Devotion - Patti Smith

Letter to Naida

Hey N.

I just finished reading Devotion. I found it disturbing for a bit, until the end of the fictional story, as I thought Patti was genuinely romanticising a relationship between a 16 year old girl and a 30 year old man. "Not everything is beautiful you know?" I kept saying in my head while I read those sexual encounters described in such a poetic manner. But yet her writing is otherworldly, honestly. She is such a great writer and she gets better and better... which is incredible.

She got me on the last pages, as she always does, she has this way of ending paragraphs, chapters, lines, that is enchanting. At the end of everything she does, it leaves you with the sense that she was creating something beautiful all along. Like "this is where she was going, and damn it is beautiful".

While I was reading the last pages I was breastfeeding Lucas and started crying. Lucas noticed and touched my tears with his hands. I feel so related to how she describes the urge of writing. How after every inspiring experience you are so drawn to sit in your working desk and create something your own. It seems to me that every work of art that crossed my way was there to make me create something.

She says literally "that is the decisive power of a singular work: a call to action."

I saw my self every time I read a book, I tried to do it with a notebook right next to me, so that I could close the book at any point and write down the thoughts that that reading brought to my mind. You might see it on the books I left at your house, scribblings on the sides, from rimes when I didn't have my notebook with me.

I think it's incredible how she turn that anecdote about being able to see Camus's manuscript into a perfect illustration, demonstration, explanation? of how it feels to be a writer. 

I'm going to watch a horror movie with Frank.

Love S.

Devotion - Patti Smith

Letter from Naida

Hi S.

Wanted to tell you that I just finished reading the book Devotion. I stopped for awhile but then I saw the new edition with P. Smith on the front page by a till in Waterston's bookshop so I picked it up and read it until there were no more pages to read. I like the photos of the winter :) and I am not sure why I would like to meet P. again. Thought I was finished not only the book but with that as well however obviously not. It's like I am waiting to see her in London again.
The cold is certainly approaching, first day of October. I had such painful period pain that in the middle of the night I had to spend two hours in the toilet vomiting and who knows what, I was drained in cold sweat that my t-shirt was all wet. Somehow I was thinking of you, those long hours you had to endure in the hospital while in so much physical and emotional pain. You are so far away yet so near.

Let me know how was your time in France, let me know, let me know :) Give a little kiss to Lukas from me. X