at Remy Bumppo think theatre

The importance of words and the triumph of acting is what impressed me the most when I saw Harold Pinter's play, Old Times, performed last night at Remy Bumppo Theatre. The feeling I had was simply electric from the first moments of the play when Deeley (Nick Sandys) and Anna (Linda Gillum) are conversing, waiting for the arrival of Anna's old friend from twenty years ago to arrive.
When she does appear, Kate (Jenny McKnight) seems to almost be the alter ego, or perhaps the flip side, of Anna in temperament and character. Character matters and these actors made every moment interesting as they brought these characters alive for this short, electric evening of theater. Words matter too, for this play had words tossed about, questioned, and used in a contest of wills between all three characters.

I found the play suspenseful, not due to an action-filled plot but, due to the subtle character changes and reactions between each of the players as they jousted with words and remembered 'old times'. I still remember wondering at the interval if Anna would completely fall apart, or some new moment or word or perceived slight would turn the play in another direction. I also enjoyed the bantering with snippets of song and the recalled cinematic reference to Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, both of which play important parts in the dramatic events of the evening.

Most of all there are the lingering questions about the reality of it all, the contradictions among the stories told and the memories related. In the end the power of these actors to make this play work, with its meaning-laden words and silences, was what made this evening of theater one of the best that I have experienced. It made me realize the importance of the actor in the playwright, and the genius of Harold Pinter.

The Club Dumas

"Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?" said Borgia, watching Corso closely. "There's nothing like that sheen, the gold on leather, behind glass. . . Not to mention the treasures these books contain. . . "I know people who would kill for a collection like this."

- Perez-Reverte, The Club Dumas (p.54)

If you enjoyed reading The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo, and if you enjoy mysteries, this book may be right for you. I admit to being one of those people, in fact I remember my first traversal through the adventures of Edmond Dantes, and I could not put the book down until I finished it.
Arturo Perez-Reverte is an intelligent Spanish writer who includes details in his mysteries that make them seem authentic to the topic, in this case bibliophilia of an antique sort. The story he tells in The Club Dumas involves a detective, Lucas Corso, and two bibliophile mysteries intertwined, one of which involves a Dumas manuscript. The other mystery is a bit more sinister and the denouement seems a bit contrived. However, the mystery is a cut above the average procedural and Perez-Reverte has written several more for those inclined to spend their mysterious hours wrapped in the labyrinths of his fictional detectives.

The Club Dumas by Aturo Perez-Reverte. Harvest Books, New York. 2006 (1995).

Goethe

I am rereading Faust and found the following poem which captures some of the same themes that are on display in Goethe's great drama:



ONE AND ALL

Into the limitless to sink,
No one. I trow, will ever blink,
For there all sorrow we dismiss.
Instead of cravings, wants untold,
Fatiguing demands and duties cold.
Surrender of one's self is bliss.

O. World-soul, come to fill our lives,
For he who with thy spirit strives
Attains the height of his vocation.
Then, sympathetic spirits, speed us;
Great masters, gently higher lead us
To the Creator of creation.

In re-creating the created,
Lest fossilize the animated,
Aye, active power, is manifest;
The non-existing actualizing.

In younger worlds and suns is rising,
But never, nowhere, can be rest.
In active deeds life proves unfolding;
It must be moulded and keep moulding;

Sometimes but seeming rest 'twill gain.
The eternal stirreth in us all;
And into naught we all must fall,
If e'er in life we shall remain.

- Goethe, 1821

Dickens and Death

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

After he became established as a novelist Charles Dickens would regularly give readings from his works for audiences throughout Great Britain. These were very popular and lucrative for the author. While the readings from A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol were popular, according to the discussion in our Newberry Library class, reading Dickens" Oliver Twist, that just ended, the most popular reading from Dickens' works was the scene describing the death of Nancy in Oliver Twist. This suggested to me the idea of noting some of the more interesting deaths portrayed by Dickens over the course of his fourteen novels and commenting upon some of them.
While he started as a comic novelist with Pickwick Papers, Dickens soon began to portray darker themes in his subsequent works beginning with Oliver Twist. In the third and final section of the novel, after Nancy meets with Rose Maylie and is overheard by Noah Claypole, who reports to Fagin, she is set upon by an enraged Bill Sikes who has been incited by Fagin to act. The scene is short and drawn with uncharacteristic brevity of words by the author. After Sikes hits her twice with the butt-end of his pistol the scene ends thus:

She staggered and fell, nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead, but raising herself with difficulty on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief - Rose Maylie's own - and holding it up in her folded hands as high towards heaven as her feeble strength would let her, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker.
It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down.(pp. 396-7)
It is the rage of Sikes that strikes the reader while the abbreviated scene emphasizes the power that this rage. Dickens describes the scene as draped in dark just before dawn, and contrasts the dark with the light of the sun as the next chapter begins (p. 397). There would be other deaths before the end of the book, with both the incarceration and hanging of Fagin and the flight of Sikes, which has his end on the rooftops of a particularly unsavory section of London hanging by his own rope as he falls from the rooftop in a dramatic ending to his brutal career.

One other death, however, had occurred at the very beginning of the novel. Dickens starts his story with the scene in which Oliver becomes an orphan, for he is born to an unwed mother who rather suddenly and unexpectedly dies following giving birth to Oliver. Just after the birth the doctor says to her, "Oh, you must not talk about dying, yet."(p. 4); but just three paragraphs later the young mother kisses the baby and, "gazed wildly around, shuddered, fell back - and died."(p. 5) Perhaps this seems too sudden, but it introduces the mystery of Oliver's parentage (who was the father?) and makes for an engaging opening to the story of the young boy's life.

So what can we make of these deaths, and those to come in later novels? Are they merely part of the realism that Dickens was trying to chronicle in his story-telling, or are there deeper meanings to be found? In the story of Oliver Twist one might intuit a bit of retribution in the deaths of Fagin and Sikes; but, why did Nancy, basically a good person, have to die? I will have to think about these questions as I compare these deaths to some of the others in a future post. In the meantime I'm looking forward to rereading Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop next month, and hoping that they will be less dark than the story told in Oliver Twist.


Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Penguin Classics, New York. 2002 (1837)

Notes on a Darwin Weekend

Further Exploration

There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. . . Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.

- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

The weekend study retreat on Charles Darwin that I just attended included two additional lectures; one on Saturday afternoon by Michaelangelo Allocca, Basic Program Instructor, with the tongue-in-cheek- title, "More Fun than a Barrel of Monkey Trials: Darwin's Complex Relationship with Religion", and one on Sunday morning by George Anastaplo, Basic Program Instructor, "On the Suggestive Origins of Darwin and Lincoln". Professor Anastaplo opened with an epigraph from the movie, King Kong, "It was beauty that killed the beast," and went on to once again demonstrate the fecundity of his ideas, centering his comments mainly on the similarities between the thought of Lincoln and Darwin who share more than simply the same birth date. These similarities included both their approaches to anti-slavery and their relationship with technology. In spite of similarities they were not successful in assessing each other's work.
Michael's presentation was informative in highlighting the complexity of Darwin's relationship with religion from the his early training as a vicar to his specific references to it in his works and letters. Perhaps most interesting, Michael noted the Catholic Church's muted criticism of Darwin in contrast with that of the Anglican church in his day. Continuing to the present the strongest critics of Darwinian evolution have generally been more fundamental Protestants. In addition Michael contrasted Darwin's views on religion with those of Alfred Russell Wallace who, while almost simultaneously developing a similar theory of evolution, held much more eccentric views of religion and the supernatural.

The highlight of the weekend was a multi-media presentation with song on Saturday Evening by Richard Milner, Anthropologist and Historian of Science Extraordinaire. His musical presentation of the life and thought of Darwin was spectacular. A taste of it can be found at his own web site, Darwin Live.

Notes on a Darwin Weekend

An Exploration of Evolutionary Ideas

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this plane has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

I just returned from a weekend immersed in the works and ideas of Charles Darwin who was born two hundred years ago, on February 12, 1809 (the same day as Abraham Lincoln). A group sponsored by the University of Chicago Basic Program of Liberal Education held a weekend study retreat, Charles Darwin: A Continuing Challenge.

