My vote goes to Capt. Thompson of JetBlue Airways:
Thankfully, the passengers’ ordeal was over when they landed safely at Bradley Airport — and were then stranded on the tarmac for 7.5 hours.
[And no, I won't be flying JetBlue anytime soon.]
Today Vincent Tabak was convicted of murdering Joanna Yeates. This is a case that has gripped Britain, though I imagine most of my non-British readers will be unfamiliar with it. I’ve been following the case with interest and the conclusion of the trial today has really upset me for reasons I will discuss in this post, which is a long one. Beware.
To recap the crime: About a week before Christmas last year, 25-year-old landscape architect Jo Yeates went missing. She simply vanished without a trace. On Christmas Day, her frozen corpse was found on the side of the road by a couple walking their dog. She had been strangled, but not raped. Jo’s 60-something landlord was arrested for her murder, crucified in the press and then it turned out that, whoops, he was 100% innocent. Fast forward a few weeks later and Jo’s neighbor, 33-year-old Dutchman Vincent Tabak, was arrested for her murder. Tabak, a seemingly smart, normal and mild-mannered guy, has a PhD, had a professional job, a live-in girlfriend and no criminal record. You can read a timeline of the crime here. Tabak’s arrest was shocking, since he was not some creepy sex offender type, but just seemed to be a regular guy — the guy next door, literally.
Today Vincent Tabak’s trial concluded. He had already admitted to killing Jo, so there was no mystery there. It was for the jury to decide whether it was manslaughter, as Vincent Tabak claimed, or murder, as the prosecution claimed. Tabak made up some ludicrous story that Yeates had invited him into her apartment, flirted with him, he misread the situation and tried to kiss her, she screamed, he put his hand over her mouth, another hand around her throat and voila…20 seconds later she was dead, all by accident. After this horrible accident, he put Jo’s body in the trunk of his car, texted his girlfriend to say he was bored and went to Asda to buy potato chips. Unbelievably, two complete morons on the jury actually bought this theory that he never intended to kill or even seriously harm Jo, despite the fact that strangling someone takes great effort and determination unlike, say, stabbing someone. Also, Jo had many other bruises and injuries on her body that are not explained by Tabak’s explanation of events. Today’s verdict in favor of murder was actually 10 to 2, but the judge accepted it and sentenced Tabak to “life” in prison, which means a minimum term of 20 years. [Don't even get me started on that.]
The main problem with the prosecution’s case was that Tabak seemed to have no motive. Jo was not raped or sexually abused, as one would expect in a case of strangulation such as this. Tabak’s DNA was found on her breasts, but experts could not conclude what this DNA was from. It is of course strange for someone to go to his next-door neighbor’s apartment and strangle her for no reason, but the prosecution was not required to prove motive and the other evidence was enough to convict him. After all, he had confessed. The prosecution hinted that Tabak may have strangled her because he derived a sexual thrill from it, but they presented no evidence to support this.
After Tabak’s conviction today, literally within seconds of it, the media began to report what they had been barred from reporting during the trial. The judge had excluded evidence that showed Vincent Tabak was obsessed with violent and sadistic pornography. He liked to watch pornography that showed men’s hands around women’s necks — and worse.
Another book I found on the shelves here — The Reef, by Edith Wharton. This is a more obscure Wharton tome. I had never heard of it and neither had several of my well-read friends. It doesn’t even seem to be published anymore by a major American publisher [though it is still available from a variety of sources]. Tis a pity it’s not more well known, because I really enjoyed it. Henry James did too. Apparently, The Reef was his favorite Wharton novel.
The Reef focuses on four Americans living in Europe, with most of the story taking place at a chateau near Dijon. George Darrow, a 37-year-old American diplomat working in London, meets Anna Leath, with whom he was in love as a young man. She is now widowed, with a young daughter, and living with her mother-in-law and stepson in France. Anna and George rekindle their romance, which pleases them both, and after Anna returns home, George travels to France to see her. It is his hope that they will become engaged during the visit. As he leaves London for France, Anna sends him a vague telegram, putting him off for two weeks. Since he is already en route to the ferry at Dover he decides to continue on. On his journey, he meets a young American woman, Sophy Viner, and the two of them, both at loose ends, spend some time together in Paris.
George’s brief liaison with Sophy Viner will end up having unforeseen consequences for the four main characters in the novel: George, Anna, Sophy and Anna’s stepson Owen. It is “the reef” upon which everything else crashes. This is an intense, psychological novel. Not a lot happens, since it’s really about characters and how they react to certain events, all while being trapped within the social mores of their class and culture.
I read the novel in a few long stretches, more than 100 pages at a time. I think the novel is best read this way, since one needs to become immersed in it. As with any Wharton novel, it is filled with exquisite turns of phrase, descriptions and insights. There is particular insight into Anna’s character and her fears of letting herself go so she can truly love and trust another person. Wharton apparently wrote this novel after the end of an affair and I’m not surprised — there is incredible intensity of feeling in this book and when I finished it I had to take some time to recover. I could say more about it, particularly about the ending, but I hate reviews that ruin the reading experience for others, so I’ll end it here. If anyone else has read this, I’d love to know what you think.
We live in a barbaric world. I couldn’t turn on the news or go to a news website today without seeing pictures and video footage of Gaddafi’s corpse. The BBC and Guardian websites had gruesome pictures right on their homepages, without any warning. This afternoon when I stopped work to have a sandwich I turned on Sky News and was treated to video footage of Gaddafi’s corpse being dragged through the Libyan streets with blood pouring out.
The blood lust of the Libyan street was mirrored in the Western media, which seemed to be in an absolute frenzy. I can’t remember any other news event like this, with death porn plastered all over the airwaves and the internet in such a way. It was, in a word, sickening.
I couldn’t care less about Gaddafi. He was a monster who just a few months ago put snipers on rooftops to shoot children. However, I think it’s sad that in response to his death we must stoop to his level of sheer barbarism. I don’t think the photos should be censored, but they should be broadcast responsibly. Instead, they were treated like footage from a football match, with crazed Libyans screaming and cheering in the background and instant replays. I think many news organizations are going to look back on today with serious regret, as they should.
Now that I’ve finished all the reading I need to do for my PhD, I can finally read what I want. I’ve been waiting years for this freedom. Over the past few years, I’ve been steeped in theory, philosophy and criticism. While I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve really missed reading novels. Of course, as someone doing a PhD in English, I wrote about novels in my thesis, but my primary texts were Bridget Jones’s Diary and Fight Club, which I critiqued using gender theory. [Don't laugh, it's a good thesis, I promise!]
Since I’m once again reading for pleasure, I thought I might start writing about the books I read on this here blog. I don’t have the time or the desire to write long reviews, but I will provide a brief commentary with links to more in-depth reviews. Feel free to share any book recommendations in the comments.
I’ll start with a book I discovered on the shelves in the apartment I’m renting. This place is owned by two American academics, one of whom is also a poet, so there are some interesting books here. They have a small collection, but a quality one. I had never heard of Michael Sledge’s 2010 novel The More I Owe You, but I was immediately intrigued. It’s a novel about the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Novels about real people, particularly literary figures, are quite trendy — I blame Michael Cunningham.
‘The More I Owe You’ begins in 1951 with a 40-year-old Elizabeth Bishop sailing from NYC to Brazil. She is intending to have a short holiday, but after falling in love with Lota de Macedo Soares, she stays in Brazil for seventeen years. The novel focuses on the two women’s intense relationship, as well as on Bishop’s development as a poet — during this time, she achieves great success, including winning the Pulitzer Prize. [Robert Lowell is also a character in the novel and other famous writers make cameo appearances.]
Bishop is a difficult, tortured person (she is, after all, a poet). She has a drinking problem and issues with intimacy. Early in the novel we learn that when she was young she had a relationship with a man named Robert Seaver, whose heart she had broken. Seaver kills himself, but before doing so, sends Bishop a postcard, which she receives after his death. On the postcard, he has written: Go to hell, Elizabeth. This tells you everything you need to know about Bishop’s interpersonal relationships.
