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Christmas at the Four Corners of the Earth
The twelve trans-realist prose sketches in Christmas at the Four Corners of the Earth take the reader to Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Rotterdam, China, New Mexico, New Zealand, the Ardennes Forest, and the south Atlantic ocean.Working together they are antithesis to sentimental Christmas stories.
60 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
About the author
Blaise Cendrars
283 books280 followersFrédéric Louis Sauser, better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized French in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the modernist movement.
His father, an inventor-businessman, was Swiss, his mother Scottish. He spent his childhood in Alexandria, Naples, Brindisi, Neuchâtel, and numerous other places, while accompanying his father, who endlessly pursued business schemes, none successfully.
At the age of fifteen, Cendrars left home to travel in Russia, Persia, China while working as a jewel merchant; several years later, he wrote about this in his poem, Transiberien. He was in Paris before 1910, where he got in touch with several names of Paris' bélle époque: Guillaume Apollinaire, Modigliani, Marc Chagall and many more. Cendrars then traveled to America, where he wrote his first long poem Pâques à New-York. The next year appeared The Transsibérien.
When he came back to France, I World War was started and he joined the French Foreign Legion. He was sent to the front line in the Somme where from mid-December 1914 until February 1915. During the attacks in Champagne in September 1915 that Cendrars lost his right arm. He described this war experience in the books La Main coupée.
After the war he returned to Paris, becaming an important part of the artistic community in Montparnasse. There, among others, used to meet with other writers such as Henry Miller, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway.
During the 1920's he published two long novels, Moravagine and Les Confessions de Dan Yack. Into the 1930’s published a number of “novelized” biographies or volumes of extravagant reporting, such as L’Or, based on the life of John August Sutter, and Rhum, “reportage romance” dealing with the life and trials of Jean Galmont, a misfired Cecil Rhodes of Guiana.
La Belle Epoque was the great age of discovery in arts and letters. Cendrars, very much of the epoch, was sketched by Caruso, painted by Léon Bakst, by Léger, by Modigliani, by Chagall; and in his turn helped discover Negro art, jazz, and the modern music of Les Six. His home base was always Paris, for several years in the Rue de Savoie, later, for many years, in the Avenue Montaigne, and in the country, his little house at Tremblay-sur Mauldre (Seine-et-Oise), though he continued to travel extensively. He worked for a short while in Hollywood in 1936, at the time of the filming of Sutter’s Gold. From 1924 to 1936, went so constantly to South America. This life globertrottering life was pictured in his book Bourlinguer, published in 1948.
Another remarkable works apparead in the 40s were L’Homme Foudroyé (1945), La Main Coupée (1946), Le Lotissement du Ciel (1949), that constitute his best and most important work. His last major work was published in 1957, entitled Trop, C’est Trop.
==========
Sources:
- http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_...
His father, an inventor-businessman, was Swiss, his mother Scottish. He spent his childhood in Alexandria, Naples, Brindisi, Neuchâtel, and numerous other places, while accompanying his father, who endlessly pursued business schemes, none successfully.
At the age of fifteen, Cendrars left home to travel in Russia, Persia, China while working as a jewel merchant; several years later, he wrote about this in his poem, Transiberien. He was in Paris before 1910, where he got in touch with several names of Paris' bélle époque: Guillaume Apollinaire, Modigliani, Marc Chagall and many more. Cendrars then traveled to America, where he wrote his first long poem Pâques à New-York. The next year appeared The Transsibérien.
When he came back to France, I World War was started and he joined the French Foreign Legion. He was sent to the front line in the Somme where from mid-December 1914 until February 1915. During the attacks in Champagne in September 1915 that Cendrars lost his right arm. He described this war experience in the books La Main coupée.
After the war he returned to Paris, becaming an important part of the artistic community in Montparnasse. There, among others, used to meet with other writers such as Henry Miller, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway.
During the 1920's he published two long novels, Moravagine and Les Confessions de Dan Yack. Into the 1930’s published a number of “novelized” biographies or volumes of extravagant reporting, such as L’Or, based on the life of John August Sutter, and Rhum, “reportage romance” dealing with the life and trials of Jean Galmont, a misfired Cecil Rhodes of Guiana.
La Belle Epoque was the great age of discovery in arts and letters. Cendrars, very much of the epoch, was sketched by Caruso, painted by Léon Bakst, by Léger, by Modigliani, by Chagall; and in his turn helped discover Negro art, jazz, and the modern music of Les Six. His home base was always Paris, for several years in the Rue de Savoie, later, for many years, in the Avenue Montaigne, and in the country, his little house at Tremblay-sur Mauldre (Seine-et-Oise), though he continued to travel extensively. He worked for a short while in Hollywood in 1936, at the time of the filming of Sutter’s Gold. From 1924 to 1936, went so constantly to South America. This life globertrottering life was pictured in his book Bourlinguer, published in 1948.
Another remarkable works apparead in the 40s were L’Homme Foudroyé (1945), La Main Coupée (1946), Le Lotissement du Ciel (1949), that constitute his best and most important work. His last major work was published in 1957, entitled Trop, C’est Trop.
==========
Sources:
- http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 25, 2017
If I could live the life of anyone else, I might choose Blaise Cendrars', minus losing an arm in WWI.
He hung with Cocteau, Henry Miller, Picasso, Modigliani, Coco Chanel, et al., traveled the world and wrote. This book can be read in a half-hour, and mostly just made me want to be him.
He hung with Cocteau, Henry Miller, Picasso, Modigliani, Coco Chanel, et al., traveled the world and wrote. This book can be read in a half-hour, and mostly just made me want to be him.
May 14, 2019
I was going to read all of Blaise Cendrars, but his time has passed. I have one comprehensive book of poetry to read, then I'm done with him. I did pick up some interesting tidbits in the footnotes (which often happens.) The idea of "pays du tendre" or land of heart's desire. The obscure writer Mademoiselle de Scudery (1607-1701). General Chung-li Ma, a psychopathic butcher during WWII. The concept of Asklepios, founder of Greek medicine and the word for "mistletoe." The ability, with mistletoe in hand, to visit the underworld and return at will to "the upper air." Those people and ideas I will be exploring further.
June 23, 2016
This is a short but wonderful book wherein, as the title states, Cendrars describes Christmases he's encountered on some of his many travels to locales exotic and not so exotic. Its my understanding that these short tales were originally broadcast as radio pieces. His descriptions are full of the adventurous, swift modernism that makes all his books so exciting. It makes me wish some of his other books were in print in English, especially the one translated as Planus, in which Cendrars writes about the various ports of his travels. Either that, or I re-learn the French of my high school years which I promptly lost from lack of use. It would be worth it to read Cendrars.
December 25, 2008
At times a bit violent, this is still a Christmas perspective that I find deeply comforting. I've got an affinity happening here. Some kind of yuletide continuity. Alright. Keep it tight, it ain't worth the fight.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews