“I have my driver’s licence!” I suddenly remember as we are watching The Ed Sullivan Show, we haven’t even talked about it yet. He shrugs. “Well, I’ve had mine for ages. What’s so special about yours?” He turns to me, and I grin. “I can get a car and drive us around,” I tell him.Continue reading “Chapter 18: Wild at Heart”
Category Archives: Aesthetics
The Education of Helplessness: Of Human Bondage and the Novel That Refused to Lie
Somerset Maugham called it the book that saved his life. He also said it was the worst kind of novel — an autobiographical one. He was right on both counts, which is precisely why it endures. By Bergotte There is a type of novel that functions less like a work of art than like aContinue reading “The Education of Helplessness: Of Human Bondage and the Novel That Refused to Lie”
Chapter 17: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
“I don’t remember my life before America anymore. Not really,” I tell Miss Mary. “But dearheart,” she says, “you are still so young.” She thinks for a moment while I look down, trying to summon it, but it doesn’t come. Miss Mary has an idea and fetches an old photo album from the library. “Let’sContinue reading “Chapter 17: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”
What We Lose When We Love: The Way We Were and the Myth of the Perfect Compromise
It was sold as a love story. It was actually an argument about America — about politics, memory, and the terrible cost of choosing comfort over conviction. By Bergotte There is a moment near the end of The Way We Were, Sydney Pollack’s 1973 film, that has lodged itself in the cultural memory with aContinue reading “What We Lose When We Love: The Way We Were and the Myth of the Perfect Compromise”
Chapter 16: My Babe
The boy tells me about his summer job, saying it’s been fun and the folks are real nice. I listen, and imagine what it must be like to have a manual-labouring job like that. “You gotta let me do it soon,” he says, lying back in my room after we’ve laughed ourselves breathless about something.Continue reading “Chapter 16: My Babe”
The Scrawl of the Gods: Cy Twombly and the Art of Forgetting
He made paintings that looked like vandalism, drawings that resembled the work of a distracted child, and sculptures that seemed to be falling apart. He also changed the course of Western art. By Bergotte There is a canvas in the Menil Collection in Houston, twelve feet wide, that appears, at first glance, to have beenContinue reading “The Scrawl of the Gods: Cy Twombly and the Art of Forgetting”
Chapter 15: Home Is Where the Heart Is
It’s the summer when I turn sixteen.I haven’t been home since Christmas, and I haven’t seen very much of the boy since last summer’s tiff. We made up before I went back to school, he accepted my apology and the letter; we even went back to watching movies in the screening room, and to holdingContinue reading “Chapter 15: Home Is Where the Heart Is”
The Architecture of Silence: John Pawson and the Art of Less
He has built monasteries, fashion temples, and homes for the hyper-wealthy. But John Pawson’s real subject has always been the same: what happens when you take everything away. By Bergotte There is a room in the Czech countryside, an hour south of Prague, that has no decoration whatsoever. Its walls are limestone. Its floor isContinue reading “The Architecture of Silence: John Pawson and the Art of Less”
Chapter 14: The Lady is a Tramp
Everyone says I look great, that I have become more sophisticated and cool, that my new fashionable hair-do and subtle makeup suit me – that I look like a real lady now – not just plain old English as I did before.Mabel especially thinks it’s wild how much I have changed. “Let’s go shopping,” sheContinue reading “Chapter 14: The Lady is a Tramp”
The Brutality of Fact: David Sylvester and the Vocation of Looking
The greatest British art critic of the twentieth century never wrote a book he was satisfied with. What he left behind instead was something rarer — a model of attention so exacting it changed what art could ask of its audience. By Bergotte There is a way of sitting in front of a painting thatContinue reading “The Brutality of Fact: David Sylvester and the Vocation of Looking”
My World of Interiors 