With Soares, Bishop finds real love and acceptance for the first time in her life. The novel is mostly a study of the two women and their relationship. It’s a beautifully written book, with vivid and sensuous descriptions of the lush Brazilian landscape. While reading, I felt completely transported there. By the end of the novel, I will admit to growing somewhat exhausted by Bishop and Soares. While I don’t think that Sledge manages to get to the heart of either woman, which is perhaps part of the difficulty of writing about real people, it’s an enchanting read.
Link: NYT Review (with spoilers)
When I arrived here, I promised myself that I wouldn’t work all the time, but would also take a moment to enjoy life. Has that happened? Well, I’ve certainly been working, but sadly, that’s all I’ve been doing. For the past two weeks I’ve been writing and editing a newish addition to the book, which was a tremendous amount of work. When I went out, it was just to the supermarket or to buy a croissant. I was so obsessed with finishing this section that I lost sight of everything else.
Today I finally finished the hellish chapters (relief!) and went out, intending to just wander. This is a hill town and I walked around some of the winding streets near my apartment, past the colorful, crumbling buildings with their red-tile roofs. And then, suddenly, off in the distance I saw the Mediterranean Sea. It was a shock, to see it so close. I just stood there in the street, outside the gates to someone’s house, and stared, realizing what I’ve been missing. There is so much beauty here and yet I spend all my time staring at a computer screen.
Now I am vowing to do better. While I have tons of work to do, I’m only truly focused for about 6 hours a day. That leaves me plenty of time to get out and explore. I think I’ll be staying here till the beginning of December and I don’t want to squander my time. Who knows where I’ll end up after this, but I’m fairly certain the Mediterranean won’t be anywhere nearby.
In addition to wandering this evening, I also bought something tasty to eat: a mille feuille, a dessert that I wrote about in August (what Americans would call a Napoleon). Well, tonight I had a raspberry one. It was so delicious that I’ll dream about it tonight. I haven’t eaten anything that scrumptious in a long time. My question is: there are so many patisseries and boulangeries in these French towns — does each one make all their own desserts? Or do they order them from some nearby patisserie depot? If each of these places makes all their own products, how on earth can there be so many people who can bake so well? These little mom-and-pop patisseries and boulangeries cannot possibly pay their workers that much, so how do they attract people with such skill? It’s not easy to make these kinds of breads and pastries — it takes painstaking work and experience. If it were easy, you’d find these kinds of patisseries in London or New York and you just don’t. The good ones are few and far between, yet here in France they are on every corner and their products are fairly inexpensive. [In London, even "French" places like Patisserie Valerie or Paul are just not very good. Ladurée is of course the exception, but it's pricey.] Is it just enough to assume that baking is so important to French culture that there are tons of people who can do it? I guess, but the mille feuille I had tonight was exquisite and they had two shelves of equally delicate and complex desserts for sale.
Another question: When does bonjour/bonne journée end and bonsoir/bon soirée begin? I have spent a lot of time in France and I can never figure this out. I will still be saying bonjour and everyone else has magically switched over to bonsoir. When does the switch happen? It’s so confusing! This is just evidence of the complexity of French – even “hello” has to be complicated. [And of course, part of the problem is that when you learn French, bonjour is translated to mean hello, which is not actually what it means.]
The garbage is collected every single day in this town where I’m living. If that’s not strange enough, they come to collect it late at night, usually around midnight. People who go to sleep early or who have kids must find it very annoying because the truck is loud. There must be a reason for picking up the trash so often and so late at night, but I can’t figure out what it is.
I was at a café the other day and wanted to ask the waiter if I could change something on the menu (basically, I wanted a croque monsieur without ham, since I don’t eat pork). Seemed like an easy enough request, but as soon as I began my question, he rolled his eyes and exclaimed, “Mademoiselle, ça commence les complications!” Then he said he couldn’t make the change. I wasn’t offended, since he seemed to be doing a parody of a rude French waiter, with his eye rolling and huffing and puffing. It was like performance art. Strangely enough, he had no front teeth, despite being a young guy, which makes me wonder if someone else didn’t appreciate his routine and punched him in the mouth. In the end, he warmed up to me, giving me my 2€ lemonade for free.
