Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Lost Profile by Francoise SaganReview by: Joy AlexanderFortnight, No. 124 (Apr. 2, 1976), pp. 16-17Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25545783 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 20:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 20:28:38 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

16/FORTNIGHT

composed of abrupt, regional

dialogue and in this way should

be able to capture and keep a

child's interest. The characters

are scantily but deftly drawn:

"Tell those boys to come in out of the rain. It's not orange

juice", ordered the caretaker.

And some of the, almost throw

away, descriptive passages are

vivid and fresh. The children

watch the pigeons who 'balance

their heavy bodies on their tiny claws'. My favourite story about

a swallow begins like this:

"Jim found a bird in the Park. Its feathers were covered in

dust. Its beak was resting on the

ground. Jim rolled it over on to his hand. Its head fell back.

The book is accompanied by two sets of gaily coloured

activity cards, a brave attempt to

gild the lily and get some actual

work done by the readers. In

various forms these cards

encompass all the usual

activities of a good English

classroom; creative writing,

description, comprehension, il

lustration and design, playmak

ing and an ingenious little game called 'Reading Road'.

Muck, Cement and Black

berries is a clever and refreshing

book, not something to be

cherished and re-read but a

package to be used and then

disposed of. Its use in some

Ulster classrooms could cut

yawning by fifty per cent.

G D Ingoldby

Francoise Sagan LOST PROFILE

(Andre Deutsch, ?2.75)

Bonjour Tristesse, her first novel,

brought Francoise Sagan inter

national recognition. It was, of

course, a notable, if non-literary, asset of the book that it was

written by the author at the

tender age of eighteen. Precocity sells well. Nevertheless, the

novel's reputation was well

deserved, for Francoise Sagan's

psychological perception and ob

jective irony were remarkably mature. The pattern established

in her first book was one which

she continued to explore with

increasing complexity in suc

ceeding novels ?a triangle of

relationships, within which the

central character gradually comes to some kind of self

knowledge, the background to

the tortuous affaires de coeur

being provided by a moneyed milieu which characteristically exudes bourgeois boredom and

emptiness. Miss Sagan's skill is

analytical ?she studies the feel

ings of her characters with

delicate discrimination, and

within the limits which she

defines for herself her writing is craftsmanlike. These limits are

nonetheless narrow, and she is

surely a writer with sufficient

competence to be more

ambitious. Instead of assaying new fields, in her latest novel ...ost Profile, she ploughs the

familiar furrow still deeper. Once

again there is a dominant triangle of characters with attention

focussed on the female narrator, but in avoiding self-repetition (or, more damaging temptation, self

plagarism), Miss Sagan presents us with a plot and characters

which are bizarre to the point of

straining the requisite suspension of disbelief.

Josee Ash's marriage is on the

point of break-up?hardly sur

prising, as her husband's

neurotic jealousy ultimately re

quires psychiatric treatment?

when she meets a financier with

the unlikely name of Julius A

Cram, a sugar-daddy to beat all

comers. Cram, the self-pos

sessed, autocratic millionaire

turns out in reality to be?you've

guessed it?lonely and depend ent, a cliche-character whom

Francoise Sagan fails to invest

with many original qualities; at

best he is odd and only occasion

ally moving. We are in a world of

pasteboard figures who are

constantly being compared to

characters in books or paintings, and are known only as profiles, as

the title suggests, concealing from themselves the deadness of

their souls by immersing themselves in society life. The

latter is revealed as a ferocious

jungle in which people prey on

one another and dispel boredom

by gossip and cut-throat greed.

Though the scene shifts from

Paris flats and tea-rooms to

suites in New York hotels and to

the beach in Massau, the sense of

being trapped or imprisoned is

always present. Josee's last

encounter with her husband takes place in hospital, where he

shrieks out the names of exotic

islands to which they could

escape, until a nurse silences him

with a syringe. Yet Jpsee herself, with an obtuseness more

commonly attributed to the Irish

than the French, fails to realise

that she too is a prisoner within

this jet-set, for she is effectively,

though not actually, a kept

woman, the benevolent Mr Cram

supplying her with job, home, and clothing, no expenses

spared. However, in the end,

realising her equivocal position, she escapes into a happy-ever after existence in the arms of a

vet, exchanging the wild beasts

of Parisian high society for

country life with a puppy and a

lover whom she watches

delivering calves, he himself

being blessed with a scar to prove

that he has been bitten by a donkey.

