Fancy Goods / Open All Night

by Paul Morand, Marcel Proust (Preface), Ezra Pound (Translator)

Stories set in postwar Europe deal with a Spanish anarchist, a White Russian emigrant, love affairs, dancers, and young men and women trying to start new lives

151 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Paul Morand was a French diplomat, novelist, playwright and poet, considered an early Modernist.

He was a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (better known as Sciences Po). During the pre-war period, he wrote many short books which are noted for their elegance of style, erudition, narrative concision, and for the author's observation of the countries he visited combined with his middle-class views.

Morand's reputation has been marred by his stance during the Second World War, when he collaborated with the Vichy regime and was a vocal anti-Semite. When the Second World War ended, Morand served as an ambassador in Bern, but his position was revoked and he lived in exile in Switzerland.

Post-war, he was a patron of the Hussards literary movement, which opposed Existentialism. Morand went on to become a member of the Académie française; his candidature was initially rejected by Charles de Gaulle, the only instance of a President ever exercising his right to veto electees to the academy. Morand was finally elected ten years later, though he still had to forgo the official investiture).

Paul Morand was a friend of Marcel Proust and has left valuable observations about him.

Reviews

[Keith Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not many people pay much attention to Morand anymore. Certainly not in the English speaking world, but I don't have the sense that too many people spend much time with him in France, either. That might be because the was a member of the Vichy government, a Nazi collaborator. And then the most easily available edition in English was translated by Ezra Pound, who collaborated with Mussolini. It might appear, after a quick thought, that this book is some kind apology for Fascist aesthetics. And that might be true, although I would have to give it a lot more thought.

The short stories are evocative pictures of that moment in Europe between the wars, now a hundred years ago. Not much happens in these stories. There is an erotic glow to them, but Morand obviously cared more for the details of things. He has more lists than a poet would have, and the things in those lists are often described fully. Then there is that erotic atmosphere Morand (and Pound!) is able to create. Very hard to read this now and not think that this is an eros created primarily by the male gaze, even if the woman are given some agency.

But I keep this book with my Pound titles. This is a translation he did in/around 1924. I often think of Pound's prose as being complicated, even bordering on the purple. But here the language is direct and very effective. This is the Pound who was helpful to Hemingway and the creation of that style. At times the style and the atmosphere seem to echo those of "The Sun Also Rises." And then there are other moments when the weight of detail makes me think of Proust (and that's not just because Proust wrote the intro here; it must be one of the last things he wrote).

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is hard to say, after reading all of the intros and writing about this book, whether my problems with it are in the writing or the translation. The only reason this book is published in the format that I read it is because it was translated by Ezra Pound. But Pound's tranlation was considered unpublishable at the time, and here has not been revised since that assessment.
Morand's stories themselves are okay, but the first few are more of character sketches than stories in that nothing actually happens. The later ones are somewhat more interesting, but are still a little more style than content. There's a vague sense of racism and antisemitism throughout the book, at the same time as Morand is writing stories about the unfairness of these things after the world war. Talking about "Jews sniffing the pearls" is really not okay, buddy.
The last story cracked me up though. It ceneters on a man who signs up for a naked exercise group and then panics when he is attracted to one of the women in the group. Then they go on a tragic weekend getaway. Really good, and the least clunky of the translations.

[LRKK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some dazzling prose can’t overcome the self-indulgence and dated pride in his own exoticism.