GLEE BOOK ALAIN BERTRAND by ESOPE

GLEE French title: A Corps Perdu Chinese title:

Text by Alan Bertrand Illustrations by Meng Fan-Cong

This book is distributed in all bookstores, that is to say all good ones. It can also be ordered directly on its private web site : www.skipanda.com

Foreword The soul and spirit of skiing have made addicts of millions. Glee appeals to their understanding of how mind and body unite. It is the tale of the formative journey of a child teetering on the brink of adolescence. In search of the lady who haunts him, he learns to ski in order to rid himself of gravity’s constraints, and to fly to her. On his way he also discovers loving, living and dying. With a blend of technical know-how and Orientalism Glee unabashedly invents a ski method, an outlook on life and a literary genre. Since its inception 100 years ago, skiing has been taught without reference to gravity. However, no gravity, no skiing. The tale brings to skiing what Newton brought to the apple and Galileo to the solar system. It describes a new turning technique together with an original teaching method. Morals of the past have portrayed body and flesh as the root of all evil. The tale, with a cocktail of soft philosophy and hard flippancy, grants desire a dimension commensurate with gravity. By so doing it rescues theologians from earthly religions. To religions that wear themselves out cloaking savage prehistoric practices as God’s will, it proposes more civilized myths and a self-evident faith, thus clearing the path to a universal revival of spirituality. What is literature, if not the endless moaning of humanity in the throes of ill fortune? All stories end with either a failure or a marriage and “happily ever after”, which is based on the unquestionable assumpion that happiness has no history. Yet, this tale starts precisely at the beginning of happiness. Northman born on the wrong side of the French Channel to Huguenot parents, the author lived extensively and intensely in San Francisco, Peking and Chamonix. Married and divorced almost the same number of times, he also fathered two children who both freely admit that this is where he floundered most miserably. Film maker in the summer, ski instructor in the winter, full-time inquisitive dreamer, his destiny still goes on strong down its fateful track1 Each decade, our fast-evolving society goes on a buying spree for a book that helps adjust traditional culture to our brave new world. This has been the fate of The Prophet, The Little Prince, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Miles away from the literati’s microcosm, Glee is the spell to happiness of a 21st century bard. It does not return to antique sources, it is the source from which flows a haunting tune, a thought that seeps through the skin spreading roots outside of literature, right into the good earth of life, technique and science. Emergent species, this book blows a squall of fresh air on the modern novel, it marks the “D” day of the rise of a new art. You are bound to experience the shiver of beauty as you slide down the snow and words of this story. Jeff Tolbert in Randolph Vermont, on July 4th 2004

1) His claim to immortality is shrouded with staunch suspicion.

The repetition of her brother’s first name prevented her from reading beyond page 8 of this story. In order to smooth out her exasperation, I wish Chanette would remember that, even though her first name is not mentioned, nevertheless she definitely is the heroine of three scenarios. Truly enough, none of them met with actual production, however, by the sheer weight of the paper, she still comes out on top.

Table of contents

I Prologue The mountain Odyssey of the Tao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pages

II Curiosity Leads Astray 1 2

In which carefree Chanou swings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which curiosity drives Chanou out of the nest . . . . . .

15 21

III New Worlds 3 4 5

In which Chanou penetrates the forest of the wolf . . . . . In which the mountain of snow tackles Chanou . . . . . . . In which Chanou hits the mountain of fur . . . . . . . . . . .

31 39 47

IV Through the Looking-glass 6 7 8

In which we lose Chanou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Through the looking glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beyond happiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 65 73

V Miracles 9 10 11

In which Chanou sinks into the upside down world and shrinks with despair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which Chanou falls victim to a miracle . . . . . . . . . . .

83 91 99

VI Battling Tigress 12 13 14

In which Chanou slips out of tigress’s claws . . . . . . . . . . In which Chanou ditches tigress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which tigress catches up with Chanou . . . . . . . . . . . .

109 117 125

VII Questioning Certainties 15 16 17

Friction-filled slipping slides slower than friction-free carving, ‘cause friction brakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which praising laziness has differing effects . . . . . . . . In which a naughty girl uses and abuses Chanou . . . . . .

