Riddle of Mozart

Mozart 

by Wolfgang Hildesheimer

"The riddle of Mozart is precisely that 'the man' refuses to be a key for solving it. In death, as in life, he conceals himself behind his work."  - Wolfgang Hildesheimer






The 1977 biography of Wolfgang Hildesheimer, "Mozart," is a noteworthy and frequently contentious addition to our knowledge of the renowned composer. A complex, difficult, and profoundly human portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is presented by Hildesheimer, who avoids an unduly romanticized or hagiographic approach. Decades after its publication, this portrait still sparks debate and reexamination.

Hildesheimer's work is fundamentally a demythologization. He removes the façade of the carefree genius who creates masterpieces with ease, the porcelain prodigy. Rather, he explores Mozart's imperfections, fears, and eccentricities by using a psychoanalytical lens to delve into the composer's mind. As demonstrated by the biography's candid discussion of Mozart's notorious scatological humor in his letters, this "Mozart" is not always a comfortable character; at times, he can come across as perplexing, aloof, and even uncivilized.

One of the most unique aspects of the book is that it is a "meta-biography." Hildesheimer is not satisfied with merely narrating Mozart's life story. He actively participates in and critiques the biographical writing process itself, especially the customs that have molded Mozart's reputation over the ages. He criticizes earlier biographers for projecting their own ideals onto their subject, being sentimental, and having wishful thinking. This critical attitude includes challenging long-held beliefs and conducting a thorough analysis of sources.

It is a theme-based biographical analysis of Mozart's life. Using excerpts from Mozart's letters, the author creates an engaging, though never hagiographic, account of his life and music. Mozart fans will enjoy this entertaining and well-written biography.

Living Well

Music at Midnight: 

The Life and Poetry of George Herbert 

by John Drury

“Living well is the best revenge.” ― George Herbert






Widely regarded as an important and perceptive biography, John Drury's "Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert" provides a thorough and captivating examination of the 17th-century metaphysical poet. Instead of presenting a simple cradle-to-grave account, Drury skillfully combines Herbert's life story with insightful criticism of his poetry, showing how his enduring verse was significantly influenced by his own experiences, spiritual challenges, and the sociopolitical climate of early 17th-century England.

Without compromising academic rigor, Drury does a commendable job of making Herbert and his world understandable to modern readers. Both seasoned Herbert scholars and those unfamiliar with his work will find his prose appealing, often characterized as eloquent and devoid of complex academic jargon. Drury's insightful analysis of Herbert's poems, exploring their formal and stylistic mastery, theological profundity, and emotional resonance, is one of the book's main strengths. The book effectively reveals the "autobiographical implications" of Herbert's poetry, demonstrating how his poems "obviously and confessedly arise from his life experiences."

The main accomplishment of the book is the way it skillfully blends incisive literary criticism with Herbert's biography. By deftly situating readings of the poems within Herbert's life story, Drury enables readers to understand the background from which they were taken. Drury finds a balance between making the content understandable and offering an informed, in-depth account. He breaks down difficult theological concepts in an understandable way, clarifies historical context, and explains archaic language. The end product is an excellent read.

Top Ten Books On My Winter TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish.  
The following are books that I am planning on reading for the next few months.  There may be others that add to or supplant some on this list.

1. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout:  This is for our Thursday Night Book Group.  We read and enjoyed Olive Kittredge and this looks to be a good read also.

2. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke:  This is a reread of this classic.  Our monthly SF Group selected this for December. 

3. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges:  This is a great biography of one of the pioneers of the modern computer and more.

4. Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars:  A comic cross between Celine and Beckett, this is an expressionist masterpiece.

5. Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy: Iwill be reading a selection of his (long) short stories in January alongside the next item on the list.

6. The Short Fiction of Thomas Mann:  I plan to read and reread some of Mann's great short fiction like Tristan, Tonio Kroger, and other tales.

7. Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett:  This is a recent (2011) biography from an author who has just released a new translation of Anna Karenina.

8. The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes:  This presents the history of science in the Romantic age from Captain Cook to the first voyage of Charles Darwin.

9. The Infatuations by Javier Marias:  I have read his The Man of Feeling and look forward to returning to this great Spanish author.

10. Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard:  Described as "A searing portrayal of Vienna's bourgeosie";  I expect this to be as good as Wittgenstein's Nephew.

Some other tbr books that are not in the top ten include:  The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa;  Complexity and the Arrow of of Time edited by Charles H. Lineweaver, Paul C. W. Davies and Michael Ruse;  Breath: A Novel by Tim Winton;  and, Talking to Ourselves by Andres Neuman.

Secretive Genius

Newton
by Peter Ackroyd

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found

In that slight startle from his contemplation --

'T is said (for I'll not answer above ground

For any sage's creed or calculation) --

A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round

In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation;"

And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,

Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,

If this be true; for we must deem the mode

In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose

Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,

A thing to counterbalance human woes:

For ever since immortal man hath glow'd

With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon

Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.

Byron, Don Juan

Sir Isaac Newton died on this day in 1727. He was born on Christmas day 1642, the posthumous child of an illiterate yeoman farmer. His mother remarried and left him to be raised by his grandmother. At a local school, he distinguished himself by his inventiveness at creating toys and gadgets; it quickly became apparent he had no aptitude for farming. At his teacher’s urging, he was sent to Cambridge, where he so excelled in math that he was appointed a professor at the age of 26. His full genius bloomed during an involuntary vacation forced by the Great Plague of 1665. He experimented with prisms to uncover the nature of light; he worked up the essentials of calculus; and he laid the foundations for a theory of gravitation. Upon his return to the academic world, he began to publish some of what he had learned. Peter Ackroyd points out that Newton took his time to make his mark; indeed, he maintained a secretiveness regarding his work for much of his life. He researched and speculated on alchemy and theology, which thoughts he was probably just as wise not to commit to publication. (In fact, had his religious convictions become known, he would undoubtedly have had to resign his academic post.) He was contentious regarding his scientific opinions resulting in a number of professional feuds, with Robert Hooke, John Flamsteed and Gottfried Leibnitz in particular, that are perhaps the most regrettable blemish on his reputation. Peter Ackroyd provides the historical context to clearly delineate Newton’s salient character traits and make his greatest accomplishments clear to the modern reader. This is a good introduction to Newton in a compact biography of the great English scientist, the third in Ackroyd’s Brief Lives series.


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A Family History

The Hare With Amber Eyes: 

A Family's Century of Art and Loss 

by Edmund de Waal

"As I stand in front of the museum with its stature of a wrestling Laocoon, the one that Charles drew for Victor, I realise how wrong I've been.  I thought the boys left Odessa to get their education in Vienna and in Paris.  I thought that Charles went off on his Grand Tour in order to broaden his horizons, to get away from the provinces and learn about the Classics.  But this whole city is a classical world balancing above the port." (p 343)

This book combines biography, autobiography, history, anthropology and art history. But above all The Hare with Amber Eyes is the story of a family. It is a memoir about their story over five generations as they moved around the globe from Odessa to Tokyo. It is a story of leavings and relationships intertwined with the history of Europe from the end of the nineteenth century through the end of the Second World War. It is also a story of a family whose experience and familiarity with the likes of Proust, Rilke, Japanese art, the rue de Morceau, and the society of the Ringstrasse in Vienna adorn their intimate family memories.
Edmund de Waal is the descendant of the founder of a family, the Ephrussis, that had once been as rich as the Rothschilds but saw their wealth reduced to a collection of tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings known as netsuke. His desire to discover the story of his family led him to investigate how this occurred and write this memoir. It is a beautifully written book that highlights the literary, artistic, and historical events that surround the major figures in the family. But It begins in fin de siecle Paris (where part of the family had moved after leaving Odessa) before moving to Vienna where the family would be ensconced in the Ringstrasse for the early decades of the twentieth century. All that would change with the coming of the Nazis and the destructive force of war in Europe. At their height the Ephrussi were patrons of numerous geniuses – an aunt, Elizabeth, was a correspondent of the poet Rilke. Charles features in a famous Renoir painting and bought a picture of asparagus fresh from Manet’s studio. In their story one can see evidence Thomas Mann’s principle that, in great dynasties, the first generation makes money, the next spends it on art and the final ruin of the house is the last generation who become artists.

What impressed me, as it has other readers, was the importance of art and literature in this family. This is on prominent display in the section set in Paris that describes the family's connections with the impressionist and symbolist movements. The author's own interest in art and ceramics pervades the story and insures that his search will highlight these areas. It is a search that begins in Japan with his Uncle Ignace (Iggie), who died in 1994 in Tokyo. De Waal inherits the collection of netsuke that includes "The Hare with Amber Eyes" and he proceeds to investigate the story of his family and of the netsuke collection that represents their heritage. The memoir is a tale told modestly and subtlety, and its power grows through the small moments de Waal shares as he uncovers his family's history.

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. Picador Books, 2010.

A Commonplace Entry

Life of Dr. Johnson

"What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is, the quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation;  which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently instructive  and entertaining;  and of which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion, have been received with so much approbation, that I have good grounds for supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample communications of a similar nature."

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson LL. D., p 17

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer 

by Sarah Bakewell

"When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind." 
— Michel de Montaigne

Montaigne's essays are among my favorite reading material both for their breadth of subjects and for the thinking that they spur. The essays serve as a catalyst for my own thinking, but as with most of my literary reading I am also interested in the lives of the authors behind and beyond the literary works themselves. Here Sarah Bakewell tells the story of Montaigne’s life in an admirably brisk and entertaining fashion, focusing on anecdotes and themes rather than on thoroughness and strict chronology. This is not a biography for the Montaigne expert but rather for the general reader who wants to know more about the man or who has read and loved the essays. That having been said it is a delight for most any reader that is interested in exploring Montaigne's world from a twenty-first century perspective.


