The Corsican Monster

While on vacation last week, I was reading War and Peace by Tolstoy. When I was traveling a couple of months ago, I re-read Vanity Fair by Thackeray. And last year I read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

Three stories from three different European countries. All set in the same time period but written a generation later. Very different story lines, but they have one historical figure in common - Napoleon. He is the War in War and Peace. His role is much more circumspect in the other two novels; he does not appear directly but his actions form the backdrop of their drama. 

I had studied about Napoleon in history class and knew of his exploits, of course, but they didn't form much of an impression on me. When I think of world conquerors, Alexander is the one that comes to mind. And Hitler is the evil conqueror de jour. Napoleon, on the other hand, is the punchline about height and  over-compensation.

How eye opening then to come across these near contemporary accounts and feel the earth shattering effect he had on the Europe of his time; the admiration and hatred he simultaneously inspired. These are not dry historical facts or laundry lists of battles and armies. They are accounts of the fictional emotions of fictional characters. Somehow that makes them more compelling: they are incidental to the main story, mentioned in passing, each author taking for granted that his reader needs no convincing of Napoleon's impact.

In Tolstoy's Russia there are many who worship Napoleon and relish his martial glory as he conquers country after country. Then struggle to make excuses for why their hero after all turns his army on their own nation. But he is driven out of their country, his myth of invincibility shattered, and soon after his enemies finally defeat and exile him. Then in Vanity Fair and Monte Cristo you get a glimpse of the terror he still commands; first the fear that he will escape from exile, then the panic when he actually does. As soon as he lands in France, the French people rise to his support, Louis XVIII flees his capital and the nations of Europe march on him together, all their differences forgotten in their common fear of the Corsican Monster.

All this fuss about one man. A very different era when one man could be such a hero and such a villain all by himself....

Sidebar : Tolstoy has a refreshingly modern attitude to both war and patriotism. War and Peace should be about a thousand pages shorter than it is, but there are some real gems in there.

Dining in the dark

Apparently it is a thing. Sounds gimmicky but what is the point of making money if you can't spend some of it on an intriguing gimmick. So we headed over to Opaque in San Francisco Saturday night to try it out.

You walk in to a narrow entry way where the hostess receives you and hands out menus to choose your food. You choose from a couple of options in a prix fixe menu, pick your drinks and then are ready to enter the restaurant proper. The hostess asks you to turn off your cell phones (I put mine on vibrate and stuffed it in my purse. And held my purse tight between my legs the whole time so I would feel the vibration if it went off. I may have a slight problem), take off any watches and otherwise eliminate all sources of light. Then she hands you off to your server, who is legally blind - like all the wait staff. The group forms a little train behind the server, each holding the person in front of them. (Pro-tip : There's a lot of touching - deliberate and accidental - over the course of this evening. Best to go with people you know fairly well!). The server is the engine of this train and guides you into the restaurant proper. You go through a darkened passageway, past a blackout curtain and you are finally in the pitch dark. I cannot overstate the blackness of this dark. My pupils spent the whole evening dilating but could not distinguish the slightest shape. The server guided us each to our seats and we began the meal. When we were lining up to enter the darkened passageway, I felt a moment of utter panic. But once we were seated it passed. I felt around to get a mental picture of the table's layout and position of my fellow diners. The server described the serving strategy : she'd bring the plates to one side of the table and the two people at the end would pass them down to the others. It worked quite well; too well in my opinion. Once we were seated it felt disappointingly like a normal meal. Sure we jabbed our forks all over our plates but there really was not much difficulty. I had a water glass and a drink on either side of my plate; not only did I drink from both easily, they were not even slightly in the way when passing dishes back and forth or reaching to try the food in my neighbour's plate. Should not have been surprising considering the ease with which I walk around my bedroom in the dark. We are better than we think at limited navigation through known territory.

The food came in one course at a time, was duly passed down the line of diners. Much giggling ensued during the first couple of courses as we tried to eat what we could not see. I hear that the remaining senses are enhanced when one is lost, but it probably takes longer than a couple of hours. None of us felt our sense of taste or smell enhanced by the blindness. Quite the reverse, I lost a lot of the flavour of the food by not being able to see it. I also found myself shoveling the food down my throat in an unseemly hurry due to some trace remains of anxiety. I had to force myself to slow down and savour the food. That helped some, but again I realised how much I take sight for granted during an eating experience. For instance, I always combine things on my plate for optimal taste - a piece of cheese with every bite of salad. Or a delectable crouton saved till the end as a final treat for my taste buds. It was quite frustrating not being able to do that.

The food was quite good but not extraordinary. Given the logistical nightmare of running this place, the price ($100 per person for food) is probably justified. But at the end of the day, I can't honestly say the experience was worth the cost.

Vain musings

Is there anything so poignant as the loss of something one never possessed?

There it was, hovering by your head. You could reach out and grab it easily, or so you told yourself. Any time you wanted. It was practically yours and one day you would just pluck it out of the air. But you never did reach out, except that one time when you made a tentative, hesitant movement and then quickly turned it into a different gesture - nah, I was just brushing my hair. And there it bobbed silently, like a golden snitch. It is mine, practically so. Slowly it moved a little farther away, each day. And you didn't notice. Or wouldn't listen to the part of you that did. You kept insisting it was right there and all you had to do was take it. Really. Further and further away it went. And you went on saying that you possessed it - in all but name, really. Yet it kept moving away, kept getting harder to ignore the drift. And the farther it went, the more dearly you clung to the claim that it was nearby. Really. Not because you could no longer reach out for it, but because you didn't want to admit that you never would have.

Not really.