Wagner in "modern" literature
michael
interesting somehow that within arguably the two greatest novels of the
20th century, 'Ulysses' and 'In Search of Lost Time', both authors
comment on Wagner through their main characters.
Proust's book's narrator infuses Wagner throughout his descriptions of
French society taste and, for the most part, holds RW in high esteem
within the text.
However, in his descriptions of the thoughts of lower-middle class Irish
characters I only came upon one mention of Wagner. After the bordello
hallucination scene, as Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom are walking
home, Wagner is briefly mentioned as being a bit too rich for Irish
citizens (at least the one walking home after a crazy night out on the
town).
I'm thinking that 'In Search of Lost Time' is the 20th Century's
literary analog of the Ring. Joyce's work, on the other hand, is more
like Edgard Varese's Ionization. :-)
michael
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
You forgot Stephen's ash plant.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"michael" <pm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:S4gJd.94703$zy6....@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
michael
> You forgot Stephen's ash plant.
Yeah...you got me there...and given the free association of Joyce's
prose, who knows? But I'm not buying into any Blazes Boylan-Loge
relationships!
michael
Derrick Everett
Mudheeldy Weesindonk"?
--
Derrick Everett
Mike Scott Rohan
from michael <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
> This post is just a bit of trivia, perhaps. But I find it kind of
> interesting somehow that within arguably the two greatest novels of the
> 20th century, 'Ulysses' and 'In Search of Lost Time', both authors
> comment on Wagner through their main characters.
> Proust's book's narrator infuses Wagner throughout his descriptions of
> French society taste and, for the most part, holds RW in high esteem
> within the text.
Well, given the prominence of Wagner in turn-of-the-century intellectual
life, it's not altogether surprising. After all, in France the "Revue
Wagnerienne" was the dominant intellectual publication, and Bayreuth a
lodestar. You find even more popular writers like Colette writing about
Bayreuth. And Joyce, of course, was highly musical, an admirer and
promoter of tenors and a tenor of near professional standard himself.
And as long as we're including Meisterwerke of that era, T.S.Eliot's The
Waste Land should also be included, riddled with references to Rheingold
and Tristan. Wagner pervades even less expected writers -- D.H.
Lawrence, for example, in an early novel.
> I'm thinking that 'In Search of Lost Time' is the 20th Century's
> literary analog of the Ring. Joyce's work, on the other hand, is more
> like Edgard Varese's Ionization. :-)
Oh, dear. Surely "A la recherche...." is more like Parsifal or Tristan,
if anything, but surely too mundane to inhabit any of Wagner's worlds.
Ulysses at least has the mythical dimension that is so central to the
Wagnerian ideal. But if the Ring has a 20th-century literary analogue --
well, some people might not like to acknowledge it, but the obvious
contender is The Lord of the Rings.
Incidentally, and without drawing any immediate conclusions, it's
interesting in the Wagnerian context to remember that Bloom is Jewish,
and of central European, Austro-Hungarian extraction -- hence the
Hungarian rendering of his name at one point.
Cheers,
Mike
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
Not _Ulysses_. _Finnegans Wake_.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Derrick Everett" <mimir...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1106651064.0...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
michael
> Oh, dear. Surely "A la recherche...." is more like Parsifal or Tristan,
> if anything, but surely too mundane to inhabit any of Wagner's worlds.
> Ulysses at least has the mythical dimension that is so central to the
> Wagnerian ideal. But if the Ring has a 20th-century literary analogue --
> well, some people might not like to acknowledge it, but the obvious
> contender is The Lord of the Rings.
Based wholly on Proust's story alone you are likely justified in your
reference to the other operas, but I contrast the Ring to Proust's novel
not really based on any subject matter. My point (admittedly not
spelled out in my post) was that as an intellectual and artistic tour de
force the two are quite related, and I can think of nothing else in
literature I'd compare to the Ring. Some might point to Honore de
Balzac's 'Human Comedy', if for nothing else than length, but length is
really a minor point when considering the genius of Proust's novel.
Joyce's Ulysses is mythical by a stretch of the imagination only; still
I understand what you mean. There are certain parallels in structure,
but Joyce is not Homer. The story itself (Joyce's story) turns on a
very mundane day in the life of very plain people. People kind of like
us, though, it is true.
I personally would not mention Tolkien's craft in the same sentence,
much less paragraph, as Proust and Wagner. Surely it's a pretty fun to
read story, especially important and attractive to teenagers who need
something exciting and inspirational to stimulate their emerging sense
of myth, not to mention the obvious moral lessons contained therein.
And it also give them practice reading something a bit more substantial
than Harry Potter and 'graphic' novels.
michael
Mike Scott Rohan
from michael <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
> > Oh, dear. Surely "A la recherche...." is more like Parsifal or Tristan,
> > if anything, but surely too mundane to inhabit any of Wagner's worlds.
> > Ulysses at least has the mythical dimension that is so central to the
> > Wagnerian ideal. But if the Ring has a 20th-century literary analogue --
> > well, some people might not like to acknowledge it, but the obvious
> > contender is The Lord of the Rings.
> Based wholly on Proust's story alone you are likely justified in your
> reference to the other operas, but I contrast the Ring to Proust's novel
> not really based on any subject matter. My point (admittedly not
> spelled out in my post) was that as an intellectual and artistic tour de
> force the two are quite related, and I can think of nothing else in
> literature I'd compare to the Ring. Some might point to Honore de
> Balzac's 'Human Comedy', if for nothing else than length, but length is
> really a minor point when considering the genius of Proust's novel.
I think the differences are a great deal larger and more significant
than the similarities, utterly fundamental in fact -- beginning with the
intention of their creators and the world-view they represent. But the
argument is a longer and more detailed one than I've time for at the
moment. My choices for a comparison, though, would have to go beyond the
20th century, and include the Oresteia -- which was after all both a
general and specific influence on the Ring -- and Shakespeare's cycle of
royal plays.
> Joyce's Ulysses is mythical by a stretch of the imagination only; still
> I understand what you mean. There are certain parallels in structure,
> but Joyce is not Homer. The story itself (Joyce's story) turns on a
> very mundane day in the life of very plain people. People kind of like
> us, though, it is true.
But it feeds on mythology, is structured from one specific mythological
work, constantly refers to it and without it could not really exist in
the form it does. It is mythical in origin and inspiration; myth is the
foundation it builds on. The very mundanity built on that mythological
foundation -- one man's journey home to his feminine counterpart through
destiny, obstacles and enchantment -- is a large part of the point, and,
dare I say it, the joke, because in Joyce there's always the joke.
> I personally would not mention Tolkien's craft in the same sentence,
> much less paragraph, as Proust and Wagner.
I'm sure you wouldn't, as in fact I predicted, because that is the
ingrained attitude of the 20th century -- and I use that date advisedly
-- literati. It's an attitude that belongs to the intellectual era of,
say, Leavis, Marcuse, Sartre, Picasso, to name only a few, and in music
the serialists and the later Stravinsky, -- an era in which the arts
became divorced from the educated population as a whole and reserved to
an elite of largely self-appointed intellectuals. It began with people
like Ruskin, and led to an era of labelling, dividing and posturing,
artificial systems and groups with somewhat dictatorial rules -- "isms",
Surrealism, Cubism, Existentialism and once again serialism, among them.
Art and literature were there only for the cognoscenti who could
appreciate these disciplines, and follow the critics concerned with a
quasi-religious zeal. It was this attitude that produced a really quite
dogmatic and exclusivist literary set of values, in which the likes of
Proust and Joyce became over-estimated -- not in themselves, their
greatness is not in question, but as rigid yardsticks of worth instead
of merely two among many types and varieties of excellence. (There were
exceptions, of course, in writers like Hardy and Lawrence, who
consciously reacted against this, just as Magritte reacted against
Surrealism; but it's notable that as their popularity has waxed, through
film and TV, for example, their status with the literati has diminished.
The more accessible a book is, the less it's admired by the
cognoscenti.) Before this fashion took hold writers like (sticking to
Britain here) Sterne and Stevenson and Shakespeare could write and be
enjoyed on many levels simultaneously, and be admired for it;
exclusivity in literature belonged chiefly to the religious and
sectarian.
There's no time or space here to handle the subject properly, and I'm
too busy at present anyway. Suffice it to say I also would not mention
Proust in the same breath as Tolkien -- possibly for reasons different
from yours, but principally because that wasn't the point I was making.
I would, however, mention Tolkien in the same breath as Wagner, very
definitely. Their aims and achievements had a great deal in common
across the divide between their respective mediums, and the resemblance
between them is very much greater than that of the Ring and "A la
recherche....".
This exclusivism, incidentally, was not an error Wagner shared; he
always believed ordinary people (by which he probably meant those with
no more than ordinary education and culture) could appreciate his music
as readily as the intellectual or the academic, perhaps more so. That's
the message of Meistersinger, after all, in Hans Sachs's voice.
Surely it's a pretty fun to
> read story, especially important and attractive to teenagers who need
> something exciting and inspirational to stimulate their emerging sense
> of myth, not to mention the obvious moral lessons contained therein.
> And it also give them practice reading something a bit more substantial
> than Harry Potter and 'graphic' novels.
And that, I'm afraid, is the standard patronizing judgement, very like
that delivered on Wagner by many critics in his time. Bear in mind,
though, that it only became de rigeur to maintain that judgement in the
mid-1960s, when the Lord of the Rings had the temerity to become
popular. Before that, in the 1950s, its smaller but deeply appreciative
audience was almost entirely among literary academics and intellectuals,
often of widely disparate views -- including Iris Murdoch, for example,
W.H.Auden and the influential Communist and feminist novelist Naomi
Mitchison. Lord of the Rings was, after all, written by a brilliant and
respected academic, and not as a childish jeu d'esprit like Alice. These
people were not exactly teenagers in need of something exciting and
inspirational, were they? They were well equipped to perceive
"literature", surely, if anyone was. Some critics' attempts to ignore
or explain away their opinions remind me very strongly of
anti-Wagnerians' attempts to explain away all those "inconvenient" Jews
who liked Wagner, both man and music. So perhaps today's literati are
underestimating Tolkien's qualities, or ignoring some of them -- just,
perhaps, as one must ignore certain very strong qualities in Wagner to
compare the enormous expanses of the Ring to the delicately mannered and
introverted achievement of Proust.
And that was my main point. You asserted a 20th-century literary
parallel to the Ring; I pointed out a much closer one. I wasn't in fact
making any value judgement at all, except to include Tolkien in the term
"literature", and it's interesting that you should have immediately
jumped to one.
Cheers,
Mike
michael
(commenting on the mythical aspect of Ulysses)
> But it feeds on mythology, is structured from one specific mythological
> work, constantly refers to it and without it could not really exist in
> the form it does. It is mythical in origin and inspiration; myth is the
> foundation it builds on. The very mundanity built on that mythological
> foundation -- one man's journey home to his feminine counterpart through
> destiny, obstacles and enchantment -- is a large part of the point, and,
> dare I say it, the joke, because in Joyce there's always the joke.
Yes, but the average man (if, indeed, the average man ever reads Joyce)
would have no idea that the work is loosely based upon the structure of
Homer, if he weren't told. Anyone reading Homer knows he is reading
mythology. I agree with you that Joyce is pretty funny at times.
>>I personally would not mention Tolkien's craft in the same sentence,
>>much less paragraph, as Proust and Wagner.
> I'm sure you wouldn't, as in fact I predicted, because that is the
> ingrained attitude of the 20th century
> And that, I'm afraid, is the standard patronizing judgement...
You are perceptive to my original intent, but only provisionally. My
initial reaction WAS to write something patronizing, but then, after
thinking about it, I was able to find something worthwhile in Tolkien
which I did mention.
> And that was my main point. You asserted a 20th-century literary
> parallel to the Ring; I pointed out a much closer one. I wasn't in fact
> making any value judgement at all, except to include Tolkien in the term
> "literature", and it's interesting that you should have immediately
> jumped to one.
Again, my parallel was based on what I consider artistic and
intellectual grounds, and not on a mere storyline-a storyline that all
would agree, when speaking of Proust, has nothing to do with Wagner's
subject. Much the same way that Joyce only deals peripherally with
Homer? And I'd agree with you if I were simply looking to cite
something in literature that is kind of related, in story, to the plot
of Wagner's Ring.
In any event, it is difficult to discuss aesthetics without making value
judgements as to what is and what is not worthwhile. And when making
judgements, we must remember that these things exist on a continuum.
Thus, I might find something worthwhile in Tolkein that I might never
find in something like Harry Potter. But even in the case of the
latter, the book's utility in fostering wonder, excitement, and the love
of reading cannot be discounted. In this I'm reminded of an opinion
piece in the Wall Street Journal by Harold Bloom wherein the esteemed
critic pretty much trashed the series. But inasmuch as those reading
Potter never would (I'm guessing) compare the material to, say,
Shakespeare, I suspect that Bloom was making much about nothing important.
But sometimes things do get out of hand. I was in the philosophy
section of Barnes and Nobles the other day picking up a couple of books
by Leo Strauss. Somewhere in between Aristotle and Kant a title caught
my eye--'The Philosophy of HarryPotter' I think it was. The only thing
one can do in these circumstances is sigh.
Nevertheless, I suspect that you hold Tolkein in higher esteem than I,
but, then again, I certainly do not want to attribute to you (or anyone
for that matter) a line of thinking that is not warranted.
michael
David Melnick
> I'm sure you wouldn't, as in fact I predicted, because that is the
> ingrained attitude of the 20th century -- and I use that date advisedly
> -- literati. It's an attitude that belongs to the intellectual era of,
> say, Leavis, Marcuse, Sartre, Picasso, to name only a few, and in music
> the serialists and the later Stravinsky, -- an era in which the arts
> became divorced from the educated population as a whole and reserved to
> an elite of largely self-appointed intellectuals. It began with people
> like Ruskin, and led to an era of labelling, dividing and posturing,
> artificial systems and groups with somewhat dictatorial rules -- "isms",
> Surrealism, Cubism, Existentialism and once again serialism, among them.
Whoa, Nelly! How does Sartre represent the arts becoming
"divorced from the educated population as a whole and
reserved for an elite of largely self-appointed
intellectuals"?
I could understand Sartre entering your discussion in the
context of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, but not of the arts
as divorced from the larger society. J-P S., as well as
being a mad lover of the popular arts, was a journalist and
newspaper editor and a best-selling writer and extremely
popular lecturer. I saw him give a loudly applauded speech
to several thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters in the
Mutualite in 1967, the very audience that if it had been in
England would have consisted of fans of Tolkien. If Dickens
was "popular," so was Sartre, no?
