May 1, 2020 The Heroic Feminine and other characters from “A Night at the Amazon’s” Romaine Brooks Turns 146 Romaine Brooks was a voracious reader. One hundred years ago today in 1920, when she would have been waiting impatiently for Natalie Barney to turn up with birthday cake so they could celibrate, I
April 23, 2020 Her Second Pandemic The Red DUchess COMES OUT AGAIN at 145 Elizabeth de Gramont turns 145 today, a bit late for her second pandemic but just in time for the e-launch of No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami. This book brings us closer to a few women we almost
It’s All Hallows Eve around the world, and in Paris the graveyards must be buzzing with activity among members of the Scorpions Club, founded by Franco-American author and saloniste Natalie Clifford Barney, born this day in 1876, to honor a group of intimates who all shared her birthday. Every year she threw a party in
30 April 2014 Binary Star System Èlisabeth de gramont and natalie Barney 115 years ago today in Paris, two remarkable women were rummaging through their wardrobes looking for something to wear on their first date. Both were in the avant-garde. Radical elites. First-born daughters. Élisabeth de Gramont, the married mother of two daughters of
April is said to be the cruellest month. And so it was for Renée Vivien in 1909.
Suzanne Stroh : Today is the birthday of Natalie Barney. All Hallow’s Eve. You chose tonight in 1926, on Barney’s 50th birthday, as the setting for your historical farce, Un soir chez l’Amazone. It’s so funny. One of my favorite comic novels of all time. I’m looking forward to translating it with Jean-Loup Combemale, who grew up just down the street from Natalie at 12, rue Jacob. Describe the setting for readers.
Francesco Rapazzini: That’s right, it was a special night at Natalie Barney’s on her fiftieth birthday. The novel tells the story of that party. For one of Natalie’s salons, which were generally semi-public gatherings, this was a bit out of the ordinary. All the guests were either good friends (we meet Gertrude Stein with Alice Toklas, Colette and Djuna Barnes), or else they were Natalie’s current, past or future lovers. It’s a farce, and like all farce it’s also a tragedy. The great human tragedy.
Pour ou Contre (For or Against)Suzanne Stroh: Jean-Loup, you were born in France, raised in Paris, escaped Nazi occupation through north Africa, grew up in New York, came of age at the U.S. Naval Academy and spent much of your career in a submarine before turning to editing and publishing. How many languages did you pick up along the way?
Jean-Loup Combemale: I think the operative words here are “pick up.” I was five, six, seven years old when we were scurrying around leaving France, so I got dipped into languages and pulled right back out. What it did was, even then, show me how much fun it was to talk and connect to people–that’s a great gift to give a child. I learned Italian and French from my nanny and my mother; basic German from soldiers in the streets of Paris, Arabic from street kids in Oran and Casablanca. When our Portuguese ship stopped in Bermuda on the way to the U.S. I learned my first words of English–“Thank you.” And when we got to the U.S. I learned English and promptly forgot everything except my French, which we spoke at home.
April 30, 1909: a daughter of France was coming over. Miss Barney gathered the plover’s eggs and put the Château Yquem on ice, betting on another comet year.
April 23 is the birthday of the Modernist author, sculptor and music patron Élisabeth de Gramont. More than 500 passionate letters exist between Élisabeth and her lifelong lover and “eternal mate,” Natalie Barney. Nobody’s read them in English. Till now.
Join me 119 years ago in the Paris ballroom of the Duke and Duchess de Gramont, where Consuelo Vanderbilt is making her “social début.”