All very idyllic?and all pretty trivial as well. The psychological

insights which I was accustomed

to think of as the hallmark of a

Sagan novel are lamentably thin

on the ground. Missing too is the

wry objectivity with which she usually inspects her central

female figure. Does she not

realise that Josee Ash is selfish, naive and lazy? There is no

indication that Francoise Sagan distances herself from her

heroine, or judges her, or treats

her with anything but an

unmerited gush of approval.

Otherwise, as I suspect, she

doesn't care very much about the

people?or rather, profiles?with which she presents us in this

novel.

The writing too is flabby,

perilously close on occasions to

the pulp of women's magazines. What about this, for example:

"Then he kissed me. And the

myriad bugles of desire rang out, the myriad tom-toms of the blood

throbbed in our veins, and the

myriad violins of sensual pleasure struck up their waltz for us". It

would be convenient to lay at

least part of the blame for this

orchestration of passion at the

door of the translator. But that

would be to let Miss Sagan off

the hook somewhat lightly.

Having demonstrated her abili

W__^_F___J__ University

[ 9|| Square

^AQn Mews

^ 1 Tel. 44857

Reopens Monday April 12 with

Ken Russell's LISZTOMANIA (x)

Starring Roger Daltrey (April 12-17)

Sunday April 18 Associates Only

Pasolini's GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

j ST MATTHEW (A) |

SUBSCRIBE J

RATES PER YEAR (22 ISSUES): l I British Isles.?4.00 I I Europe.?4.50 I I U.S. ?r Canada (Air Mail).?5.00 J I Australasia (Air Mail).?5.50 I

I Please fill in coupon below and post to: I

FORTNIGHT PUBLICATIONS LTD. j 7 LOWER CRESCENT

BELFAST 7 L

I Name. I

J Address. I

CROSSWORD WINNERS The winners of the Crossword in Issue 123 (?1 each) were T S Wilson, Upper Green, Dunmurry, and M G

Cormack, Maryville Park, Belfast 9.

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 20:28:38 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

FRIDAY 2nd APRIL 1976/17

ties in previous novels, there can

be no excuses for this

disappointing production.

Joy Alexander

Irtartartartartar A. I IRTARTARTARTARTAR A^ I IRTARTARTARTARTAR / \ I IRTARTARTARTARTAR I