This is not to mention the way in which his core vocabulary
has been adopted wholesale by the popular culture, spurred
by the "educated population." If there's a divorce, the
couple concealed it well. When you hear a teenaged girl
telling her boyfriend, "You look on me as an object," you
are hearing the vocabulary of "Being and Nothingness."
Now, as for Picasso, where is his connection to the popular
imagination ABSENT.....?! Remember his remark upon seeing
the "modern-art" patterns in the camouflage on soldiers'
uniforms -- "We did that!" It was only the beginnning.
Mike Scott Rohan
from michael <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
{snip}
> Yes, but the average man (if, indeed, the average man ever reads Joyce)
> would have no idea that the work is loosely based upon the structure of
> Homer, if he weren't told.
But that's exactly the point. If anyone, average or otherwise, read
Ulysses without at least recognising something of the mythological
reference, they'd miss a major part of the meaning, too much to make it
worthwhile. The exercise would be as meaningless as listening to the
Ring without recognising at least something of Norse mythology. Which is
what a lot of people do -- and it *is* meaningless.
{snip}
> > And that, I'm afraid, is the standard patronizing judgement...
> You are perceptive to my original intent, but only provisionally. My
> initial reaction WAS to write something patronizing, but then, after
> thinking about it, I was able to find something worthwhile in Tolkien
> which I did mention.
And I'm afraid that's still about as patronizing as you can get -- "able
to find something worthwhile", indeed. The more so, as the only
"worthwhile" is "well, it's better than comics and Harry Potter for
ignorant teenyboppers". I've had the same reaction to Wagner from
musical exquisites and snobs who won't recognise anything beyond Gombert
or Birtwhistle. I'll repeat my point in a different form -- if a great
many exceptionally intellectual and creative people have found something
in a book that you can't, might it not perhaps be worth considering
whether it's something in you that's lacking, and not in the book? It
would be the less arrogant approach, certainly. And is it doing Joyce or
Proust any service to regard what they write as inherently superior to
other kinds of literature, instead of masterpieces sui generis that you
happen to like?
{snip}
> Again, my parallel was based on what I consider artistic and
> intellectual grounds, and not on a mere storyline-a storyline that all
> would agree, when speaking of Proust, has nothing to do with Wagner's
> subject. Much the same way that Joyce only deals peripherally with
> Homer? And I'd agree with you if I were simply looking to cite
> something in literature that is kind of related, in story, to the plot
> of Wagner's Ring.
Kind of related? Very closely related, and "story" is not something you
can ignore unless you're a creative writing teacher. One might as well
ignore content in a painting and concentrate on the brushstrokes, or
value poetry only for its philological significance. But in fact,
important as the plot relationships are, they're only one function, one
symptom if you like, of a far deeper similarity, the resemblance of
kindred works, both set in motion by "the matter of the North" as
fundamentally as Paradise Lost was motivated by Puritan Christianity or
Morte d'Arthur by the "matter of England". Even the emotions and
sensitivities of Proust have scarcely any parallel in Wagner; they
belong to a different universe. Your parallels, cleverly argued though
they may be, are unlikely to be solid enough to override that.
> In any event, it is difficult to discuss aesthetics without making value
> judgements as to what is and what is not worthwhile.
As long as these are informed, and personal taste is not made a measure
of absolute value, that is possible. But in practice that is almost
never the case.
And when making
> judgements, we must remember that these things exist on a continuum.
> Thus, I might find something worthwhile in Tolkein that I might never
> find in something like Harry Potter. But even in the case of the
> latter, the book's utility in fostering wonder, excitement, and the love
> of reading cannot be discounted. In this I'm reminded of an opinion
> piece in the Wall Street Journal by Harold Bloom wherein the esteemed
> critic pretty much trashed the series. But inasmuch as those reading
> Potter never would (I'm guessing) compare the material to, say,
> Shakespeare, I suspect that Bloom was making much about nothing important.
And many other esteemed critics trashed Joyce, in his day. Such a
trashing in itself usually means very little, because it is entirely
negative, making a virtue of personal incomprehension -- "eunuchs
boasting of their chastity", as C.S.Lewis put it; it is likely to be
exactly as valueless as the same critic's equally forceful expression of
enthusiasm is valuable. I can't offhand think of one who has trashed
Proust, although he is notably more popular with Anglo-Saxons than in
his native land, where he's more admired than read -- I speak as in
large part French; but that may be because those so inclined find him
easier to ignore, than break a butterfly on the proverbial wheel.
> But sometimes things do get out of hand. I was in the philosophy
> section of Barnes and Nobles the other day picking up a couple of books
> by Leo Strauss. Somewhere in between Aristotle and Kant a title caught
> my eye--'The Philosophy of HarryPotter' I think it was. The only thing
> one can do in these circumstances is sigh.
Or perhaps read it? Some of it, anyway. It's probably as bad as you
expect, but are you entirely justified in assuming this? Books like "The
Science of Star Trek" are usually rather bad science, but one, "The
Science of Discworld", about the immensely popular Terry Pratchett
novels, is in fact an excellent, highly readable and authoritative
exposition of popular science by three very high-powered and literate
scientists indeed. Of course, life is too short to read everything, and
one is entitled not to expect quality in supermarket tabloids and the
like; but when something unusual turns up, being too ready to sigh and
spurn it is not necessarily a sign of discrimination or wisdom.
Personally I hold no brief whatsoever for Potter, other than as pretty
good children's literature and originally written in my favourite
Edinburgh coffee-bar. If you equate Rowling with Tolkien, you arouse a
suspicion in my mind that you haven't really read either -- unkind of
me, perhaps, but it's a defect that has caught out many of Tolkien's
most vocal "intellectual" enemies, from Germaine Greer (on TV,
spectacularly) to the novelist J.R.Walsh (or whatever his dismal
initials are).
> Nevertheless, I suspect that you hold Tolkein in higher esteem than I,
That would evidently not be difficult! In aesthetic terms, yes, I do,
and I have the comfort of being in very good intellectual and literary
company, even if the hoi polloi have somehow got in as well -- a bad
habit of theirs; honestly, one would think that artistic quality was
somehow compatible with accessibility.
Of course it is not the aesthetic of those who elevate Joyce and Proust
too exclusively to the heights -- but it most emphatically is the
aesthetic that encompasses Wagner and his world. There is an aspect of
Wagner that can be invoked as "Ah, ces voix d'enfant chantant dans la
coupole" and the like, but what resonates with French exquisites most
certainly is not the major part of his creation.
> but, then again, I certainly do not want to attribute to you (or anyone
> for that matter) a line of thinking that is not warranted.
For which many thanks. Nor would I want to, to you either; it was
perhaps unkind of me to predict that you wouldn't like Tolkien, but that
was based on experience. Plenty of Joyceans I've met do, a certain
robustness of imagination perhaps, but no Proustians at all -- few if
any of whom, mind you, will admit to having read Tolkien in the first
place! Certainly you need not fear that I don't esteem or appreciate
what you consider great; I simply believe that there are other varieties
of greatness, and that Wagner and the Ring are substantially closer in
spirit, content and style to those than to either of your nominees.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from David Melnick <dmel...@pacbell.net> contains these words:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
> > I'm sure you wouldn't, as in fact I predicted, because that is the
> > ingrained attitude of the 20th century -- and I use that date advisedly
> > -- literati. It's an attitude that belongs to the intellectual era of,
> > say, Leavis, Marcuse, Sartre, Picasso, to name only a few, and in music
> > the serialists and the later Stravinsky, -- an era in which the arts
> > became divorced from the educated population as a whole and reserved to
> > an elite of largely self-appointed intellectuals. It began with people
> > like Ruskin, and led to an era of labelling, dividing and posturing,
> > artificial systems and groups with somewhat dictatorial rules -- "isms",
> > Surrealism, Cubism, Existentialism and once again serialism, among them.
> Whoa, Nelly! How does Sartre represent the arts becoming
> "divorced from the educated population as a whole and
> reserved for an elite of largely self-appointed
> intellectuals"?
> I could understand Sartre entering your discussion in the
> context of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, but not of the arts
> as divorced from the larger society. J-P S., as well as
> being a mad lover of the popular arts, was a journalist and
> newspaper editor and a best-selling writer and extremely
> popular lecturer. I saw him give a loudly applauded speech
> to several thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters in the
> Mutualite in 1967, the very audience that if it had been in
> England would have consisted of fans of Tolkien.
Good god, where did you get that idea from? The most typical group of
anti-Vietnam war protesters I encountered in the 1960s were busy trying
to break the Burne-Jones windows of the Oxford Union because (in a
spirit of impartiality) the South Vietnamese Ambassador had been invited
to speak there. I know, I was one of the ones trying to prevent them
(and in the process delivering a smart whack on the head to a huge
American oaf who might just have been Bill Clinton...). They were more
interested in waving Mao's little red book than reading Tolkien, or
anything else remotely aesthetic. At that time it was largely the dons,
the professorial staff, who read Tolkien -- not least because he hadn't
been published in paperback here, then. When studenty types did latch on
to Tolkien, it was mostly the quieter, more literary ones who bothered
to search out the books in the library. The anti-Vietnam bunch were more
into Burn, Baby, Burn!, Marx (usually second-hand), Marcuse, Guevara
etc. They had little time for imagination or literature per se.
If Dickens
> was "popular," so was Sartre, no?
NO! Dickens' appeal transcended social barriers; he was read and
appreciated by every level of society, from the Prime Minister to
eminent professors to shop assistants. Damn few shop assistants would
have read Sartre. I chose him as one example, perhaps not the worst but
an example nevertheless, of the milieu in which the arts, and indeed the
more artistic humanities, were reserved for the self-consciously
intellectual, and that is, I'm afraid, all too true. I could have chosen
Gide or the Dadaists, perhaps, or Andre Breton, or Resnais, but Sartre,
in the very universality of his influence, was a major moving spirit.
His "popularity" was wider than theirs, certainly, but his
intellectualism was anything but inclusive.
> This is not to mention the way in which his core vocabulary
> has been adopted wholesale by the popular culture, spurred
> by the "educated population." If there's a divorce, the
> couple concealed it well. When you hear a teenaged girl
> telling her boyfriend, "You look on me as an object," you
> are hearing the vocabulary of "Being and Nothingness."
Perhaps; but more directly it's the jargon of seventies feminism, which
objected to women being considered "sex objects". If the phrase is a
child of Sartre, its users never knew the parent.
> Now, as for Picasso, where is his connection to the popular
> imagination ABSENT.....?! Remember his remark upon seeing
> the "modern-art" patterns in the camouflage on soldiers'
> uniforms -- "We did that!" It was only the beginnning.
Of what? Cubism is considerably more dead than serialism. Picasso is
valid enough in himself and his context, but he has not entered the
popular consciousness except as a name and a vague association. You get
Monet on chocolate boxes, and Renoir, never Guernica! And the remark you
quote is hardly an example of Picasso's popular appeal -- it would have
been more an example of pretentious posing if it hadn't been a joke.
Camouflage patterns were around before Picasso, as I'm sure he well
knew, and had very different, entirely functional origins -- one might
as well attribute them to the influence of the Bauhaus. He was hardly
being serious in claiming their parentage. Now if some ordinary soldier
had remarked that the patterns reminded him of Picasso -- that would
have been a valid example of some engagement between Picasso and public.
Bert Coules
> The exercise would be as meaningless as listening to the
> Ring without recognising at least something of Norse mythology. Which is
> what a lot of people do -- and it *is* meaningless.
"Meaningless" is a touch extreme, isn't it? Yes, a certain level of
reference would be missing, but would it really be missed? Are you really
saying that Ring isn't appreciable *at all* - musically or dramatically - to
someone who knows absolutely nothing of the source material?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
Careful how you answer Bert's question, Mike.
Fair warning.
:-)
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote in message
news:41f81c59$0$71964$ed2e...@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
Bert Coules
again, this time in rather better English:
> Are you really saying that Ring cannot be appreciated *at all* - musically
> or dramatically - by someone who knows absolutely nothing of the source
material?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
michael
> I'll repeat my point in a different form -- if a great
> many exceptionally intellectual and creative people have found something
> in a book that you can't, might it not perhaps be worth considering
> whether it's something in you that's lacking, and not in the book? It
> would be the less arrogant approach, certainly. And is it doing Joyce or
> Proust any service to regard what they write as inherently superior to
> other kinds of literature, instead of masterpieces sui generis that you
> happen to like?
Obviously these are my opinions. Farther than that, I make no claims.
As to whether my opinions will stand and reflect the reasoned judgment
of others, I cannot say. I probably have about twenty to twenty five
years left to read (if I'm lucky, and "on average"). There are many
books I need to read--more than I have time. In these endeavors one
must discriminate based upon what one thinks important for their own
being.
For what it is worth, I read LOR (actually 3 times) in my early years.
But I now believe that what it represents has been uncovered (to use a
Heideggerian term), and, consequently, it no longer holds much value to
me as far as needing or wanting to revisit it. In terms of it being a
good story it remains as good as ever, though. To cite another example,
I have read Plato many times over the years, yet I still find the
Republic worthwhile; that is, I have not yet uncovered its full
significance--each time I read it (or his commentators) I discover
something new within the pages.
This, to me, is also true of Wagner (and why I participate on this
Newsgroup). Each time I listen I hear something new. And that is why I
no longer listen much to "popular" music, anymore--the songs ceased
"speaking to me" in new ways. Even within a lot of post Wagnerian
"serious" music (eg Bruckner, Mahler, and so on) I now find so many
Wagner references that I continually want to return to the source.
The fact that many intelligent or artistic folks may continue to enjoy
and debate something I left behind (or have never considered) does not
particularly worry me, nor should it worry them. And, as a matter of
course, if I am unfamiliar with something and people I respect speak
highly of the thing, I'll investigate, making a determination
accordingly. Let me mention a more relevant instance. Here on this
newsgroup we all are familiar with Mr Kohler's works. Before I knew
much about his thinking and views I bought one of his books. Now I just
wait and read whatever opinions you and others I respect write whenever
he comes out with something new. My judgment of the worth of his
opinions has already been decided upon, and I don't have the time or
inclination to exert more effort. Now, if you, or Derrick, or Laon, or
one of the others on this group started speaking differently about
something he were to write, I'd probably check it out, or at least
moderate my previously held thoughts. After all, many intelligent
people embrace embarrassing opinions, but everyone has the opportunity
to evolve and change their views. But this doesn't usually work with
books already written and already critically judged.
