New York Observer Cover Art Awards New York Observer Sheelah Kolkhatkar Cover
"I remember hearing on the Boston radio, they were discussing the term 'public intellectual,'" said Ms. Zanganeh, 29, in her precise, plummy English. "Peradventure being a public intellectual is being able to write, but besides to be connected to the world. I mean, it sounds almost childish, but I would say that's really, really my dream. And I hope that I tin can do it. I don't have unrealistic expectations."
Ms. Zanganeh represents a curious miracle in the New York literary earth: the intellectualite, a person with highbrow aspirations who attends enough parties to make David Patrick Columbia'southward head whirl. She turns upward everywhere—at the annual P.E.N. gala, The Paris Review'due south booze-soaked bacchanals, cocktail gatherings at the New York Public Library and myriad readings and talks, as well equally any place where Salman Rushdie and his wife Padma are likely to drop by. And she seems to know anybody that it takes other people x years to meet.
"The New York literary world is incredibly monocultural," said her friend and occasional editor Adam Shatz, The Nation's literary editor. "But I call back that when someone similar Lila walks into the room, people wake up. They're confounded and fascinated, because they don't know people like her. And she has a sense of style that is woefully lacking in these parts."
In this regard, Ms. Zanganeh, who was born to wealthy Iranian parents and raised in Paris, seems to hail from another era—or another continent, where the idea of a glamorous smart person isn't an oxymoron. Ms. Zanganeh's command of the role is intuitive. Alpine and fragile, with a girlish vocalization, she speaks five languages and has a taste for dramatic makeup—generous amounts of mascara and lips painted a glossy red—and she always wears her hair parted down the heart in a distinctive black complect. She was educated at the elite École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where many of France's academics are trained (she wrote her main'due south thesis on Lolita), and she takes to the public stage like a soprano to Sondheim.
Naturally, ambition is part of the package. When she is not circulating amid the New York literati, Ms. Zanganeh is interviewing its elders for Le Monde des Livres, the literary supplement of France's leading newspaper, and occasionally for other European periodicals. (She has written articles about Mr. Rushdie, Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch, New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, Yale scholar Harold Blossom, Gore Vidal and Jonathan Safran Foer, amidst others, and her interview subjects often become friends, mentors or even assign her stories.) Terminal November, she organized a fund-raising reception for victims of the Pakistan earthquake at the Asia Society and persuaded several old subjects to participate. (The keynote speaker was Hillary Clinton.)
That such a person would cull to make her name in New York at a time when America is reviled the world over is somewhat comforting. "I actually miss Europe very much. I adore Europe in many, many means," said Ms. Zanganeh, who favors words such equally "boggling" to refer to things she likes. "In America, at every level you take people constantly saying, 'Well, why not this? Why not that?' I thought that it was energetic. I wanted to do so much, but in Europe I couldn't really do it."
She described present-24-hour interval France as "very medieval," and said that when she'd attempted to volunteer for Amnesty International there, for example, no one would return her phone calls. (Despite the fact that she was born there and comes off equally absolutely Parisian, Ms. Zanganeh said that at home she is looked upon every bit a foreigner and is not considered to exist truly French.) New York, on the other hand, was downright hospitable: When she wanted to write a story about Nabokov for The Times, she simply dialed upwardly Steven Erlanger (then the newspaper's culture editor) and made her pitch.
"And yous know what he said? He wrote back and said, 'Why not?' And I was off to Geneva," Ms. Zanganeh said (she'due south currently applying for a green card). "That, for me, could but happen in America—this feeling of childlike energy. In that location's this platitude that Americans are always optimistic, just it's true. Americans are always so much more optimistic than the French. In France, zip's quite possible."
AROUND 8 P.One thousand. ON Midweek, APRIL 19, Ms. Zanganeh was planted on the stage at the New York Public Library with 4 hot Iranian women in chic black outfits, moderating a give-and-take about her first book, an anthology she edited called My Sis, Baby-sit Your Veil; My Blood brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices. The mission of the book had been to "challenge Western (mis)perceptions about Iran," and the contributors were explaining that they appreciate literature and makeup and detest being idea of around the world every bit flop-toting Arabs. The audition was swirling with Middle Eastern women dripping with jewels and neo-intellectual men gawking at them ("No wonder they keep them covered upward," remarked 1 male author). There was also a hint of European royalty: The designer Diane von Furstenberg was draped over a chair in the front row, with the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy not far behind. (Both are friends of Ms. Zanganeh's.)
Before a packed auditorium, Ms. Zanganeh performed with extreme poise, although some in attendance found the event frustratingly calorie-free on the subject area of politics. At one signal, during a conversation with Azar Nafisi, a fellow "Nabokovian" and the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Ms. Nafisi pointed to the fancy Persian ladies in the front end row and outburst out with: "These are Islamic republic of iran's weapons of mass destruction!"
