Another Project Gutenberg book is a short biography and critical appraisal of Puccini,
written around the time of Madame Butterfly's premiere. It's after Boheme,
Manon Lescaut and Tosca, but before Turandot, of course. Puccini was certainly
a man of his kind, and unapologetic to boot. Attitudes towards music and
especially towards things people are unfamiliar with never fail to amaze.
It's a set of poems and short prose pieces that Project Gutenberg
provided. I have not come across these before. In the title piece, Leda, Huxley
offers these lines...
The smell of his own sweat
Brought back to mind his Libyan desert-fane
Of mottled granite, with its endless train
Of pilgrim camels, reeking towards the sky
Ammonian incense to his horned deity;
The while their masters worshipped, offering
Huge teeth of ivory, while some would bring
Their Ethiop wives - sleek wine skins of black silk,
Jellied and huge from drinking asses' milk
Through years of tropical idleness, to pray
For offspring (whom he ever sent away
With prayers unanswered, lest their ebon race
Might breed and blacken the earth's comely face).
Do we read Brave New World differently once we know these lines? Or do we ascribe to Huxley merely the adopted assumptions of his times?
To say that The
Journey of Anders Sparrman, by Per Wästberg is a tale of two halves would
transcend cliché. Rarely will one encounter such an apparently complete
transformation of a character mid-way through a story, and even more rarely
will one encounter such a thoroughly credible transformation.
This is a story about a scientist, a botanist explorer of
the eighteenth century. Anders Sparrman was Swedish and was raised in a
straight-laced society. He studied with Linnaeus at a time when a thoroughly
new notion of biological species was emerging from beneath the stone laid by
the creationism of Christian doctrine. A sense of discovering empiricism
pervades this story of a real historical figure. The result is neither
biography nor fiction, whilst simultaneously combining elements of both. Events
are drawn directly from Sparrman’s life, as recorded in his own journals, but
dialogue and encounters between characters are created to embroider the
backcloth of fact. This may sound like conventional historical fiction, but the
sense of biography in this work is always strong enough to dominate.
Anders Sparrman’s story is told chronologically, a device
that only magnifies the eventual transformation of his life. We follow him to
sea as a young man. We accompany him on board Captain James Cooke’s voyages of
so-called discovery. One feels that Sparrman’s work in natural history is where
the real discoveries are taking place, whilst Cooke’s more grandiose and
historically more consequential claims might just be a tad overstated.
Throughout, Anders Sparrman comes across as a dedicated, perhaps rather staid,
sober and conventional documenter of experience. His quest for truth seems
nothing less than single-minded, perhaps myopic, and his thirst for detail
sometimes seems to exclude any view of a bigger picture.
Back at home in Sweden, he moves from one apparently well
done but unappreciated job to another. He takes over the management of an
institution and attempts reform, and thus makes enemies and friends, as might
be expected. As the years pass, his memories of and achievements within his
years of seafaring and travel begin to fade.
But then he discovers sex. She is not particularly young,
beautiful or desirable, apparently. Lotta and Anders, we are told, choose one
another not because of their merits, their appearance or anything else we might
usually associate with breeding partners. Rather, in their case, it was a
mutual sense of desperation that brought them together. It is as if both of
them clutched at and grasped an opportunity life had resolved to deny them. And
then, without qualification, they took a firm grip on their opportunity and
went for it.
Anders Sparrman seems suddenly reincarnated. At least his
relation to biology is redrawn, since he suddenly transformed from observer to
participant, from the narrow end of the microscope onto the slide, so to speak.
A bland and probably predictable life suddenly blossoms by virtue of
involvement, and simultaneously the empiricism that discovered becomes personal
experience that feels and creates.
The Journey of Anders Sparrman, by Per Wästberg
thus becomes a difficult kind of reading experience. Lulled into a sense of
predictable safety by the devotion and dedication to its subject, we spend most
of the book taking risks at sea and in far-off lands without sensing danger.
And then, in the comfort of our own home, we are suddenly propelled into a
vivid universe of emotional and sexual fulfilment that is as threatening as a
warm hearth, but literally takes the breath away. The Journey of Anders Sparrman, by Per Wästberg is a
remarkable experience, both as a book and a life.
Edvard Radzinski’s Stalin is literally and figuratively an enormous work. But perhaps a quarter of a million words is still insufficient to do justice to a subject as monstrously bloodthirsty as Jozef Stalin. Even a list of names of those he ordered killed might not be longer than this tome.
Published in 1996, the book claims to be the first in-depth
study of Stalin since the release of documents that happened at the demise of
the Soviet Union. Exactly what role this material played is still unclear, but
what it did not do was change the author’s opinion of his subject. In
hindsight, it is perhaps not possible to hold a different view. Today, even the
most diehard supporter of Bolshevism would acknowledge the utter perversity of
Stalin’s crimes, but what always seems to be lacking in studies such as Edvard
Radzinski’s is a fair description of the context in which the excesses
unfolded.
What is clear about Stalin is that he was a survivor,
despite, or perhaps because of the fact that many who became associated with
him were not. From the very start, however, as a local activist in Georgia, he
was a ruthless operator. In the name of collective action, he displayed a
single-minded devotion to self-promotion. Like a stereotypical gangland
streetfighter, he survived by standing on the bodies of those he could knock
down. Thus, in a state that claimed its authority came from “the people”, Stalin
became, effectively, the archetypal absolute monarch. Like in medieval
kingdoms, where so many people at court seemed to end their lives on a chopping
block having offended the all-powerful ruler, there was apparently no shortage
of those who were willing to be admitted to the dangerous inner circle. Perhaps
the rewards were worth the risk. Perhaps refusal, especially in the case of
Stalin, guaranteed an even faster promotion to the butcher’s axe.
Overall, the book is rather predictable and even reads like polemic
in places. Perhaps worth reading… I finished it two years ago and thought it
not worth reviewing…
Overdone.
Overblown.
Overlong.
Ecosystems promote diversity: markets do the opposite. A single line worth reading was worth the sheer boredom of the rest.
What a failed idea, which was to write a novel about environmental issues from the point of view of campaigners, forests and their roots... Just does not work.
Enough.
Despite Spain’s rising number of coronavirus cases, concert halls are open. The audiences wear masks, seat suitably distanced, regularly disinfect their hands, have their temperatures checked and wait in an orderly fashion to be dismissed at the end.
In one of the more memorable musical evenings, part of ADDA Alicante’s contemporary music festival, percussion group Amores with sopranos María Maciá, and Èlia Casanova presented a programme of Stockhausen and Hildegard of Bingen. It’s not often that works separated by 800 years are programmed side by side. And it is even less likely they will connect with the narrative. Three plain song pieces by Hildegard von Bingen were performed by Èlia Casanova and these were interposed with ten of the Tierkreis, twelve zodiac pieces by Stockhausen. This constituted thirteen pieces and so the concert was called Thirteen, Dreizehn.
Now this number, with its connotations of bad luck, the devil and betrayal, seemed to be significant in the concert’s narrative. As the evening progressed, a transformation took place which, eventually, was seen not as a transformation at all, merely a nuance of interpretation.
Assisted occasionally by a synthesizer Èlia Casanova began by singing Hildegard‘s plainsong on Christian texts. She wore white, though with a thin black veil, and apparently sang from an open book of light. She also, just once, used a musical box, which also served to remind the audience that the Stockhausen pieces were originally written for that medium.
At the end of Èlia Casanova’s first piece, María Maciá, dressed all in black, appeared. It was clear from the very moment of her entry that that this is a very different version of womanhood from the contemplative nun that was Hildegard of Bingen. María Maciá then sang, alongside the percussion trio, four of the ten chosen zodiac pieces. There followed another Hildgard plainchant, three more Zodiac pieces, another plainchant and then the final three Zodiac signs, the last one featuring both sopranos, united in their mutual transformation.
The sung part of Stockhausen‘s music consisted of vocalized seductive syllables and sounds associated with each astrological sign, including in Pisces singing underwater! What you can probably see coming is these two different versions of womanhood seemed to influence one another, transforming the purity of Hildegard into something more earthy and earthly. This also happened musically, as the last of the plainchant developed an accidental here or there, adopted a rhythmic character and was thus transformed into a pop song, jazz singing or even blues.