It is also true that taste and appreciation manifest differently in
different people, but I think this fact is independent of any artwork.
Art is static, but not people's appreciation of art [music and drama are
a bit different since they need to be interpreted with each
performance, but this remains a secondary effect]. This, of course, is
not meant to imply that there are no grounds for an objective ranking of
art; in most respects, though, such valuation is really the province of
history.
Again, we, as we are, can only make judgments based upon our own
understanding and experience. I'll be the first to admit that there was
a time when I could not understand Wagner, at all. But, for whatever
reason and by whatever process, I have matured and become a more
sophisticated. For me, my judgment of literature is subject to the same
process. Whether my understanding relates to anothers in any meaningful
way is an open question. Nothing can be definite in these matters given
our constraint--a few words written inside the confines of a Newsgroup.
Anyhow, and as they say, at the end of the day I can only state my
preferences and, hopefully, offer up intelligible arguments.
michael
David Melnick
> Much of interest but tendentiously argued.
I've written a longer response to your post, which I would
be happy to send you privately, but putting it on the board
would be mere flamery.
However, could we step back a bit from the particulars of
our disagreement? What I was objecting to was your lathering
of names of artistic and intellectual movements onto a list
in order to put on the wrong side of the room anyone who
loves Joyce and not Tolkien. I think it is more a matter of
individual taste and experience, don't you, rather than some
blanket "divorce" between art and the "educated population
as a whole"?
Your individual experience has led you to one group of
artists, and other people have been led to others by theirs.
No harm, no foul. Why muddy the waters with scornful
pronunciamentos?
Ralph
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200501262...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> The most typical group of
> anti-Vietnam war protesters I encountered in the 1960s were busy trying
> to break the Burne-Jones windows of the Oxford Union because (in a
> spirit of impartiality) the South Vietnamese Ambassador had been invited
> to speak there. I know, I was one of the ones trying to prevent them
> (and in the process delivering a smart whack on the head to a huge
> American oaf who might just have been Bill Clinton...). They were more
> interested in waving Mao's little red book than reading Tolkien, or
> anything else remotely aesthetic.
I voted for Clinton twice, but I must say I find this imagery quite amusing.
Ralph
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> contains these words:
> Mike,
Yes. One ends up with the question attributed -- apocryphally -- to poor
old Bruckner after his first Walkure: "Lovely -- but why did they set
fire to that poor girl at the end?" (It was actually recorded in an
early Munich audience, I believe.} And it's startling to find from
Victorian and Edwardian comments how many people, in England especially,
did indeed go into the Ring and come out with barely an idea what was
going on; that was what they were used to from opera, a string of
numbers interspersed with meaningless posturings during which they could
chatter to their neighbours. In Bernard Shaw's early "Corno di
Bassetto" criticism he records such people -- a majority of them --
getting up to go as soon as the statue music started because they'd
heard all the songs. They sat through the Ring in the same fashion,
without the least idea what Norse gods were -- finding it absurd, from
some comments, that gods could be said to die -- and treating the
dwarves and giants and dragons as if they were random fairy-tale
elements and not part of an actual continuum. And they regarded the
human drama as if Wagner had invented it arbitrarily, and not made a
brilliant synthesis of mythological sources.
Of course one doesn't absolutely need to know a great deal about the
mythology, but one does definitely need some sense of the context. In
the late Victorian era this was common currency enough, fashionable
even, especially in Germany, England, Scandinavia and America; today
it's rather out of favour, surviving chiefly in jumbled video-game
imagery and the like. And producers and audiences seem almost proud of
not understanding the original context, which of course leads them to
misunderstand or misrepresent many of Wagner's intentions so radically.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from David Melnick <dmel...@pacbell.net> contains these words:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
Why indeed? I found your post rather scornful and condescending, and too
ready to distort what I was saying. There was nothing particularly
offensive in my reply -- if it was the mention of
pseudo-intellectualism, it quite obviously did not refer to you but to
Picasso's remark. And this reply is rather offensive in the meaning and
motives it persistently attributes to me. You are assuming altogether
too much, first of all in claiming that I was merely "lathering" the
names. They were examples, and I said so, in a brief post, not direct
condemnations in an exhaustively argued thesis. And in the context in
which I was arguing, and the comments you were defending, "personal
taste" was already being elevated to an aesthetic standard. You are also
assuming too much in asserting that I don't like the particular artists,
groups and movements I mention. Oddly enough in many cases I do,
strongly -- Stravinsky, Picasso, the Surrealists, even some serialists,
though not many, Berg in particular. Nevertheless I hold them -- and I
am not alone in this -- to be symptoms of a time in which the arts took
a wrong direction, which resulted in many of the serious problems that
confront them today, in their lack of acceptance by and communication
with the majority of the population in most Western countries. These are
problems we face daily with restrictions in government funding, refusal
to teach traditional arts in schools because of "elitism", and the like.
The identification of "serious" music with serialism, for example, has
alienated potential audiences and made life harder for new composers;
I'm continually being asked by arts council hacks just why public funds
should be used to subsidize "squeaky-gate" music which only a tiny
minority will listen to. This, you understand, is the perception of
modern music not by tabloids but by educated opinion-formers. I argue
against it, naturally; but I'm continually being undermined by lofty
aesthetes delivering altogether snobbish judgements against anything
"merely popular" -- a recent opera by a notable film composer, and the
score of "Blue Planet" are cases in point -- in favour of the rarefied,
mannered and self-consciously exclusive. I have even heard opera in
general scorned, against the superiority of "absolute" music -- and that
was in the Scottish Arts Council.
And in the process such artistic alienation has resulted in divisive and
patronizing judgements of the kind I questioned. I even quite enjoyed
Proust, although I can't claim he was a favourite, perhaps because I was
made to read him, and in the original French, too. His stature is not in
question. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a 20th-century work
comparable to the Ring, why should you so automatically exclude Tolkien?
He is not without considerable literary value, albeit of an unusual and
unfashionable kind; he was an Edwardian, really, and wrote as one. But
he cannot be dismissed as sneeringly as, say, a comic-strip, or ignored
simply on the grounds of popularity, and especially not in this context;
his works stem from a very similar era and impulse to Wagner's in the
Ring, were influenced by the Ring -- despite Tolkien's own denials --
and treat many of the same materials and motifs. That has to be taken
into account. Proust created something so different in roots, nature and
content from the Ring that any comparison would be tenuous, to put it
mildly. So I find it very hard to respect the blithe advancement of the
one with the scornful refusal to acknowledge the other. That kind of
attitude deserves to be challenged.
Of course that really demands more time and space than a newsgroup to
deal with it -- I am spending time I can't spare now, and I will not go
on with it. But I admit I'm deeply amused by the outrage it has aroused,
to dare to question the exaggerated claim made for such a sacred cow
(however deservedly) in favour of the claims of an author who has had
the misfortune to lose the considerable intellectual cachet he once had,
by becoming popular. I think Wagner would have enjoyed that, too -- and
I can make an informed guess as to what he would have thought of being
compared to Proust. As to your reply, I'm glad you don't want to resort
to mere flamery, because I don't either.
Mike Scott Rohan
from "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> contains these words:
> "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote:
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> Careful how you answer Bert's question, Mike.
> Fair warning.
> :-)
Touched by your concern. :-}}
{For those mystified by this exchange, ACD, as far as I dare summarize
him, very strongly believes a work of art contains all that need be
known to appreciate it. I don't.}
Cheers,
Mike
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> ACD, as far as I dare summarize
> him, very strongly believes a work of art contains all that need be
> known to appreciate it.
Got that almost right.
ACD very strongly believes a work of art contains all
that's *necessary* to *understand* it.
Big difference.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200501271...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
Richard Loeb
increases through the years as I read more material about him. Even when I
first started with Wagner I doubt very much I would have enjoyed it or
understood it without my trusty Ernest Newman Wagner Opera book. I think a
person can certainly enjoy Wagner by just going to performances "cold" but
I, for one, have appreciated his genius and, more to the point, have learned
so much more about his works and his genius as I continue to study him.
Best Richard
"Mifoke Scott Rohahardn" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in
message news:200501271...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
Bert Coules
> ACD very strongly believes a work of art contains all
> that's *necessary* to *understand* it.
And I must say that I rather agree. And to add a small rider of my own: is
it in any case necessary to *understand* a drama in order to derive
enjoyment, enlightenment, emotional empathy and all the rest from it?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Richard Loeb
be it a painting, literature or music and that by itself could be very
enjoyable but I enjoy and understand them so much better the more I read
about them and study them, e.g. Wagners long reflection on Day and Night in
Tristan made alot more sense for me when I studied Wagners sources for the
work. Richardnews:41f90c26$0$39413$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> And to add a small rider of my own: is
> it in any case necessary to *understand* a drama in order to derive
> enjoyment, enlightenment, emotional empathy and all the rest from it?
Well, perhaps not absolutely necessary, but it sure helps.
For instance, while it's altogether possible for one to experience a certain
level of enjoyment of a work not understood, it's considerably less likely one
could be enlightened by, or experience emotional empathy with, a work absent
that understanding; at least at some fundamental level.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote in message
news:41f90c26$0$39413$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...
Mark Bartelt >
>> However, in his descriptions of the thoughts of lower-middle class Irish
>> characters I only came upon one mention of Wagner. After the bordello
>> hallucination scene, as Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom are walking
>> home, Wagner is briefly mentioned as being a bit too rich for Irish
>> citizens (at least the one walking home after a crazy night out on the
>> town).
Let's not forget the passage which Derrick reminded us of last June, on the
centenary of the date on which "Ulysses" takes place. Not only the obvious
things like Nothung and Stephen's ashplant. But "Time's livid final flame"
might conjure up thoughts of Götterdämmerung ...
---------------
STEPHEN: Nothung!
(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the
chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following
darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Ralph" <NoSp...@semq.com> contains these words:
Perhaps I might have, if I'd been an American; but that was rather the
ethos of the time. I don't imagine he was remotely a Maoist (perhaps he
just didn't inhale), and indeed most of those in the antiwar demos
waving the book weren't either, but they tended to go in for Maoist
chants and phraseology, "running dogs" and so on, as part of the
package, because of course the Viet-Cong did. A lot of them were loud in
their admiration of the Cultural Revolution, which was seen at first as
an authentic youth movement of the kind they were trying to promote,
only effective. When the truth about it began to filter through, they
were apologetic at first -- "forgiveable excesses" kind of thing, a bit
too like Nazi apologists -- and then rather silent on the point. (Though
even a few years later more extreme types like the Fabulous Furry Freak
cartoonist Gilbert Shelton were still equating the Chairman with Jesus!)
I didn't know Clinton, then or later, but he was certainly heavily into
anti-war circles at Oxford, as were most of the Rhodes Scholars and
other Americans I knew -- it was often the most preppy
Groton-and-Harvard frat types who went for it hardest, enjoying getting
out from under, growing their hair long and doing drugs for the first
time. Most of the students, though, while they didn't remotely support
the war, weren't too keen on the demonstrations either because they had
a tendency to turn violent and vandalistic (often because non-student
agitators got involved), which seemed to defeat the point. The Union lot
certainly did, which was why more moderate members were forced to
protect the building, and it turned into something of a battle. There as
elsewhere they weren't exactly culturally engaged. My wife was at
Stanford during this time, and was appalled to find a stage set which
she and others had spent months and money building being ripped down by
demonstrators to throw at the police (and to attack anyone who tried to
stop them); on another occasion they smashed up a vital science
experiment. She and I both got a bit disillusioned by the more extreme
politicos in the Vietnam era, and I wouldn't be surprised if Clinton did
too.
All very off-topic; apologies!
Cheers,
Mike
David Melnick
> >
> Why indeed? I found your post rather scornful and condescending, and too
> ready to distort what I was saying.
I should have said, "Why muddy the waters with scornful
pronunciamentos from either of us?"
>
> I hold them -- and I
> am not alone in this -- to be symptoms of a time in which the arts took
> a wrong direction,
This is the crux of your position, and it is where we
differ. But I am grateful that you are a Wagnerian, hence
don't "hold" along with some opera lovers that music took a
"wrong turn" in 1835 or so and never recovered. Or 1775,
or . . . .
Except for serialism, all the movements and artists you held
up as examples of the "wrong turn" in these posts flourished
principally, or first, in France. I take it that you are
happy this is an English-language newsgroup! :-)
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> contains these words:
> A.C. Douglas wrote:
I don't. I base that on teaching and lecturing I've done over the years,
and the pleasure of making something like Monteverdi's Poppaea
accessible to those who'd been unable to get into it before. What helped
them was context -- background, information on musical styles, that kind
of thing. My sister, who's taught English lit and in particular
Shakespeare more consistently and more intensely, finds the same. Just
standing there with one's mouth open isn't enough, or we wouldn't have
to educate children. Of course, I am not in the least denying that a
very slight degree of basic understanding, no more than a cultured
person can be expected to have, is often enough to be a hook, to achieve
some basic involvement. But what then? What makes that involvement grow?
Once again, information.
ACD says that a work of art "contains" all the information necessary to
appreciate it. I wonder. But even if I conceded this, I would still
argue that much of that information is locked up and unavailable, and
the lack of it can make for entirely misleading interpretations. Take
the Renaissance Italian picture that's long been known as "The
Courtesans" -- wish I could remember the artist's name, but I haven't
time to go look it up. Anyhow, it's famous, and shows two apparently
bored and rather overdressed ladies idly disporting themselves on a
terrazzo. Reams have been written about its moral character, the look of
the ladies, etc., what it illustrates in the society of the time -- all
from people who based their appreciation on what the picture contains.
Except that it's now been identified; and they're not courtesans at all,
but the utterly respectable womenfolk of a wealthy merchant's family,
and their apparent looks of glazed boredom, in context, are actually
loving gazes directed at their menfolk in the other picture. On a less
extreme level, if you don't know anything of the background of, say,
Romeo and Juliet -- I don't mean Verona, but the views and sympathies of
Shakespearean England -- you are liable to miss many of the things
Shakespeare very carefully put into it, as the 19th century almost
always did. Viewing Romeo as an unalloyed hero, for example, when he is
much more the author of his own troubles, as much as Othello or Macbeth
are. You will still be enjoying a play, but it will not be the one
Shakespeare wrote. And so it is with Wagner.
