into a room sideways and have the work assault you until you have to face it straight on. Ideally, you will be able to see enough of it together to understand the undercurrents and threads of ideas that make the work interconnected.

Picasso: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Norman Mailer

Mailer’s portrait of Picasso includes little vignettes of Picasso’s domestic life in Paris. The image of Picasso’s mistress serving tea in their squalid hovel/studio with a cup of sugar deposited from her bare hands in the center of the table is unforgettable. Reading about Picasso’s faulty French and his first abortive attempt to live in Paris helps to clarify the timeline and illustrates the difficulties of leaving one’s native home, language and culture.

Mailer translates the memoirs of Fernande Oliver, Picasso’s first mistress in Paris. Poor Fernande! What a life to have to live! The monolith of Gertrude Stein is broken down, and there are opportunities to look behind the facades of other big names. Although nobody seems to give a damn about Picasso any more, if you remember when he was the most important artist of the 20^th century, or if you do give a damn, you should check this book out. It’s intelligent and delightful.