On Friday night the weekend commenced with a lecture, "Does Darwin Support or Subvert Morality?", by Larry Arnhart, Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. The lecture and subsequent discussion considered the historical science in Darwin's writings and the difficulties he anticipated. It moved quickly into the consideration of morality where it was noted that Darwin was not neutral; for example, he advocated the abolition of slavery, even criticizing Lincoln who he felt went neither far enough nor fast enough. Darwin's critics claim that his view that people are just "animals" subverts morality; encourages atheism, advocates a materialism that leads to denial of free will, and ultimately leads to the sort of Social Darwinism that results in eugenics and racism. In defending Darwin Prof. Arnhart pointed out that in The Descent of Man Darwin claimed that man has a "natural moral sense" that develops from four stages of his evolutionary development: social instinct, intellectual faculties, language and habit. This "moral sense" is seen as a "highly complex sentiment" that leads to kindness, reciprocity, and mutuality. In conclusion Prof. Arnhart pointed out that sympathy for other humans is the "noblest part of our nature" (The Descent of Man).

Our Friday evening concluded with further discussion about these ideas and others over wine and conviviality. Darwin looked to be a topic that could support an invigorating exploration of ideas.

On Saturday morning, John (Jack) Melsheimer, Instructor in the Basic Program, presented "What Does 'Species' Mean in the Origin of Species?". Darwin said, "No one definition (of species) has satisfied all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species."(p. 65). Generally Darwin uses species as a heuristic recognizing that species is "arbitrarily-given" and used for "convenience sake." Jack presented this and Darwin's discussion of morphology, taxonomy, descent with modification and other issues present in the Origin. It is here that Darwin summarizes his evidence, gathered over many years, for evolution of species such as the existence of rudimentary organs. Darwin uses his final chapter to recapitulate both the objections to his theory (he anticipates all the significant objections even though he does not have the evidence to rebut all of them) and the "general and special circumstances" in its favor. While presenting a picture of Darwin as a naturalist, and enthusiast for Aristotle and a genius capable of identifying and presenting fundamental scientific principles. We left the morning talk discussing the nature of species and pondering: are they real or theoretical constructs?



The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Modern Library, New York. 1993 (1859)
The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin. Prometheus Books, New York. 1998 (1874)

My New Favorite Sonnet

XII.


When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

- William Shakespeare

The last six lines just take my breath away. The line, "that thou among the wastes of time must go", captures the feeling and regret when one is realizes the power of time, moving inexorably. It is a rare beauty that summons such courage. Once more Shakespeare demonstrates his greatness.

Sabatini

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony.

- Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche

Rafael Sabatini was born on this day in 1875; above, the opening lines of Scaramouche (1921), his best-selling novel of the French Revolution (the lines inscribed on his gravestone when he died in 1950). This is my favorite of Sabatini's novels, with its story of the young aristocrat who becomes involved with the politics and turbulence of the revolution.
It has precursors in the work of Dumas and you might compare Saramouche to Cyrano or the Scarlet Pimpernel, but he stands on his own as one of the great romantic heroes of historical literature. Sabatini's most famous works have been translated into the classic swashbuckling films Captain Blood and Scaramouche. However, these books represent a small fraction of Sabatini's work. A popular author during his lifetime, he produced 31 novels, 8 short novel/short story collections, 6 nonfiction books, numerous short stories, and a play. Sabatini's writing, usually fiction in a historic setting, explores political intrigue, religion, and the place of chivalry and honor, while entertaining with clever dialogue, deftly drawn characters and action sequences as vivid and thrilling as modern movies.


Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini. Chronicle Books, San Francisco. 1991 (1921)

Our Journey

More Poetry from
'Geography Lessons'

Journey




Thus the first thing that plague brought to our town was exile.
- Albert Camus, The Plague

Hell hath no limits, nor is it circumscrib'd
In one self place, for where we are is hell, 
And where hell is , must we ever be.
- Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus*


Where dare we go when first we try to sing our tune?
It is a song we sing that allows some escape
From our sentence wrought by years of - it is ruin
That presses in upon our breast - our home of late.

Yes, the place is not an edifice of strength.
Rather it is a mirage melded from dreams
Full of lightning and fears , shattering mirrors,
Making us forget what we might become.

Our lives portray a pretty dismal scene. We cannot
See ourselves - our virtue is lost. Never more will
Scenes of summer ring true in the evening shade.
We grow old - withering as we reach our wintry grave.

Gravitudinal shifts in our being do not change our journey.
We dare to go (Yet every place the story is the same).
The boundaries of our self-imposed exile from Eden
Doom each of us to everlasting penury.


January, 1994 (2004) from Geography Lessons by James Henderson



* Marlowe's Faust signs a pact with Satan for 24 years of unlimited power and pleasure. At the end of the poem Faustus fears his fate in Hell and tries to find faith. Unfortunately, Faustus' faith in God is not strong enough to save him, and he is carried away to Hell by Satan.