The transformation was complete, both personal and musical, but the musical changes had been minimal, reminding us of the fundamentally modal character of popular music to this day. And so an unlikely juxtaposition made perfect narrative sense.
In the quartet concert, we had the Sonata opus 3 no.4 for two violins of Leclair, Beethoven’s Sonatensatz duo for viola and cello, the Madrigals of Martinu for violin and viola and finally the Mozart Divertimento No1 K39b for string trio.
And then on the Saturday we heard the octet in Elgar’s Serenade, Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne for cello and orchestra, Ernest Bloch’s Prayer for the same grouping and Piazzolla’s Tango Ballet.
The
evening was completed by a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet which, as ever,
created its own space and time. Four days, three concerts and almost every work
in a different musical style.
Like Life is obviously a pun on life-like. It may also be read as a command, associated with liking life, which would be ironic, since the still life that these forms present is translated in many languages not as still, but dead. One of the threads that binds the discussion is that when sculpture becomes literally like life, it has generally been dismissed by critics as artefact, thus relegated and denied the label art. And at the heart of the discussion is the use of colour.
Modelled on a misplaced assumption that classical sculpture was expressed via a visual language derived from the unblemished whiteness of marble, the story of sculpture unfolded via this misunderstood desire to reproduce classical values through both purity of whiteness and fineness of finish. Like Life not only reminds us that these classical works were originally polychrome, it also asserts that this false set of values conveniently coincided with the European view that whiteness was always superior, and that anything coloured was, by inspection, inferior. Anything polychrome was thus firmly relegated to the ambit of the artisan, not the artist. And it was this assumption that for centuries effectively separated the worlds of sculpture and painting.
The original Met Breuer exhibition displayed sculpture from the later medieval era up to the present day, but non-chronologically. It juxtaposed items to illustrate themes, contrasts and contradictions in a thoroughly stimulating way. The catalogue of Like Life also does this, but the intellectual arguments within its texts are perhaps even more arresting than the visual punches the exhibition delivered.
Why is it that in painting, an attempt to render flesh flesh-coloured is normal even laudable,, whereas in sculpture it has for centuries been seen as devaluing the object? Why is it that we expect a sculptor to start with stone, wood or wax and work it into an image of their choice, rather than mould directly from the human form? Why do we still reject realism, when that realism depicts the everyday objects we normally do not associate with art? Why do expect idealised human forms, rather than real people, defects, foibles and all? Why is it that the sculpted naked human form still generally does not depict genitals? Why do we devalue sculpture that is modelled directly from life? What becomes clear quite early on in this journey through a history of sculpture is that the process it illustrates could be applied to any artistic form upon which we are willing to offer opinions. It could be painting, music, theatre, literature, poetry, etc. Upon what basis do we describe value or worth, upon what set of rules do we ascribe artistic value? And what controlling role do our presumptions play in editing what we see, or at least our interpretation of what we see? And, perhaps most important of all, if we are slaves to our presumptions, who or what generated them?
Functionality has always been a consideration. If an object is wholly divorced from use, then it has always been more likely, in our Western mode of thinking, that is, to be regarded as art. Mannequins in shopfronts, just like polychrome inflated cherubs decorating altarpieces, have always been seen as functional rather than artistic. A sculptor who chisels at a block of jasper to model a bust produces art, sometimes, whereas an undertaker who plaster-casts a death mask does not. But then, a death mask is not representing life, is it? It shows a form incapable of movement, after all. But then how can we see a still life as art, because that cannot move, can it?
Viewing the exhibition itself and certainly reading the catalogue can literally change the way a person looks at the world. A flea market that used to offer repeated tables of junk, now presents objects that have a reason to exist. What the observer must try to glean is why the maker of the object decided to represent that thing, in that way, in that material and in that colour. Like Life thus leads to complication. What previously was seen, and perhaps largely ignored, becomes objectified, separate, worthy of being looked at actively, rather than received in a passive, even dismissive way. Not many books have this kind of effect on their readers.
Like Life is as much a challenge as it is a presentation. Yes, we are
presented with images of sculpture and asked to react. But the commentary often
offers such a radically different approach from that which we may assume that
it really does challenge us to reinterpret and re-evaluate our presumptions. It
is what art is supposed to do, isn’t it?
