Entering into a Dreamscape of Words “Paris, as I have said, is loath to surrender itself to people who are in a hurry; it belongs to the dreamers …” ~ Julian Green, Paris, p. 59 Who? Julian Green. Or Julien Green, as he preferred to be called. An American, but not an American. Born in … More Julian/Julien Green’s “Paris”
A Meditation on Éric Vuillard’s The Order of the Day The thing about history I love most is that we know how certain events came to an end. Or we think we know. Most of the time, that is. Living through historical events, on the other hand, presents challenges, often life-threatening, with the outcome never … More The Art of Writing History: A Satirical Approach
Reading Martin Walker’s Bruno, Chief of Police Novels It’s interesting how synchronicity works. My current, long-term writing project involves France – actually Paris – during World War II. However, there’re are only so many words about that time I can take in at once. So when I discovered a series of novels set in the … More A Little Side Trip to the Dordogne/Périgord
This year – 2024 – scares me more than does Stephen King’s The Shining, published decades ago, 1977 to be exact. And that’s saying a lot, an awful lot. Truth be told, I have never been able to neither read the book all the way through nor watch the film to the ghastly end. (I … More What Scares Me More than Stephen King’s “The Shining”
This year, Santa Claus brought me a most unusual book, David Drake’s Paris at War, 1939-1944. In 2008, David Drake wandered through what he calls a “controversial exhibition of colour photographs staged in the library devoted to the history of the city” of Paris, the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, 22, rue Malher. … More Paris at War, a Review
In today’s America, there’s a certain glorification of tyrants, certain ideologies. Most of the time, when reading of Germany’s Nazis and World War II, it’s easy to lump people together, to believe that everyone followed the party line. One exception to that, I recently discovered while doing research for my new writing project, was Ernst … More A Different Slant: A German Officer in Occupied Paris
You know those books you read years ago, loved, and then put back on the shelf? But couldn’t really forget, no matter how many years flew by? For me anyway, A. (Abbott) J. (Joseph). Liebling’s Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris (1959) counts as one of those books. Mr. Liebling’s writing included a lot more … More An Appetite for Paris
I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. ~ T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock“ Like it or not, once you’re born, you grow old. (If you’re lucky.) The end is inevitable. Think taxes. And Western society views growing old like figures … More A Meditation on Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s “Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something Like Grace”
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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