The night before, Ms. Zanganeh had attended P.E.N.'southward black-tie gala at the Museum of Natural History with Ms. Nafisi. The next week was packed with events for P.E.N.'due south festival of international literature; in between in that location were media appearances on NPR and CNN to promote the Iran book, too as the book'due south launch party.
Nevertheless, Ms. Zanganeh was already feeling burned out on Islamic republic of iran. "Later on this, I don't believe I will write most Iran for some time," she said, explaining that she is wary of "the quintessential American intellectual trap" of existence expected to write merely about your own kind. "It was merely baroque for me—Iranians on Iranians, Arab-Americans on Arab-Americans, fat people on fat people. I thought, 'That'southward strange—I want to write about Africa, I want to write about anti-Semitism, about French literature …. '"
As they were shopping the proposal for the anthology, publishers kept suggesting that Ms. Zanganeh simply write a memoir, which inflamed her. "I thought, 'But I take no memoirs—I've never been to Iran!'" she said. "It'due south only this trend; Iranian women take to write their memoirs of Iran. I thought it was a bad joke. 'What are you talking nearly? Memoirs? No. No manner.'"
Her side by side project, in improver to her journalistic contributions, will be a book about Vladimir Nabokov, which is her truthful passion. (Her agent is Nicole Aragi.) "My interest in Nabokov was really, purely a literary ane. I just adore him," she said, adding that whatever parallels between Russia and Islamic republic of iran were not the source of her adoration. "It took me iv months to read Ada , or Ardor, because I read every page five times. I can't read information technology normally—I tin can't help information technology. I remember, just to give myself a break while I was reading Ada, I began reading The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster, and information technology was like drinking
"But purely the language, the style … ," she connected, becoming all dreamy-eyed, "I really take the feeling that [Nabokov] is phantasmagorique—it's an imaginative, phantasmagoric landscape that belongs to me. That speaks to me. That is me. And it had nothing to do with Iran."
HER Family Dorsum-STORY IS appropriately intense. Ms. Zanganeh'southward male parent founded Iran's domestic airline under the Shah; the family unit left the country for France but prior to the revolution of 1979. Her mother—who writes Italian verse in her spare time—escaped on the last Air France flight out of Tehran on the 24-hour interval that the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived.
Ms. Zanganeh's mother taught her English by making her watch Hamlet with Laurence Olivier, and she besides imparted Italian, Persian and French. Only Ms. Zanganeh said she felt like a misfit for most of her youth. It wasn't until she reached the Lycée Henri-IV, a enervating preparatory school (Jean-Paul Sartre is an alumni), that she finally felt comfortable.
"For the showtime time in my life I was really happy, because I was with people who were exceptional, who were stimulating, they were funny, they were not conformist," Ms. Zanganeh said. "For the first time I met students who thought information technology was interesting that I was Iranian. It wasn't 'Oh, my friends were nighttime and my parents were weird, and why did we speak with accents or foreign languages?' It was like, 'Oh, really—how exotic!' And they began request me questions almost Persian poetry."
Afterwards academy, she spent two years as a instruction boyfriend at Harvard, then enrolled at Columbia'due south School of International and Public Affairs in 2000. She idea she might want to go into television and spent a summer interning with CNN in Russia (CNN was "completely horrible," but she "adored" Russia.) She besides hated the BBC, where she was an intern. ("I certainly wasn't going to do the blond lettuce pilus.") During this period, she took a class at Columbia's journalism school and was inspired to try writing past its famously draconian instructor, the film critic Judith Crist.
"I had always idea before that I can't write," Ms. Zanganeh said. "The thing is as well, when you report literature, I hateful, how can you write? Yous know how bad it is, you know? I call up this whole American thing gave me the humility to be able to write, significant that the French retrieve that writing comes with a stroke of genius—you have it or you don't have it—and the Americans really see writing every bit a craft. And that way you can work and improve."
On Saturday, Apr 29, Ms. Zanganeh was basking in these various turns of events at her book political party. Information technology was held in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Hudson that belonged to two corporate attorneys, Virginia Davies and Willard Taylor, whom Ms. Zanganeh had met through a former boss from an internship at NPR. She was wearing a little silk jacket with intricate buttons and a towering pair of pumps, and was boasting of a recent journalistic "get": an exclusive interview for Le Monde with the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who was in town for the P.East.Northward. festival and who had allegedly backed out of an interview with The Times Magazine but had agreed to sit with Ms. Zanganeh. (Salman Rushdie had even told her that information technology was hopeless.)
"He'd been refusing anybody, evidently," she told 2 male admirers. "I sent him an e-post anyhow, and he agreed!" (She said that she found Mr. Pamuk to be extraordinary.)
