Traditions on Christmas Eve

This morning Ge. and T. bought our Christmas tree from the stand just down the street. It is a plump fir, about four foot tall, and it cost fewer than 30 Euros. With Ge.'s help, Mama set it up on a table in the corner room, and then decorated it.

In the afternoon I decided to go to the Christmas fair at Unter den Linden. So I set off in the U-Bahn, which was not as empty as one might expect, emerged at Französische Straße, and leisurely strode along the two blocks to Unter den Linden. The linden trees have been illuminated by slender tubes of lights that run along the branches, a river of light along which the dark, warmly swathed shapes of passersby made their way. The people were mostly wandering in groups and speaking French or Polish. In front of the Staatsoper an ice skating rink was open, so a modest crowd swept to and fro on it to music, or watched from the perimeters, and two rows of white tents offered seats and warm food and corporate advertising. I walked through to the actual Weihnachtsmarkt. The wooden huts were shuttered up, the cobblestones swept clean, but the scent of frying lingered.

On the way back I decided to walk a station further to Stadtmitte. Friedrichstraße was as subduedly lively as Unter den Linden and it was well-lit. At one point a homeless person was sitting cross-legged with blankets draped over his lap, leaning with his back against the pillar of a building and plunged in its shadow. Though I am usually in a "trust no one" mode when I go out, I forgot this for a moment in sympathy. I was wishing that I could get him cocoa or a hot bun or something of the sort, when he asked whether I had any change. So, for once, I sorted out the large coins (which were not many) in my wallet and handed them over.

At Stadtmitte I stepped into the wrong train through absentmindedness, and ended up at Französische Straße again after all. I forgot my stupidity as I plunged into my present U-Bahn reading, which is Jules Verne's highly readable Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours. I've come as far as Hong Kong, where the detective Fix perfidiously renders Passepartout unconscious with an opium pipe, and Phileas Fogg and Aouda set forth on the Carnatic. At Mehringdamm I had to switch to the U7 line and waited for six minutes for the next train to arrive. The platform was nearly deserted. At a brick pillar a deep-voiced man was holding forth on sociopolitical matters in slow Caribbean-accented English interspersed with the occasional "mon," and a woman was murmuring assent or laughing in warm but oddly vacant tones. An elderly lady passed by and asked her companion about the Christmas service at St. Marien; on the bench a young man briefly phoned and then waited, hunched over and hands clasped, for the train to arrive.

At home, Mama was preparing dinner: fish, bulgur wheat, tomato salad, and a white sauce with dill and green peppercorns. Papa was watching television. There was one immensely kitschy Christmas concert after another, though one channel varied the entertainment with a documentary about the death of Princess Diana. But then we came across El Dorado, a film with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. We watched it beginning where Wayne, his new-found friend "Mississippi," and the deputy sheriff concoct a powerful brew of herbs and gunpowder to sober up the sheriff Mitchum, who has been drinking heavily for over a year and is not in the condition to face the band of villains who are threatening him. I find the film most enjoyable. I like John Wayne films in general, but often, as far as I remember, they are too humourless and depressing.

After dinner, we each hurried off to our rooms again. Papa and Mama finished setting up a low shelf that will hold our record collection and will even accomodate the shelf that holds much of our English literature on top. Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium ran on the radio in the background. Until around eleven-thirty I checked my news sites and watched the Queen's first televised Christmas message, broadcast in 1957, on YouTube. It was a concentrated piece of Zeitgeist, elaborately staged, and delivered in Her Majesty's amusingly idiosyncratic high-pitched and sharp voice that verged on sing-song. Her speech seemed the quintessence of the mentality of the hidebound and archaic British nobility; she spoke in her aristocratic accent about the Commonwealth, mentioning in passing that Britain had won the respect of nations by being "honest and kind," lamented the decay of tradition, and in true Victorian vein read aloud a passage from the Christian allegory Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

At midnight Papa and Mama opened a bottle of red wine, of which they and Ge. and I partook; and we all gathered in the corner room to sing Christmas carols: German, English, and French. We collapsed into giggles during the "Angel Gabriel," because when we reached the line, "most highly favoured lady," we all had in mind the pastiche "most highly flavoured gravy." Hilarity also broke out during "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," when we came across the lines, "The witch His Mother Mary/ Did nothing take in scorn." (The proper words, I believe, are, "The which His Mother Mary.") As we were singing "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," the doorbell rang, and W. briefly joined our round.

Television in the late night was full of familiar films. First of all, we watched Casablanca, until shortly after the scene where the patrons of the café sing the "Marseillaise" and drown out the nationalist tunes of the overbearing German officers. Then, before going to sleep, we watched Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant and Peter Lorre. So this Christmas Eve has been a curious mixture of the old and the new.

A Song for All Seasons

Our copy of Tchaikovsky's Seasons had vanished after we moved to Berlin, much to my disappointment. But today I poked among the notes behind the piano, where I had poked a dozen times before, and saw a slim, dark blue volume beside Bach's partitas. "Can it be?" I asked myself. I took it out and realized, "It is!"

The Seasons consists of twelve pieces, one for each month, with a folkloric theme for each, and a quotation from a Russian writer. It begins with January: "At the Fireplace," a thoughtful Russian-sounding song, prefaced by a quotation from Alexander Pushkin, which is in German in our edition:

"Und den Winkel friedlicher Wonne
Kleidet die Nacht in Dunkel,
Im Kamin verlöscht das Feuerchen,
Und die Kerze ist heruntergebracht."*

My favourite piece is August (Harvest), though I've never played it all the way through; I like the melody and its mournful, hurried, uneasy atmosphere, in particular when it is played slowly. One can picture a muddy hay-field with labourers binding the sheaves, or a potato field with farmers digging out the tubers, on a frosty, windy day where the large clouds race before the sun and plunge the world into gloom, in anticipation of winter.

February is at the carneval, March is the song of a lark, April devoted to the snowdrop, and so on and so forth, all the way to the grand waltz that announces "Christmas" for December. I haven't grasped how Tchaikovsky should be played yet; I can tell that the pieces have a distinctly Russian character, for instance, but I don't bring it out properly. There are no other pieces I can recollect where I have made so little progress over time, but I am evidently not discouraged. With every piece I do the best I can at the time I practice; and I'm accustomed to feeling that my version sounds mediocre whenever I compare it to a good recording or the way I play it on days where rather brilliant interpretations come by inspiration.

Besides this, I played Bach's Goldberg Variations (variations 9, 10, and 16), Beethoven dances and sonata movements, Chopin's "Raindrop" prélude, Schumann's Kinderszenen, Schubert's sonata in A major (D 959, Mvt. 1-3), and tried to sightread the first six pages of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (c sharp minor).

P.S.: I'll write about our Christmas preparations, etc., some other time.

* "And the corner of peaceful cheer
The night enfolds in darkness;
The flame expires in the hearth
And the candle is sunken."

Link: Recording of "January" on YouTube. If you search for "Emil Gilels Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky" you should also find an excellent recording of Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto.

Arts Articles and Diaries

Today was a rainy and windy day which I passed in a lazy manner, except for a short shopping excursion to Plus. But I immersed myself in food and arts articles in the Guardian and New York Times and the New Yorker.

There are times when either these articles are unusually rich and interesting, or I am simply in a more appreciative state of mind. I enjoyed reading about The Crack in Tate Modern, the newly-built New York Times Building, three British cookbooks, a biography of Rudolf Nureyev, the Vietnam War novel Tree of Smoke, a new staging of Cymbeline, the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, etc.

Besides, I found two photos that I liked well enough to save onto my computer; one was a photo of colourful balloons rising from the dark brown desert in Mexico as part of the International Hot Air Balloon Festival, and another was a photo of a church on a snowy day in Vancouver, by the Canadian photographer Jeff Wall (whose works are being exhibited at the White Cube in London).

Then I read about the Spice Girls concert in Vancouver. Long gone are the days when they furnished a main topic of conversation among my schoolmates, so it's bizarre but not unpleasing how they've suddenly reemerged.

But I was most taken with Louis Menand's essay-review in the Dec. 10 issue of the New Yorker. He wrote perspicaciously first about diaries in general, then concisely and even more delightfully about the journals of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and of Leo Lerman. I've read reviews of Mr. Schlesinger's published diaries elsewhere, but find this the most insightful and enjoyable.

I also enjoyed, after the first pang of wounded vanity had passed, recognizing myself in his summary of the "superego" theory of diarizing:

[T]he superego theory, of course, is the theory that diaries are really written for the eyes of others. They are exercises in self-justification. When we describe the day’s events and our management of them, we have in mind a wise and benevolent reader who will someday see that we played, on the whole, and despite the best efforts of selfish and unworthy colleagues and relations, a creditable game with the hand we were dealt. If we speak frankly about our own missteps and shortcomings, it is only to gain this reader’s trust. We write to appease the father. People abandon their diaries when they realize that the task is hopeless.

But I think that taking theories like this one as an all-encompassing explanation means that one does not do justice to the more pragmatic and concrete reasons for writing diaries -- to organize and analyze the events of the day in one's mind, for instance.

Anyway, to really make this post an exercise in self-justification, I will argue here that today's laziness is partly excusable because yesterday was a busy day; we had eight uncles and aunts and cousins over to celebrate the first Advent Sunday. Playing Christmas carols and eating mandarin oranges, chocolate, and a fine Elsässer Bäckeoffe was exhausting. (c;

Adventure on the Prairie

Three days ago I was struck by a whim that has turned nearly into a plan: namely, that I want to spend the summer working on a horse ranch in the American Midwest. I don't know if it's absurd or not, but I do think it's possible. I've already begun to research getting a travel visa and to work out the details. It would be in between May and October 2008; I would go to a student advisor at the Freie Uni first to see, among other things, if I would be able to re-apply from overseas; I would place an advertisement in the National Geographic or some other national periodical; etc.

The main thing I have to make sure is that the reasons why I want to do this are good, for example not that I simply want to run away from my problems. So far I've found many advantages to the plan: I've always been interested in horse-back riding and the prairies (since I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books); I don't like sitting around the whole time, as I have for the last year and a half, and if I am working on a ranch I will probably be quite active; it would be helpful to learn to get up early; it will most likely be an adventure; and so on and so forth. It would also be a lovely opportunity to read up on Midwestern history and geography and botany, horses, and First Aid; perhaps also to improve my Spanish.

