Grab Tender Shoots Constructed By Paul Morand Digital

before and during the first months of the First World War, Paul Morand did not publish these stories until.
Clarissa, Delphine and Aurora three alluring and independent young women are stories set largely in London, a city he loved and which continued to fascinate him long after he worked there as an attaché at the French embassy.

Stylish, poetic and highly original, Morand's urbane and witty stories came as a bracing and uplifting breath of fresh air on the French literary scene of thes.
They made an immediate impact on writers as diverse as Proust, Cocteau and Giraudoux, and paved the way for Morand's illustrious literary career that was to follow.


Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components,  The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, lithoprinted on Munken Premium White Paper and notchbound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow.
The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper, Both paper and cover board are acidfree and Forest Stewardship Council FSC certified, The preface by Marcel Proust opens with beautifully fitting passage admiring without being worshipful, spiced with wit and colored by the sobriety that is worth quoting in full:

The Athenians are slow to deliver.
So far, only three ladies or gentlewomen have been given up to our minotaur Morand, and the treaty allows for seven.
But the year is not yet ended, And many undisclosed postulants seek the glorious fate of Clarissa and Aurora, I should have liked to undertake the unnecessary task of composing a fitting preface for the charming novellas that bear the names of these fair creatures.
But an unforeseen occurrence has presented me from doing so, A stranger has chosen to make her home in my brain, She came and she went before long, having observed the way she behaved, I came to know her habits.
Furthermore, like an overattentive lodger, she tried to strike up a personal relationship with me, I was surprised to discover that she was not beautiful, For I had always supposed Death so to be, Otherwise, how would she get the better of us Be that as it may, she seems to have gone away today.
Probably not for long, to judge by all she has left behind, And it would be more sensible to take advantage of the respite she allows me other than by writing a preface for an author who is already well known and has no need of one.
"

When I telephoned to tell you that Germany had declared war on Russia, you replied: "I was in the garden, I was cutting some roses.
. . "

'Clarissa' is suffused with an implied longing for a carelessness only made possible by peace, and at the brink of being shattered by the Great War and its aftermath.
The frolic and playfulness of the title character conveyed through the male viewer/writer in musing, almost nostalgically marvelling tones, has all the rosiness and fragility of a memory, a photograph, belonging to another age, or an age that senses its own impending demise.
The prose is sumptuously descriptive "The windows are open we are standing on the balcony, our elbows on the parapet.
You are leaning over to breathe in the smell of the newly mown grass that wafts up from Kensington and mingles with the animal perfume of the dance the green acid of your Longhi cloak hangs down over the bright orange colour of the humpbacked Japanese bridge", catching stray scents, a look, a swirl of colour, a gesture and freezing it forever in this halfrecalled form.
Its cognizance of temporality and its pressedflower preservation of the minute and fleeting is reminiscent of some of Woolf's best passages.
The narrator's depiction of Clarissa and the colourful, idiosyncratic facets of her personality preferring fake fur to real ones, collecting bricabrac, "you are so badly dressed! And yet in the very best taste" gives a whole picture of an independent and prepossessing woman she reminds this reader of Loulou de la Falaise, surrounded by beauty, occasionally idle, full of wild ideas, very much a part of this passing world.


"Delphine" depicts the descent of an austere and uptight woman into dissolution and physical decline, "I reckon that far from finding reasons to persevere, Delphine is waiting impatiently to destroy herself, which lends her a tolerable and fleeting grandeur.
" While "Clarissa" is generous in beautiful images, "Delphine" is its dark inversion, exploring an innate but inexplicable compulsion for selfdestruction that is ultimately inescapable.
The life of Delphine, the narrator's childhood playmate is presented as a continual struggle against sensuality represented by the bleak shadow of her mother who lives with a naval officer, the enforcement of order, cleanliness and discipline against chaos, loss of control, a dark drive that she fears resides ultimately within her.
In a desperate moment she flees to religion for sanctuary, which cynically proves to be her undoing, as it is the head of the convent, the story implies, that leads her into a very different life.
The narrator's perspective as he surveys this decline is curiously detached though occasionally pleading to help, His memories of brief almostintimate moments with Delphine who rejects his advances serves to suggest a certain perhaps deliberate distance in his responses toward her.


In a masterful few lines Morand shows the narrator's indifference worded in a cynicism so sharp it could be acrimonious:
I detach myself from where she is lying, get to my feet and search for reasons for her to resist, for excuses.

"Everything that happens to me," she says, "is due to pride, "
I was expecting this dreadful word which all women have on their lips and by which they define their humility.


"Aurora" is perhaps the strangest of the three, it being difficult to imagine an explorer, globetrotter, free spirit of of a young woman who has a shed and a wealth of hunting guns, coexisting in the same time and space as duchesses, taxis and buses.
Her freedom certainly tantalises the narrator who is lured by the promise and surprise of the unknown, the admiration of her supple physique the quirky way she commands herself in third person to bathe, but that too is the freedom to disappear, which perhaps to the unfulfilled, is the charm that endures most.
Very cynical outlook. The author struck me as frustrated by not attaining the attention he desired from certain women whose independence both irritated and intrigued him.
Somewhat unpleasant to read yet somehow still interesting, Este libro está compuesto por tres novelas cortas: “Clarisse”, “Delphine” y “Aurore”, Está acompañado del posfacio que Marcel Proust autor francés de renombre y de una oda que Morand escribió para él.
Primero me detendré en las novelas y luego en el material que las rodea,

Clarisse, Delphine y Aurore son tres mujeres que se involucran con un mismo personajenarrador no hay indicios de que sean más de uno en la ciudad de Londres, en plena Primera Guerra Mundial.
Ni las circunstancias ni los ánimos son los mejores y la narración de repente nos arrastra y nos sitúa en ese contexto.
Las mujeres mencionadas son el alma de cada una de las novelas, a pesar de que el protagonista aporte lo suyo.
Al principio a ellas las veía como acompañantes hasta

que, desde mi punto de vista, él empezó a asumir ese rol.
Clarisse y sus manías por los objetos, Delphine y su tristeza y Aurore y su vivacidad son lo suficientemente fuertes como para tomar las riendas de las historias.


La escritura de Morand tanto en las novelas como en la oda es exquisita y contundente, dos adjetivos que no suelen ir de la mano.
Creo que se destaca muchísimo cuando el narrador se refiere a Londres y a la ambientación histórica.
No necesita describir todo con detalles y sabe resaltar siempre las personalidades y las peculiaridades de las mujeres, Las relaciones, en los tres casos, son algo tormentosas e incluso violentas,

En cuanto al posfacio de Proust, me quedé un poco descolocada ante su lectura, a pesar de las advertencias de la nota que lo presenta.
Lo de Proust es más un ensayo sobre literatura francesa que un texto sobre “Tendres Stocks”, De hecho, casi ni lo menciona, Es muy interesante de leer pero, si se está buscando una breve presentación de la obra de Morand, no cumple su función.
La edición de Leteo está muy bien documentada y trata de darle una explicación a ese Ninguneo Olvido Venganza extraño comportamiento de Proust.


En definitiva, Morand es un autor que hubiera deseado conocer antes, pero creo que llegó en el momento justo porque me alivió mucho leerlo.

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