Of course you can get something out of a work of art, dramatic or
otherwise, without knowing anything about it. But it will not really be
that different from what you get out of Prisoner: Cell Block 8 or
Coronation Street (or, for Americans, All My Children!). To really
appreciate the heights and depths inherent in any great work of art, you
have to appreciate something of what makes the difference. And if a lot
of us didn't feel that need, this group and its discussions wouldn't
exist!
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Mike Scott Rohan <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> contains
these words:
In Bernard Shaw's early "Corno di
> Bassetto" criticism he records such people -- a majority of them --
> getting up to go as soon as the statue music started because they'd
> heard all the songs.
Sorry, should have made clear this was referring to Don Giovanni, though
no doubt you'll all have got that!
(Does a post contain all the information necessary for....oops.)
Cheers,
Mike
michael
> Of course you can get something out of a work of art, dramatic or
> otherwise, without knowing anything about it. But it will not really be
> that different from what you get out of Prisoner: Cell Block 8...
At first reading I thought I'd missed an episode of that fascinating
British import starring Patrick Magoohan. Darn!
michael
Bert Coules
> Of course you can get something out of a work of art, dramatic or
> otherwise, without knowing anything about it. But it will not really be
> that different from what you get out of Prisoner: Cell Block 8 or
> Coronation Street (or, for Americans, All My Children!). To really
> appreciate the heights and depths inherent in any great work of art, you
> have to appreciate something of what makes the difference.
That is an argument with which I really can't agree. I'm not prepared to
say that a Wagner opera is in any way inherently "better" than an episode of
Prisoner, Cell Block H. Better for whom? And by who's criteria?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Richard Loeb
years ago - I rushed home from school to watch!!!!! Richard
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200501271...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
michael
> I'm not prepared to
> say that a Wagner opera is in any way inherently "better" than an episode of
> Prisoner, Cell Block H. Better for whom? And by who's criteria?
Once this kind of thinking is allowed to manifest all one has left is
naive chaos substituting for aesthetic theory. Judgment of worth is
paramount. Even the idea that there is no standard is itself a standard
which belies the original premise.
Have 2500 years of Western philosophy just gone by the wayside in our
age of Foucault and Derrida?
michael
Bert Coules
> Once this kind of thinking is allowed to manifest...
Allowed? And there was I believing that I could think whatever I liked.
> ...all one has left is naive chaos substituting for aesthetic theory.
Then naively chaotic I shall be. And unapologetically so: I don't care for
the notion of aesthetic theory.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
REP
news:jt7Kd.98643$w62....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> > ACD, as far as I dare summarize
> > him, very strongly believes a work of art contains all that need be
> > known to appreciate it.
>
> Got that almost right.
>
> ACD very strongly believes a work of art contains all
> that's *necessary* to *understand* it.
I don't speak German, so how can I understand the Ring without external
materials (a translated libretto)?
REP
Bert Coules
> I don't speak German, so how can I understand the Ring without external
> materials (a translated libretto)?
You can't, which is why it's ludicrous to perform any dramatic work in a
language other than that of the audience.
michael
> Michael,
>
>
>>Once this kind of thinking is allowed to manifest...
> Allowed? And there was I believing that I could think whatever I liked.
I was speaking a bit loosely, and rather generically. I could have and
probably should have said, "once one allows oneself to become captive of
a kind of thinking which engenders radical perspectivalism then one must
abandon all hope of formulating a positive aesthetic theory". Sorry.
Continue believing whatever you like. As far as I know the thought
police haven't cracked down on the Usenet. Unless you are in China.
michael
michael
>>I don't speak German, so how can I understand the Ring without external
>>materials (a translated libretto)?
> You can't, which is why it's ludicrous to perform any dramatic work in a
> language other than that of the audience.
Did I miss something, or didn't you just write that there is not much
basis for, or, rather, that you didn't care for aesthetic theory? And
now you go and make an aesthetic judgment regarding literary translations.
But I cannot be all contrary. I recently attempted to read a
translation of Lysistrata. The translator decided to make the women's
dialog a bit more modern. Unfortunately, to my mind he made them sound
like they just came out of a Virginia Slims television commercial.
michael
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> ACD says that a work of art "contains" all the information necessary to
> appreciate it.
Once again, ACD said no such thing.
Just check below if you doubt my word.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200501271...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> The message <41f90c26$0$39413$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net>
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
That you don't understand German is a lack in you, not in the artwork.
Learn German.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote in message
news:mZbKd.1060$ck5.356@trnddc05...
Derrick Everett
> The message <XyPJd.26853$Gj.1...@bignews3.bellsouth.net> from michael
> <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
>
> {snip}
>
>> Nevertheless, I suspect that you hold Tolkein in higher esteem than I,
>
> That would evidently not be difficult! In aesthetic terms, yes, I do,
> and I have the comfort of being in very good intellectual and literary
> company, even if the hoi polloi have somehow got in as well -- a bad
> habit of theirs; honestly, one would think that artistic quality was
> somehow compatible with accessibility.
Aha! a Greek remark ...
> Of course it is not the aesthetic of those who elevate Joyce and Proust
> too exclusively to the heights -- but it most emphatically is the
> aesthetic that encompasses Wagner and his world. There is an aspect of
> Wagner that can be invoked as "Ah, ces voix d'enfant chantant dans la
> coupole" and the like, but what resonates with French exquisites most
> certainly is not the major part of his creation.
>
>
and one that's French!
--
Derrick Everett (deverett at c2i.net)
====== Writing from 59°54'N 10°36'E ======
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/wagnerfaq.htm
Derrick Everett
> "Derrick Everett" <mimir...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [snipped - full original post is below]
>
> Not _Ulysses_. _Finnegans Wake_.
>
Of course -- thank you.
Bert Coules
> And now you go and make an aesthetic judgment
> regarding literary translations.
I'd say it wasn't so much an aesthetic judgement as a common-sense one. But
in your own generous spirit of admitting to being a little loose in
phraseology, perhaps I should say "...which is why I believe it's
ludicrous..." I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that everyone should
think the same way.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Derrick Everett
It's all Greek to me. Seriously, though, if any classical drama should be
performed in these dark times, 'Lysistrata' should be a candidate.
michael
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:44:01 -0500, michael wrote:
>>But I cannot be all contrary. I recently attempted to read a
>>translation of Lysistrata. The translator decided to make the women's
>>dialog a bit more modern. Unfortunately, to my mind he made them sound
>>like they just came out of a Virginia Slims television commercial.
> It's all Greek to me. Seriously, though, if any classical drama should be
> performed in these dark times, 'Lysistrata' should be a candidate.
Hey now! Is this the kind of thing that we want women to take
seriously? I mean, I'm a peaceful guy, but these things tend to spill
over and take on a life of their own. Better to emulate John Lenon and
Yoko Ono and spend a week in bed for peace.
michael
Ralph
"michael" <pm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:labKd.98285$zy6....@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> Have 2500 years of Western philosophy just gone by the wayside in our
> age of Foucault and Derrida?
Well, are we really ready to change this subject line to "Wagner in
post-modern literature"?
Ralph
REP
> "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote:
>
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
>
> That you don't understand German is a lack in you, not in the artwork.
>
> Learn German.
>
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com
> ------------[original post]------------
> "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote in message
> news:mZbKd.1060$ck5.356@trnddc05...
>
> > "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> wrote in message
> > news:jt7Kd.98643$w62....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> >> that's *necessary* to *understand* it.
> >
> > I don't speak German, so how can I understand the Ring without external
> > materials (a translated libretto)?
> >
> > REP
Where do I learn German? Not from Parsifal, which means I'll need external
help before I can begin understanding it -- that is, unless Wagner wrote a
language course into the score that I am not aware of.
I agree with your sentiments, but I find your phrasing lacking. No opera is
capable of internally containing all that is necessary to understanding it,
unlike, for example, a symphony, which I believe to only require the sense
of hearing to understand. An opera, though, is (as I think you'll agree)
both an intellectual and sensual experience whose audience its composer
assumes to have a basic understanding of such things as language.
REP
Richard Partridge
>
> "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:200501262...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
>> The most typical group of
>> anti-Vietnam war protesters I encountered in the 1960s were busy trying
>> to break the Burne-Jones windows of the Oxford Union because (in a
>> spirit of impartiality) the South Vietnamese Ambassador had been invited
>> to speak there. I know, I was one of the ones trying to prevent them
>> (and in the process delivering a smart whack on the head to a huge
>> American oaf who might just have been Bill Clinton...). They were more
>> interested in waving Mao's little red book than reading Tolkien, or
>> anything else remotely aesthetic.
>
> I voted for Clinton twice, but I must say I find this imagery quite amusing.
>
> Ralph
>
>
Given the way Clinton was styling his hair in those days, he probably didn't
feel a thing.
Dick Partridge
Mike Scott Rohan
from David Melnick <dmel...@pacbell.net> contains these words:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
> > >
> > Why indeed? I found your post rather scornful and condescending, and too
> > ready to distort what I was saying.
> I should have said, "Why muddy the waters with scornful
> pronunciamentos from either of us?"
Agreed.
> >
> > I hold them -- and I
> > am not alone in this -- to be symptoms of a time in which the arts took
> > a wrong direction,
> This is the crux of your position, and it is where we
> differ. But I am grateful that you are a Wagnerian, hence
> don't "hold" along with some opera lovers that music took a
> "wrong turn" in 1835 or so and never recovered. Or 1775,
> or . . . .
No, I think the wrong turn -- and of course it wasn't absolute, just a
powerful bias -- was rather a symptom of World War I and its aftermath,
although the tendency first became very apparent in the fin-de-siecle,
with the Vienna Secession, Symbolism and the like.
> Except for serialism, all the movements and artists you held
> up as examples of the "wrong turn" in these posts flourished
> principally, or first, in France. I take it that you are
> happy this is an English-language newsgroup! :-)
Well, I'm French myself, actually, in father, first language and some
education -- though the rest is Scottish, with US influences. So the
choice probably says something about me....
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> contains these words:
> Michael,
Neither do I. Whatever the basis, it all too often elevates the narrow,
the formal or the merely complex and ingenious at the expense of the
less quantifiable and unorthodox. Some such concept leads to the
inhuman orthodoxy of current theatrical fashions, especially in Germany
-- which of course affects opera production. But I will still maintain
that there are degrees of value. A comic book or a soap opera isn't
entirely worthless, perhaps, but either Shakespeare and Wagner have some
significant advantage over it, or both they and everyone who's ever
appreciated them have been wasting their time and should have been
reading comic books and watching soaps instead of the Ring. Why does
this, albeit mildly entertaining, seem like a dismal prospect? Perhaps
it's in the reason for that, that your elusive definition of value lies.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Derrick Everett <deve...@c2i.net> contains these words:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 21:12:25 +0000, Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
> > The message <XyPJd.26853$Gj.1...@bignews3.bellsouth.net> from michael
> > <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
> >
> > {snip}
> >
> >> Nevertheless, I suspect that you hold Tolkein in higher esteem than I,
> >
> > That would evidently not be difficult! In aesthetic terms, yes, I do,
> > and I have the comfort of being in very good intellectual and literary
> > company, even if the hoi polloi have somehow got in as well -- a bad
> > habit of theirs; honestly, one would think that artistic quality was
> > somehow compatible with accessibility.
> Aha! a Greek remark ...
> > Of course it is not the aesthetic of those who elevate Joyce and Proust
> > too exclusively to the heights -- but it most emphatically is the
> > aesthetic that encompasses Wagner and his world. There is an aspect of
> > Wagner that can be invoked as "Ah, ces voix d'enfant chantant dans la
> > coupole" and the like, but what resonates with French exquisites most
> > certainly is not the major part of his creation.
> >
> >
> and one that's French!
You bin listening to Iolanthe or wot?
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Derrick Everett <deve...@c2i.net> contains these words:
{snip}
> It's all Greek to me. Seriously, though, if any classical drama should be
> performed in these dark times, 'Lysistrata' should be a candidate.
Maybe, but it didn't have much effect back then either. And what could
you do about Condi Rice? :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> contains these words:
> "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote:
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> That you don't understand German is a lack in you, not in the artwork.
> Learn German.
Naughty. It's a good idea, yes, but it's unfair to be so dictatorial.
Not everyone has the knack of a particular language, and it gets harder
the older you get. Some people can master Italian fluently, and limp
along in German at best. I have had serious trouble with Russian, I
think because I've started too late in life, although the vocab is often
very French and the grammatical structure somewhere between Latin and
German. And my Italian is dangerously operatic -- there's a huge gulf
between the poetic language of opera and the everyday stuff you'll learn
in class. You have to go rather far with Italian to be able to
understand Boito's "Otello" libretto, for example, and you'll be in
trouble if you try using the words in everyday life! Drama in English,
or any vernacular, strikes home in a way it won't even in a language you
know almost as well. I found that with the Goodall Ring, although I
still enjoyed hearing it in German as well.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Richard Partridge <r.par...@verizon.net> contains these words:
{snip}
> >
> Given the way Clinton was styling his hair in those days, he probably didn't
> feel a thing.
In those days? He seems to be wearing a small, well-trained Pekinese
now. Mind you, most of us looked the way he did then, in fact it was
sometimes hard to tell people apart -- which is one reason I'm not sure
who I clouted. But he was American, about my height, and someone
recognised him as a Rhodes scholar, which narrows the field, though I
never remembered the name. Wish I'd got Blair.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> contains these words:
> REP,
> > I don't speak German, so how can I understand the Ring without external
> > materials (a translated libretto)?
> You can't, which is why it's ludicrous to perform any dramatic work in a
> language other than that of the audience.
