More Lessons…

First contact with the work of Paul Valéry. The style is striking, in verse and prose. Scouring his biography, I find the aggression: his Cahiers sums up to two hundred and fifty-seven volumes in which, day after day, for fifty-one years, Valéry built his monument of thirty thousand pages. Thirty thousand pages! Carpeaux’s words, “The lofty Paul Valéry is one of the most brilliant prose writers of the French language.” — “There are those who prefer Valéry’s prose to his poetry. There are those who consider Valéry a greater artist than poet. As a wit in prose and as an artist in verse, there is no one in this century who can compare to him.” Words that make us think…