Besides, I'm not getting much out of my time here in Berlin at present. University fell through; haven't got a job yet; seldom go out; etc. And I've met very few congenial people yet, and none my own age, which is not surprising under the aforementioned circumstances. But even if I had a full-time career and a social life, I don't think that these are enough to round out existence. One can't really get a sense of perspective on the relative importance of things in life even in the varied environment of the city. What one needs is, I think, to be busy physically as well as mentally, and to get to know the world from different perspectives. And, if I'm cleaning out the stables (or, perchance, even riding a horse) in the middle of the American countryside, not only will I see the world from a different angle, but I'll also be too busy to even think of employing my time with the guilt-ridden brooding of the past year. Besides, as far as I have seen and read, something about "roughing it" does give many people a steady self-respect and a quiet tolerance of everyone else. This is what I most want. One can be matured by other experience, too; but I'd rather shovel manure at 5 a.m. every day, or fall off a horse and break a leg and learn to take it in stride, than to suffer the slings and arrows of other people. As I learned in school, the petty persecutions of other people tend to destroy more than they build up, and the damage takes years to repair; I've had quite enough of it.

As for politics, I can distinguish the American government from the American people. The Americans I knew in school and university were mostly well-informed and tolerant. Where Bush is concerned, I do not consider that European leaders like Berlusconi are any better. Besides, it should be interesting to be in the US as the electoral campaigns hit their peak.

It's true that living in Berlin has many good points. The most obvious is that my family lives there. Then I like being among people who have a more thorough way of working, more interests, and perhaps more intelligence; I'd generally rather live in the city than the country, despite the dirt and bad air; and I am happy to be close to so many old buildings, museums, art galleries, etc. But none of this will be lost to me if I go off for four months or so, and I'll probably appreciate the advantages of Berlin twice as much after I return home. Altogether I know that this journey would have its risks, and might turn out a disappointment, but if it were to work out as I hope, I could get so much out of it.

The Halls of Hoary Antiquity

It has rained and rained today, but I stayed inside quite happily. For the past three days I've been stirring out-of-doors considerably (a trip to an art gallery, a walk to the Kleistpark, and an evening out with T. and my aunt L.), and have been in correspondingly good spirits. Going out does not necessarily equate cheerfulness, but lately I've been fortunate. Yesterday evening, however, I had a headache and felt quite ill, so today I "took it easy." First of all I played on the ukulele and piano.

Then I read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, a slim tome that my aunt gave me for my birthday. It describes the fictional scenario of the Queen becoming an inveterate bookworm. Modest in its aims, understated, and gently paced, it's very British, I think, and much reminds me of Stephen Frears's film with Helen Mirren. The character of the Queen -- the emotional inhibition, brief and calm and somewhat stilted speech, hints of acerbity, reserve, and strange isolation -- is fairly similar. The book's humour is not really of the laugh-out-loud sort, more of the quiet chuckle variety, but it is consistently entertaining in its mild way and I thought that the ending was an excellent, unexpected but not incongruous touch.

While I don't want to describe the last days much, I do want to tell about L.'s, T.'s and my trip to the Bode Museum yesterday evening. I had never been there before. We took the U-Bahn to Friedrichstraße station, then wandered down along the Georgenstraße. A tram line (I didn't know there were any trams left in Berlin) ran to our right, and to the left there ran the raised S-Bahn tracks. The shops and restaurants underneath made it look like an inverted and more prosaic version of Florence's Ponte Vecchio. The shops were closed; only the glow of their lamps and the elegant china and polished wood, etc., in their windows remained. A garbage can overflowed with the débris of the day. But a large restaurant, Die Zwölf Apostel, was open, filled with dinner guests. We peered in, then passed on through the no-man's-land at the S-Bahn overpasses, then along the waterway that separates the Museum Island from the rest of Berlin. The globe-lamps were shining along the broad, low bridge over it; the water was glittering; and through the tall windows of the Bode Museum we already saw some of the paintings hanging in a white hallway.

We reached the steps of the Museum, and pushed our way through three ranks of great doors until we reached the foyer. Entrance was free, but I gave my coat and bag away at the cloakroom, in the shadow of a great equestrian statue. We went nearly directly to the Gothic rooms, which L. had missed the last time she went to the museum. Then T. and I strayed about separately, looking for whatever struck our fancy. Early on we encountered a sculpture of Christ on a donkey, which greeted visitors into one room; as T. remarked, it presented, in its fairly humble and approachable aspect, a sharp contrast to the usual pompous king-astride-a-horse. In the same room L. pointed out an oaken figurine of St. Christopher with the infant Jesus on its shoulder, a wooden stick in his hand, a ripply chunk of blue-painted water at his feet, and a strong expression of consternation or perhaps irritation on his face. The statues and paintings in that room had the intermingling of beauty, darkness, crudity, intricate richness, and grotesqueness that annoys but also intrigues me about medieval art.