The Italian border is only a few miles from here. If I cross it, will I go back in time to the Medieval Age? Based on the Amanda Knox trial, it seems so. After all, here was a young woman convicted of murder not based on evidence, but on the belief that she is a “luciferina” (a she-devil) who was “dirty on the inside.” According to Nina Burleigh in the LA Times, this is what the prosecutors actually said during their closing arguments. This has to be one of the most disgustingly misogynistic court cases since the Salem Witch Trials. Indeed, Timothy Egan of the NYT writes that, “I half-expected prosecutors to throw Knox in a tank of water to see if she sank or floated…”
It’s really almost impossible to believe this could happen in a Western European country. The EU authorities are always blathering on about “human rights.” Does Italy somehow escape scrutiny? Perhaps Italy operates by its own rules. Just take a look at Silvio Berlusconi.
In the media at large, it’s telling that Amanda Knox has received 99.9% of the news coverage, while her co-accused, Raffaelle Sollecito, has largely slipped under the radar. But then the reason for this is obvious. As Burleigh writes, “it was a textbook example of our never-ending fascination with the supposed femme fatale. Men may batter wives and girlfriends daily, sometimes to death, but their perp walks rarely make it onto Nancy Grace’s show, let alone through a second cycle of the local news. ‘Foxy Knoxy’…on the other hand, has been a continual headline grabber from the moment of her arrest.”
In the misogynist landscape of the British press, this obsession with Foxy Knoxy has been pronounced. Not only that, but the fact that an American (dun dun DUN!) was accused of killing a Brit sent them into a frenzy. This whole thing has been cast as Team America vs. Team Britain — today the tabloids and comments to news articles are filled with the usual anti-Americanisms.
While it is true that Meredith Kerchner, who was brutally raped and stabbed to death, has largely been forgotten, I don’t see how that can be blamed on Amanda Knox. If the Italian authorities had done their job, then we may actually know exactly what happened to Meredith. Instead, they turned this whole trial – and Meredith’s death – into a sickening farce.
This is the view from my studio apartment. No, I can’t believe it either. How did I end up here? And why is this cheaper than living in a hostel in the pits of South London? There must be a mistake somewhere.
The journey here was incredibly long (4 different trains) and incredibly expensive, but otherwise surprisingly un-horrible (though I almost cried at St. Pancras when we were leaving London). On the longest leg of the journey – the TGV from Paris to the south – I was sharing a table for four with only one other person, which was lovely. I read a book and a half, which I downloaded from Amazon onto my Kindle while the train was en route. I was on one of those huge double-decker trains and for more than 5 hours there was mostly countryside out the window, which made it seem as if France is only sparsely populated.
After the TGV, I was waiting at the station for my next and last train of the day when there was a moment of excitement/terror. A young guy jumped onto the tracks in front of an express double-decker train. His friends standing on the platform were all laughing and cheering, so I assume they dared him to do it. This is what morons do for entertainment, apparently. He fell onto his hands and knees on the tracks and then quickly got up and ran across to the opposing platform (where I was sitting) and climbed up. I always thought the train tracks were electrified, but apparently not. Anyway, the train driver, who was clearly shaken, was screaming at the guy out the window of the train. The train had to make an unscheduled stop at the station. I really thought the guy was going to be arrested, but the staff at the station just yelled at him.
Around 11pm, I finally arrived at the small town where I had to stay overnight, since I couldn’t check into the apartment until Saturday. I had purposefully booked a hotel near the train station, since I knew it’d be late when I arrived, but I could not find the hotel anywhere. After such a long day I was exhausted and sick of dragging my luggage around. I went back to the station, but there were no taxis, so I asked the security guard for directions and he ended up walking me to my hotel (and even carried one of my suitcases), which took about 20 minutes of winding through the neighborhood streets. I would have never found it on my own and I thought it was so incredibly nice of him to do me this massive favor. I am often taken aback by how helpful French people can be; this kind of thing happens quite a lot when traveling here.
So now I’m getting settled in at the apartment. This town really looks like the set of a film. I’m sure I’ll take a lot of photos. Today I took this one – the neighbors across the street spread a blanket on the car so the cat could sleep on it and bake in the heat. Spoiled French kitty!
Anglofille is finishing up a novel and a PhD. She blogs about feminism, politics, pop culture, books and perpetual angst.