Unless the audience can understand the language, which many can. And the
usual riposte to this is that it's very hard to hear what people are
singing, anyway, and half the time it might as well be in the original
and reproduce the sound-form more exactly. I myself am actually very
much in favour of opera in the vernacular, but it has to be said that
this is a pretty valid objection, especially with today's common
teaching of technique, based on mastering the musical line as a sort of
vocalise, with the words glued on afterwards -- leads to sloppy diction.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from michael <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
> Bert Coules wrote:
The standard Penguin translation of the Iliad when I was studying was
amazingly plonking -- "Now Achilles was really a very savage man." or
something of the sort. The translator, E.V.Rieu I think, had tried to
avoid all the heroics and period language of earlier versions. But the
trouble is that archaic thoughts demand some degree of archaic language
to express them convincingly, and we are not big on epic thinking these
days, at least not of that kind. Modern language obtrudes like Colin
Farrell's perm and sheen in Alexander. The knack is to stylize the
language to give it a greater impression of antique expression than is
actually used, avoiding generalized "tushery". Wagner has been
criticized for his weirdly archaic German -- and weird it is -- but at
least it creates an appropriate atmosphere. Seamus Heaney's recent
Beowulf rendering succeeds largely by being freer than a normal or
usable translation.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
Very good point. Just, incidentally, as anglophone Proust-devotees can
rarely read him in French well enough to appreciate him properly -- and
his style is a major part of his achievement -- so what they are really
enjoying is Proust-plus-translator.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Ralph" <NoSp...@semq.com> contains these words:
Maybe we should. When I interviewed Keith Warner, who's been doing a lot
of Wagner productions lately, including the Tokyo and Covent Garden
Rings, he went on and *on* about Derrida -- to the sceptical amusement
of the set designer, I should say.
Cheers,
Mike
Bert Coules
> And the usual riposte to this is that it's very hard to hear what people
are
> singing, anyway... I myself am actually very
> much in favour of opera in the vernacular, but it has to be said that
> this is a pretty valid objection...
Agreed. Plus of course there are other practical considerations, like the
acoustics of the house. the balance favoured by the conductor, and the
quality of the translation, which has to be by someone who knows what he's
doing and not by Jeremy Sams.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Bert Coules
> But I will still maintain that there are degrees
> of value. A comic book or a soap opera isn't
> entirely worthless, perhaps...
Forgive me, but that really does smack of intellectual elitism.
Shakespeare, Wagner, the writer of a soap opera and the author of a comic
book are all in the same business. For some readers (or watchers) the
emotional and intellectual response to Shakespeare will be more intense than
to the soap opera; for others, it will be the other way about. How can
anyone say that the one has a " significant advantage" over the other?
> ...but either Shakespeare and Wagner have some
> significant advantage over it, or both they and everyone who's ever
> appreciated them have been wasting their time and should have been
> reading comic books and watching soaps instead of the Ring.
And now you've completely lost me. If something isn't better or more
meaningful than something else, then there's no point in the first something
existing, or in anyone enjoying it?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> Forgive me, but that really does smack of intellectual elitism.
You say that as if something were amiss with elitism.
As to the rest of your postmodern gibberish, if Mike doesn't skewer you for your
imbecile, leveling, equalitarian notions, then I'll step in and do the honors.
Is it any wonder that, at least in America, we're awash with university-level
illiterates, students and professors alike, who think _Spiderman_ comic books
and Stephen King novels first-rate literature, and a music culture where the
works of the likes of Johnny Cash and the more pretentious Elvis Costello are
written about in the same language, and given the same -- more! -- earnest
attention, in the arts sections of some of our most prestigious mainstream
publication as those of Mozart and Wagner?
Not a bit of it.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote in message
news:41fa56d5$0$45677$ed2e...@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
Bert Coules
> ...imbecile, leveling, equalitarian notions...
Leveling - or rather levelling - and equalitarian I happily accept.
Imbecile I might take the liberty of mildly arguing with.
As it happens, I agree that to subject, say, a piece of popular light music
to the same level of intellectual scrutiny as, say, an opera can be rather
daft. I don't believe I ever said that it wasn't. What I said was that
both are - or can be - equally worthwhile.
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> What I said was that
> both are - or can be - equally worthwhile.
That's manifest rubbish, Bert.
As I don't like repeating myself, I direct your attention to these three weblog
entries of mine for my answer to that sort of postmodern "logic":
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/07/a_call_for_a_re.html
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/07/clear_and_prese.html
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/08/era_of_the_wood.html
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote in message
news:41fa67ac$0$45189$ed2e...@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
michael
> Is it any wonder that, at least in America, we're awash with
> university-level
> illiterates, students and professors alike, who think _Spiderman_ comic
> books...are
> written about in the same language, and given the same -- more! --
> earnest attention, in the arts sections of some of our most prestigious
> mainstream publication as those of Mozart and Wagner?
On the other hand, given the bizarre stagings of modern Wagner, I always
thought that Stan 'the man' Lee could do a better job! I'm not sure I
want Namorita as a Rhinemaiden, but, then again, Thor would make a great
Donner.
michael
Bert Coules
> That's manifest rubbish, Bert.
Ah. Well, since you feel that way and I obviously do not, and since it's
highly unlikely that either of us will ever sway the other, this is clearly
an area on which we'll simply have to agree to disagree.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Bert Coules
> On the other hand, given the bizarre stagings of modern Wagner, I always
> thought that Stan 'the man' Lee could do a better job!
At the risk of raising even more ire, I agree. I'd love to see a Ring
staged by someone in tune with the magic, sword-and-sorcery,
giants-and-dragons, heroes-and-villains aspects of the story and who was
willing to forget about imposing superficial contemporary "relevance" and
social and political commentary .
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Derrick Everett
> Michael,
>
>> Once this kind of thinking is allowed to manifest...
>
> Allowed? And there was I believing that I could think whatever I liked.
>
>> ...all one has left is naive chaos substituting for aesthetic theory.
>
> Then naively chaotic I shall be. And unapologetically so: I don't care for
> the notion of aesthetic theory.
>
Wagner was very much occupied with aesthetic theory.
Derrick Everett
> Is it any wonder that, at least in America, we're awash with
> university-level illiterates, students and professors alike, who think
> _Spiderman_ comic books and Stephen King novels first-rate literature,
> and a music culture where the works of the likes of Johnny Cash and the
> more pretentious Elvis Costello are written about in the same language,
> and given the same -- more! -- earnest attention, in the arts sections
> of some of our most prestigious mainstream publication as those of
> Mozart and Wagner?
>
> Not a bit of it.
>
>
Have you actually *heard* Elvis Costello's ballet music? If you haven't,
I don't suggest that you bother to cross the street to get the CD. What
we're really waiting for, of course, is Mick Jagger's violin concerto...
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> Have you actually *heard* Elvis Costello's ballet music?
I did.
Total derivative pap -- the best parts of it, that is. The rest was total
trash.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.01.28....@c2i.net...
REP
Worthwhile, of course. All manner of people need art and music to make their
lives worth living. It's just that lesser quality works serve to satisfy
people of lesser intelligence, while higher quality ones serve to satisfy
those of higher intelligence; of that, I think, there can be no doubt, and
the argument comes from trying to decide which is which.
REP
michael
> "Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote:
>
>> [snipped - full original post is below]
>> Have you actually *heard* Elvis Costello's ballet music?
> I did.
> Total derivative pap -- the best parts of it, that is. The rest was
> total trash.
The best symphonic music from the rockers happens when they don't take
themselves too seriously, but mostly it is reflected in the titles of
the pieces.
Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (which I thought was pretty funny)
contains great bovine influenced selections entitled : 'Father's Shout',
'Breast Milky' and 'Mind Your Throats, Please'. And let's all remember
Mr. Zappa's material from 200 Motels. Who can forget the
'Semi-Fraudulent Direct from Hollywood Overture', and 'Lucy's Seduction
of a Bored Violinist'.
But other than some comedy value it would be better to listen to, in the
case of Mr. Zappa, Edgard Varese, or maybe Sun Ra if we are talking
about Frank's free jazz-influenced stuff.
I believe you are correct, it's all derivative from something better.
michael
Bert Coules
> Wagner was very much occupied with aesthetic theory.
Er... so what? He was very much occupied with a lot of things I don't care
for. This has no bearing on my enjoyment of some of his works.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
michael
> Derrick,
>
>
>>Wagner was very much occupied with aesthetic theory.
>
>
> Er... so what? He was very much occupied with a lot of things I don't care
> for. This has no bearing on my enjoyment of some of his works.
You know, I can appreciate your attitude, to a degree. Obviously some
of us ARE interested in developing an idea of the nature and subsequent
development of aesthetic understanding, but the notion that one may
enjoy and appreciate what one cannot (or chooses not to) approach
intellectually is a very important idea in art.
When I first came to Wagner (he actually came to me--as the story I will
relate shows) I knew nothing of his music other than being generally
familiar with the name.
Some years ago I was down one Sunday unable to move and with a BAD case
of the then prevalent flu--the usual Asian variety which ends up making
one wish they were dead just in order to avoid symptoms. Anyhow, I had
finished listening to Jack Simpson's 'Jazz on the Beach' radio show
when the Texaco Met came on. I hated opera, but was too damned sick to
get up and change the channel. It was Rhinegold. To make a long story
short, from the beginning of the opening bars it was as if the hand of
God came down slapping me around a bit. I had never experienced
anything like this music, but, at the same time, I didn't understand
ANYTHING about it. Nevertheless, I understood its value to me.
So, from a spiritual-aesthetic standpoint, one probably doesn't need to
have much historical understanding in order to appreciate something
artistically worthwhile.
michael
Bert Coules
> ...the notion that one may enjoy and appreciate what
> one cannot (or chooses not to) approach
> intellectually is a very important idea in art.
Exactly. Didn't T S Eliot or some other intellectual type say "We murder to
dissect"?
And forgive me if I have this entirely wrong, but wasn't one of Wagner's
starting points the notion that a nation's myths - and also therefore works
of art which use and build on them - somehow speak directly to people
without the necessity for any intellectual knowledge or analysis?
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
Y'know, it's nothing short of amazing how many now-Wagnerians came to Wagner via
a thunderclap first experience of _Rheingold_, myself included.
Here's the story of my "Damascus Moment":
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/09/the_wagner_expe.html
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"michael" <pm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:9zxKd.737$dj6...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
michael
> Y'know, it's nothing short of amazing how many now-Wagnerians came to
> Wagner via a thunderclap first experience of _Rheingold_, myself included.
"With hobbling gait, I almost make it back to my comfy armchair when the
soles of my feet more than my ears become aware of that solitary,
deep-bass, four-measure opening E-flat pedal, and my first thought is
that somethings gone badly awry with my stereo system."
The Decca recording, old as it is, is quite worthy today. Very well
done. Forget CD because we can afford to be anachronistic: today, on
analog period instruments (Garrard Zero 100 with Denon 103 cartridge)
this recording is amazing from a sonic standpoint.
michael
Richard Loeb
has come after - Culshaw really got it right for those sessions Rightnews:PtAKd.1045$dj6...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
michael
> And forgive me if I have this entirely wrong, but wasn't one of Wagner's
> starting points the notion that a nation's myths - and also therefore works
> of art which use and build on them - somehow speak directly to people
> without the necessity for any intellectual knowledge or analysis?
I don't know if he did, but one must be careful when accepting
unconditionally this kind of analysis. [Please refer to a recent post
regarding Wagner and Rousseau.] And it also speaks to the discrepancy
between a notion of subjective art (the manifestation of spirit) and
what we call objective science. But, insofar as in this thread we have
been speaking "theoretically", please let me offer a concrete example of
why it is important to understands aesthetics objectively.
Art (or myth) may be 'national' but science (the objective) is
necessarily cosmopolitan. Nietzsche understood this in his early
encounters with Wagner; re: his critique of Socrates written in 'The
Birth of Tragedy'. The most intellectually and aesthetically intuitive
philosopher of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, took Nietzsche very
seriously when he by abandoned cosmopolitan "intellectual knowledge or
analysis" (to use your words) in favor of spirit (which he believed to
be the essence of 'Will to Power'--see his Rektoratsrede). But, for his
efforts Heidegger wound up with the sad remnants of National Socialism
on his hands, and, later, was embarrassingly reduced to posthumously
pining for 'a god' within the pages of a German magazine.
So, while I believe what you say is true, what you describe is an
important reason to approach aesthetics rationally. We have, in this
thread, come back full circle: positive aesthetic theory is a
fundamental necessity in order to combat naive aesthetic chaos. Why?
Because a radical perspectivalism can lead to more than intellectual
debates on a Newsgroup. Under the right circumstances it can actually
lead to physical chaos.
michael
Bert Coules
> I don't know if he did, but one must be careful when accepting
> unconditionally this kind of analysis.
Actually, I'm not sure that I ever accept anything unconditionally.
> So, while I believe what you say is true...
Ah, I think you mean "So while I believe what Wagner said is true". Big
difference.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
Ralph
> "michael" <pm...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
>
> Y'know, it's nothing short of amazing how many now-Wagnerians came to
Wagner via
> a thunderclap first experience of _Rheingold_, myself included.
>
> Here's the story of my "Damascus Moment":
>
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/09/the_wagner_expe.html
Interesting. My discovery of Wagner was through the orchestral highlights
recording by Szell. I still think its marvelous. I do agree with you though,
that if someone were to ask me, what to listen to in order to appreciate
Wagner, the immediate answer would be, the complete Solti Ring.
Ralph
Mike Scott Rohan
from "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> contains these words:
> "michael" <pm...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> Y'know, it's nothing short of amazing how many now-Wagnerians came to
> Wagner via
> a thunderclap first experience of _Rheingold_, myself included.
> Here's the story of my "Damascus Moment":
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/09/the_wagner_expe.html
> --
> ACD
Mine too. As a teenager just beginning to get into classical music and
voice training, I'd been knocked out by the Feuerzauber on an old Carmen
Dragon Hollywood Bowl collection I happened to pick up. So I went
looking for an excerpts record I'd seen advertised -- by Stokowski, I
think it must have been. I couldn't find it -- but in searching I found
Decca's "Golden Ring" sampler, which of course began with the
thunderclap. And it had a collage of the Rackham illos on its insert,
which helped in a different way. I was thunderstuck, all right -- but at
the same time I found, as Vaughan Williams said, that it sounded like
something I'd always known.
Given that it sparked off a lifelong career in various aspects, I can't
help wondering whether it would have been the same if I'd picked up the
Stokowski.
Cheers,
Mike
michael
> Michael,
>>I don't know if he did, but one must be careful when accepting
>>unconditionally this kind of analysis.
> Actually, I'm not sure that I ever accept anything unconditionally.
Again, I was just speaking generically, and though I was coming off what
you wrote I didn't necessarily mean to refer to you personally.
But, to wrap up (maybe) this thread--along a very circuitous route we
have learned the following Wagner-Joyce relationships:
a) Nothung--Ulysses, the hallucinogenic brothel scene
Nothung!
(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the
chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following
darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
b) the 'ashplant'--Ulysses, as above
c) walking home after a rough day--Ulysses episode 16:
So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made
tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though
confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to
follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots,
Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words on the Cross and Mozart's Twelfth Mass he
simply revelled in, the Gloria in that being, to his mind, the acme of
first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a
cocked hat.
d) a peculiar reference from Finnegans Wake.