135 143 151

VIII Flying Emptiness 18 19 20

In which Chanou answers the call of emptiness . . . . . . . In which Chanou gobbles up the mountain . . . . . . . . . . Yaaaaahhhhhouououou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161 171 179

IX Lucifer & Ladies’ Sex are Unfairly Done by 21 22

Lucifer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which Chanou sinks full blast beneath his quilt . . . .

189 197

X Clash and Fury 23 24 25

Truth is true and not true is true . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The hunt is up for Panda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In which the hunters become the hunted . . . . . . . . . . . .

207 215 223

XI Loving, Giving, Conquering 26 27 28

In which an old Chinese pine tree loves a nymph . . . . . . The gift of ubiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . By the spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

235 245 253

XII Epiphany 29 30

La joie of skiing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In the birdshine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

267 277

XIII Epilogue The Tao of Tao: Miserere Deo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

293

I Prologue

The Mountain Odyssey of the 2 Long ago, in a far-off land, before Chanou (which the French insist should be pronounced Sha-noo) was endowed with ubiquity, he was pondering aloud one day as if alone astride a cloud. Father Owl caught him muttering, “I’d love to die…” This startled Owl out of his wits. “Don’t say such horrid, ludicrous things,” pleaded ol’dad. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m not horridly ludicrous, I’m just curious… to find out… what comes… after this,” Chanou explained. The spirit of adventure permeating the youth of the valley 3 had not infected Father Owl, who nearly died of a fit of asthma, his ritual allergy to absurdity.

Note about notes: Too many irrelevant footnotes can be irritating .

2) Which reads TAO, meaning ‘way’, the way to walk and the way worldly things go, and which is the path on which Chanou was last seen. 3) ‘THEEE’ valley—the Chamonix valley of France! 4) Like this one.

II Curiosity Leads Astray

Chapter One

In Which Carefree Chanou Swings Lord Wind who dwells on the mountain sometimes whispers through the pine trees. Some nights he bellows, some mornings he sings. One bright day, as he was blowing to his heart’s content through a flower trumpet, he slipped the tale of a boy into my left ear. The story and the boy were both good for nothing. I shook my head wildly to get them out, but I never could. Stuck as I was, I thought it better to pick up my leaky pen and spit it out, with a blotch here, and a sentence there, a true talee of the truth. As truly serious tales do, Chanou’s begins in the depths of a bushy forest. In the heart of our forest lives Owl, Knight of the Black Sun. Owl is all scholarly, all good, all cautious, all blind during the day, all shortsighted at night, and all old both day and night. All in all, a whole lot of all, and most of all, Owl is all crazy about his beloved son, Chanou. Owl loves him so very much, that he has dedicated his long life of hard labor to offering Chanou the most beautiful of all the gifts in the world—a happy childhood. A blissful existence. Flawless, complete, ineffable… HAAAAA-PPIIIIII-NEEEEEEEESS!

In the depths of our far away story, in the chest of a child, throbs the pulse of happiness. Chanou, the child, dwells in a shingle-roofed log cabin nestled in the arms of a birch tree, under a petal of the giant fleur-de-lis. The fleur-de-lis grows at the foot of the ever white Mont Blanc 5 mountain, which slumbers under a thick quilt of everlasting snow.

Yet, while Owl loves him so strongly, Chanou just swings to his heart’s ease. Why? People who have never found happiness, claim happiness has no story. They don’t know what they’re talking about. The truth of the matter is, miserable people are doomed by a single heavy tragedy, while happy 5) Mont Blanc means Ever White Mountain. It is the summit of the Alps, on the French-Italian border, towering at 4.810m above sea level.