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Sunday Commonplace Entry

on Monday morning

This weeks entry comes from Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari




"In short, the best historians have tried to show how men have acted wisely or foolishly, with prudence or compassion and magnanimity;  recognizing that history is the true mirror of life, they have not simply given a dry, factual account of what happened to this prince or that republic but have explained the opinions, counsels, decisions, and plans that lead men to successful or unsuccessful action.  This is the true spirit of history, which fulfills its real purpose in making men prudent and showing them how to live, apart from the pleasure it brings in presenting past events as if they were in the present."  (from the Preface to Part II)

The Last Lone Inventor: 

A Tale of Genius, Deceit, 

and the Birth of Television 

by Evan I. Schwartz

I love studying the history of science and seldom has a book on this topic read more like a novel. The mind of young genius Philo T. Farnsworth seems to be overflowing with ideas almost from birth. The timing is right for he comes of age just as the information age is being transformed from the print medium that ruled the nineteenth century to audio and video that will rule the twentieth century. Many men have laid claim to the title "The Father of Television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Farnsworth ended up a footnote in history yet he was the first to demonstrate an electronic process for scanning, transmitting and receiving moving images, a discovery that changed the way we live. Unfortunately Farnsworth, the "lone inventor", comes up against David Sarnoff the media mogul who uses his control over radio leverage the same control over the beginnings of television. Their battle is epic and Evan Schwartz tells the story so well that it kept me interested both through the discoveries and the disaster (for Farnsworth) that followed. Adding to my enjoyment was the opportunity to see a production of Aaron Sorkin's play, The Farnsworth Invention, based in part on Farnsworth's life.


The Last Lone Inventor by Evan I. Schwartz. HarperCollins, New York. 2002


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Firebrand:: The Life of Horace Liveright 

by Tom Dardis

"There was a grandeur, a warmth of generosity about Horace Liveright in his relationship to books and writers that has never been equaled" (p 354)


I will never forget the first time that I discovered the Modern Library editions. Growing up in a small town in southern Wisconsin we would only rarely venture to downtown Milwaukee for shopping. It was on one of those rare trips that I found a shelf squirreled away in the book department of Gimbels department store with these relatively inexpensive, for hardcover books, editions of Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Hawthorne and others. It is that occasion that I am reminded of by the delightful biography of Horace Liveright by Tom Dardis. Near the beginning of his story and at the beginning of Liveright's publishing career is the founding of The Modern Library, started with his partnership with Albert Boni who had earlier founded "The Little Leather Library". With a beginning list of authors including Wilde, Kipling, Stevenson, Wells, Dostoevsky and Schopenhauer, they founded what would become a favorite of readers to this day. By the time I discovered the Modern Library it was the property of Random House, thanks to Bennett Cerf, but it was established due to the vision of Horace Liveright. It is this vision that also brought out the first works of Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, cummings, Djuna Barnes and Hart Crane. But the story is also a sad one as Liveright was more visionary than businessman. In spite of publishing successes from authors like Theodore Dreiser, he spent wildly on unsuccessful ventures including Broadway plays and novels that no one wanted leading to the sale of the Modern Library and a brief sojourn in Hollywood at the end of his career. From Wall Street to Hollywood he was the consummate salesman and he revolutionized American book publishing along the way. His story is exciting for this reader who as a young boy had his reading horizons expanded by titles from the Modern Library.


Firebrand: The Life of Horace Liveright by Tom Dardis. Random House, New York. 1995.


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The Gold of Troy 

by Robert Payne

"Talent means energy and persistence and nothing more."

- Heinrich Schliemann

Inspired by my Latin teacher in high school I read this exciting story of Heinrich Schliemann's search for the real city of Troy.  She was married to an archaeologist and they would spend summers in Central America. While learning Latin I was also learning about the Greek culture that so heavily influenced Rome.  In doing so I was led inexorably to this exciting story of the man who believed that Homer's Troy was a real place.  Schliemann was vindicated and Robert Payne's book tells about his incredible journey in search of his dream.


The Gold of Troy by Robert Payne. Funk & Wagnalls, New York. 1959.


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The Book of Dead Philosophers 

by Simon Critchley

"One who no longer is canot suffer."  - Lucretius

"To philosophize is to learn how to die."  - Cicero


A book for reflection and inspiration, this collection is worth dipping into from time to time or just reading in a random fashion. It contains bried lives (and deaths) of nearly two hundred of the world's most noted philosophers.  The book suggested to me different ways of thought and perhaps will direct you to original works for further consideration of the philosophers included. It complements the exploration of dead authors in general; a journey which some readers enjoy.

The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley. Vintage Books, New York. 2008.



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Lytton Strachey

Today is the anniversary of the death of Lytton Strachey in Hungerford, Berkshire. I first encountered Lytton Strachey and his fascinating life almost forty years ago when I read Michael Holroyd's masterful two volume biography of his life. This was the first biography by Michael Holroyd that I read and it was a great introduction to both Strachey and the biographer. I remember how easily I digested the long (two volumes in the original edition) biography because the life was both intensely interesting and the biography well-written. Holroyd set a new standard for biography incorporating the cultural milieu of the subject and exhibiting high standards of research. This along with his readable writing style made the work a triumph for Holroyd who went on to write of other artists including Augustus John. Holroyd's original work on Strachey was updated in the nineteen nineties and remains the standard.

Lytton Strachey; a critical biography by Michael Holroyd. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1968, c1967] 2 v. illus. [1st ed.]