Today is Ge.'s birthday! We celebrated it by having a small feast of pretzel sticks, espresso chocolate, marzipan, and After Eights, followed by two chocolate-covered cakes baked by Papa and decorated by T. and me. There were also several phone calls for the birthday personage. My present was two marzipan piglets, which disappeared with a surprising rapidity.
Altogether it was a nice day, though overcast (I think), with a lovely pink sunset that I photographed with my recovered camera, and that Gi. also photographed with his digital camera. I didn't study, but played a lot of piano. The Chopin waltzes went particularly well, which was puzzling because elegance and confidence and a sense of rhythm is precisely what I tend to lack when I play. I also played two games of Age of Empires, at the hardest level of difficulty, both ending in defeat. When will I ever learn? (c:
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Tragedy, Music, and Piety
Today is decidedly a grumpy day for me, though I think that I haven't inflicted my grumpiness on others by any means other than a slightly overcast mien. The weather was clear but not so very bright, and since I woke up at perhaps 12:30 I only experienced perhaps half of the daylight.
I did read Le Cid today, from start to finish. To be more exact, I skimmed, though I didn't skip large parts the way I usually have with other plays to find out what happens at the end and who the main characters on whom the plot hinges are. I must say it was a nice surprise that the end was not the tragic bloodbath I'd expected. I've gotten used to the idea of reading books and plays with unhappy endings, but I still dislike the negative anticipation I feel in the process. Besides, to exaggerate a little, it particularly annoys me in tragedies how no one has any common sense except perhaps minor characters in whom I'm barely (if at all) interested, and how the main characters, deficient of brain and deficient of humour, wallow in two or three unnaturally intense conflicting emotions until one of the idiots runs his sword through the other. It all seems so useless.
Then I played the piano: Schumann's Kinderszenen and some of his Waldszenen and pieces from Album für die Jugend, Bach's Preludium and Fugue in C major from the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the C major/minor scales, three beginners' studies by Czerny, some of Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte, a few mazurkas, waltzes and nocturnes by Chopin, the beginning of Händel's Largo from Xerxes as arranged for the piano and cello, and the beginning of Schubert's B flat major sonata. Then Terese (on the recorder) and I played an old dance, perhaps five American folk songs ("Yankee Doodle," "We Gather Together," etc.), and English Christmas carols. We've been singing and playing carols a lot lately, but still only the English ones.
By the way, these are currently my favourite English carols:
Joy to the World
Once in Royal David's City
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Good King Wenceslas
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
In the meantime Papa built a broad, sturdy shelf, which is now the base for a bookcase at the head of my bed. Mama filled the shelves with the piles of books I had lying around. These piled-up books are highly impressive, from an English translation of Don Quixote through Diderot: Oeuvres Romanesques to Plutarch's Lives, but I'll probably never read them. I do have my old favourites among them, too, like French fairy tales and Tales from Shakespeare and the autobiography of Agatha Christie.
Right now I am mainly reading, at gutenberg.org, the nineteenth-century book Queechy by Susan Warner. This book is about a beautiful and high-minded but rather impecunious young girl who is early an orphan, then lives in rural New England with her high-souled grandfather until he dies. After his death she goes to live with her uncle and aunt and two cousins in Paris and New York, then returns to her ancestral farm when this uncle is financially ruined and selflessly keeps the family from starving by growing flowers and vegetables and doing much of the housework. Remaining "unspotted by the world," she finally marries an Englishman of noble birth and a similarly high mind. I do enjoy reading the book, but I don't particularly like the Christianity in it. The authoress, though fairly subtly, equates official Christians with good and everyone else with bad. The hero is also hard to take, for, once the heroine has gotten him to see the light, the authoress depicts him as immeasurably superior, only to be partially understood by his fellow man, infinitely wise and noble, and one to be obeyed by the heroine without question or comment -- his only troublesome tendency being that of becoming very angry, but always in a good cause. First of all, it strikes me that the authoress seems to be presenting a second God here; secondly, the hero may mean well but he is despotic and clearly considers himself superior to everyone else, including the heroine. He doesn't ask his beloved's opinion on anything except when he asks her an essentially rhetorical question on some ethical point to probe her character; other than that he only asks her about her life or her tears (frequent, alas), or he tells her to do something. Besides, I can't believe that one ever could satisfactorily feed a family of five (including the servant) through the ladylike means of selling roses and strawberries and beans, and, occasionally, a lovely little gem of a poem.
On the other hand, the ideals of high-mindedness, profound learning and thought, and goodness do appeal to me, as do the pictures of rural New England life. Also, I don't only find the plot and characters fairly interesting, but also the underlying question of how one can cope with poverty and living in an isolated area, and what the emotional and intellectual effects of these problems are. And the style is quite good.
And now I think this post is quite long enough!