J| I

IRTARTARTARTARTAR ^? I IRTARTARTARTARTAR >_ir I IRTARTARTARTARTAR f_\ I IRTARTARTARTARTAR/ g \ |

ARTS COUNCIL GALLERY When it comes to architecture

fitness for purpose matters more

than aesthetics to most of us,

especially if the purpose is

domestic or industrial or edu

cational. It is therefore a little un

fortunate that the very interest

ing and wholly aesthetically

pleasing exhibition in the Arts

Council Gallery of photographs of buildings by the widely ac

claimed Dublin group of Scott

Tallon Walker gives small proof of fitness. Only in a very few

instances and not very usefully are there views of what might be

called the working areas. There

is a photograph of a gymnasium, a shot of a science laboratory, a

university canteen and they all

look pretty much like the kind of

interiors with which we are all

familiar in these situations. The

University canteen indeed bears

no little resemblance to that at

NUU except that one deduces

the colouration is rather brighter. However it can be safely

assumed that from such a

distinguished group the test of

fitness is passed more than

adequately and so one can

rejoice in some felicitous innova

tions. Those houses standing on

stilts, for example, are delightful reminders of domestic architec

ture in sunnier climes; that week

end house at Kinsale looks a

lovely fantasy, a kind of glassed over ark for surveying sea and

country, a non-participant in

either element. An experience to

be savoured ?but not daily. The two houses that Michael

Scott designed for himself very

nicely combine sociability with

privacy so far as one can judge from the photographs of their

exteriors. The earlier one beside

the Martello Tower, made

famous by Joyce, marries agree able modernity with a tower

image, rounded side running

easily into bold rectangle. A

superb house for superb living and let us not think too hard

about mundane things like

maintenance and cleaning. His

second house is raised after the

fashion of that at Kinsale but

more moderately, uses glass

profusely after the contemporary

style, has a suggestion of

comfort and pared down

elegance and looks manageable. It is very nice indeed to come

across near these houses of

today a photograph of a typical older Dublin house, cosily brick

built around 1830 and which Niall Scott, one of the partners in

the firm, has restored.

Some view of the interior, one

would have thought, was

absolutely essential to give any

idea of the quality of a design for

old people's housing; all that is

to be seen in the exhibition is a

high brick wall, which is not very

encouraging, and a glimpse of

something in concrete. And

surely too a view of a covered

walk and some shrubs is hardly sufficient recommendation for

approval of a new University? Some of the photographs are

reminders of buildings with

which many must be familiar?

the Abbey and Peacock theatres,

the Dublin bus terminal, the

Carrolls factory at Dundalk.

| 350 FASHION 3-PIECE SUITS

I Anderson-Stag, Skol, Gore, 3-piece plain, checks, stripes. I

Were ?45 flow ?15? ?25. Must be cleared

200 JACKETS I Tweed, Wool. Plain. Checks. Double-breasted. At un- I

I believably low prices of ?8?>?15 I

500 TROUSERS I In many plain shades and Tweed, Hi-waists and "A" Line I

I All at the giveaway price of ?5 I

300 JEANS I All leading brand names ? in demin and cord. What value I

I at ?5 I

500 BEN SHERMAN SHIRTS I Were ?5.50. Now. ?250

I Many othtr leading brands* I

KNITWEAR Plain and Fancy V-Necks. End of Ranges ?250 to clear I

I Shetland Wool Tank Tops CI .50 I I

Hi-Waist Trousers ?2.60 | |

ALL TIES Were ?2.95 & ?2.75. All toclear at ?1

All stock must be cleared, time is running short for this once I

I in a lifetime offer. I

DOORS OPEN FROM d.30 ? 5.30 DAILY

| IASHIONSKX MEN S7ANN STREET BB^ST |

There is a very impressive photo

graph of what must have been

an impressive piece of bravura

architecture?the Irish pavilion at the New York World Fair, a

splendid looking prow curving

upwards in triple swoops. There

are tantalising views of Oisin

Kelly's screen for Knockanure

and of the art collection in the

Bank of Ireland.

If one is captious about what

has been done, or more correctly not done, in the exhibition one

certainly has nothing but

admiration for what Michael

Scott and his firm have done.

The RIB A has best expressed that admiration in the award of

the Royal Gold Medal and the exhibition indeed is by way of celebration of that award. It is

more than an award to an archi

tect; it is an award to a man who

has made a signal contribution

to many aspects of life. The Arts

Council's publicity acknowl

edges that handsomely and

rightly. "His special contribution

to Ireland", it notes, "has been

that, though he began as an

architect he developed rather

rapidly in a very different way. He attracted talent and valued it

and gave it opportunity. His

influence was far reaching. There is hardly a cultural pie in

Ireland that Michael Scott hasn't

had a finger in, and it's on the

basis of this contribution that he

has been awarded the Royal Gold Medal."

And the exhibition certainly looks very splendid. It has been

designed by John Donat and

most of the photographs were

taken by him; they are excellent

and delightful photographs, all

of them. I wish only that there

had been other photographs as

well.

Ray Rosenfield

ICMUSICMUSICMU ^ 1CMUSICMUSICMU ~ C_ V

ICMUSICMUSICMU^gYj>

The Ulster Soloists Ensemble has been in business for some

time, in spite of ups and downs:

many of the most successful

chamber concerts of recent

years have been given by this

group in all its various shapes and sizes. Its flexibility is one of

its main assets, in that it enables

the group to put on concerts

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 20:28:38 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions