We had a Jam Club party at the end of the school year and watched Disney’s the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m reading it right now. Just made an idea web of the similarities and differences between Dumas and Hugo. Ernest Hemingway wrote a beautiful little collection of stories called A Moveable Feast about his life as a young writer in Paris – lounging in cafes, walking along boulevards, and meeting up with Scott Fitzgerald. This is my favorite passage:
“But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”
We played some beautiful Dvorak Miniatures in orchestra, and now I’ve been listening to Dvorak like mad. When I was four, I said he was my favorite composer, and I never listened to him after that, as far as I can remember. Well, look! I suppose I’m into French things right now. Pass the brie!
Nice post! Thanks for sharing.