Marianne Faithfull is fiercely well-read and driven by a riotous love of literature, favoring decadent writers such as Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire. Her conversation moves across time and geography, referencing Weimar Berlin, Shelley, The Jungle Book, and Mick Jagger's old love letters. During her 50th anniversary tour she alternated between tea and an e-cigarette while conjuring an abundance of ideas and showing firm tastes, at times dismissing some authors as "total shit" and at others rhapsodising verses. Her Paris apartment contains newspaper clippings from the Redlands bust, photographs of William Burroughs, sketches by Anita Pallenberg, and hundreds of well-thumbed books. She originally intended to focus on English literature to narrow her scope.
She's fiercely well-read, steeped in and fuelled by an exuberant, riotous love of literature. Discussing those decadent writer heroes of hers - Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire - she has a lovely knack of making you feel as if they're old friends who might drop by at any moment, rather than brittle names chiselled into stone in Père Lachaise or Montparnasse cemeteries.
We met Marianne in a London hotel room when she was mid-way through her 50th anniversary tour. Over the evening - alternating between sipping tea and an e-cigarette - she conjured enough ideas to fill the Document twice over. Which is not to say she hasn't got definite tastes; some authors were dismissed as "total shit", at the mention of others she looked like she'd swallowed a light bulb and reeled off verses in a reverie.
Collection
[
|
...
]