French Lessons, Volume 4, Part 1: Poets Behaving Badly

[fleurlb]

Julie was curled up in her customary spot at the end of Tim Riggins' couch. Her sandals were on the floor, her legs were tucked up underneath her and her head was bent over her work. She smiled as she put the finishing touches on the note cards for the speech she was writing to present her final project for her Advanced Placement English class.

 

 

She was proud of her paper, entitled “Les poètes maudits: The Chicken and Egg Conundrum of Poets Behaving Badly”. She'd worked hard on it, devoting weeks just to the research and organization. She liked to think of it as a scholarly yet witty report.

 

The paper was over 30 pages long and was divided into three sections. The first part defined the concept and gave a brief history of the poète maudit, or cursed poet. The second introduced Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud as archetypal poète maudits while the last section presented examples of how their lives had effected their poetry and attempted to answer the question posed by the paper's title. Did they act out against society because of their literary talents? Or was their genius in poetry a direct result of their acting out against societal norms?

 

It was, of course, an unanswerable question, but Julie felt she'd done a great job presenting examples of both possibilities. She'd even managed to weave in Rimbaud's theory of the poet as a seer, a visionary, who must systematically disillusion and derange his senses in order to reach a higher level of consciousness.

 

“What're you laughing and smiling at over there, Taylor? Homework just isn't that much fun,” said Tim. He was sitting at the other end of the couch reviewing notes for his Earth Science final. Even though the football season and paid tutoring gig had long since ended, Tim and Julie still studied together once or twice a week, for reasons neither of them could really articulate.

 

“Just my final English project,” replied Julie, glancing up at Tim.

 

He dropped his notes in his lap and stretched. “So what's this project about then?”

 

“Poets behaving badly,” she said with a smile.

 

“How badly?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Very,” she said.

 

“C'mon, Taylor, don't be a tease.”

 

Julie shook her head. “You don't really want to hear my speech or read my paper. It would probably bore you to tears.”

 

“But I thought you said there was bad behavoir in there. What are they doing? Not paying their taxes?”

 

“Not hardly. More like drinking absinthe, taking drugs, having torrid affairs and really spectacular break-ups.”

 

“Now you've got my attention. Let's hear it.”

 

She nodded and glanced at her note cards, trying to collect her thoughts. “OK, but remember, I haven't practiced the speech part yet so I don't exactly have it memorized. It'll be better on the actual day.”

 

“Quit stalling, Taylor.”

 

Julie launched into her speech, reminding herself to speak slowly and calmly and also to look up from her note cards frequently. After she finished the first part, Julie paused to look at Tim, his face blank and eyes unreadable. She wondered if he'd understood a single word, if he was listening at all.

 

She figured the second part would be more interesting, so she gathered up her courage and plowed on through the ill-fated love affair of the teenaged Arthur Rimbaud and much older (and very married) Paul Verlaine. When Tim didn't laugh at the story of Verlaine slapping Rimbaud in the face with a fish, Julie's spirits sank. Either Tim was bored or he hated her speech.

 

She couldn't help but speed up through the last part, to put them both out of their misery. She did, however, slow down slightly to savor her concluding paragraph and poem.

 

“While the thesis question is perhaps impossible to answer, it is clear that without their life experiences, neither Rimbaud or Verlaine would have been able to write so eloquently and clearly about trauma and heart-break. Verlaine's life experiences gave us Romances Sans Parole and Birds in the Night. And when you reflect on the third part of Birds in the Night, you can't help but recognize both the genius and the curse.

 

And wherefore should I lay my heart-wounds bare?

You love me not,--an end there, lady mine;

And as I do not choose that one shall dare

To pity,--I must suffer without sign.

 

Yes, suffer! For I loved you well, did I,--

But like a loyal soldier will I stand

Till, hurt to death, he staggers off to die,

Still filled with love for an ungrateful land.

 

O you that were my Beauty and my Own,

Although from you derive all my mischance,

Are not you still my Home, then, you alone,

As young and mad and beautiful as France?”

 

At the end of the speech, Tim was looking down at his hands. Julie waited for a few seconds, but when he'd neither said anything nor made eye contact, she could wait no longer.

 

“Well?” she asked, biting her lip.

 

“Are you seriously going to stand up in front of your English class and give that speech?” asked Tim, looking up at her.

 

“Yes, that's the general idea.”

 

“You're going to give a speech about a guy who abandons his wife and child to run off with another guy, a teenaged kid, really?”

 

“Well, no, that's not what the speech is about. It's an examination of the nature of the poetic temperament and how it influence's ones behavior and poetry,” said Julie, impatiently.

 

“You realize all anyone's going to hear is the part about the two guys together. Do you get that, at all?” Tim had turned toward her and was watching her intently.

 

Julie rolled her eyes. “It' not my problem if the class is full of small-minded homophobic jerks. Really, Tim? I didn't expect you to be so judgemental.”

 

“Taylor, I'm not being judgemental. I'm trying to get you to understand what you're doing here.” He paused and rubbed his hands over his face while letting out a deep sigh. “So, when is this speech due?”

 

“In three days.”

 

“Perfect, so you have time to write a new one,” said Tim, relief evident in his face.

 

“No. No way,” replied Julie, shaking her head for emphasis. “For one thing, this is based on my final project. And for another, I've worked really hard on this and there's nothing wrong with it.”

 

“Well, can't you just tone it down a little? Leave out the whole part about the two guys?”

 

Julie looked at Tim like he'd just suggested she fly to the moon to pick up some sandwiches. When she spoke, her words were slow and deliberate, as though she was explaining something for the thirty-seventh time to a particularly slow child.

 

“No, Tim, I cannot tone it down. The whole point of the paper is how their lives influenced their poetry and vice versa. I cannot eliminate a key part of their lives just because you think it might make some small-minded Texas hicks uncomfortable.”

 

Tim put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, Taylor. If you think you know what you're doing. Just don't be surprised if it ends badly.”

 

Julie stood up and was still for a moment. Then she paced angrily as she gathered up her belongings. “You think I'm crazy to give this speech? Stupid? Delusional? What?”

 

“No. I just don't understand why you'd go looking for trouble.”

 

“Like you've never gone looking for trouble?” she asked, wheeling around to pierce him with an accusatory stare.

 

“I have. That's why I can tell you that it's a really bad idea,” he said.

 

“Don't you ever feel like there's only a finite amount of air in this town and you've nearly used it all up? That you're strangling and choking here?”

 

Tim shook his head. “Is that really how you feel, living here?”

 

“Yeah, sometimes.”

 

“Look, Taylor, two weeks and school's over, then you've only got one more year. Just think carefully about what you're doing.”

 

“Thank for the advice, Tim,” she said, a little more harshly than she meant. She jammed her feet into her sandals and left, just managing to resist the urge to slam the door behind her.

Part 2      Part 3

Comments

[khemlab.livejournal.com]

There's a part 4! I so thought that part 3 was the end, this is a great surprise.

Tim seriously has a point. And so does Julie. This should be interesting...

[fleurlb.livejournal.com]

Should never reply to comments with details when I'm tired. Had to delete my original reply because I couldn't figure out how to edit it. (Have I mentioned lately how frustrating and unusable LJ is lately?)

OK - what I meant to say....

I originally thought there would only be 3. But after #2, elzed gave me the names of some more poets. So I did some research and got an idea for how to extend the story. Now, it'll be 5 volumes in total, so still 1 more to go after tonight.

And my original idea for the ending is mostly unchanged and will just happen in vol 5 now.