Education and History

The History Boys
by Alan Bennett

It was with some trepidation that I walked down Broadway Avenue early this afternoon to attend the Chicago premiere of Alan Bennett's play The History Boys presented by the TimeLine Theatre Company.
More than two years ago I fell in love with the film version of the original production which had won awards in both London and New York. While I had not seen the stage version I had read the play and was impressed with Alan Bennett's original vision which had been severely abridged for the film adaptation. I should not have entertained any doubt for, based on previous experience with great plays and performances at TimeLine, I had nothing to worry about.


The History Boys as directed by Nick Bowling makes a vibrant, exciting and ultimately moving evening of theater.  The 
production, with the boys' living spaces highlighting one end of the theater space and a balcony at the other end, once again shows how imaginative the set designers at TimeLine can be in using their limited space, and how successful the company is in presenting the play. Best of all is the cast, from Donald Brearley's moving portrayal of Hector, Terry Hamilton's intense imagining of the Headmaster and Ann Wakefield's sincere realization of Mrs. Lintott; and, above all, the eight effervescent boys who each individually and together as a group convey the difficulties and joy of their preparation for entrance into Oxford and Cambridge. Among the boys, for me, the performances of Will Allan as Scripps and Joel Gross as Dakin stood out as particularly persuasive. Nick Bowling's direction allowed this very literary play to seem natural, balancing the constant dialogue with attention to dramatic silences and plenty of movement in just the right proportion. I must also mention both the effective use of period music during the intervals and the overhead video screens that aided the understanding of the play through timely visuals while providing a few moments of comic relief. The presence of comic relief helped take the edge off the building erotic tension that grew slowly out of the both the complexities of relationships among the main characters and the meaning of education explored in the play. Above all the camaraderie among the boys and their teachers was clearly present throughout the play making the emotions at the end even more effective. TimeLine Theatre Company has clearly taken this modern literary gem from the pen of Alan Bennett and made it their own. Chicagoans should attend, enjoy, and rejoice!

Among School Children

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.


Thus begins one of the greatest among W. B. Yeats later poems and one of the best poems of the twentieth century. I still remember a University of Chicago First Friday lecture by Claudia Traudt several years ago when she recited and analyzed this poem. Before the end of the lecture the beauty of the poem (and her recitation) brought tears to my eyes.

I cannot begin to share all the ideas and resonances that are contained in this marvelous work of art. As with all great poetry you do not need to know all the layers of meaning, but they add to your enjoyment of it and the understanding permeates the feeling of the beauty. Just the beginning line, which situates you in a schoolroom, can suggest the literal schoolroom and the metaphorical schoolroom that is the world in which we live. Certainly Yeats was alive to both and his poetry inspires the continued learning for those who read and meditate upon its meaning.

After sharing six more stanzas of reflections on life and its meaning - the beauty of learning from dialogues of Plato to the spiritual reveries of religious thought - he closes with a final stanza of transcendent beauty:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Here is a great poetic soul musing about the nature of creativity. The lines linger in one's memory and like all great art remind one of the greatness of humanity. (The whole poem may be found on-line here)



The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Scribner, 1956.

Dorian Gray

Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood-- his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?

Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to that.

- Oscar Wilde (p. 164, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde, was published in April 1891. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is greatly impressed by Dorian's physical beauty and becomes strongly infatuated with him, believing that his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Talking in Basil's garden, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and the fulfilment of the senses. And so Gray, it appears, becomes a sort of Faust, and that evening he goes to the opera with his Mephistopheles, Lord Henry. In the following days, Wotton indeed proves a “bad influence,” for Dorian begins following him in the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. They engage in scandalous activities which erode Dorian’s innocence. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian cries out, expressing his desire to sell his soul to ensure that the portrait Basil has painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a series of debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin being displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic example of the Victorian novel and one of those books that can effect the reader in a powerful and unique way. The idea of selling your soul to the devil, like Faust as related by Marlowe, Goethe and others is an image that intrigues. But there is in Wilde the focus on the purity of innocence (as seen in the passage quoted above) that is lost as one lives a life, whether filled with licentiousness or mere everyday experience. Wilde gives the story his own imprimatur with the artistic twist and thus adds to the evidence of his genius that includes the drama, stories, poetry and criticism that he created.

