Described by David Niven, "Sylvia was a ravishing beauty, devoted to the great indoors and to her flawless complexion.  She was a man's woman, selfish, and she adored spending money."  Sylvia was married to Anthony Ashley-Cooper (Lord Ashley), Douglas Fairbanks, Lord Stanley of Alderly and Clark Gable, among others.  

        

It's not about reinventing the line.

I was trying to explain Rococo yesterday to my young friend Didier*  Or rather, Rococo as it applies to literature and narrative.  Fortunately I had just leafed through the latest issue of Vanity Fair and was better equipped to take on the task.  There is a very pithy piece on the Writer's Strike, not the less insightful for the strike being over.  And another article on video games, and a mention of the Cooper Hewitt exhibition on Rococo which our lucky friends in New York will get to go to.

"It's not about the big stuff," I began.  "It's like, you're stuck with the monumental elements, and Rococo is all about the decorative, see?  Take Versailles -- huge, symmetrical -- not going anywhere if you know what I mean.  So Rococo goes and tucks some little intimate bits in here and there, okay?  A comfy chair, a cozy boudoir, some closet space.  Now pretend that Narrative is the big monumental pile nobody knows what to do with anymore, and it's boring to the kids these days anyway, they have no patience, they have no attention span, and so that's how you get Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette."

Didier just scowled.

"It's not about reinventing the straight line," I offered, "but rather (I realized saying it, in a rush of exhilaration) about breaking up the line of beauty."

"It is so Boring this book," Didier grumbled.  "He dance with Margaret Thatcher, qu'est que c'est cela?  Who care?"

I could not, however, abandon my thesis; the subtle allure of the S-curve had me in its grasp, like computer- generated special-effect tendrils snaking up Hermione's legs and no Harry to save her.  Then I thought how old-fashioned the Potter books are, and then I thought how, when the term "Rococo" as a stylistic term was introduced in 1836, it meant "old-fashioned."  It's so hard being ironic when irony is dead.  But I was not to be deterred.

"You see," I continued, "the practice of leaving elements unbalanced for effect is called contraste.  You slip a shell form into a scroll and you tip it off-center and well, it's not so formal anymore, is it.  It's lovely is what it is.  Of course if you get really carried away eventually it becomes Art Nouveau, but then World War One comes along and puts an end to all that.  Well anyway, you see in literature contraste would be the equivalent of not worrying about a good ending, or in a movie it'd be more about really fun costumes and fabulous music.  Or you could just have the character look up at the end and say, "I'm done here."  That way you'd know it was over.  And besides, in the case of Marie Antoinette, I mean, hello, you already know how it's going to end." 

"That could be so many people," Didier said. 

"Riding off to the guillotine?"

"Unbalanced for effect."


*for Didier see Archives [Ed. note]