I did read Le Cid today, from start to finish. To be more exact, I skimmed, though I didn't skip large parts the way I usually have with other plays to find out what happens at the end and who the main characters on whom the plot hinges are. I must say it was a nice surprise that the end was not the tragic bloodbath I'd expected. I've gotten used to the idea of reading books and plays with unhappy endings, but I still dislike the negative anticipation I feel in the process. Besides, to exaggerate a little, it particularly annoys me in tragedies how no one has any common sense except perhaps minor characters in whom I'm barely (if at all) interested, and how the main characters, deficient of brain and deficient of humour, wallow in two or three unnaturally intense conflicting emotions until one of the idiots runs his sword through the other. It all seems so useless.
Then I played the piano: Schumann's Kinderszenen and some of his Waldszenen and pieces from Album für die Jugend, Bach's Preludium and Fugue in C major from the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the C major/minor scales, three beginners' studies by Czerny, some of Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte, a few mazurkas, waltzes and nocturnes by Chopin, the beginning of Händel's Largo from Xerxes as arranged for the piano and cello, and the beginning of Schubert's B flat major sonata. Then Terese (on the recorder) and I played an old dance, perhaps five American folk songs ("Yankee Doodle," "We Gather Together," etc.), and English Christmas carols. We've been singing and playing carols a lot lately, but still only the English ones.
By the way, these are currently my favourite English carols:
Joy to the World
Once in Royal David's City
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Good King Wenceslas
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
In the meantime Papa built a broad, sturdy shelf, which is now the base for a bookcase at the head of my bed. Mama filled the shelves with the piles of books I had lying around. These piled-up books are highly impressive, from an English translation of Don Quixote through Diderot: Oeuvres Romanesques to Plutarch's Lives, but I'll probably never read them. I do have my old favourites among them, too, like French fairy tales and Tales from Shakespeare and the autobiography of Agatha Christie.
Right now I am mainly reading, at gutenberg.org, the nineteenth-century book Queechy by Susan Warner. This book is about a beautiful and high-minded but rather impecunious young girl who is early an orphan, then lives in rural New England with her high-souled grandfather until he dies. After his death she goes to live with her uncle and aunt and two cousins in Paris and New York, then returns to her ancestral farm when this uncle is financially ruined and selflessly keeps the family from starving by growing flowers and vegetables and doing much of the housework. Remaining "unspotted by the world," she finally marries an Englishman of noble birth and a similarly high mind. I do enjoy reading the book, but I don't particularly like the Christianity in it. The authoress, though fairly subtly, equates official Christians with good and everyone else with bad. The hero is also hard to take, for, once the heroine has gotten him to see the light, the authoress depicts him as immeasurably superior, only to be partially understood by his fellow man, infinitely wise and noble, and one to be obeyed by the heroine without question or comment -- his only troublesome tendency being that of becoming very angry, but always in a good cause. First of all, it strikes me that the authoress seems to be presenting a second God here; secondly, the hero may mean well but he is despotic and clearly considers himself superior to everyone else, including the heroine. He doesn't ask his beloved's opinion on anything except when he asks her an essentially rhetorical question on some ethical point to probe her character; other than that he only asks her about her life or her tears (frequent, alas), or he tells her to do something. Besides, I can't believe that one ever could satisfactorily feed a family of five (including the servant) through the ladylike means of selling roses and strawberries and beans, and, occasionally, a lovely little gem of a poem.
On the other hand, the ideals of high-mindedness, profound learning and thought, and goodness do appeal to me, as do the pictures of rural New England life. Also, I don't only find the plot and characters fairly interesting, but also the underlying question of how one can cope with poverty and living in an isolated area, and what the emotional and intellectual effects of these problems are. And the style is quite good.
And now I think this post is quite long enough!
Monday, November 20, 2006
Vue de la Bastille en juillet 1789
Source: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b77437038
(The source for the Walpole quotation below was the letter to Richard West, Esq., 21st April 1739, as presented at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12073/12073-8.txt)
Tales of My Weekend
Before I go to my studies today, I want to summarize the events of the weekend.
On Saturday evening Mama, T. and I took the M48 bus down to the Kulturforum for a concert. The Studiosi Cantandi Berlin were singing two masses and the Prague Symphony by Mozart, in the St. Matthäus Kirche. We arrived reasonably early, bought our tickets just inside for $12 each (we could have gotten a student price but we're not studying now, of course) from one of the choir members. Outside the smallish church where the concert was held seems to be in an Italian, Renaissance style, of stone in alternating bands of muted ochre and terra cotta, with a simple tall tower reminiscent in this very simplicity and tallness, as well as squareness, of the towers in San Gimignano. At least, that's the way it appears to me in retrospect. Inside it is very modern, with a severely unadorned white interior, and a broad modern balcony around three sides forming a second floor, under the light-coloured wide timbers of the ceiling. There was a small organ at the head of this balcony, and small statuettes of religious figures interspersed in the room, or it would have been hard to tell that it is a church from the inside. But it is true that the shapes of the windows -- trios of long, narrow panes in graduated sizes that are rounded at the top -- are rather a give-away. At the top of the large staircase to the balcony there is some historical information, including a portrait of the melancholy face of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a minister who preached against the Nazis, I think).