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Stories, Plays, Poems & Essays. Perennial Library, 1989.

Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov was born on this day in 1899. Here is a passage from Speak, Memory:

I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness — in a landscape selected at random — is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern -- to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.


In a sense his prose is like a rare butterfly, but with a beauty that is eternal, not ephemeral. When I first read him I do not remember, but the vision of 'Lo' will always remain in my memory.

Dante

The Guide and I entered by that hidden road, to return into the bright world; and, without caring for any rest,
we mounted up, he first and I second, so far that I distinguished through a round opening the beauteous things which Heaven bears; and thence we issued out, again to see the Stars.

- The Inferno, Canto XXXIV, Dante

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, trans. by Carlyle-Okey-Wicksteed. Vintage Books. 1959
The image above is Dante's Tomb in Ravenna

Oliver Twist

"'There are a good many books, are there not my boy?' said Mr. Brownlow"
"'A great number, sir,' replied Oliver; 'I never saw so many.'"

(p. 107)

I have returned to Dickens after a brief hiatus and find myself immersed in Oliver Twist, his second novel, but his first novel in the modern sense, since Pickwick Papers was more a group of picaresque adventures and related short tales than a novel. Once again there are famous characters, perhaps as familiar to people as any outside of A Christmas Carol; thus Mr. Bumble, the Beadle, the 'Artful Dodger', Fagin, Bill Sykes and Nancy as well as Oliver himself seem to be almost real historical figures rather than characters from a Victorian novel. Dickens style is still fairly simple, he has not matured as a novelist, and the book strikes this reader, who first read it as a teenager, to be a novel written for teens rather than adults. However if you read between the lines and meditate on the nature of some of the relationships you can find the 'adult' novel that is there as well. Interestingly, Dickens has the narrator speak directly to the reader from time to time, at one point claiming "I am his biographer," when commenting on Oliver's entrance into the Sowerberry undertaking establishment, and his unfortunate experience of Noah Claypole's "ill treatment" of him.

The novel is divided into three books and the first one introduces Oliver, the young innocent recalcitrant orphan who deigns to ask for "more" and thus finds the catalyst for his adventures into the world beyond the workhouse. From living with undertakers, and sleeping in a coffin, to discovering the world of the upper middle class and books with the Brownlows he is buffeted about, yet seems fated to find his home in the world of orphan boys under the leadership of Fagin. The first book ends with a bit of a cliff-hanger in the episode with Oliver abetting Syke's burglary escapade. But we all know that is not the end. . .


Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Penguin Classics, New York. 2003 (1837)

Two Monday Poems


Sonnet VIII.

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

- William Shakespeare

An Eternity

There is no dusk to be,
There is no dawn that was,
Only there's now, and now,
And the wind in the grass.

Days I remember of
Now in my heart, are now;
Days that I dream will bloom
White the peach bough.

Dying shall never be
Now in the windy grass;
Now under shooken leaves
Death never was.

- Archibald MacLeish (Who died on this day in 1982)

Bruckner

Last night I attended a performance of Anton Bruckner's massive Symphony No. 8 in c with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink. The performance was impressive.

It is exactly this sort of music for which the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is well suited and justifiably famous.

I could write many paragraphs about the Symphony and Bruckner's struggles to get it performed. The result of those struggles is the existence of several different versions of the symphony, of which the Haitink chose the Nowak version. The exquisite length of the symphony has been compared to massive stateliness of a Gothic cathedral and this is an apt comparison given both Bruckner's personal piety and his life as a successful church organist.

The eighth symphony of Bruckner belongs to the world a transcendent works of art. It hearkens back to all that had preceded him in symphonic music, but to Wagner in particular whom Bruckner idolized. It is not hard to see the references to his idol, but the music is still uniquely Bruckner's own. It seems to appear as if from the ether with a sound that fills Symphony hall as if it has always been there. Rather than attempt to describe it further, for mere words seem insufficient for the purpose, let me just suggest that you need to listen to it to understand and appreciate it. And, if you do want to listen, I would recommend highly the interpretation of Gunter Wand conducting the Berlin Philharmoniker in a live recording (RCA Red Seal from BMG Classics). The experience yesterday evening was one of proverbial transport and reminded me why I enjoy the symphony.