people are riddled with swarms of light problems arising on the path that happiness treads. Take puberty, for instance. If it never comes, a thirty year old burly man sounds like a girl. This is a terminal tragedy. If it does come, the boy’s throat breaks out into dissonant upheavals. This is the beginning of all sorts of little happinesses, each of which proves to be more prickly to handle than the rest. To Chanou, this sort of happiness swooped down on him as a white dawn tipped into daylight. As he was stretching in the warmth of his quilt, he felt a furious urge to pee, but he just couldn’t. When his hands fumbled to explore the phenomenon, they discovered with dismay a bulging stiffness, a hardness, which felt like his willy, but not as he could ever remember his willy ever feeling. Ol’Willy, so limp and handy for peeing round corners was gone. This new guy stretched stiff as a crowbar, standing high, straight up, planted between his legs, heavy and awkward. A plumbline pulls its string straight down; a compass thrusts its needle straight North; but this stiffness mechanically followed his motions in all directions. When Chanou jumped out of his bed, Stiff Willy jutted towards the ceiling. When Chanou tried a handstand, Stiff Willy pointed toward the floor! Stiff Willy had a mind of his own; God knows what he was up to. Fretting like a dog with a bone, Chanou suddenly found Limp Ol’Willy was back and his relief flushed his mind clean, his bladder empty… until the next night when all the erratic prank struck again. The recurrence of this erraticism drove Chanou to Father Owl. Father Owl answered that the time for desire had arrived. Chanou did not understand the word desire, so Father Owl explained that it was an imperious force which tears children away from home, and Papas. The farthest from home he has ever been, so far, is where his swing throws him. The rope that hangs from the highest branch of the birch tree is fully ten yards long. This makes for a very big swing. At the other end of the rope clings Chanou. One hip thrust up, one hip thrust down, at one moment giving himself up to the gaping void of the sky that sucks him up and yonder, the next swooping down and below to the conquest of the earth that flings itself in his face. Once up in the sky there is a fleeting moment of eternity, when his feet float weightless above his head, when his desires are fulfilled, when he is free. Once aloft, why go back down? It would feel so good to take off skywards, to soar with the light flap of a wing, to vanish into thin

air, and simply die with a sigh from the unspeakable bliss he gets by giving himself up to sky’s emptiness, a feather on the breeze. Then, in creeps the fundamental craving for the Earth, which tips him roaring into the gaping hole beneath his feet, the dizzy tumble, the excitement of speed, the awareness of heavy limbs mightily attached to the four corners of his body. The Force hurls Chanou to the ground, his tummy weighted with lead. Just at the point of smashing into the unyielding ground—whoa! Miracle! The rope goes taut, Chanou bounces off a frail daisy, and soars skyward again. A headlong flight out of gravity’s clutches. Thence to a lightness, so seductive. What baffles Chanou most is the fact that roaring speed and still weightlessness are both daughters of the air, living a fleeting existence, out of reach. Why can’t he grab them as they fly by, isolate the weightlessness, freeze the speed, and play with them at his whim? Why? He wishes… something he never acknowledges, not even to himself… he wishes to have feathered wings like Father Owl, and to flutter around as he pleases. But instead, he has grown two naked arms that have all the aerodynamic properties of a brick. Dad is a bird, and sonny is a boy! This ain’t the way things are s’posed to be in a family!

Chapter Two

In Which Curiosity Drives Chanou out of the Nest Chanou has a warm home and a sweet dad, but… no mom. Why? Because… well, as a matter of fact, to put it simply, he just doesn’t. Where she should be, she isn’t. This is nothing he feels uneasy about, it’s just an absence he’s gotten used to living with, an emptiness he nurtures, a sweet and sour gap he is fond of. Anyway, Father Owl hates discussing the subject. A mere allusion sends him brimming with restlessness and his son brimming with curiosity. In the Limp Ol’Willy era, Chanou believed a mom was for grown-ups. He simply had to grow up and he would be entitled to one, just as he was entitled to the right to breathe and sleep. But now that he has entered the Stiff Willy era, it occurs in his sleep that she takes the shape of Snow White. She is nothing but a name without a woman, colorless white, whiteless snow. She is a fervorless dream, but a dream that sucks Chanou into its bottomless whirl. Fearing that his son’s innocence might tempt him into hazardous roaming, Owl lectures for the umpteenth time, “Your quest is a

white nightmare, beautiful dreams are black. White light is a repugnant mixture of all the colors. From dawn to dusk, you peel one by one the shades of the rainbow, it plunges you into the pure sweet darkness of a pitch black night, the refuge of dreams.” In order to hammer it home, he adds a brand new truth 6. “A nightmare is a blank within a sleep, and a woman is a bleached nightmare. Snow White is a nightmare of snow.” “Snow?” Chanou mutters timidly. 6) Truths are Owl’s specialty