And, here is something else that may be relevant:
http://joycean.org/index.php?p=97
Now, who was it a week or so ago was complaining that this Newsgroup was
dead?
michael
michael
> http://joycean.org/index.php?p=97
According to Geert Lernout, Joyce read Edouard Schuré's Femmes
inspiratrices et poètes annonciateurs (Paris: Perrin, 1917)which
discussed Wagner's relation with Wesendonck. I found the following
passages interesting:
________________________________________________________________
VI.B.3 offers a good occasion to show that Joyce's use of notebook
material extended far beyond his immediate interests when he first
encountered the material. The items taken from pages 66 to 77 were used
over more than ten years, the earliest in March 1923 and the latest
sometime in 1934. That Joyce was able to remember where the material
came from is demonstrated by the fact that the largest group of items
went into the Wagner and Wesendonck passage on FW 229-230. On the
retyped version of the second section of II.1, Joyce added the sentence
"until they would meet in Parisise after tourments of years" (JJA 51:
55). In a second revision on the same page Joyce struck out "they would
meet" and replaced the words with "he would accoster as a wagoner would
his wheesindonk at their trist" (JJA 51: 55). These Wagner elements do
not come from VI.B.3, but at some point when Joyce was correcting the
setting typescript and the proofs of this chapter, he went back to the
notebook. The typescript and proofs are missing, but we have a number of
pages on which Joyce noted down material for use in transition 22. Here
we have notes taken from VI.B.3: "payment in music/ and personal
company/ much admired/ by her husband/ [Shem] has recourse to/ poetry//
in soul intimacy" (JJA 51: 153). All of these made it into "The Mime of
Mick, Nick and the Maggies." After the words "the suchess of
sceaunonsceau" Joyce added: "a hadtobe heldin, thoroughly enjoyed by
many so meny on block at Boyrut season and for their account ottorly
admired by her husband in sole intimacy" (JJA 51: 192). Here Joyce
combines two items which in Schuré apply to the relationship between
Wagner and Otto Wesendonck and between Wagner and Mathilde respectively.
The result is the disappearance of Wagner, the lover, and the
reappearance of the Christian name of the husband, which Joyce had not
written down in the notebook. The other items from VI.B.3 are combined
with more Wagner lore into an elaborate Wagner passage:
He would si through severalls of sanctuaries so as to meet
somewhere if produced on a demi panssion for his whole lofetime, payment
in goo to slee music and poisonal comfany, following which, like Ipsey
Secumbe, when he fingon to foil the fluter, she could have all the
g.s.M. she moohooed after fore and rickwards to hersIF, including
science of sonorous silence while he have recourse of course to poetry
(JJA 51: 224, simplified; FW 230.17-24).
Joyce manages to include all of the elements of the Otto, Mathilde,
Wagner triangle: Otto was subsidizing the composer who was supposed to
repay him with music and personal company, but instead started an affair
with his wife. The demi-pension becomes passionate, the lifetime a time
for love. Wagner has recourse to poetry while Mathilde is given the
science of sonorous silence which was still an art of silence in Schuré.
In Woman: the Inspirer Wagner has recourse to poetry only because it is
the only way of not having to betray his friend Otto: "We must however
do [Wagner] the justice to state that he was profoundly conscious of his
obligations as Otto Wesendonck's friend. Caught between so imperious a
duty and his ever-increasing love, he had recourse to poetry as his sole
means of deliverance" (Schuré tr, 16). And the sonorous silence is in
Tristan. According to a letter by Wagner to Mathilde which I have
already quoted in the French translation of Schuré, Tristan was written
for her: "I now return to Tristan. Through it I will speak to thee in
the sublime art of sonorous silence" (Schuré tr, 35). What is
interesting here is that Joyce refers to something that is in Schuré but
not in VI.B.3: the manuscript of the overture to Die Walküre was
dedicated to "g.s.M," gesegnet sei Mathilde. All of these items were
added sometime in 1933.
Derrick Everett
Schuré but not in VI.B.3: the manuscript of the overture to Die
Walküre was dedicated to "g.s.M," gesegnet sei Mathilde. All of these
items were added sometime in 1933. "
There are several of these cryptic annotations in the drafts of 'Die
Walküre', mostly as far as I can recall in act one. Some years ago I
saw the MSS in Bayreuth (or Boyrut); these annotations are described by
von Westernhagen in his 'Forging the Ring'. As Lernout says, "g.s.M"
has been interpreted, with a fair degree of certainty, to mean
"gesegnet sei Mathilde". Even for Joyce, this reference to the
annotation in a Wagner MS was arch and obscure; the kind of detail he
put into 'Finnegan's Wake', I believe, to perplex the professors.
--
Derrick Everett
Mike Scott Rohan
from michael <pm...@bellsouth.net> contains these words:
{snip}
> c) walking home after a rough day--Ulysses episode 16:
> So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
> Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made
> tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though
> confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to
> follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots,
> Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words on the Cross and Mozart's Twelfth Mass he
> simply revelled in, the Gloria in that being, to his mind, the acme of
> first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a
> cocked hat.
Which is, of course, complete balls. The idea of Meyerbeer's "Seven Last
Words..." would have greatly amused Wagner!
Cheers,
Mike
Derrick Everett
> "What is interesting here is that Joyce refers to something that is in
> Schuré but not in VI.B.3: the manuscript of the overture to Die
> Walküre was dedicated to "g.s.M," gesegnet sei Mathilde. All of these
> items were added sometime in 1933. "
>
> There are several of these cryptic annotations in the drafts of 'Die
> Walküre', mostly as far as I can recall in act one. Some years ago I
> saw the MSS in Bayreuth (or Boyrut)...
Now I've found my notebook with this "dedication" and a couple more
examples of marginalia from the 1854 draft of 'Die Walküre' act one.
These are less obvious than "g.s.M.":
(1) At "Die Sonne lacht mir nun neu", Wagner had written: "I.l.d.gr.":
which has been read as, "Ich liebe dich grenzenlos".
(2) At "Ein Schwerte verhiess mir der Vater", appears: "G.w.h.d.m.verl.":
read as, "Geliebte, warum hast du mich verlassen?"
William Quentin
<mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>There's no time or space here to handle the subject properly, and I'm
>too busy at present anyway. Suffice it to say I also would not mention
>Proust in the same breath as Tolkien -- possibly for reasons different
>from yours, but principally because that wasn't the point I was making.
>I would, however, mention Tolkien in the same breath as Wagner, very
>definitely. Their aims and achievements had a great deal in common
>across the divide between their respective mediums, and the resemblance
>between them is very much greater than that of the Ring and "A la
>recherche....".
>
In my opinion, mentioning Tolkien and Wagner in the same breath is a
serious slight to Wagner. Here's an article by Richard Jenkyns from
The New Republic which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter
(I would provide a link, but you need to be a subscriber to read it,
so I just decided to post the whole thing):
Bored of the Rings
by Richard Jenkyns
Post date: 01.17.02
Issue date: 01.28.02
J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
by Tom Shippey
(Houghton Mifflin, 348 pp., $26)
Click here to purchase the book.
J.R.R. Tolkien's is indeed an extraordinary story, delightful in its
improbability. Here was a quiet scholar, conservative, devout,
nostalgic for a bygone rural way of life, old-fashioned even in his
own generation, learned in the exacting but unglamorous fields of
Anglo-Saxon poetry and medieval philology. He was appointed to a
professorial chair at Oxford in his mid-thirties, and published one
article of huge importance on the Old English epic Beowulf but
otherwise very little of an academic kind. Instead he devoted immense
industry to writing a vast prose epic set in lands of his own
invention, which he called Middle-earth.
The Lord of the Rings should have been unpublishable; but Stanley and
Rayner Unwin, father-and-son publishers in the London firm George
Allan and Unwin, had the perception and courage to put it into print.
As all the world knows, it was to become one of the best sellers ever,
but it is as remarkable for the diversity as well as the number of the
people who have loved it--the tweedy and the hippy, the lookers-back
and the droppers-out. Another extraordinary fact is that to create The
Lord of the Rings Tolkien felt that he had to create much more
besides, most of it glimpsed only occasionally or indirectly in the
actual text of his epic.
He invented nothing less than a whole continent, diverse in geography
and character. He peopled it not only with men--I mean human
beings--but also with dwarves, elves, orcs or goblins, hobbits, ents,
and other powers. He provided Middle-earth with an entire history
across many centuries, a history of which the tale told in The Lord of
the Rings would be only a tiny part. And he invented languages,
credible and consistent in terms of the technical discipline of
philology. So his fiction came to have some of the characteristics of
scholarship; his epic is a work of fantasy and yet also an exercise in
north European medievalism.
In a somewhat disconcerting way, Tolkien seems to have come to live in
the world of his own imagining. The noise and the smell of Oxford's
traffic he described as "Mordor in our midst." When he went to Venice,
he found it "like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Númenorean
Ships"--a rather limited response, one might think. Tom Shippey puts
it this way: "However fanciful Tolkien's creation of Middle-earth, he
did not think that he was entirely making it up. He was
'reconstructing,' he was harmonizing contradictions in his
source-texts; he was also reaching back to an imaginative world which
he believed had once really existed, at least in a collective
imagination."
Shippey is himself a medievalist and a philologist, formerly a
professor in the very department of the University of Leeds where
Tolkien himself taught as a young man, and now in a chair at Saint
Louis University, Missouri. He burns with generous indignation at the
scorn with which many literary critics have treated Tolkien, and his
subtitle, "Author of the Century," is meant to provoke. But
provocation is only one of his purposes. His book has three main
strands. His first aim is to bring his professional expertise as a
medievalist and a philologist to bear on The Lord of the Rings, in
order to track down Tolkien's sources and to analyze the creative
processes that brought Middle-earth into being. His second purpose is
to champion the literary quality of Tolkien's work, arguing for its
moral depth, its psychological richness, and its technical skill. The
third element in the book is the knockabout bit: Tolkien's detractors
are hauled into court and convicted of snobbery, elitism, professional
jealousy, and other kinds of bad faith. It is all very lively: a
clear, forceful, engaging, ingenious, sometimes wrongheaded book.
he first part of Shippey's book is the coolest. Here he tries to
understand how the scheme of The Lord of the Rings developed, and much
of his argument is that, for Tolkien, philology was fundamental:
words, names, and linguistic registers came first, and the plot
followed later. When Tolkien started writing his epic, Shippey
suggests, he did not at first know where it was going. This may seem
surprising and perhaps a little disconcerting. It is not how we expect
novels to develop, and the control of a complex plot seems to be one
of Tolkien's chief virtues. Yet Shippey's argument, even though
aspects of it are avowedly speculative, seems pretty convincing, and
it is supported by Tolkien's own account. Indeed, one might compare
the conception of The Lord of the Rings to the genesis of Tolkien's
first work of fiction, The Hobbit. A part of Tolkien's legend is that
the earlier book originated when he found himself doodling the words
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit"; he had no idea what
this meant, and to find out he had to write the book of which it
became the opening sentence.
Tolkien's fans should find this scholarly side of Shippey's book very
interesting. Shippey's own concern is to establish the philological
complexity and consistency of Tolkien's use of names and language. He
enjoys tracing the origins of Tolkien's words; he offers "warg," for
example, as a "very plain case." In Old Norse, he tells us, "vargr"
means both "wolf" and "outlaw." In Old English, "wearh" means
"outcast" or "outlaw" (but not "wolf"), and the verb "awyrgan" means
"condemn" but also perhaps "worry, bite to death." Tolkien's "warg"
combines Old Norse and Old English pronunciations and at the same time
joins the idea of wolfishness to a more eerie, less physical sense of
intelligent malevolence. In this area of his book, the general thrust
of his argument seems to me both right and wrong--right to find in
Tolkien a solidity and coherence of imagination lacking in most
fantasy fiction, and wrong to think that the "scholarship" of The Lord
of the Rings immunizes it from criticism; and wrong above all in the
assertion that it is an impertinence for literary critics, less
scholarly than Tolkien, to find fault with his prose style.
Shippey argues for the aesthetic and ethical richness of Tolkien with
energy and verve, but not with complete success. The Lord of the Rings
poses a primary question: is it a book for adults or for adolescents?
That is not--at least not straightforwardly--a question about quality:
there are masterpieces of children's literature, after all, and there
are countless bad literary novels for the grown-up. The Hobbit is
undoubtedly a children's book; Auden, who was a great admirer of
Tolkien, regarded it as one of the best children's books of the
century. It obviously owes a lot to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the
Willows: in both stories the central figure is a dear little timid
furry bachelor (the Mole, Bilbo Baggins) who is carried away from his
domestic routine; the visit to the gruff solitary Beorn in The Hobbit
is rather similar to the visit to the gruff solitary Badger in
Grahame's story; and both books end with heroic combat before the
modest hero's return to his quiet, rustic home.
he reluctant hero of The Hobbit is a charming and original creation, a
portrait drawn with more life perhaps than anything in the magnum
opus. A more unusual merit of the book is Tolkien's feeling for the
reality of exploring and campaigning: the fatigue, the boredom and
discouragement, the constant need to worry about how you will feed
yourself. (Compare this to all those books and films in which the
heroes have no need to eat or to drink, and stay clean-shaven without
recourse to a razor.) Shippey reminds us that Tolkien had fought on
the western front in World War I.
There is some inconsistency of tone in The Hobbit. The whimsical and
even facetious style of the opening--good fun in a jolly-uncle sort of
way--seems designed for rather younger children than the grand and
rather scary adventures that follow. But it does not matter much,
mainly because the conception of the novel's protagonist is of the
ordinary, stuck-in-a-rut chap who finds in himself an unexpected stock
of resource and courage, has his hour of glory, and then returns to a
willing obscurity, like Cincinnatus returning to the plough. An
alternative title or subtitle that Tolkien contemplated for the book
was "There and Back Again."
The Hobbit, then, is a children's book with some "adult"
characteristics, but it remains puzzling that The Lord of the Rings
should retain so much of the earlier work's tone and structure. It is
odd that the hero of this vast epic should still be a dear little
creature with furry feet and the comic name Frodo Baggins. The oddity
might perhaps be defended by saying that Tolkien is showing us how
even humble common folk may be called to heroism, though such a
defense sits rather awkwardly with the fact that Frodo is essentially
a rentier, while his faithful attendant Sam Gamgee is all too
obviously the gratifyingly loyal, deferential, and comic servant of
Victorian fiction--Sam Weller without the panache--excluded by his
class from more than a secondary role. More worryingly, the English
cowpat arcadia of Hobbiton and the Shire, tolerable in The Hobbit, is
unbearably twee at the start of The Lord of the Rings. Even Auden
conceded that it was "a little shy-making."
