Quote:
Originally Posted by fantasyfan
All of this is tied to the calling of the great artist. It is they who share their vision through their gift. Babette has no more money: she has spent it all to share her transcendent power. But she is not poor.
"No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing."
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Great point about the calling of an artist.
I'm reading Haruki Murakami’s new book Absolutely on Music. In the introduction, he talks about how, although Seiji Ozawa was recuperating from esophageal cancer, he was still practicing and performing intensely:
“For Seiji Ozawa, music was the indispensable fuel that kept him moving through life. Without periodic injections of live music into his veins, he could not go on living. There was only one way in this world for him to feel truly alive, and that was for him to create music with his own hands...”
There is a nice tension in the story about how the sisters and the sect members see Babette, versus how Babette sees herself. The sect members see Babette as "the dark Martha in the house of their two fair Marys"; the sisters "had granted their servant a prayer" to provide a festive meal. After the feast, the sisters feel sorry for Babette, who had not chosen that good part; it is then that Babette declares her self.