Symphony No. 8 in c by Anton Bruckner. Gunter Wand, Berlin Philharmoniker. RCA Red Seal by BMG Classics. 2001.

Reading


One of the best statements about reading I have ever read comes in the last moments of the first act of Alan Bennett's play, The History Boys, when Hector says:

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. (p.56)

This is a powerful moment in the play and a striking observation about the reader and the act of reading. These moments are rare and worth looking for and remembering. One recent moment, for me, was near the end of Anthony Powell's A Question of Upbringing, when Jenkins realizes that his relationship with Stringham has changed permanently and that this sort of change is part of the natural process of living and growing. These moments are universal and the author that can capture them and share them with the reader has managed to portray the universal in the human experience.


The History Boys: A Play by Alan Bennett. Faber and Faber, New York. 2006 (2004)

Twentieth Century Master

Robert Musil


Today is the anniversary of the death of Robert Musil, author of The Man Without Qualities, who died on this day in 1942. Yesterday was the last meeting of the Newberry Library class in which for the last nine weeks we read and discussed the first volume of that novel. It is coincidental that Robert Musil died in the midst of the Second World War and in the midst of working on the novel which he left unfinished. On rereading Musil I have come to a appreciation of why he may have found it so difficult to complete the project, for his protagonist, Ulrich - the man without qualities - was so definitely a man who considered the unlimited number of possibilities before acting. As Musil said, "What is seemingly solid in this system becomes a porous pretext for many possible meanings; . . . and man as the quintessence of his possibilities, potential man,"(p. 270); the task before him must have seemed daunting. The result - he left thousands of pages of manuscript unfinished, unedited, unpublished at his death.

At the end of the first volume of The Man Without Qualities Ulrich has just learned of his father's death and is seen heading for the train station to return home to attend to his duties. This is an ending of sorts, at least for this seven hundred page prelude to the remainder of the novel. It is a prelude that includes introductions to a roster of characters who, unlike Ulrich, portray characteristics that place them definitely in 1913 Vienna where we find most of them participating in a centennial celebration referred to as the 'Parallel Campaign'. Beside this campaign we also see glimmerings of the rise of the 'new' Germany that would emerge after the Great War which remains only, an unmentioned, possibility.

Through the whole of the first volume Ulrich both meditates internally and interacts with the other characters regarding the nature of this world and its activities and, most importantly, the possibilities facing him - the 'what if' or subjunctive nature of life. This can be summarized briefly as a discussion of the difference between the precise measurement of the modern scientific view of man and the imprecision of the artistic or more spiritual view. The society presented in the novel is particular, yet universal and in that society Ulrich is the most universal individual. As the first volume of this rather uneventful story edges toward its close suddenly several events erupt to bring some of the action into focus. These lead to a moment where Musil brings Ulrich and the reader face to face to contemplate "the narrative mode of thought to which private life still clings,". This mode of thought may give one the "impression that their life has a 'course' (that) is somehow their refuge from chaos." (p. 709) Or we may believe that it is not an impression, but a reality made through our creation of our own life through our actions and influences ("Man is not a teaching animal but one that lives, acts, and influences." - Goethe).


The Man Without Qualities I by Robert Musil. Sophie Wilkins, trans. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1995 (1952).

Eudaimonia

Once again my early morning run has triggered thoughts. That thoughts might be coursing through my brain like so many electro-chemical reactions is not surprising, but that I am capable of considering them and wondering why still makes me pause to reflect.
One fundamental idea that underlays my being is that of eudaimonia. For some this may seem a strange word - it is a classical Greek word often translated as 'happiness'. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune). Although popular usage of the term happiness refers to a state of mind, related to joy or pleasure, eudaimonia rarely has such connotations, and the less subjective "human flourishing" is often preferred as a translation.

I mention that in the spirit of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics where he states, "every art and every scientific inquiry, and similarly every action and purpose, may be said to aim at some good. Hence 'the good' has been well defined as that at which all things aim."(Book I, Chapter I) According to Aristotle, the hierarchy of human purposes aim at eudaimonia as the highest, most inclusive end. This is the end to which everyone in fact aims. Further, it is the only end towards which it is worth undertaking a means. Eudaimonia is constituted, according to Aristotle, not by honor, or wealth, or power, but by rational activity in accordance with virtue over a complete life.