But finally it is what is left out of The Lord of the Rings that makes
one wonder if this is really a book for adults. Tolkien invented his
own mythological world, but it lacks the dignity and the sinew of a
real mythology, for it is without religion and essentially without
sex. Hobbits may have fur at the bottom of their legs, but they have
seem to have no balls at the top; and that pretty much goes for the
rest of Middle-earth, too. The women in The Lord of the Rings are few
and pallid, while The Hobbit has no female characters at all: even the
giant spiders are regarded by Bilbo as male (the narrative voice uses
the unsexed pronoun "it"). The film of The Lord of the Rings seems to
have tried to beef up the female quotient; but it was surely an uphill
struggle. If one is to regard The Lord of the Rings as a book for
adults, what disturbs is not so much the absence of women, perhaps
explicable in an adventure story of this kind, as the absence of
desire. In this work that presents itself as the representation of a
whole world, there is hardly any awareness that we are sexual beings.
nd that is not all that is missing. Tolkien was a devout Roman
Catholic of conservative type, and he was sensitive to the charge that
his Middle-earth was religionless. He replied that The Lord of the
Rings was "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." But that does
not get around the difficulty: even if it can be shown that The Lord
of the Rings is religious as a book--and I doubt whether even this is
true in more than the superficial sense that it concerns a struggle of
good against evil--the objection is that the people within the story
have no religious beliefs or practices, and are thus unlike any real
human society. Tolkien always insisted, and rightly, that his work was
not an allegory, but the construction of a self-subsistent world with
its own history. The trouble is that it is an emotionally impoverished
world, in which the blood runs very thin.
The plot of The Lord of the Rings is centered upon the need to destroy
a ring of corrupting force and immense power by traveling to the far
land of Mordor and casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The ring has
been in the possession of a strange, cringing creature called Gollum,
but it passes into the hands of Frodo the hobbit. Frodo must not only
resist his enemies and reach the Mount of Doom, he must also find the
strength to overcome the spell of the ring and cast it from him.
Tolkien's critics have complained that the moral economy of the work
is radically flawed--that there is a confusion between whether the
corrupting ring symbolizes sinful desire (the lust for power, or
whatever) or should be seen as a magical object that acts upon the
wearer as an external force. The complaint, I think, is justified, as
can be seen from a comparison with Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung.
(Shippey, surprisingly, does not mention Wagner at all.)
According to Humphrey Carpenter's biography, Tolkien was irritated
when parallels were drawn between the Nibelungenlied or Wagner's
adaptation of it and his own work. To one such comparison he retorted
that both rings were round and that was the sum of it. But there is a
real perplexity here. If Tolkien really believed that there was no
German influence upon his ring, he is likely to have been
self-deceived. If he did examine Wagner during the years in which he
wrote his own epic, how did it affect him? If he did not examine
Wagner, he was oddly incurious. He does seem to have been a man of
intense but very limited interests, sealed off from the culture of his
own time within the imaginary world that he created for himself.
he ring in Wagner is a magical object, but it also represents moral
choice and its consequences. Alberich renounces love in order to get
hold of the Rhine gold from which he forges the ring; and Wotan needs
the gold for reasons of power and splendor. Tolkien finds no
equivalent to this. Frodo appears to have no intrinsic lust for power,
wealth, or glory, and the supposedly corrupting effect of the ring
upon him seems to be external to his nature, forcibly and arbitrarily
imposed from without. Shippey battles valiantly and ingeniously to
rescue Tolkien from this criticism: his solution is to propose that
the ring's effect should be seen as equivalent to an addiction. But
this does not help much: we say that someone is acting under the force
of an addiction precisely to relieve him of moral responsibility.
Perhaps Frodo's situation is like that of a person who has been given
an injection of heroin and now finds himself in danger of dependency.
But, if so, that is not morally interesting.
Shippey is impressed by the fact that Tolkien does not give The Lord
of the Rings a conventionally happy ending: Frodo returns to the
Shire, his mission accomplished, but he is permanently wounded in
spirit. Sadly, it is hard to share Shippey's belief in the moral and
psychological depth of this outcome. It is here that the relationship
to The Hobbit is perhaps most debilitating. "There and back again" was
all right in a book of more modest scope and ambition, but at the end
of so huge an epic it is not enough. But "there and back again" is
basically what we get.
Tolkien, in sum, was unable to develop his hero. Frodo has learned
nothing: he is essentially the same person that he was when the
adventure started, except that now he is depressed. All that Tolkien
can imagine is regress, a return by the hobbits to the darling little
Beatrix Potter world from which they began. Admittedly, Frodo is no
longer at ease in this world, but Tolkien is unable to convey anything
beyond the fact of a psychic wound--no enlargement or transformation
of experience, and no philosophy of grand disillusionment, either. He
is merely a person who has had a terrible time, and of course you
cannot expect him not to be a little queer after all he has endured.
As for Sam, the faithful retainer, he settles back quietly into tubby
rusticity and picturesque anecdotage as though nothing much had
happened. Contrast Parsifal, to turn to Wagner again: the hero of that
opera starts as a man without experience, but he learns and changes.
He discovers sexuality and self-mastery, compassion and understanding.
All such growth is beyond Tolkien's range.
ore than with most books, I suspect that one's response to The Lord of
the Rings is affected by the age at which one reads it. I read it in
my early twenties, which is to say, I read it late: friends who loved
the work had usually devoured it greedily in their teens. I was
surprised to find it harder going than I expected: it was partly, I
think, a lack of sparkle in the prose, and partly the excess of
pointlessly explicit description, dragged down by what Jane Austen
called "too many particulars of right hand and of left."
It looks as though Middle-earth came to be too real to Tolkien: he
writes about it like a historian, filling in all the details, and not
like a novelist, selecting, implying, and picking out le petit fait
signicatif. It would be easy to quote a flabby passage, but it might
be kinder to take one cited by Shippey himself an example of "one of
many brilliant passages of natural description in The Lord of the
Rings":
A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the
hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark
river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with
willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of
willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the
branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the
valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were
creaking.
Well, that may not be bad writing, but it is not distinguished either.
It is merely pleasant in a conventional, sub-Tennysonian manner.
At the back of one's mind lurks the suspicion that Tolkien's eye is
not truly alert, that he is interested not in exploration but escape.
Despite the orcs and the powers of evil, Middle-earth is somehow a
nicer world than ours, in a conservative, cozy sort of way. The Lord
of the Rings is not in the end so much the creation of an alternative
world as of an alternative Europe. In the northwest corner is the
Shire, replete with English names, but an England from which cities,
industry, and social conflict have been purged. (Shippey's notion that
Bilbo Baggins and the Shire stand as an equivalent to our modern world
is weirdly awry.) And like a northern traveler to southern Europe,
Frodo and his companions cross a great range of mountains, and descend
into Ithilien, an alternative Italy (Italien in German), a landscape
dotted with tamarisk and asphodel, olive and bay, and suffused with a
pleasing decay: "Ithilien the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still
a dishevelled dryad loveliness." The touch of classical allusion is
very rare in Tolkien, but alas, the wan pre-Raphaelitish language is
common.
olkien's style has been both loved and loathed. I find it hard to make
up my mind. In small quantities, his prose can seem to have a kind of
timeless dignity and simplicity, sometimes eloquent, sometimes even
moving. But in large quantities it palls: one begins to feel that this
writer is writing, very competently, in a dead language. After many
pages, one starts to find the style oddly bland and characterless;
ultimately it comes to seem, like other things in The Lord of the
Rings, anemic, and lacking in fiber. Such is the standard prose of the
book; when he wants greater elevation, Tolkien tends to resort to
archaisms and inversions, and the result is mere tushery.
And the dialogue is pretty poor. Shippey skillfully analyzes the
different registers of language used by different speakers in the
story--some speak more or less in modern English, others more
archaically--but he seems to admire the very things that other readers
deplore. Proving that Tolkien's recreations of past speech are
philologically pure will do nothing to save him from the charge that
he uses variation of language register as a substitute for living
speech and natural characterization; and weakness of characterization
is one of the work's most conspicuous flaws. I warm to Shippey's
spirited defense of philology as a discipline, but the more's the pity
that he gives ammunition to its enemies by allowing his philological
enthusiasm to swamp his aesthetic sense. Here is an example of
dialogue quoted by Shippey himself with apparent approval:
Mayhap the Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide--if the hand
that wields it has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of
the Kings of Men.
Here is another example:
Loth was my father to give me leave.
Does that transport you to a world of romance? It makes me think of
Tony Curtis in The Black Shield of Falworth: "Yonda is the castle of
my fadda."
Here, lastly, is a more extended piece of dialogue, also cited
admiringly by Shippey:
"It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in
Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."
"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed," said Legolas. "And that will
lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places
unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."
"And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens," said the
Dwarf.
"To that the Elves know not the answer," said Legolas.
This is writing that aspires to be noble and philosophical, but its
nobility seems to me gimcrack.
uthor of the century? One of Shippey's declared reasons for making so
grandiose a claim for Tolkien is that "the dominant literary mode of
the twentieth century has been the fantastic," and Tolkien is the
dominant figure in fantasy fiction. But there is a sleight-of-hand
here. It is true that the "great tradition" of the naturalistic
literary novel is not very old: it originated essentially in the
eighteenth century, and it reached its apogee in the nineteenth.
(Apuleius, Rabelais, and Swift were quite different.) And it may be
that the naturalist tradition of the novel is nearing its end--though
my own guess is that the naturalist novel will flourish for a good
while yet, and that fictional modes such as magical realism will prove
to have the shorter life, rather in the way that the modernism that
produced Ulysses and The Waves now seems characteristic of a short and
specific period.
Shippey cites, as books that come to seem most representative and
distinctive of the twentieth century, The Lord of the Rings, 1984 and
Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Slaughterhouse-Five, Gravity's
Rainbow, and several more. It would be easy enough to draw up an
alternative list--Proust, Faulkner, Mann, Solzhenitsyn, Greene,
whatever; but the greater sleight-of-hand is in the double use of the
term "fantasy." For in an important sense The Lord of the Rings is not
fantastical at all. Tolkien made Middle-earth consistent with itself
even to the point of pedantry. (The Shire was not really called the
Shire, Pippin was not really called Pippin, because English had not
yet been invented; tobacco and postmen, present in The Hobbit, are
written out of the later work as anachronisms.)
No, the only genre of which Tolkien stands as representative is the
sword-and-sorcery novel. Shippey is no doubt right to claim that
Tolkien is far superior to other sword-and-sorcery writers; but this
is not, to put it mildly, a genre that has been central to the
literature of the last century. And hasn't Shippey chosen exactly the
wrong tack? Surely Tolkien's remarkable achievement was not to have
ridden the zeitgeist but to have bucked it: to have been so
unrepresentative and yet so popular.
Author of the century? Another part of Shippey's claim is simply the
assertion that Tolkien has been the most popular or most admired
author of the age, and he produces an impressive list of surveys in
which Tolkien has topped the poll as the favorite writer of more
people than anyone else. But he knows, of course, that popularity is a
dodgy criterion. By this standard Danielle Steel is one of the giants
of our time. There are plenty of non-literary qualities and even
anti-literary qualities that make books popular: prurience, snobbery,
fantasies of wealth and power. Books can even have merits that are
owed to their lack of literary quality: Agatha Christie's whodunits
display an extraordinary ingenuity in their plotting, but the beauty
of the puzzle requires cardboard characters and total implausibility
in motives and reasons. It is the literary ineptitude of her books
that makes the murderer so hard to detect. In Tolkien's case, there
are some extra-literary qualities that form at least a part of his
appeal to some readers: maps, imaginary languages, the invention of a
full alternative world about which one can learn more outside the book
itself. It is interesting to find some of these features in other
best-sellers: Richard Adams's Watership Down comes with a map, and we
are given items of rabbit language (pretty nonsensically, since these
are supposed to be "real" rabbits, unlike in other animal stories);
and there is a made-up language to be learned at Hogwarts Academy,
too.
hippey's assault on Tolkien's detractors is the most swashbuckling
part of his book: he makes merry mischief and scores some hits. He may
well be right to think that there has been a good deal of intellectual
snobbery behind the disparagement of his hero. Still, I doubt that the
literati have sneered at Tolkien simply for being popular, as Shippey
supposes. Intellectuals have a liking for parts of popular culture:
think of the cartloads of highbrow praise justly heaped upon jazz or
Elvis or The Simpsons. Besides, Shippey appears in part to have
misunderstood what he is attacking. Some of his adversaries may have
been strongly hostile to Tolkien, but what many of them appear to have
disliked is not so much Tolkien's work itself as the exaggerated
claims made for it.
There is also a suspicion, fair or not, that Tolkien's most ardent
fans do not care for any literature other than Tolkien. Shippey
adduces a journalist's reaction to the news that The Lord of the Rings
had yet again topped a poll as most popular book ever: "Oh hell! Has
it? Oh my God. Dear oh dear. Dear oh dear oh dear." This is not a
brilliant response, but the sentiment behind it is surely sound. One
can admire Tolkien a great deal and still regret that so many people
believe there to be nothing better. Shippey's "take no prisoners"
policy--you are either with Middle-earth or you are with the poncey
eggheads--polarizes the debate too much. That is why I have been so
hard on Tolkien here: in resisting the claim that he is a literary
titan, it is necessary to point to his large deficiencies.
And yet Tolkien's conception does have a genuine grandeur,
particularly the counterpoint in the later part of the story between
the vast sweep of battle across Middle-earth and what actually matters
more, the tiny group crawling across desolation to the fateful summit
of the Mount of Doom. He is good at conveying the sense of dark,
sinister, shapeless threat (much less good at representing evil
itself). And there are some wonderful passages, such as the visit to
the talking trees, the ents, perhaps the most magical and evocative
thing that he wrote. In his way he was unique, and that cannot be
claimed for many writers. But as for the notion that The Lord of the
Rings is just about the twentieth century's supreme achievement: dear
oh dear oh dear.
Richard Jenkyns is professor of the classical tradition at Oxford
University.