“Snow is filthy white. At dawn, it’s sweet and tender; at dusk, it’s hard and icy. Woman is snow and white, Snow White is woman. Thou shalt shun woman and snow.” Chanou, indeed, is not prone to shun anything. He is struck by a furious urge to touch everything. In order to touch Snow White he needs to know where to find her, and, for sure, she is not hidden away somewhere in his chalet, under the petal of the fleur-de-lis. If she were, he would already have found her, ‘cause he wouldn’t miss a nook or cranny in his little chalet, or in the clearing at the heart of the forest. Still, no clues! She is elsewhere. Elsewhere? Where is elsewhere? He first looks for an answer in the tumescence jutting out below his belly. But that tall, bald, moron is struck dumb. After putting it to the question over and over, he hears a thin voice trickling out of his chest.

“For a lifetime I’ve been expecting you. I’m the mermaid surfing your dreams. Out of your distant future I slide to you, to seal the cracks in your heart. In me, you were born to the world; in me your existence will end; in me you live forever.” This convinces Chanou that the lady actually exists, even though he has no clue as to where she is. In which elsewhere, across which time or which space is he supposed to go looking for her? Is she a mother or a young girl? What should the damsel look like? Knowing that he will surely find her sends his impatience soaring, and doubting it sends it soaring even higher. When he’s floating at the top of his swing, Chanou glides just like Dad for an instant. He feels he has grown feathers and wings, but he remains a prisoner of the rope. Father Owl flies wherever he pleases, while his son Chanou flies only where the rope will let him. Disobedience is out of the question. Chanou tugs at his rope like a goat at its tether. Will I ever be able to fly beyond my rope? Will I ever grow wings like Dad? Sensibly, Owl never allows the disgraceful distinction between bird and boy. It would raise the suspicion that Chanou takes more after his mother. And this is taboo. As for flying without wings, Owl just doesn’t know how. The only thing he knows is that he’s scared. Even in swinging for fun there is the risk of falling. Between happiness and terror, Owl’s heart lunges up and down, in time with Chanou’s swing.

“Don’t swing too high, son, you could break your neck!” cries Owl. Naturally, with a mighty thrust of his hips, followed by another and yet another, Chanou pushes the swing to new heights. He soars above the roof of the log cabin and suddenly discovers—“Wow!” Somewhere out there is an evergreen that is taller than his birch tree. He hastily hops off his swing.

“Don’t climb the tree, son, you could break your bones!” warns Owl. Immediately, Chanou scrambles up the tree. Its branches are poised like the rungs of a ladder and it proves an easy climb. His curiosity makes him giddy, but not foolhardy. He stops as he feels the frail treetop sway. He pushes aside a bushy branch and suddenly discovers—“Wow!” Somewhere out there is a hill that is taller than his evergreen! He hastily scrambles down the tree.

“Don’t climb that hill, son,” admonishes Owl. “It’s at the end of a forest haunted by wild animals, monstrous beasts and hungry wolves!” Now, Chanou is wild about animals and loves monstrous beasts. Hence, he does not heed the warning. Light-footed Chanou turns away from his log cabin, his swing and the fat fleur-de-lis, and goes gambolling through the woods and thickets towards the hill. On the way, he sees a timid doe, a whistling marmot, and a ripe strawberry who all dash for cover to hide themselves from him, mistaking him for some wild beast. He realizes that the most terrified living being of all is… Dad.

Whatever curiosity does to cats and Chanous, it terrifies Owl, who trails behind fluttering and flopping.

