"This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield"

Litbeees and their Idees Fixes [ee-day feeks]

This post would be an upshot of sorts to our little series on the brew! ;-) 

[Idée fixe: an idea or desire that dominates the mind; an obsession.]

In sweet continuation of our ambrosial series on the intake and the impact of the brew on literary beings, [Litbeees], this post would take off thenceforth, from whence we had pitstopped earlier, - at Ukers - William H. Ukers and his true-brew read titled, All About Coffee.

Amongst the French literati, Voltaire and Balzac were the most ardent bhaktas to the brew, ever, avers Ukers!

Voltaire the king of wits was also king of coffee drinkers, says he! Even in his old age he was said to have consumed fifty cups daily. Ende deivameyyy! ;-) 

To the abstemious Balzac, coffee was both food and drink, he adds!

So who pray, is Balzac?

Well, Balzac, Honore de Balzac, - yet another black coffee bhakta - is considered the creator of realism in the novel. In fact, he also has claim to the epithet, the “Shakespeare of the novel.”

Moreover, Frederick Lawton in his high-renowned ‘Balzac biography’ titled Balzac says: 

Balzac worked hard. His habit was to go to bed at six in the evening, sleep till twelve, and after, to rise and write for nearly twelve hours at a stretch, imbibing coffee as a stimulant through these spells of composition.

Quite interestingly, Balzac, a true ‘monolithic man of letters’, stakes his sweet claim to fame not only as one of the fathers of realism, but also as a ‘great abuser of coffee’. ;-)

The ambit of this post - the swan song of this year’s - would thence be two-fold!

Firstly, to strive and highlight excerpts from Balzac’s ‘meditations’ on coffee, which acted as the bestest of stimulants on/for him!

Secondly, to connect this coffee craze from ‘a thousand tongues’ off past litbeees [literary beings], with present day litbeees who have been and continue to be, such a rave and a rage amongst literati today!

In this regard, shall we then, quite gently turn our attention to Balzac’s little treatise [in about seventy pages] titled, Treatise on Modern Stimulants, translated into English, with an introduction, by Kassy Hayden.

The blurb to the book bares it all on the gentle brew –

Honoré de Balzac’s Treatise on Modern Stimulants is a meditation on excess by a man who lived by means of excess - an author very conscious of the fact that his gargantuan body of work was driven by an intake of intellectual stimulants (his bouts of writing would typically require ten to fifteen cups a day of his preferred coffee). 

First published in French in 1839 as an appendix to Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, this Treatise was at once Balzac’s effort at addressing what he perceived to be an oversight in that cornerstone of gastronomic literature!

Balzac’s meditations here are so beautifully laid out. 

In fact, he gives off his awesome takes on the impact of the ‘famous five’ stimulants - tea, sugar, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco - on the human body here. But chief of the chiefest stimulants for Balzac oughta gotta be his cuppa coffee!

Added, Balzac here describes his ‘terrible and cruel method’ or his strategies for brewing a coffee that can help the artist and author find inspiration!

Says he on the gentle brew -

This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive full gallop, ensign to the wind. 

The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent, deploying charge; the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition; the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters. 

Similes arise; the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.

The power of the blend on Balzac is boggling, mind-boggling, ladies and gentlemen! And on this cliffhanger-mode, i deem it delightful to stop! ;-)

I now consider it a great honour and a pleasant privilege to take y’all quite joyfully along with me into the last book of the season! A book that I’ve so loved reading all of this past month! 

Presenting Elif Shafak to y’all, ladies and gentlemen!

Well, as a little preview to this part of the post: I was browsing my way through Starmark’s ‘showcase books’ that have hit the stands of late, when I chanced upon a clump of Elif Shafak’s books on their sweet sweeter sweetest stacks! One particular book of Elif’s titled Three Daughters of Eve caught my attention for reasons I shall quite soon disclose down below.

Peri is the protagonist to this riveting Shafak presentation! Peri takes us from her childhood in Istanbul, to her stint at Oxford University, where she meets with her ‘Polaroid’ folks! 

On Peri and her ‘Polaroid folks’, I’d prod thee gentle, dear reader, to take upon thyself the kutty little trouble of lookin’ up page 80 to the part that begins, The Poem, and datelined, Istanbul, 2016, on this Shafak stimulant! In fact, the novel from thence on hinges on these ‘Polaroid folks!’ No spoilers here though! 

Well, the three daughters of Eve, then, are the sensual, unassuming, yet confident types, and they are, the Iranian-born Shirin, the quite modest, religious Egyptian-American Mona and Peri herself! To Shafak, the trio are, ‘the Sinner, the Believer and the Confused!’ Interestingly, the three ‘daughters’ gravitate towards the fourth person, Professor Azur, who taught at the University. Any more spoilers, and you’re sure bound to rankle and rile at pavapetta me, I swear!!! ;-)

Strangely enough, Orhan Pamuk keeps darting and dashing across your inward eye each and every time you read Shafak’s descriptions of Istanbul in this, her engaging novel!