Click Here For FOUR FREE WEEKS of The New Republic.
---
You are the music while the music lasts.
Bert Coules
> When Tolkien started writing his epic, Shippey
> suggests, he did not at first know where it was
> going. This may seem surprising and perhaps a
> little disconcerting. It is not how we expect
> novels to develop...
Well, Mr Jenkyns may be "professor of the classical tradition at
Oxford University", whatever that means, but he knows sod all about
the process of writing a novel, at least as experienced by a good
number of practitioners.
And in general, what a mean-spirited little article. His time as
writer and mine as reader would have been better served by a
one-sentence summary: "I do not like Tolkien's fiction".
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> And in general, what a mean-spirited little article. His time as
> writer and mine as reader would have been better served by a
> one-sentence summary: "I do not like Tolkien's fiction".
Well, he may be mean-spirited, but he has good literary instincts.
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote in message
news:421d8f07$0$31681$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
Mike Scott Rohan
from "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> contains these words:
> "Bert Coules" <ma...@bertcoules.co.uk> wrote:
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> > And in general, what a mean-spirited little article. His time as
> > writer and mine as reader would have been better served by a
> > one-sentence summary: "I do not like Tolkien's fiction".
> Well, he may be mean-spirited, but he has good literary instincts.
What you mean is "he agrees with me".
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from William Quentin <wqm...@yahoospam.com> contains these words:
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> From: William Quentin <wqm...@yahoospam.com>
> Newsgroups: humanities.music.composers.wagner
> Subject: Re: Wagner in "modern" literature
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> Xref: master.news.zetnet.net humanities.music.composers.wagner:24117
> In my opinion, mentioning Tolkien and Wagner in the same breath is a
> serious slight to Wagner. Here's an article by Richard Jenkyns from
> The New Republic which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter
> (I would provide a link, but you need to be a subscriber to read it,
> so I just decided to post the whole thing):
> Bored of the Rings
> by Richard Jenkyns
{snip}
> Richard Jenkyns is professor of the classical tradition at Oxford
> University.
> Click Here For FOUR FREE WEEKS of The New Republic.
Not uninteresting, but all it boils down to is "I don't like this
myself", not any kind of proof; and one is not obliged to like Tolkien
to acknowledge him as of literary value and standing, any more than one
is, say, D.H.Lawrence (whom Auberon Waugh rightly called "the finest
comic writer of the 20th century") or H.G.Wells. Their claim, for all
their weaknesses, goes unchallenged. Still more so, that of many other
writers not just flawed but mediocre and limited -- Galsworthy, for
example, or Theodore Dreiser. They arouse neither violent love nor
hatred, they impose no strain upon the imagination, they do not
outwardly offend the dictates of social realism, and so they're
accepted, largely because nobody can be bothered challenging them.
Tolkien has the effrontery to be popular, and widely so, and that is as
a hair on the tongue of a certain kind of academic. That leaves them
mumbling and bitching about "popular taste" as if it were confined
solely to tabloid readers, and not shared by people whose intellect and
cultural qualifications are not that far removed from their own.
And though I hate to argue ad hominem, that in fact may play a part in
the worth of the value judgement concerned. Tom Shippey is an old friend
of mine, as it happens, my wife's tutor at Oxford, and I find it highly
significant that Professor Jenkyns chooses -- it cannot be but
deliberate -- not to mention that Tom was an Oxford don as well,
relegating him to Leeds and St.Louis. Nor, IMHO, does he give him his
true status; Tom is probably the greatest living expert on Anglo-Saxon
poetry, and I can recommend his book on it, not least for being
reasonably intelligible. There is a constant, bickering, old-womanish
feud at Oxford, based not on scholastic grounds but the contempt of the
"pure criticism" English school for the "language side", largely because
this actually involves doing some quantifiable work as well as
delivering Olympian opinions. It was particularly directed at Tolkien
when he won his professorship as an outsider, by sheer brilliance, over
the head of the sleek crit-establishment candidate Kenneth Sisam, and
has raged ever since, particularly intensely in recent years, when the
language course has all but been closed down, and Anglo-Saxon taken off
the syllabus, by the deconstructionist crits, since it tripped up so
many of their star students. Among a certain set of dons it's become a
kind of intellectual pose to be loudly and patronizingly anti-Tolkien,
just exactly as it was among academic musicians to be anti-Wagnerian,
and with about as much long-term relevance to the actual worth of
either. And so I don't take this sort of comment too seriously; it's all
part of the game.
Even if I didn't know all this, though, I would find little to respect
here, however, simply because the tone is so determinedly negative. I'm
a critic and reviewer myself, and when someone says "I think this is
good and I want to tell you about it", I listen with attention; but when
someone says "I think this is bad and I'm determined to tell you", I
find myself asking what exactly is their motivation. Why are they so
concerned to tout that opinion? When I review a recording that I think
is bad, I'm doing it to inform people and stop them making a mistake and
wasting money by buying it -- at least, without considering the options.
But Professor Jenkyns is not out to stop people buying Tolkien because
they're ill-informed -- bit late for that. No, he is out to assert the
superior worth of his own judgement and to denigrate others, to assert
that they are incapable of his level of perception; and again that
reminds me very much of the opponents of Wagner, or the pedants who
damned Puccini for his "inept" or "crude" use of parallel fifths in the
brilliant Barriere D'Enfer scene in Boheme. This kind of negativity is
clear in the kind of technique he uses -- takes one line out of context,
quotes a far cruder Hollywood example tainted not in itself but by Tony
Curtis's delivery of it, and uses it to damn an entire style. You could
do that -- as he is undoubtedly experienced enough to know -- with any
author; it's an old critical trick and a cheap one, and yet for all his
pose of judicious moderation he uses it and others like it quite freely.
It's the kind of technique an experienced don develops to put down
student essays and maintain his air of lazy superiority without
descending to actual argument.
I could say more, but I'm deadline-chasing at the moment. In any case, I
don't think it's really worthwhile. As with Wagner, those who dislike
Tolkien are also often determined to prove that their dislike is not
mere taste, but actually represents some higher intellectual absolute.
Consequently no argument in the world will shake them, except that the
world, by and large, does not agree. And that is best left to time to
demonstrate. Reviews in the Sixties claimed deep relief that the
"Tolkien fashion" -- then confined mostly to academics -- was at last
dying out, just as they hailed the bursting of the Wagnerian bubble even
in his lifetime. How do they read now?
Cheers,
Mike
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
Or, in your case, "he disagrees with me."
Now what?
Or are you suggesting that, beyond questions of craft, there exist valid
objective criteria for assessing literary worth?
(The above is a general question, and not keyed specifically to the Jenkyns
critique in
question.)
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200502241...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
REP
news:200502241...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
And instead of writing a whole book defending JRR Tolkien, Mr. Shippey
should have simply written "I like Tolkien's writing." Huh-wha--?
REP
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - full original post is below]
> Or are you suggesting that, beyond questions of craft, there exist valid
> objective criteria for assessing literary worth?
Oops.
The above should have read: "Or are you suggesting that, beyond questions of
craft, there exist valid objective criteria for assessing literary aesthetic
worth?"
--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com
------------[original post]------------
"A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> wrote in message
news:0%nTd.73246$Th1....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
{snip}
> And instead of writing a whole book defending JRR Tolkien, Mr. Shippey
> should have simply written "I like Tolkien's writing." Huh-wha--?
Naturally not. As my earlier post makes clear, I believe a positive
criticism is worthwhile, negative criticism questionable at best unless
there is some positive motive governing it. Professor Shippey is
informing potential readers; Professor Jenkyns is trying to put him down
and discourage them. I know which motive is the more genuinely literary
in spirit, which is more intellectually and artistically valid, and
which I myself prefer. The patronizing sneer is rarely an enduring
judgement.
Mike Scott Rohan
from "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> contains these words:
> "A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@att.net> wrote:
> > [snipped - full original post is below]
> > Or are you suggesting that, beyond questions of craft, there exist valid
> > objective criteria for assessing literary worth?
> Oops.
> The above should have read: "Or are you suggesting that, beyond
> questions of
> craft, there exist valid objective criteria for assessing literary
> aesthetic
> worth?"
No, but I'm certainly not a deconstructionist, if that's what you're
referring to. Jenkyns, though, is asserting there exist absolute
criteria for denying it, and in many cases simply citing his own
reactions as such.
It might be safest to say that when a work is widely and enduringly
popular, and with such a wide and disparate audience, there exists a
reasonable presumption that it has literary worth, a presumption which
can only be rebutted on very specific grounds. Beyond that it can only
be considered on a basis of personal taste, and taste in literature, as
history has established, has never reasonably been dictated by the
authorities of any particular generation.
REP
Isn't a literary critic who discourages readers from reading one author
conversely encouraging them to read another (or others)? Similarly, is
saying "Tolkien is the greatest author of the 20th century" any different
from saying "Proust/Joyce/Hemingway/etc. isn't the greatest author of the
20th century"? From my perspective, both writers are expressing both hostile
and positive ideas, though they are doing so in literal opposites.
Personally I found the article enjoyable, even while I enjoy LOTR.
REP
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
> "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:200502242...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> > The message <ZvpTd.10955$QQ3.3558@trnddc02>
> > from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
> >
> > {snip}
> >
> > > And instead of writing a whole book defending JRR Tolkien, Mr. Shippey
> > > should have simply written "I like Tolkien's writing." Huh-wha--?
> >
> > Naturally not. As my earlier post makes clear, I believe a positive
> > criticism is worthwhile, negative criticism questionable at best unless
> > there is some positive motive governing it. Professor Shippey is
> > informing potential readers; Professor Jenkyns is trying to put him down
> > and discourage them. I know which motive is the more genuinely literary
> > in spirit, which is more intellectually and artistically valid, and
> > which I myself prefer. The patronizing sneer is rarely an enduring
> > judgement.
> Isn't a literary critic who discourages readers from reading one author
> conversely encouraging them to read another (or others)?
No, he's seeking to restrict reading and dictate taste according to his
definition, and that is the curse of literature. If we'd followed that
kind of dictate from Victorian and Edwardian critics we wouldn't have
read George Meredith or Thomas Hardy, for example, and would still have
been reading Hall Caine.
Similarly, is
> saying "Tolkien is the greatest author of the 20th century" any different
> from saying "Proust/Joyce/Hemingway/etc. isn't the greatest author of the
> 20th century"? From my perspective, both writers are expressing both hostile
> and positive ideas, though they are doing so in literal opposites.
Well, Tom is not saying "Tolkien is the greatest etc.", and nor am I.
That was the outcome of a newspaper poll (an intelligent newspaper, not
a tabloid), and of course it was greeted with shrieks of horror,
vitriolic snobbery and/or complacently patronizing sneers by such
self-appointed arbiters -- people like Howard Brenton (who?) and
Germaine Greer, who in the course of rubbishing LOTR the length of an
extensive TV programme only managed to expose that she had never
actually read it. Tom was simply making a strong and spirited defence of
LOTR, without necessarily endorsing a not terribly meaningful
comparison. Equally, I'm not saying that Tolkien is "as great as"
Wagner, because I find that equally meaningless -- but more of that
below.
That aside, though, your point still can't hold. Examining and lauding
one particular writer, at the lowest possible evaluation, can only
encourage and widen people's reading, and thus enhance their ability to
make up their minds for themselves -- in the end, the only judgement
that matters. The adverse critic is trying to restrict that, to poison
people's minds against what he doesn't like, and replace their judgement
with his own. The distinction is between informing and deforming.
> Personally I found the article enjoyable, even while I enjoy LOTR.
I found the sneer beneath the appearance of even-handedness too
familiar, and from that particular source distasteful, given the amount
of that sort of thing I encountered at Oxford.
But this is a convenient place to remind Mr.Quentin and others of what
all this is actually about, and what it is I'm saying -- the invocation
of Proust's A la recherche de temps perdu as the literary equivalent of
the Ring. I found this utterly inappropriate; Proust's delicately
introverted masterpiece, all style and fragile nuance, bears vanishingly
little resemblance to Wagner's sprawling high-romantic cosmic drama with
its mythological foundation and all-embracing humane message. The Ring's
intricacies and nuances are not self-contained filigree but intertwined
threads of a vaster and not at all introverted vision stretching from
the depths of time to the redemption of the world; and the verbal style,
unlike Proust's delicate ellipsis (which scarcely survives translation),
self-consciously and artificially archaic, often grotesque and dated but
in the process creating something self-consistently credible, a world
with rules of its own. So I said then, and do now, that if there's a
literary equivalent to that, it's Tolkien. That's all. I was not saying
that Tolkien is as great as Wagner; the comparison's meaningless, and so
for that matter is any over-precise application of "great".
But equally I refuse to underestimate him, especially in the manner many
seem to, reacting as if I'd compared the Ring to Marvel Comics or
something of the sort. There is a great deal more to Tolkien than that;
before his popular vogue began with the first paperback editions in the
early 60s, he was a kind of deeply admired cult figure among the
intellectuals and writers of that day, including leading novelists like
Naomi Mitchison, Richard Hughes, Iris Murdoch. While there were some who
took an equally strong dislike, it was only with the advent of
popularity that the intelligentsia began decrying Tolkien. Something of
the same happened to Mahler over the same period, and to Wagner as well;
there's a class of academic in the music world that adopts a platform of
despising such vulgar composers in favour of lesser "more refined"
masters. I can't accept that mentality at all, it's negative,
restrictive, the opposite of scholarly, and ultimately destructive.
That's why I'm not greatly concerned with whether or not anyone thinks
"Tolkien can't be mentioned in the same breath with Wagner". My point is
that Tolkien has literary merit and stature of his own, and I in no way
minimize that of Proust or any other author by recognising it. Exactly
how much merit doesn't affect the point. Proust could be called the
finer author, if one wants; it's not relevant, and he is in any case
such a different one the comparison hardly applies. But as creations, in
nature, sources, responses, aims and imagery, to list only a few points,
there are remarkable similarities between Tolkien and Wagner, and these
can be recognised and considered without invoking any value judgements
at all. It's sadly indicative that some people leaped to that value
judgement, too eager to react to the appearance of heresy.
That's not the point. The validity of the comparison is. And if there is
a composer who can be compared with Proust artistically, I'd say it
could be Ravel, Debussy being altogether too Baudelairean and Satie and
his kind too extrovert. If this discussion's to be revived, therefore,
can we leave the worth or otherwise of Tolkien out of it?
Cheers,
Mike