“And what would happen if JeanMi, René and Eric, our faithful enemies, the three ‘J ‘s’ caught up with you out there, deep in the forest where nobody can see them hurting you?” demands the old bird. Owl and Chanou’s happiness necessarily arouses their neighbors’jealousy. So Jean-Mi the Jinx, René the Jerk and Eric the Junk faithfully hate them both. The ‘J’ trio of enemies often threaten to burn down their tiny log cabin, but they never muster the courage to actually torch it. And this is kind of a shame, for what’s the use of enemies if they chicken out and don’t burn down your home? Yet, watching grim enemies grill on the embers of their own mean spite is such a sweet feeling! After all, an Owl’s home is his castle. Ensconced in his warm home, safe from enemies, he is happy. Without enemies roaming outside, his house would feel colder, his happiness bluer. Without a home, he would feel totally exposed and vulnerable. Therefore, Owl is eager to lock up his beloved son inside his tiny log castle, safe from worldly cold and threatening elsewheres. But he obviously didn’t lock the door tightly enough, because Chanou has escaped to chase after his lady-in-waiting, who is elsewhere. Panic stricken, Owl stammers and trembles so very much that his mortar-board 7 slides off his head, his glasses topple from his nose, his beak chatters off-center, and his big Fat Book drops from his wing-pit. Old people are like trees in November, they tend to shed their leaves along the way until they are stripped bare. It doesn’t look the way things should. But, this is the way of the elderly-especially those who love us to distraction. 7) A mortar-board is an artifact worn by a scholar who is a guy that was so good in school, that, after he graduated, nobody dared let such an unworldly character out of the school precincts, lest he should prove to be a menace to society.

III New Worlds

Chapter Three

In Which Chanou Penetrates the Forest of the Wolf Chanou feels pretty good about having scared everyone, but he soon gets tired of running and scaring. He sits down with his back against the trunk of a large oak tree to catch his breath. The dying sun is already weaving its last rays through the lower branches and the shadows are stretching on their evening stilts. Chanou longs for the company of a friend. But strangely, the doe flees without pausing for a breath or a backward glance, the marmot shrinks lower behind the boulder and the strawberry hunches its back under the leaf. No living being is in sight, though he senses them all lying low and holding their breath. But there, slipping from tree to tree at the edge of the clearing, something spreads a slinking shadow. He wonders if it’s the shadow of the great grey wolf. Perched on the branch up above, Father Owl is hopping with a heck of an owlish rattling. He shivers like a leaf stirred by the fretful North Wind. To the Knight of the Black Sun, a dark shadow in the night stands out more clearly than the sun in the noon sky.

“See that wild beast? It’s called a woman!” professes Owl. Chanou thinks his father must take him for some kind of fool. Yet, on account of Owl’s desperate love for him, Chanou is willing to overlook his naïveté. Whatever it might be, ferocious woman or wolf, the beast has very sharp teeth and Chanou has no idea what it might be up to. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, he jumps to his feet to scale the oak tree. Owl tries to help him, but the trunk is thick and mossy and Chanou is heavy and hard to get hold of with a wing tip. At times a boy can feel pretty lonely, especially after doing his best to scare everyone away and then being left alone with the great grey wolf. There are times when Chanou would feel happy if Jean-Mi the Jinx, René the Jerk and Eric the Junk, his faithful enemies, were with him. Either they would shoot the wolf or, even better, the wolf could eat them. A quick snack! He sits down on his heels, his back against the tree and seeks solace in a candy bar 8. Prowling around the clearing, the great grey wolf divides his attention between the man cub and the candy bar, the former looking crunchy, the latter, tasty. He observes them both and hesitates. Among wolves, mankind is extremely disreputable. Man is sneaky. The great grey wolf hums and haws but can’t make up his wolf mind. Chanou hurls a chunk of candy bar to the wolf. The wolf looks first at the boy, then at the candy bar. To avoid hurting the wolf’s pride, and to help him make the right choice, Chanou quickly makes himself scarce. Returning to the foot of the oak tree, he sees that the chunk of candy bar is gone. Chanou smiles at the wolf, as the wolf stares unblinkingly into his eyes. He sacrifices another piece of candy. Eyes locked onto Chanou’s, the wolf lowers his head and snaps up the chocolate before 8) A sweet chocolate bar that tastes like gooey mud out of a slimy bog, and without which no young man could successfully snack.