Later there were two extremely ornate ivory carvings of hundreds of little human figures, skeletons, devils, etc., in the Day of Judgment and the Fall of the Angels, set in a golden frame; a maternal woman in bronze looking fondly upon three infants who played around her skirts, as she casually crushed the agonized head of a bearded man underfoot; a head of the mater dolorosa, perhaps in majolica, with a beautiful, pure and finely-molded face, but red-rimmed eyes whence tears coursed down her cheeks. There was a gloomy painting of Christ that was the least sympathetic I'd ever seen. Also, a golden bust of St. Apollonia as a fifteenth-century court lady straight out of a Henry VIII film or portrait: immensely puffy sleeves, tight brocade corset, and a loose blue sash tied around her waist. There was a Venetian fireplace carved out of beige stone, with acanthus leaves and faces; a twisty column standing on the back of a lion; an ivory (hunting-?)horn that might have come out of Narnia; a 6th(?)-century silver spoon; and the coin-sized, staring face of what may have been a king. In another room there stood a splendid larger-than-life-size marble statue of Diana, her dog baring its teeth at her knee; a bronze bust of a Pope; and a graceful marble sculpture of a dancer in a clinging dress, facing a rougher fountain where a burly man ate grapes from the vine with his mouth as a rather repulsive-looking dog stretched out between his legs.

I reflected that there is something sad and absurd in lifelike figures, who are doomed to hold the same position and wear the same expression for eternity, and to be paradoxically lively and active-looking despite being wholly motionless. This isn't a very original sentiment, of course, but valid nonetheless.

Altogether, brief though it was, I enjoyed the visit very much. I think that it is a lovely experience to become completely immersed in a book, or painting, or piece of music, or whatever, so that one forgets one's surroundings and feels the atmosphere of the object much more vividly than one normally would. Yesterday many of the museum pieces did make a deep impression on me. Not only the pieces, but also the building; when T. and I entered the stately stairway under the cupola, I was involuntarily struck dumb for a moment. I didn't like being so much affected by grandioseness; but I'm sure that Friedrich II, whose statue stood in a niche above the first landing, would have been pleased.

The Piano, Pencil, and Prada

Today I woke up late, but well-rested and happy. Clouds overspread the sky during much of the day; I stayed inside and read Guardian and New York Times articles, browsed YouTube, and played the piano.

Lately I'd practically given up on my piano-playing. It seems that I won't make any more progress in any case, and for a while I no longer felt compelled to work through moods or troubled thoughts with it. But since then there have been moods and troubled thoughts in plenty, so I turned to the piano again and played much more expressively than usual (which is the upside of gloominess). The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (despite its endless potential in boringness and kitsch) and the B flat major sonata of Schubert fit my mood particularly well, as did Bach's Goldberg Variations. These three compositions have what I prize most in music, which I think of as "nobility": a mixture of deep feeling, unforced grandeur, beauty, and seriousness. In recorded music I look for the same thing; I don't see the point of playing classical music if the chief motivation and aim is to perform for an audience, and not to express one's self. It's unreasonable to demand that musicians should turn their feelings off and on in public, but that's what the artist's career essentially is and always has been, I think.

What I like about music best is that it conveys feeling instantly, on a simple, unanalytical level. If I am gloomy, I play that way, and don't consider why I am gloomy, or tell myself to cheer up, or pretend anything, as I would do for instance when writing in my diary. I think it's also impossible to interact with other people without having to pretend things, like trying to pay attention to them and being in a good mood when one is tired and unhappy. It is extremely safe confiding one's feelings to the piano: it, being inanimate, can't be bored; always understands; and never blames one or suggests that one should move on and stop taking things too seriously. -- As you can tell, I am a very conflicted soul. (c: -- And it can be extremely satisfying to play grumpy pieces, like Beethoven's last piano sonata in c minor. I rarely become angry and never swear (apart from "damn"), but playing the heavy chords and fortes in that sonata gives one the same sense of pleasure that one would, I believe, derive from giving someone who has richly deserved it a punch on the nose.

Among the newspaper articles, I much enjoyed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's account of curing his cold, where his voice sounded "like a throttled frog." It's often evident in travel, dining, fashion, etc. articles (especially in the Guardian) that the writer is striving to be entertaining, but whenever I meet an especially well-turned phrase I enjoy it anyway. Yesterday I also found a journal (written by a Daily Show writer) of the television and film writers' strike in the US, which has been felt even here because of the void that is created in our souls by the lack of new episodes of our favourite political satire shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Episodes of America's Next Top Model will be broadcast normally, but this afternoon I watched the show again on YouTube and became completely disgusted with the show's superficiality, so it makes no difference. It has turned into a cynical, soulless money-making machine. The show's mixture of fashion and sanctimoniousness is an extremely uneasy one, and it leads to hypocrisy. This season the contestants were banned from smoking, because smoking supposedly makes them bad "role models" for the children watching the show. I don't know if the ban is even legal, and it's certainly tyrannical. Couldn't the smoking scenes have been edited out anyway? Besides, anorexia and bulimia have been treated not as illnesses but as moral delinquencies, and the would-be models are never told to "lose weight" but just to "tone down a little." Last week a perfectly healthy contestant was dropped from the competition because she was no longer plus-size. Good grief.