"I'm sure he only took a look in your optics," joked 1 of her friends, a documentary filmmaker recently returned from Iraq. "I'one thousand going to refrain from saying something sexist." A moment later in the chat, he said: "My ambition is nothing compared to this woman. She'due south here to conquer the world."
Le Cirque three.0
On the afternoon of May 16, workers busily mopped, vacuumed and tidied upwards in preparation for the opening of the latest incarnation of Le Cirque, now located in the shimmering rotunda of glory-filled One Beacon Court.
Outside the presently-to-be-opened restaurant'south entrance, a sprawling white tent was erected for Manhattan's fine art-loving elite, who would be attending the Whitney's American Art Award gala later on that evening. Information technology seemed similar, in one case once again, Le Cirque was providing refuge for the metropolis's social set.
More than iii decades accept passed since Sirio Maccioni outset opened the storied eatery in the Mayfair Hotel, and later relocated in the 1990's to a larger space in the New York Palace Hotel. Merely the seasoned restaurateur is non slowing downwardly only however, and was on hand to bargain with some finishing touches.
"Y'all accept to be crazy," said Mr. Maccioni, of taking on notwithstanding some other eating house opening. "But it's worth information technology!"
The Whitney fête is actually but the pre-opening party, sort of a dry run for the gala event that Mr. Maccioni is hosting 2 days later on. In that location are countless boldface names already confirmed for that event: Woody Allen, Beak Cosby, Martha Stewart, Ron Perelman, Donald Trump.
"We have 2,000 people coming Thursday dark for the opening," said Mr. Maccioni.
But on May 31, when the doors open for the public, Mr. Maccioni will accept to appease the money set'southward adjacent generation.
"I want to exercise a restaurant where New Yorkers want to go a minimum once, or perhaps twice, a week," said Mr. Maccioni. "I think I know what New York people desire. The people want to come in and feel at habitation."
If past "home" one means fine dining amongst circus-inspired decorations, located in a drinking glass-and-steel tower, and then Mr. Maccioni might be in luck.
Once yous enter the xvi,000-foursquare-foot eating house, the main dining room is located to the left. Since the Whitney oversupply will be eating under the tent outside, most of the dining-room tables were moved to the perimeter of the semi-circular room in order to vacuum the dark red rug. (By Th, tables will be set with Greggio and Ricciarelli silver, Reidel stemware and Villeroy & Boch mainland china). Also, a massive "big peak" lite shade covers the high ceiling, and miniature Alexander Calder–similar, bent-wire sculptures adorn the walls.
Although nevertheless playful in the sometime Le Cirque manner, Mr. Maccioni's longtime aesthetic guru, Adam D. Tihany, has made things oddly more mature in hopes of drawing in a younger crowd of affluent foodies.
"There is clearly an development when it comes to the look and the feel of the place," said Mr. Tihany, who has worked on half-dozen restaurants with Mr. Maccioni beginning in the early 1980's. "The original Le Cirque was more of a French manner—where the circus motif was largely represented by murals of monkeys having tea parties and stuff like that. It was very 18th-century French-blazon décor."
Upon leaving the dining room, more than of the modern touches are evident.
"There is a 27-foot wine tower that is role of the circuitous," said Mr. Tihany, regarding the alpine white structure that—at this point—had nevertheless to exist filled with vino bottles. "Nosotros call information technology the iPod vino tower. It creates a very powerful focal indicate."
Along with the wine tower, the restaurant's glass bar is also located in the 140-seat café section.
"The bar itself is a magic bar," said Mr. Tihany. "It has a dual personality. At nighttime, it reveals colorful bottles that you cannot meet during the day."
In the back hallways of the eatery leading to the bathrooms, custom wallpaper is printed with snapshots of Le Cirque's cherished by, with pictures of Ronald Reagan, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sylvester Stallone and Henry Kissinger.
Past the famous-faces wallpaper and up the stairs, what Mr. Tihany considers the two sections of the eating house—both the proper Le Cirque and the café—becomes dramatically credible. Gazing down from the 80-person private-event mezzanine, the new setup provides a distinction from the restaurateur's previous forays—non to mention that the "iPod vino belfry" protrudes into the mezzanine, helping to unify the various spaces.
Overall, the design presents a stark dissimilarity to Mr. Maccioni'south 1997 venture, the futuristic-sounding Le Cirque 2000.
"Le Cirque 2000 was really an exercise in creating tension between one-time and new," said Mr. Tihany. "It's not unlike how Italians deal with their monuments. They restore them, and then bulldoze a Ferrari and park in the courtyard. It was that kind of dynamic."
"Information technology's certainly a big divergence from the old Le Cirque," said Mr. Tihany. "It has grandeur, but information technology has grandeur in a contemporary key. I think that will appeal to the younger generation. Information technology'due south a modernistic restaurant."
—Michael Calderone
Source: https://observer.com/2006/05/lila-intellectualite-peripatetic-nabokovian/
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