Anyway, we took our seats on some of the chairs on the balcony (the ground floor being too full), and then on a bench when other people made way. Slowly the choir and the musicians (only a handful) and the conductor trickled in for the Missa brevis in D minor, to appreciative applause. The very first sound of the music was already absorbing. Either I was in the right mood, or the smallness of the church made the music more immediate, or both. Once again I was surprised how great the volume of a few instruments can be, and how much depth the sort of rumbling hum of the basses (and maybe cellos) adds. The Studiosi Cantandi may not be technically very finished, but it seemed to me that at least they understood the music, and made it considerably expressive.
Then came the Prague Symphony, with the full orchestra. Here the choir could take a rest, but I was pleased to see that the majority of them listened and looked at the musicians with interest -- in different poses; for example, one looked the whole time as if his photo were being taken, sitting at a three-quarter angle or whatever it is, while another smiled the whole time with her chin resting on her hand.
Finally came the Coronation Mass (in C major) -- the only piece I really recognized. The choir was quite overpowered by the instruments, and for some reason they did not sing full, long tones when it would have been necessary. Mama says that this does require intensive training. Here, as in the symphony, a French horn (I think) was sometimes very off and squawked ignominiously, the player, however, continuing with an impressively immobile countenance. Or maybe the culprit was a trumpeter. The solo singers also sometimes sounded off-key. In addition to this, the melody didn't seem to be brought out clearly enough at times, and the ends of the movements were not gently done. My impression at the beginning was that the orchestra had been too ambitious in choosing this mass. But, again, the way they sang and played was expressive enough -- grand but not pompous, thank goodness --, and the music itself highly agreeable, so that by the end it all came together nicely, and the applause (from a very good audience) was long and genuine.
Yesterday I went to the Rathaus Schöneberg with John Locke's letter on tolerance (in German and English translations) in my hand. The way there was lovely. It was not wet or too gloomy. The trees along the way had lost most of their leaves, especially the chestnuts, but the planes and acacias still held on to some of theirs. A grey mist mingled with the various browns of the tangled branches and the yellow remaining leaves. Yellow leaves still littered the sidewalks, as I thought cliché-edly, like ghosts of the past year (though they weren't really pale enough to be ghosts, as I thought immediately afterward). At the corner of the Vorbergstrasse and Eisenacher Strasse the great red cathedral-like brick building of the Riesengebirgsoberschule looked more splendid than ever with the sparse golden-leafed birches in front of it. In the graveyard further up the street the red brick wall glowed agreeably, no longer covered by the large green leaves of the overhanging vines, and the trees there, too, were settling into their winter bareness. As I looked down the path in the middle of the graveyard there was something very peaceful and Christmas-like about the small, well-tended evergreens at the graves, still sheltered by the trees. As I approached the Rathaus itself, I looked toward the Rudolph-Wilde-Park, where the browns of tree branches blended harmoniously with the orange and brown and yellow foliage, and at last I understood the merits of the overly bright golden stag in the park (though I still detest the bare grey column under it) as I saw it gleaming through this woodland scene.
At the Rathaus I sat down and read two introductions to the Locke's letter. I must say I didn't absorb much of the information. All I remember is that one problem with Locke is balancing the rights of man with the observance of religion, and that Locke fled to the Netherlands as the debate over a certain James as the successor of I-don't-know-whom (though I would know if I thought carefully) grew more heated. This reminds me that I was surprised to read in a novel about William Pitt the Younger (which I'm reading for my French Revolution story, of course) that there were virulent anti-Catholic riots in London in the year 1780, though only for five days. I think it's in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley where there are still hints of strong anti-"Popery" feeling, but I didn't know the problem was so intense.
Yesterday I also began to read the letters of Horace Walpole. I must say that, when he is not admiring, he does a lot of sneering. For instance, he laughs at the French for thinking that it is honourable to be in the army, and not dishonourable to own a "gambling-house," then remarks how certain aged princesses who even condescend to own banks are slathered in rouge, then says that, in essence, Louis XIV was a big baby ("great child"), and that the gardens of Versailles prove it. He also describes, with considerable disgust, the funeral procession of an important personage -- lots of flambeaux and friars, not at all to his taste. He adds the following:
"By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it wakened them." He concludes, "The French love show; but there is a meanness reigns through it all," then complains about having to eat puff pastry and so on in lieu of more substantial items at dinner. !
Still, the depth of information Mr. Walpole gives is fine. He mentions a church of the Celestins in Paris. I looked this up on the internet and, as I partly suspected, it has been sacked and destroyed (the most important church of that name is now the one in Avignon). Then I looked up the church of Saint Denis. I really felt my gorge rise when I read how the bones were exhumed during the French Revolution and tossed into a general grave. One of the underlying elements even in the most primitive civilizations is respect for the dead. Besides, how can one possibly blame the earliest kings and queens of France, representatives of a long and interesting history, for conditions in the present day? And, having guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the very least one can do is to let their bodies rest in peace. Really. But I think that respect for the dead is among the usual casualties of war, so I'm not trying to make the revolutionaries out to be worse than any other group.
Well, that was, more or less, my weekend; it sounds much more content-filled than it felt, though I enjoyed it.
On Saturday evening Mama, T. and I took the M48 bus down to the Kulturforum for a concert. The Studiosi Cantandi Berlin were singing two masses and the Prague Symphony by Mozart, in the St. Matthäus Kirche. We arrived reasonably early, bought our tickets just inside for $12 each (we could have gotten a student price but we're not studying now, of course) from one of the choir members. Outside the smallish church where the concert was held seems to be in an Italian, Renaissance style, of stone in alternating bands of muted ochre and terra cotta, with a simple tall tower reminiscent in this very simplicity and tallness, as well as squareness, of the towers in San Gimignano. At least, that's the way it appears to me in retrospect. Inside it is very modern, with a severely unadorned white interior, and a broad modern balcony around three sides forming a second floor, under the light-coloured wide timbers of the ceiling. There was a small organ at the head of this balcony, and small statuettes of religious figures interspersed in the room, or it would have been hard to tell that it is a church from the inside. But it is true that the shapes of the windows -- trios of long, narrow panes in graduated sizes that are rounded at the top -- are rather a give-away. At the top of the large staircase to the balcony there is some historical information, including a portrait of the melancholy face of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a minister who preached against the Nazis, I think).
Anyway, we took our seats on some of the chairs on the balcony (the ground floor being too full), and then on a bench when other people made way. Slowly the choir and the musicians (only a handful) and the conductor trickled in for the Missa brevis in D minor, to appreciative applause. The very first sound of the music was already absorbing. Either I was in the right mood, or the smallness of the church made the music more immediate, or both. Once again I was surprised how great the volume of a few instruments can be, and how much depth the sort of rumbling hum of the basses (and maybe cellos) adds. The Studiosi Cantandi may not be technically very finished, but it seemed to me that at least they understood the music, and made it considerably expressive.
Then came the Prague Symphony, with the full orchestra. Here the choir could take a rest, but I was pleased to see that the majority of them listened and looked at the musicians with interest -- in different poses; for example, one looked the whole time as if his photo were being taken, sitting at a three-quarter angle or whatever it is, while another smiled the whole time with her chin resting on her hand.
Finally came the Coronation Mass (in C major) -- the only piece I really recognized. The choir was quite overpowered by the instruments, and for some reason they did not sing full, long tones when it would have been necessary. Mama says that this does require intensive training. Here, as in the symphony, a French horn (I think) was sometimes very off and squawked ignominiously, the player, however, continuing with an impressively immobile countenance. Or maybe the culprit was a trumpeter. The solo singers also sometimes sounded off-key. In addition to this, the melody didn't seem to be brought out clearly enough at times, and the ends of the movements were not gently done. My impression at the beginning was that the orchestra had been too ambitious in choosing this mass. But, again, the way they sang and played was expressive enough -- grand but not pompous, thank goodness --, and the music itself highly agreeable, so that by the end it all came together nicely, and the applause (from a very good audience) was long and genuine.
Yesterday I went to the Rathaus Schöneberg with John Locke's letter on tolerance (in German and English translations) in my hand. The way there was lovely. It was not wet or too gloomy. The trees along the way had lost most of their leaves, especially the chestnuts, but the planes and acacias still held on to some of theirs. A grey mist mingled with the various browns of the tangled branches and the yellow remaining leaves. Yellow leaves still littered the sidewalks, as I thought cliché-edly, like ghosts of the past year (though they weren't really pale enough to be ghosts, as I thought immediately afterward). At the corner of the Vorbergstrasse and Eisenacher Strasse the great red cathedral-like brick building of the Riesengebirgsoberschule looked more splendid than ever with the sparse golden-leafed birches in front of it. In the graveyard further up the street the red brick wall glowed agreeably, no longer covered by the large green leaves of the overhanging vines, and the trees there, too, were settling into their winter bareness. As I looked down the path in the middle of the graveyard there was something very peaceful and Christmas-like about the small, well-tended evergreens at the graves, still sheltered by the trees. As I approached the Rathaus itself, I looked toward the Rudolph-Wilde-Park, where the browns of tree branches blended harmoniously with the orange and brown and yellow foliage, and at last I understood the merits of the overly bright golden stag in the park (though I still detest the bare grey column under it) as I saw it gleaming through this woodland scene.
At the Rathaus I sat down and read two introductions to the Locke's letter. I must say I didn't absorb much of the information. All I remember is that one problem with Locke is balancing the rights of man with the observance of religion, and that Locke fled to the Netherlands as the debate over a certain James as the successor of I-don't-know-whom (though I would know if I thought carefully) grew more heated. This reminds me that I was surprised to read in a novel about William Pitt the Younger (which I'm reading for my French Revolution story, of course) that there were virulent anti-Catholic riots in London in the year 1780, though only for five days. I think it's in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley where there are still hints of strong anti-"Popery" feeling, but I didn't know the problem was so intense.
Yesterday I also began to read the letters of Horace Walpole. I must say that, when he is not admiring, he does a lot of sneering. For instance, he laughs at the French for thinking that it is honourable to be in the army, and not dishonourable to own a "gambling-house," then remarks how certain aged princesses who even condescend to own banks are slathered in rouge, then says that, in essence, Louis XIV was a big baby ("great child"), and that the gardens of Versailles prove it. He also describes, with considerable disgust, the funeral procession of an important personage -- lots of flambeaux and friars, not at all to his taste. He adds the following:
"By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it wakened them." He concludes, "The French love show; but there is a meanness reigns through it all," then complains about having to eat puff pastry and so on in lieu of more substantial items at dinner. !
Still, the depth of information Mr. Walpole gives is fine. He mentions a church of the Celestins in Paris. I looked this up on the internet and, as I partly suspected, it has been sacked and destroyed (the most important church of that name is now the one in Avignon). Then I looked up the church of Saint Denis. I really felt my gorge rise when I read how the bones were exhumed during the French Revolution and tossed into a general grave. One of the underlying elements even in the most primitive civilizations is respect for the dead. Besides, how can one possibly blame the earliest kings and queens of France, representatives of a long and interesting history, for conditions in the present day? And, having guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the very least one can do is to let their bodies rest in peace. Really. But I think that respect for the dead is among the usual casualties of war, so I'm not trying to make the revolutionaries out to be worse than any other group.
Well, that was, more or less, my weekend; it sounds much more content-filled than it felt, though I enjoyed it.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Ramblings of a Disgruntled Cook
Having finished a dinner of deep-fried cod ("Kabeljau" in German), boiled potatoes, broccoli, and ice cream, I now have time to ramble pleasantly about my day. First, however, I would like to say that I detest deep-frying things. The spitting oil, the air permeated with grease, the uncertainty whether the fish is done or not, and the gradual change of the colour of the fat from a nice golden pine colour to a dark murky walnut one, are all things I could do without. But the ice cream considerably sweetened my mood, and since it was in creamsicle form it didn't create more dishes. Also, everyone else was quite content.
This morning I woke up a little before twelve. I tried to wake up J. based on a prior pact for the mutual improvement of our schedules, but he had gone to sleep very late the preceding night, so that didn't work. Then I went shopping. At around one o'clock I began to memorize the short poem "La Grenouille qui veut se faire aussi grosse que le Boeuf," one of Jean de la Fontaine's fables. The day before yesterday I memorized "La Cigale et la Fourmi" and yesterday I memorized the parts of "Le Corbeau et le Renard" that I didn't know yet.
Then I began to read Le Cid by Corneille -- only about the first page, then I explored the introduction, a chronology of Corneille's life, and photos of stage representations of the play. On gutenberg.org I recently found an old book for college students which had tips about learning on one's own, which included reading about the author of a work before you read the work itself. So yesterday I had already read up Corneille on Wikipedia. The 17th-century debate about Le Cid seems so absurd; could it really have been solely about the fact that Corneille didn't have all the events take place in the same day, in the same setting, and as part of the same central conflict? If men were really that slavishly devoted to the words of Aristotle, I wonder why Classicism didn't die out earlier. Anyway, the play sounds most interesting.
After that I did exercises with German reflexive verbs, trying to remember which ones take the accusative and which the dative. While I was engaged in this wholesome activity, Papa and T. left to go to a Physics lecture at the FU. So, basically alone (the others were gently napping), I read out loud a few pages from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Das Amulett, a historical novel set at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that is sometimes humorous and sad at the same time. The young narrator has just taken fencing lessons from a shifty-eyed, cringing Bohemian man, whom he only tolerates because he wanted training before taking to the wars. Then a letter comes asking about a Bohemian man who committed murder out of jealousy. The uncle and guardian of the narrator shows the letter and confers with the narrator outside (both instinctively know that their Bohemian is the culprit); the Bohemian is sharpening his sword at the window of his room; the narrator holds the letter so that the red seal is visible from the window (this seems to be done with subconscious intent to warn the Bohemian); then, having decided on how to perform the arrest, the narrator and his uncle enter the house and climb the stairs with pistols cocked, only to find their ex-employee's room empty. The man has stolen the horse of the messenger and ridden off into the sunset.
At ten to four I looked at photos of Germany taken in between the World Wars; there are views of Dresden, for instance, which are now probably long vanished. What I really wanted was to find photos of the Moselle region, which is where I want to set part of my French Revolution story. The story, incidentally, is going well. In an old Merian issue I've already found a castle, Burg Braubach, that will be the blueprint for the residence of my aristocratic family, but I do want to know the region better. As for the name of my family, I'm wavering; "Eules" and "Aumarne" (both my inventions) are two options. But the head of the family will definitely be a Comte Henri X. There will be two daughters and one son, and the mother's father. The mother's eldest brother has died fighting the British, if this is chronologically reasonable, leaving his sole surviving parent embittered. The family will also have lodgings in a fashionable area of Paris, where at least the father will stay while he is the delegate to the Estates-General. Occasionally I have splendid ambitious ideas about the different characters I'll represent. I do want to include the predictable aristocratic snobs as well as a mob of commoners, but there are many other people I'd like to depict.
Most of all I want to present in my story a well-rounded world, where one can see the same events and places from many different perspectives. Here my biggest problem is failing to understand why anyone thinks of the French Revolution as glorious. But this afternoon the idea came to me that perhaps the real triumph of the revolution is the fact that people could come together and overthrow something in a few months that had the weight of centuries of tradition behind it. In concrete human terms, however, it still seems a senseless bloodbath. I can't stand the idealism where the life and well-being of the individual is seen as worthless, even where this idealism purports to be in favour of the "general good." In the Bible it is written (more or less) that God is "infinitely small as well as infinitely great"; this quotation represents to me the idea, in which I strongly believe, that every individual has worth as an individual, and not only as a part of a whole.
Besides, one can't consciously ensure the common good. Taking Communist Russia as an example: as much as officials might pretend that they were acting for the general good, it was clear that, through corruption and unnecessary brutality and so on, not only were they not acting for the general good, they were not acting for the good of any individual except themselves (and perhaps their family and friends). One cannot entrust a single person, individually or in a group, with the task of deciding what is for the good of both himself and everyone else. What is good for one person is not good for the other. For instance, the Russian people may all have had jobs, and mostly enough to eat, which made many of them contented. But, as I understand it, the minds and souls of many others were chronically repressed and starved, and with some people this is worse than any material deprivation. If one regards the human only as a labouring entity that must be fed, one is doing exactly what Marx was criticizing (even though it's true that most industrialists probably didn't care about the feeding part). Anyway . . .
To continue with my lessons, I was going to read about the French Revolution after my German. However, I sang Christmas songs instead, which made me cheerful, and played the piano. I tried the Presto movement of the G-major Haydn trio with a metronome; I should do that more often, because I'm terribly off. Then I played Schumann's Kinderszenen with the metronome; this went well, and I see that it is true that if one plays pieces properly but slowly, one is indeed already able to play them more quickly too. I finished my session with ragtime pieces by Scott Joplin and a rather bad rendition of Clair de lune by Débussy. Then I put on a CD of Christmas carols as sung by Dame Kiri te Kanawa, which we all know more or less by heart, down to the smallest flourish.
So, together with the cooking, that brings me up to date. I'll be more brief in my next post. (c:
This morning I woke up a little before twelve. I tried to wake up J. based on a prior pact for the mutual improvement of our schedules, but he had gone to sleep very late the preceding night, so that didn't work. Then I went shopping. At around one o'clock I began to memorize the short poem "La Grenouille qui veut se faire aussi grosse que le Boeuf," one of Jean de la Fontaine's fables. The day before yesterday I memorized "La Cigale et la Fourmi" and yesterday I memorized the parts of "Le Corbeau et le Renard" that I didn't know yet.
Then I began to read Le Cid by Corneille -- only about the first page, then I explored the introduction, a chronology of Corneille's life, and photos of stage representations of the play. On gutenberg.org I recently found an old book for college students which had tips about learning on one's own, which included reading about the author of a work before you read the work itself. So yesterday I had already read up Corneille on Wikipedia. The 17th-century debate about Le Cid seems so absurd; could it really have been solely about the fact that Corneille didn't have all the events take place in the same day, in the same setting, and as part of the same central conflict? If men were really that slavishly devoted to the words of Aristotle, I wonder why Classicism didn't die out earlier. Anyway, the play sounds most interesting.