Anyway, I've also read the New York Times (among others) obituary of Norman Mailer, and much enjoyed this quote from Gore Vidal: "He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements." But the gossip in the obituaries did irritate me. I wonder if famous people with wild lifestyles like Norman Mailer's really do as much damage as many others whose failings are scrupulously kept private. In school, at least, I found that the least pleasant fellow students were those who had been bullied themselves, or popular ones who felt superior to everyone else. Most of the students were "good" students who seriously believed that they did and would do nothing wrong or unkind. They mistook being bien-pensant (thinking what one is desired to think; conformist) for moral uprightness, and the highest good in their eyes was fitting in. It was the mischief-makers who were more generous and kind than everyone else. I don't know for sure if Mr. Mailer fit into this last category, but in any case, to paraphrase the Bible, I think that the obituary-writer who is without sin should cast the first stone.

J. read one of the obituaries with me after we had done his homework together. There is a Youth Parliament in our district of Berlin (Tempelhof-Schöneberg) that is to be disbanded; it apparently worked together with the municipal government on earth-shattering issues like setting up soccer goals. The teacher told the class to write a letter to the editor of the Berliner Morgenpost, taking a stand either for or against its dissolution, and using the arguments that were presented in the worksheets. J. didn't care that much and didn't feel he knew that much either, so I suggested that he just write that he didn't have an opinion, but state what he thought were the two strongest points, pro and con. So he wrote something in English, and I translated it into German for him. This whole exercise reminded me of things I disliked in school, for example having to formulate opinions where I didn't feel that I had enough information or interest to do it intelligently. If c'est la vie, la vie can be improved with very little effort.

Besides, I caught up on the Sartorialist and Chocolate & Zucchini blogs. The first is the website of a photographer who takes pictures of ordinary people in the street who are wearing interesting clothing. Lately, as his fame has grown, these "ordinary people" are largely superseded by Vogue editors from New York to Milan, Karl Lagerfeld, and fashionistas tottering about in Prada shoes or clutching portfolios bearing the double-C logo of Chanel. But an original person still appears here and there, and the rich and fashionable and beautiful are also worthwhile seeing in moderation. Thanks to the blog, I have been initiated into the mystic fashion jargon (e.g. "silhouette" and "proportions"), the eccentric delights of Thom Browne, and fearful controversies (e.g. sleeve length, oversized bags, and neckties that are too tightly or too loosely knotted). Now I've tired of trivial fashion detail, but even if I still rarely notice what other people are wearing, I will at least be able to notice it intelligently when I do. But my resulting explorations of the online New York Times and Guardian fashion sections and Style.com have inspired me to vague thoughts about clothing as a revelation of character, aesthetics, the use of cross-cultural references in fashion, and so on and so forth. And, though I still doubt that I could talk worthwhile-ly about fashion, I think I can drop names as well as anybody. (c:

Chocolate & Zucchini is a blog by a Parisienne who has lived in the US; she writes about cooking with a truly excellent English style and French wit. Her ingredients are rather recherché, to be found only in an organic market with a wide and varied stock, but reading about faro and spelt wheat, quinoa, fleur de sel, etc. is an agreeably exotic experience in any case.

And in my foragings on YouTube I found, among others, black-and-white clips of Marian Anderson. In one she sings the American anthem, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," in front of the Lincoln Memorial (at Eleanor Roosevelt's invitation) in 1939. But a recording that I find musically better is her beautiful rendition of "He shall feed his flock" from Händel's Messiah.

The Realm of the Imagination

The past week has been an inglorious slough of despond, but yesterday I hatched another series of virtuous resolves, and today I've been inordinately cheerful. Or perhaps it's simply that I've become used to the monotonous gloom of clouded Novemberish days.

As far as jobs, studies, etc. go, I've determined not to worry any more. I'll look for jobs on the Internet for about 15 minutes every day, with conscientious carefulness, and I think that's as much as anyone can expect. I've searched out lectures at the FU, and concerts at the UdK, and whenever the mood strikes, I will attend them. In time I hope I'll find some aim or purpose that will help me do these things, because the strongest motive I presently have to do anything is the fear of doing nothing.

Lately I've done nothing truly constructive, except finishing a journal of our trip to Hawaii in 2004, and writing two satires. The sad truth is that I find that I know so little of reality, especially present-day reality, that I can't write anything set in the present day. Perhaps I could have done so a year ago, but, since I've been keeping to our apartment nearly as devotedly as the Lady of Shalott kept to her tower, it won't work now. So I write satires of the online novels that I read, which gain some acerbity from the fact that I've become rather bored of them because of their lack of verisimilitude. But that brings to mind a passage in Patronage, where Alfred Percy (a lawyer) and others are discussing the actress Mlle. Clairon. She, having been criticized for having too much art and not enough naturalness, exclaimed, "De l'art! et que voudroit-on donc que j'eusse? Etois-je Andromaque? Etois-je Phèdre?" In short, I guess that fiction, however realistic it may be, is still fiction, and as such one cannot expect too much of it.

*

Here is an excerpt from "A Gothic Heroine," my riff on the Gothic genre:

At that moment the stepmother came in. She had very white skin with startlingly carmine lips, and she wore a pointed black hat upon her raven tresses. Her age was a hundred and forty-two, but she looked thirty-five. In her hand she carried a goblet of pewter adorned with blood-red rubies, containing a bubbling green liquid that gave off an acrid odour and unearthly glow. “Take this, my dear,” she urged, “it is wine fresh from the cellar.”

“I am very sorry, dear mother,” returned the heroine mildly, “but you are aware that I only take wine with dinner.”

