In Love with France, At Home In Italy

  Every once in a lifetime or so I have the  luck to find a writer who speaks directly to my heart. One of the first was James Agee when he wrote of lying on a quilt under the stars during a golden moment before tragedy strikes. But for me, right now, Margaret Renkl is that writer.    What are the chances that I should be trying to compose condolence letters to a dear family, and to myself, when I stumble on Renkl not only referring to how much author James Agee meant to her, but saying, of her own children in the aftermath of a devastating Covid year that left empty seats at many Thanksgiving tables:   “But maybe they will remember the joy of being together for a little while, if only at a distance, and the quiet pleasure of an unencumbered afternoon at the end of a hard, hard year. I hope they will know somehow, even if no one thinks to tell them, that such days are rare—and truly perfect.”    Many years ago, I copied into my chapbook the passag...

  One posting ago, I said I would be rereading the “Dear Dad” letter in my book,  Letters to Men of Letters.  Now, after a Father’s Day 2021 reconsideration of that letter, I found some excerpts to quote here. I want to see what it feels like to have those words appear in this new setting—one that by dying at age 63 in 1983, my father never could have imagined. I will be quoting myself below.   *   This will be my 33rd year at Yale, where I have been happily teaching French, helping students write better papers in all subjects as college Writing Tutor, and being part of the English Department's teaching team for a unique creative writing experience called Daily Themes, which has a long, storied history of producing famous writers. I find it thrilling to have the chance to work with such talented students.    Although I am on leave this fall, I know that today is Move-In day for the new freshman. I never lose sight of how important these milestones are,...

  Readers seem to be surprised to see “Dear Dad” among my 18 Letters to Men of Letters, and many have said that it is their favorite. I think that my father would have been surprised to see himself in the company of Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, Albert Camus, Gustave Flaubert, Balzac, Leonard Cohen, André Aciman and Christo, among others.    In  Letters to Men of Letters , I write to the authors I admire, both living and dead, who continue to keep me company, and I invite everyone to join me on this literary journey.  https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Men-Diane-Joy-Charney/dp/1736020617   Happy Father’s Day, Dad. In your honor, I’m going to reread my letter to you now.

  Although I thought I knew well the authors in my Letters to Men of Letters , in the course of writing to them, I have come across many surprising quotes. In subsequent posts, I’ll be mentioning some of them, and I will be interested to see if they ring bells for other readers. I thought it might be fun to do this as a little quiz.  Here come the first quotes— what famous author said this? BIG hint: this time, all three quotes are from the same author.  Choose from this list of some of the Men of Letters to whom I write:  Franz Kafka Gustave Flaubert Honoré de Balzac   (Of course you can find the answers in my Letters to Men of Letters)   “Writing is a dog’s life but the only life worth living,” and the odorously colorful “Sometimes I think I’m liquefying like an old Camembert.”  * “It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts….For better or worse it is a delicious thing to write, t...

Yay! It is starting out to be happy day for many reasons.    Our aging Peugeot is now ambulatory and sports an Italian license plate. This means that we no longer need to live in fear of having to deal with the semi-sadists at the Motor Vehicle joint who, although we ourselves weren’t able to drive, seemed intent on driving US completamente crazy for the past three months.    Then, yesterday, in the wake of my having sent many friends the book announcement, it took about a minute for really nice congratulatory messages to start arriving.    But the icing on the cake was, after lamenting what I feared was the permanent loss of the brilliant blog Header that my talented daughter-in-law had designed for my blog, I just happened to be leafing through the index of blog pieces when I stumbled on my Eiffel/Leaning Tower Header image from a few years back.      See why I am so attached to this?   That must’ve been when Blogger.com changed the t...

    Because I am a certified Technodunce (just ask any member of my family or my former students), so many things that everyone else seems to know come as total news to me. And although I speak a number of foreign languages, Facebook, which has its own vocabulary, has not been one of them. Terms that fluent speakers of FB know—Timelines? Notifications? Status? Duh...I need to look them up. Ditto for all those cute little emoticons.    Where I live in Italy, the eloquent expression, “Piano, piano” pops up all the time. I have been a pianist for most of my life, but that has nothing to do with the meaning of “Piano, piano,” or its supposedly reassuring synonyms, “Tranquillo,” and “Con calma”—all of which are more musical ways of saying “Don’t get your knickers in a twist”; “relax”; “no worries”; “all in due time.”     But when it comes to “social media” (?), I am facing a stiff learning curve. And as a septuagenarian who has just had her first book come ...

  Over the years that I was refining and proofing Letters to Men of Letters for the umpteenth time, I decided to maintain a list of my own favorite parts. Sometimes I had to ask myself, “Did I really write those words?” The answer is yes! I will be quoting some of them like these:  One of my most dear Men of Letters, my Yale colleague, Jacques I frequently walk by New Haven’s historic Grove Street Cemetery, and it looks like a nice place to be. Further, that it’s populated by so many honchos suggests that they are less likely ever to be disturbed. And I’ve always said that sooner or later everyone who is anyone comes to Yale, so chances are that this might be a good final resting place. I am going to look into it. To be there would also be in keeping with my life choice to enjoy being a small fish in a big pond.  I once wrote, It’s fall, and death is in the air. But then again, it always was. From Day One. Life is what we do to keep ourselves from noticing. Perhaps what ...