After that I did exercises with German reflexive verbs, trying to remember which ones take the accusative and which the dative. While I was engaged in this wholesome activity, Papa and T. left to go to a Physics lecture at the FU. So, basically alone (the others were gently napping), I read out loud a few pages from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Das Amulett, a historical novel set at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that is sometimes humorous and sad at the same time. The young narrator has just taken fencing lessons from a shifty-eyed, cringing Bohemian man, whom he only tolerates because he wanted training before taking to the wars. Then a letter comes asking about a Bohemian man who committed murder out of jealousy. The uncle and guardian of the narrator shows the letter and confers with the narrator outside (both instinctively know that their Bohemian is the culprit); the Bohemian is sharpening his sword at the window of his room; the narrator holds the letter so that the red seal is visible from the window (this seems to be done with subconscious intent to warn the Bohemian); then, having decided on how to perform the arrest, the narrator and his uncle enter the house and climb the stairs with pistols cocked, only to find their ex-employee's room empty. The man has stolen the horse of the messenger and ridden off into the sunset.
At ten to four I looked at photos of Germany taken in between the World Wars; there are views of Dresden, for instance, which are now probably long vanished. What I really wanted was to find photos of the Moselle region, which is where I want to set part of my French Revolution story. The story, incidentally, is going well. In an old Merian issue I've already found a castle, Burg Braubach, that will be the blueprint for the residence of my aristocratic family, but I do want to know the region better. As for the name of my family, I'm wavering; "Eules" and "Aumarne" (both my inventions) are two options. But the head of the family will definitely be a Comte Henri X. There will be two daughters and one son, and the mother's father. The mother's eldest brother has died fighting the British, if this is chronologically reasonable, leaving his sole surviving parent embittered. The family will also have lodgings in a fashionable area of Paris, where at least the father will stay while he is the delegate to the Estates-General. Occasionally I have splendid ambitious ideas about the different characters I'll represent. I do want to include the predictable aristocratic snobs as well as a mob of commoners, but there are many other people I'd like to depict.
Most of all I want to present in my story a well-rounded world, where one can see the same events and places from many different perspectives. Here my biggest problem is failing to understand why anyone thinks of the French Revolution as glorious. But this afternoon the idea came to me that perhaps the real triumph of the revolution is the fact that people could come together and overthrow something in a few months that had the weight of centuries of tradition behind it. In concrete human terms, however, it still seems a senseless bloodbath. I can't stand the idealism where the life and well-being of the individual is seen as worthless, even where this idealism purports to be in favour of the "general good." In the Bible it is written (more or less) that God is "infinitely small as well as infinitely great"; this quotation represents to me the idea, in which I strongly believe, that every individual has worth as an individual, and not only as a part of a whole.
Besides, one can't consciously ensure the common good. Taking Communist Russia as an example: as much as officials might pretend that they were acting for the general good, it was clear that, through corruption and unnecessary brutality and so on, not only were they not acting for the general good, they were not acting for the good of any individual except themselves (and perhaps their family and friends). One cannot entrust a single person, individually or in a group, with the task of deciding what is for the good of both himself and everyone else. What is good for one person is not good for the other. For instance, the Russian people may all have had jobs, and mostly enough to eat, which made many of them contented. But, as I understand it, the minds and souls of many others were chronically repressed and starved, and with some people this is worse than any material deprivation. If one regards the human only as a labouring entity that must be fed, one is doing exactly what Marx was criticizing (even though it's true that most industrialists probably didn't care about the feeding part). Anyway . . .
To continue with my lessons, I was going to read about the French Revolution after my German. However, I sang Christmas songs instead, which made me cheerful, and played the piano. I tried the Presto movement of the G-major Haydn trio with a metronome; I should do that more often, because I'm terribly off. Then I played Schumann's Kinderszenen with the metronome; this went well, and I see that it is true that if one plays pieces properly but slowly, one is indeed already able to play them more quickly too. I finished my session with ragtime pieces by Scott Joplin and a rather bad rendition of Clair de lune by Débussy. Then I put on a CD of Christmas carols as sung by Dame Kiri te Kanawa, which we all know more or less by heart, down to the smallest flourish.
So, together with the cooking, that brings me up to date. I'll be more brief in my next post. (c:
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Sankt Martin, and Arrears
Today is, as far as Catholics are concerned, is the feast of St. Martin. This saint was a Roman soldier who found God, eventually gave up his sword, and became the (Arch?)Bishop of Tours. His most renowned feat is that of dividing his cloak with a sword in order to clothe a freezing beggar. Where my mother grew up there are processions with a person dressed as Sankt Martin riding a white horse, with families carrying colourful lanterns behind him. In Canada we were really the only ones we knew who celebrated it, so we made lanterns, had a small procession with them in front of our relatives, and sang Sankt Martin's songs.