*

An excerpt from "Lawson Granger: A Tale of the West," which is a satire on Westerns.

When he entered the parlour and had made himself known to the hostess [. . .], he espied “Betty Blank” (as he had been calling her to himself in his cogitations about her during the past eventful hours), and a joyous gleam illumined his lapis lazuli optics.

She caught sight of him too, as he made his way toward her, and smiled in return. She was just talking to one of Jake Butler’s ranchhands. When Granger reached her, the ranchhand took his leave, and she turned to the newcomer with excitement sparkling in her eyes.

“There are so many friendly people in this town!” she said. “And I’ve heard the most fascinating tales about a bad, powerful man who lives near here.”

“Mr. Butler?”

“I think that was the name. They say he will even come here this evening. Oh, I do wonder who he might be.” Suddenly she gave a little shriek and involuntarily gripped Granger’s arm, her eyes fixed on the doorway to the dining room. There stood a plump little man in a vile assortment of clothing, raven-black hair, a long drooping mustache that looked like the tail of an old horse that has been in a vicious fight with one of his kindred, glittering beady eyes, and a horribly forbidding scar slashed across his rubicund face. “Good heavens, he’s hideous!” she exclaimed.

“Ah don’t mean ter contradict you, ma’am, but that’s Jolly George, the lawyer an’ philanthr’pist. He’s the heart’n’soul of Amblesburgh’s church congregation, an’the most pop’lar man in the county.”

“Dear me,” said Betty in a fluttered voice.

“There’s Butler,” Granger told her after a few awkward moments.

Betty gaped in the direction of his gaze. The target of it was a well-dressed man of medium size, with mild brown eyes and a delightfully fuzzy, neatly trimmed brown beard, and pleasantly protruding ears that gave him a boyish air. “Surely you don’t mean him? Why, he’s so . . . civilized. He talked to me just now, and he was simply a dear!”

“Well, that’s him. ‘Black-heart Butler’ -- that’s what we call ’im. But Mrs. Buckworth and others ask’im to their parties an’ such ‘cause they like that he’s rich and distinguished-like.”

At the Graves of the Ancestors

This afternoon Mama, my siblings and I went to the Jewish cemetery at the Schönhauser Allee (in Prenzlauer Berg) to attend the unveiling of the restored grave plot of our ancestors. Joseph Mendelssohn (1770-1848), the son of Moses Mendelssohn, was the founder of the Mendelssohn Bank; Henriette was his wife. Alexander (his son) and Marianne were my great-great-great-great grandparents.

It was a fine summery day, not too cold. When we stepped out of the U-Bahn station Senefelder Platz, the wall of the cemetery was already visible to the right. We entered by the small, old brick gateway. A man who resembled an agreeable Ehud Barak handed out black kippot to Gi., Ge., and J.; then we walked through to the wall at the back of the enclosure. The cemetery was incredibly picturesque: a sea of dark green ivy with clumps of fern, shaded over by thin, soaring leafy trees with vine-draped trunks and sun-illumined crowns. Everywhere there were tall, sombre, simple grave markers in solid black or crumblier, weathered grey stone. The Hebrew characters that were engraved in many of the grave markers had the mysterious, ancient effect of runes. It seemed as if the graveyard had been forgotten since the nineteenth century.

Soon we reached the crowd, a mass of long wintry coats and hats, that had gathered around the gravesite of the Mendelssohns, on a cobblestone path flecked with the lovely red and yellow and green leaves of a maple. Two police officers in olive-coloured uniforms stood on guard further down the path. A representative of Berlin's Landesdenkmalamt (government agency for the preservation of heritage sites) spoke in well-enunciated tones and dignified phraseology, which had a nice but stilted effect, of the considerable damage that had been done to the graveyard during World War II, and of the restoration efforts even under the East German regime. Then he listed the damage to the Mendelssohn graves, and the means by which it had been restored. At the end he thanked the Staatssekretär for starting the initiative, those who had worked on the restoration, etc.

Then a rabbi intoned prayers, singing softly in Hebrew and repeating the words without singing in German. A "choir invisible" sang to the accompaniment of an equally invisible small organ (or keyboard masquerading as an organ), with a few wrong notes; but the pathos was so effective that it seemed as if Joseph and Henriette, Alexander and Marianne Mendelssohn had died yesterday instead of over a hundred and twenty years ago. The rabbi also read out a poem. Then, or perhaps later, the four pink granite (?) grave markers were unveiled; in the cemetery wall behind it, a white marble plate bears, in freshly gilded letters, the name "Mendelssohn." Two or three people (grown-ups again! -- the children were very well-behaved) in the back of the crowd strode through the ivy on another grave to get a better view, which I found rather questionable.