retreating into the forest and vanishing like smoke on the breeze, with no word of thanks left behind. Peeping around the edge of the leaf, the strawberry quivers with relief. The marmot risks a whisker above the boulder and the doe starts nibbling the lichen between patches of moss. A surge of empathy for all things sweeps over Chanou. He fills his sight with the shimmering stars as they twinkle through the rustling leaves. He fills his eyes right up to the brim, until the stars spill out, rain all over his body and drown him in their gentle warmth. A streak of drowsiness invades his limbs, as his eyes flutt… flu… f…. He grows numb and sinks into slumber. Owl spreads out his wings crosswise over his sleeping child.

When Chanou opens his eyes to the dawn’s crystalline chill, Father Owl pleads, “Please don’t climb the hill, son. The forest is

haunted by wild animals, monstrous beasts and starving women, but the hill is even more formidable!” “I haven’t met any of these monstrous beasts yet,” Chanou thinks to himself, “but if they look anything like those I’ve met so far, I’m not too worried.” Sure-footed, he dashes off towards the hill.

Along the way, he comes across a toothless old woman, sagging under the burden of years and firewood. Eager to be nice, he runs over to help her. When the old woman catches sight of the boy hurling himself at her all alone in the backwoods, she is so startled that she throws the basket of wood off her shoulder and scurries off in a flash, leaving him dumbfounded. Could she be the lady of his dream?

“Stop!” cries Owl. “Don’t try to catch it! That animal is a wolf. If you corner it, it will lash back at you!”

Either his father has been blinded by the sunlight, or he thinks Chanou is an idiot. Chanou believes Owl’s confusion must be a cry for help, and feels sorry for him. Still, he keeps him at arm’s length, and revels in teasing him. That sweet and sour gap separating them gives him a sense of power over his father. Well aware of his father’s attempt to warn him against women, he makes a point to express a preference for the toothless wolf dropping her wood and running for her life on two legs. Then, his father’s disarray, when trying to put some sense into his young brains, gives him the measure of his own importance. “Our home is safe and warm. Let’s

go back home right now, before our enemies and the bright day catch up with us, out in the open, without shelter or shade!”

“Dad, please listen!” begs Chanou. “The forest is home to the strawberry, the marmot, the doe, the shy wolf, and also to the great grey woman. They are the treasures of their forest home. They share their home with me, I feel welcome here. I am at home in our cabin, but I am at home in the forest, too. Why do you want me to leave my forest home?” The problem with dads is that whenever they do listen, which is only at random, they still don’t hear. Poor Owl sees this as nothing but dangerous nonsense. His child is leaving a warm cabin for uncharted no man’s land, the forest with no wall, no beginning and no end, where all kinds of untidy, unruly creatures lurk, none of which look the way they should. Chanou gambols about the forest, and makes his way to the top of the hill. But to his complete surprise—he discovers, somewhere else, a mountain! A mountain is even higher, and completely white, as fair as the lady of his dreams. It is so tall that it blocks his view. Its beauty leaves him dumbfounded and he completely disregards the valley lying at his feet. Nevertheless, it is still an obstacle in his path. And it just so happens that, regardless of whether they are beautiful or awful, he cannot stand barriers. Obstacles are challenges, and he has not yet learned to turn his back on a challenge. A whirl of desires prompts him to conquer. The rhyme riding on the wind says:

THI S

T T HA

T ’ S THAT

THIS IS

The story That’s swinging Above home Don’t do this Don’t say this If you hit On your back

of the rat with the bat where Dad’s at don’t do that don’t say that a roof slat you fall splat BUT

Chanou is Luck is tough He swings up Soaring high Daddy says He responds I don’t heed

a tough brat luck is fat holds his hat birds all scat he’s a rat I’m a cat no dad’s tat.

THAT’S THAT Wise Father Owl would rather stay home and stoke the fire. But his wisdom is marred by his wild love for his son, which drives him out of his little log cabin dashing headlong after Chanou, who flings open the door to the spring wind.