That is quite a goal for one, but worth pursuing if only because it is an ideal to be aimed at in evaluating your life activities. Elsewhere in the Nicomachean Ethics (Book X, Chapter VII) he claims the greatest happiness is activity in conformity with the highest virtue, (i.e., with that which is the virtue of the best part of man). Intelligence is man's highest possession and the objects of intelligence are the highest objects within his grasp, thus it is clear that the life of contemplation and theoretical wisdom must be the greatest of human virtues and the highest form of happiness. I am not suggesting some ethereal spiritual activity but one more practical in the sense that it is integrated with the goal setting and seeking process in which thinking humans engage. This is rationality in action and the ideal is in its execution over time. Developing a habit as Aristotle or William James might say - developing a habit much like the habit of running in the park. Perhaps it is enough to consider one's thoughts and in so considering seek eudaimonia as the chief good to which you subordinate all other actions.

"guide to being free"

Distraction
by Damon Young

"Grasp the exhaustless life that all men live! Each shares therein, though few may comprehend: Where'er you touch, there's interest without end."

Goethe

Faust (Prelude on the Stage)

I subscribe to that view of Aristotle's that "all men by nature desire to know". In my personal search to know I have read many books and found some thinkers, like Aristotle, that help me make sense out of the world and develop a personal philosophy. Goethe, who defined modern man and his striving, is another of those for whom I see both affinities and challenges. My current rereading of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities (and the first serious close study) is part of my personal search. It was my interest in Robert Musil that led me to an Australian philosopher and author, Damon Young, whose book Distraction: A Philosopher's Guide to Being Free is just what the title suggests, and much more.

In reading through Distraction I have found confirmation that it is a "guide to being free" as stated in the subtitle of the book, but it is also an exploration of the nature of man in his search to explain the world around him. The discussion of distraction, what it is and what it means, leads in interesting and unexpected directions. The nature of and importance of freedom for individuals is explored through discussions of a wide variety of thinkers. These include philosophers from Aristotle to Marcuse, and literary artists including Henry James and Robert Musil. Some of my favorite thinkers are here, like Aristotle and William James, but also those with whom I disagree, like Nietzsche, Marx and Marcuse. Present as well are writers and artists with whose works I have little familiarity like Heidegger, Matisse and Foucault. I look forward to exploring some of their works.

That list of thinkers mentioned above suggests another aspect of Distraction, one which I find appealing, as a jumping off point for further discovery and expansion of knowledge. The final section of the book, a sort of annotated bibliography, called "Balancing the Books", is helpful in this regard. I appreciate authors who share their ideas for further reading with the reader. These brief comments only begin to touch on the wealth of ideas in Distraction, and I may make future comments based on the thoughts that it will have prompted in my reading and thinking. I only know that my search is spurred by reading Distraction as it raises more questions for me than it answers, and that is a very good thing.


Distraction: A Philosopher's Guide to Being Free by Damon Young. Melbourne University Press, 2008.

Wilde & Betjeman



Oscar Wilde was arrested on this day in 1895 as he waited at the Cadogan Hotel, having made the decision to face trial rather than flee the country.

The following is the poem, "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel," by Sir John Betjeman, who was born on this day in 1906:


The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel

By John Betjeman

He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer
As he gazed at the London skies
Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains
Or was it his bees-winged eyes?

To the right and before him Pont Street
Did tower in her new built red,
As hard as the morning gaslight
That shone on his unmade bed,

“I want some more hock in my seltzer,
And Robbie, please give me your hand—
Is this the end or beginning?
How can I understand?

“So you’ve brought me the latest Yellow Book:
And Buchan has got in it now:
Approval of what is approved of
Is as false as a well-kept vow.

“More hock, Robbie—where is the seltzer?
Dear boy, pull again at the bell!
They are all little better than cretins,
Though this is the Cadogan Hotel.

“One astrakhan coat is at Willis’s—
Another one’s at the Savoy:
Do fetch my morocco portmanteau,
And bring them on later, dear boy.”

A thump, and a murmur of voices—
(”Oh why must they make such a din?”)
As the door of the bedroom swung open
And TWO PLAIN CLOTHES POLICEMEN came in:

“Mr. Woilde, we ‘ave come for tew take yew
Where felons and criminals dwell:
We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly
For this is the Cadogan Hotel.”

He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book.
He staggered—and, terrible-eyed,
He brushed past the plants on the staircase
And was helped to a hansom outside.


Collected Poems by John Betjeman. John Murray, London. 1995.