The second round of prayer ended in the wish that prosperity and a long life might descend on those who were present, which I found rather nice. Then the ceremony came to a close, and two toddlers who had considerately kept silence during the prayer broke into a brief wail. After meeting briefly with Uncle Pu and K., we went off for a walk around the cemetery before going home. At a corner we instantly spotted the graves of the artist Max Liebermann, his wife, and his parents. But there were also countless "Cohn," "Schlesinger," "Meyer," etc., markers, inscribed with names and dates in German or Hebrew; the oldest ones I saw came from the 1870s. Some used the Jewish calendar, so there were a few fifty-sixth century graves, which I found amusingly futuristic. The Hebrew often looked very much like Mesopotamian cuneiform, which I find a visually fascinating script. Often, unfortunately, the tombstones were decrepit, toppled, or even wholly overgrown. One gravesite that particularly captured my imagination contained two grey-speckled white stone blocks that were decorated with carved leaves and a hollow, which held flowers then and translucent green weeds now. Near it a white headstone had fallen back against a tree; the bark has grown around it and swallowed the top, and formed ripply dark lines that looked like the trails of tears in the stone.

Close by there is a narrow brick shaft that drops into the ground, perhaps leading into an underground passage. It is covered with a grille; a sign affixed to it recounts that members of the resistance had hidden there in 1944, only to be found, hanged, and buried on the spot by the SS.

After this tour, we returned the kippot, left the graveyard, and went home.

An Evening on the Town

Beginning yesterday, the Descendants of Moses Mendelssohn are celebrating a week-long family gathering that has been organized by the City of Berlin. The occasion is the renovation of Mendelssohn graves at the Jüdisches Friedhof (Jewish Cemetery) in the Schönhauser Allee. Since our great-grandmother was a von Mendelssohn, we were one of the hundreds of descendants worldwide who were invited to attend the events. This evening the City hosted a dinner at the Rathaus (City Hall), which about 270 of us attended.

While Papa and Mama dressed quite quickly for the dinner, the rest of us attired ourselves and made our toilette with much ceremony. When it was nearly dark, we took the bus to the Rathaus, a large, ornate red brick edifice (built in the 1860s and much repaired in the 1950s) in a medieval/Renaissance style, with a distinctive clock tower. The front portals were open, though a sign said, "Für Besucher geschlossen."* We passed through to the inner doors, where we showed our invitations, which were printed on white cardboard and bore the embossed crest of the City, and then ascended the velvety red-orange carpet that flows down the stairs.

* "Closed to visitors."

The room at the top has a dark grey and dark red marbled floor, a high vaulted ceiling, and a large chandelier. There were two or three tables with brochures and programmes; a row of vitrines contained Mendelssohnian artifacts, including a copy of Moses Mendelssohn's Phädon, an aquarell painting by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and the "Adelsbrief" that made our ancestor Franz a "von" in 1888. The "Adelsbrief" was not really a letter, but a booklet covered in dark red velvet that contains, in festive calligraphy with an illustration of the family coat-of-arms, a formal pronouncement of the title; attached to it by a silvery, tassled cord is a round silvery box, as large as a saucer, which held the family seal. Behind the vitrines there was a security person, and behind him there was a large dark green map of Berlin.

Scattered around this room and around the antechamber to the "Wappensaal," there were our distant relatives, mostly clad in black and surprisingly diverse in age and appearance. Among these, waiters circulated with silvery trays of glasses containing wine, orange juice, and water. We children knew Uncle Pu and Aunt K., of course, but no one else, though we were introduced to three other people. But over two hundred and sixty people were in the same situation, so I didn't mind it at all. Besides, I'm too self-absorbed now to have much interest in meeting people for the sake of meeting people; I only feel the urge to get to know people who are congenial, or have interesting and admirable qualities, and even then I'm quite shy about it.

At length we were summoned into the antechamber. There the "Staatssekretär" André Schmitz and the president of Berlin's Abgeordnetenhaus* Walter Momper held brief speeches from a black podium, honouring the past contributions of the Mendelssohn family -- in terms of music, learning, and finance -- to the city. The speeches, when I paid attention, were refreshingly free of ego-stroking, though I was also quite touched that the speakers (or their assistants) had gone to the trouble of reading up on our history.

* house of representatives

The speeches also reassured me that the dinner was not an unwarranted use of taxpayer money, as I had feared. Though, to be quite honest, I still think that I have nothing to do with the achievements of my forebears, it is true that those forebears were very important to the history, cultural and otherwise, of Berlin, so one might as well celebrate them in this manner. And it is rather flattering to be an indirect Mendelssohn even if I have none of the family attributes: profound learning, knowledge of philosophy, musical genius, social brilliance, wealth, drawing talent, skill in business matters, or even a particle of illustriousness.

To return to the speeches, it surprised me again how ill-mannered grown-ups can be, since the room was humming with conversation as Mr. Momper spoke. I'll admit that his voice had an unintentionally bored intonation, but still! Appreciative laughter did break out at the end, when Mr. Momper quipped, with reference to the symbolical crane lifting a stone in one claw on the von Mendelssohn family crest, that he wished that senators would also be equipped with such a stone to keep them awake.