And hence on this vein, I’m sure it’s not gotta be glaring if I do a daring connect of sorts between the Achebe - Adichie duo, vis-à-vis the Pamuk - Shafak duo! 

For, like their African counterparts do, these Turkish duo do too! 

Both Pamuk and Shafak talk with such a nostalgic pine and a yearn for a past Istanbul that’s now lost unto them! You might want to read Pamuk’s delightful take on Istanbul in our past post here. 

Like Pamuk, Shafak too has such profound preoccupations with panoramic portraits from Istanbul’s glorious past! And both writers deal with the devastating clash between tradition and modernity in their novels.

There’s a hunch to what’s in store as concerns ‘the past’, in Shafak’s chapter titled, ‘The Poem’ where she lets us know the mind voice of Peri, her protagonist –

Whether men or women, it was always people with rough journeys in their pasts, uncertainty in their eyes and invisible wounds in their souls that intrigued her. 

Generous with her time and loyal to the bone, she befriended these select few with an unflagging commitment and love. But with everyone else, who constituted pretty much the majority, her interest quickly morphed into boredom. 

And when bored all she wanted was to escape – to free herself from that person, from that conversation, from that moment.

The very first chapter to Shafak’s Three Daughters of Eve, is titled, “The Handbag” and it is datelined, ‘Istanbul, 2016’.

And the very first event that happens in the novel is a description of Istanbul –

It was all because of the traffic… Rumbling, roaring, metal clanking against metal like the cries of a thousand warriors. 

The entire city was one giant construction site. Istanbul had grown uncontrollably and kept on expanding – a bloated goldfish, unaware of having gobbled more than it could digest, still searching around for more to eat. 

Looking back on that fateful afternoon, Peri would conclude that had it not been for the hopeless gridlock, the chain of events that awakened a long-dormant part of her memory would never have been set in motion.

Like a magic wand in the wrong hands, the traffic turned minutes into hours, humans into brutes and any trace of sanity into sheer lunacy. 

Istanbul didn’t seem to mind. Time, brutes and lunacy it had aplenty. One hour more, one hour less; one brute more, one lunatic less – past a certain point, it made no difference.

But this thingummy about the past is quite meet for another post!

So what’s that little trigger that prompted me to pen this post for y’all?

I owe you dear readers, a little explanation on this part! Yes, I really do!

Well, as part answer, what quite interested me about this endearing book is the fact that, the book is replete with at least a hundred different instances of people having coffee or longing for a cup of coffee, especially the Turkish variety! ;-)

And thence comes along so gentle and so true, the bhakta and the brew, ;-) on a real trove for us all, in the very first chapter –

Before setting out on the road they had stopped at a Star Börek – a Turkish coffee chain that had been repeatedly sued by Starbucks for using their logo, their menu and a distorted version of their name but was still, because of legal loopholes, in business – and bought two drinks: a skinny latte for Peri, a double chocolaty chip crème frappuccino for her daughter. Peri had finished hers, but Deniz was taking forever, sipping gingerly like an injured bird.

And her tryst with coffee continues unabated, without bell or brake, all through the novel’s narrative time!

When Peri was out exploring Oxford, she discovered a bookstore that was called ‘Two Kinds of Intelligence’. 

Soon, the bookstore became a favourite spot for Peri, not only because of the handpicked volumes they showcased from philosophy, psychology, religion and the occult, but also because they had pastel bean bags on the floor for customers to sit on and most importantly, a coffee machine that served free coffee for all readers, all day long! ;-)

Hope some benevolent philanthropist from our part of the globe does thus for us! ;-)

And quite soon, it became a matter of habit for Peri to visit this bookstore. 

Once she landed here, by default then, she would grab her cup of coffee, put a coin in the tip box and plant herself on a bean bag, reading until her back hurt and her legs felt stiff.

Some of the elucidations on the ‘nectar in the cup’ are beyond compare, dangling somewhere between the ideal and the metaphysical! Here goes a sample on the cuppa –

The sun on her back, she pulled her legs towards herself, her knees up against her chin, finding a strange calm amidst rare plants and trees. 

In her hand she held a coffee cup, which she pressed against her cheek, the warmth as comforting as the touch of a lover.

I ‘double-strongly’ ;-) recommend this ‘Shafak read’ to any many bhaktas of the brew and the book! You’re sure gonna be intoxicated to the core by the ‘Shafak spell’ in this descriptive, discursive and delightful truebrew read from off Shafak’s own delightful bistro, who fortuitously doubles up as our barista too!

And for now, the brew breaks here, on a brief hiatus, dear ladies and gentlemen!

*****

PS: In the meantime, may I have the pleasure and the privilege of inviting y’all to join me over the brew, on the book release of Dr. Geetha’s maiden book titled, Nuts to Crack and Eat, at Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, on Tuesday, 31 December 2019. [Dr. Geetha retired as Vice-Principal and Head, Department of English, Women’s Christian College, Nagercoil, after 36 years of illustrious service]. A special post on the book would happen soon, on this, our little literary space, over here! Invitation for the book launch soon follows!