So this afternoon we had nine people (mostly relatives) over; ate Pöfferkes, Pfeffernüsse, Lebkuchen, Stollen, nuts, oranges, and Spekulatius; drank hot chocolate and Glühwein and orange juice; played; and conversed. Admittedly neither I nor my siblings did much conversing, though the conversation did turn to us; specifically, the conversation turned to the idea that we're sitting around too much at home, which idea was actually expressed so as not to be annoying or hurtful. Beginning last evening I've felt nauseated off and on, so I ate very carefully, but everything has gone well (except my sleep last night, which was not good). After the guests left we sang St. Martin's songs and English Christmas carols (German Christmas songs had, I think, better be left for a week or so for the benefit of the neighbours).
In other news, almost all of us have had colds. It was also quite chilly in our apartment before the wood coal briquets arrived yesterday; we spent several days wearing scarfs and blankets, and burrowing under sleeping bags. In my case, at least, I'm not exaggerating.
To refer to my last post, I have not weaned myself from gutenberg.org after all. Perhaps this was predictable. I don't think I've given print fiction enough of a chance, but sometimes I do simply need an "intravenous" shot of fiction. But I have done more cooking; yesterday I made potato soup and boiled broccoli (mmm . . . ), to which Mama added braised chicken and turkey nuggets as well as cucumber salad. That said, my interest in cooking has waned, and I find it too time- and attention-absorbing anyway; my modus operandi is painfully slow, and interrupts my self-assigned studies.
Yesterday I did review Geoffrey Chaucer's biography and rapidly read "The Clerk's Tale" as translated into modern English by Neville Coghill (unnatural parents!). It's amusing that even in the late fourteenth century the heroine Griselda was seen as irritatingly masochistic. That said, I did find the tale highly readable. In my light literature on gutenberg.org, I have reached the authors beginning with T again, and decided just yesterday evening to abridge my progress through the works of Louis Tracy (exciting but doesn't leave one contented). I stayed up one night and slept through the next day, and this has completely thrown me off, so that I feel chronologically adrift. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon. This morning I woke up quite wired (or, if you will, hyperactive), and this feeling has lasted into the evening. I played the piano fluently, but too fluently. I managed to calm down enough to play Andantes by Mozart decently, but my violin playing was automatically presto (by my usual standards, probably a weak allegro by professional standards).
As for the elections in the US, I am quite content, but intend to reserve my final judgment until the next two years are over.
So this afternoon we had nine people (mostly relatives) over; ate Pöfferkes, Pfeffernüsse, Lebkuchen, Stollen, nuts, oranges, and Spekulatius; drank hot chocolate and Glühwein and orange juice; played; and conversed. Admittedly neither I nor my siblings did much conversing, though the conversation did turn to us; specifically, the conversation turned to the idea that we're sitting around too much at home, which idea was actually expressed so as not to be annoying or hurtful. Beginning last evening I've felt nauseated off and on, so I ate very carefully, but everything has gone well (except my sleep last night, which was not good). After the guests left we sang St. Martin's songs and English Christmas carols (German Christmas songs had, I think, better be left for a week or so for the benefit of the neighbours).
In other news, almost all of us have had colds. It was also quite chilly in our apartment before the wood coal briquets arrived yesterday; we spent several days wearing scarfs and blankets, and burrowing under sleeping bags. In my case, at least, I'm not exaggerating.
To refer to my last post, I have not weaned myself from gutenberg.org after all. Perhaps this was predictable. I don't think I've given print fiction enough of a chance, but sometimes I do simply need an "intravenous" shot of fiction. But I have done more cooking; yesterday I made potato soup and boiled broccoli (mmm . . . ), to which Mama added braised chicken and turkey nuggets as well as cucumber salad. That said, my interest in cooking has waned, and I find it too time- and attention-absorbing anyway; my modus operandi is painfully slow, and interrupts my self-assigned studies.
Yesterday I did review Geoffrey Chaucer's biography and rapidly read "The Clerk's Tale" as translated into modern English by Neville Coghill (unnatural parents!). It's amusing that even in the late fourteenth century the heroine Griselda was seen as irritatingly masochistic. That said, I did find the tale highly readable. In my light literature on gutenberg.org, I have reached the authors beginning with T again, and decided just yesterday evening to abridge my progress through the works of Louis Tracy (exciting but doesn't leave one contented). I stayed up one night and slept through the next day, and this has completely thrown me off, so that I feel chronologically adrift. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon. This morning I woke up quite wired (or, if you will, hyperactive), and this feeling has lasted into the evening. I played the piano fluently, but too fluently. I managed to calm down enough to play Andantes by Mozart decently, but my violin playing was automatically presto (by my usual standards, probably a weak allegro by professional standards).
As for the elections in the US, I am quite content, but intend to reserve my final judgment until the next two years are over.
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