Then we were let into the Wappensaal, a large salmon-pink hall with old bubbly-glassed windows looking out onto the street, two great chandeliers, and a light parquet floor in a big checkerboard design. To the left there hangs a huge painting of the Berlin Congress of 1878 by Anton von Werner, in a simple gilt frame. The human figures, among them Benjamin Disraeli and a rather burly Otto von Bismarck, fairly leapt from the canvas, and I liked the detail in the background of the transparent white lace curtains showing the faint brown outlines of trees or houses. T. and I briefly debated whether the officers wearing the red fezes were Turkish or not; it turns out that they were, even though their faces didn't look it. The room was full of round tables draped in white cloths, with a clear tealight and a stem of greenery surrounded with red petals adorning each, and signs in long holders bearing the names of different families. We spotted our table immediately, but there were only four chairs (beige plastic) there. So Mama, T., Ge., J., and I wandered off to a high table at the corner where the Chagall Quartet was playing:

Fanny Hensel, "String quartet in E flat major" (1834), Mvt. 1+2
Arnold Mendelssohn, "String quartet in D major," Op. 67 (1915),
Mvt. 1+3
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
"String quartet in D major," Op. 44 No. 1 (1838), Mvt. 2
"String quartet in f minor," Op. 80 (1847), Mvt. 1

After a while, there were three speeches: one by the founder of the Mendelssohn Gesellschaft; another by the director-general of the Staatsbibliothek (State Library), which has an extensive Mendelssohn archive; and a third by the head of the Mendelssohn Archive, who explained a new CD of the Mendelssohn genealogy. By the third speech, T., Gi., J., and I pulled up velvety blue chairs to the "von Bismarck" table, where no one had showed up, and sat down in good time for the "flying buffet." Promptly after the speech, the waiters came around with silvery platters full of appetizers:

Seafood wrapped in crispy noodle, in spicy oriental sauce
Porcini soup (excellent, said T. and Ge.)
Baguette slices (e.g. with smoked salmon, frilly green lettuce, a white sauce, dill, a pistachio, a sliver of black olive, and a small square of red bell pepper)
Spinach-and-potato quiche with shrimp and gorgonzola sauce, dill
Roast beef (served, rolled, on an arugula leaf tip in a spoon whose handle was oddly curved)
Antipasti: green stuffed olive and sundried tomato on a silver plastic sword, with two small cubes of feta in an olive oil and parsley dressing
Raspberry tarts (lined with chocolate, filled with vanilla foam and dusted with powdered sugar)
Chocolate-covered pineapple skewers (tremendously juicy)
Fruit skewers: pineapple, melon, red grape, Cape gooseberry (orange-coloured, tastes like kiwi), and green grape, drizzled with chocolate
Gingered rice ball with oriental-style beef and vegetable sauce

I enjoyed this dinner very much. Firstly, I had only had a small lunch and was very hungry; secondly, it was delicious; and, thirdly, it feels splendid to eat something that someone else has had the (paid) trouble of cooking. Also, I've become so used to being economical with everything that fine art, books, music, architecture, clothing, and (in this case) food are a great indulgence. This isn't a complaint, either; I appreciate things much better this way than I would otherwise.

Finally A. von Mendelssohn, my grandfather's cousin, stepped to the podium and thanked the city of Berlin, as well as the individuals and groups who had helped restore the Mendelssohn monuments, on our behalf. Then, at last, we filed out of the warm Rathaus into the chilly October air, and went home on the bus with two or three girls chattering away and continually saying "krass" in the background.

A Letter of De-Acceptance

This morning T. woke me up with the remark that there was a letter lying on the box beside my bed, probably from the FU. So I trundled off to the kitchen, opened it, and found inside a notice that I haven't been accepted to a minor's (Modulangebot) programme in History. Having read dozens of times that if one is not accepted to both the major and minor, one cannot study that year, I knew what this means instantly: most likely, another year of waiting until I can study.

Oddly enough, I am notcrestfallen. I am most amused at the absurdity of having been accepted only to be de-accepted by a letter that was rendered anticlimactic by its very tardiness. The website said that the FU will reply to applications by the end of the September; today is October 9th, and the deadline for immatriculation is October 16th. And, in another sign of the non-user-friendliness of the whole admissions process, the letter that told me that I was accepted to study English did not mention any separate acceptance letter for my chosen minor, and merely gave detailed directions for the immatriculation process. I might have immatriculated myself already by this time, and then what would have happened! For heaven's sake, admitting people to a university and keeping them properly informed about the process is not rocket science!

I admit that my first reaction was even relief, because the prospect of clearing up my English qualifications with Applications and Admissions hasn't much appealed to me. But, of course, that small effort cannot outweigh the likely benefits of studying again, and I shouldn't be an indolent wimp.

Another reason why I'm not in the least inclined to weep is that, due to unhappy experience, I have adopted this philosophy: "expect nothing and you won't be disappointed." It has made me a terrible wet-blanket, but here it pays off; I've always been thinking, even after the first letter of acceptance, of my studying as an uncertain contingency, subject to cancellation if the immatriculation doesn't go through properly. This doesn't mean that I didn't want to study at the FU very badly, but I can accept obstacles with equanimity.

At any rate -- one article of hope remains; I am, the letter helpfully informs me, on a waiting list of 29 students, and I am number 14. If I still don't get in, I have been mentally prepared for months to search for an apprenticeship or other job instead, and to get a "Gasthörer," or auditing, card so that I can listen to lectures at the university either way. Nil desperandum!

P.S.: I did phone the Barmer health insurance company yesterday, and papers to get student insurance are underway.

Rest for the Weary

Today was an excellent Sunday, tranquil and comfortable and a little dreamy. I woke up well-rested after 1 pm, having stayed up late reading online books and listening to music clips that were mostly from Maria Callas. Soon T. or Ge. put the fish sticks for lunch into the oven, while I cooked cauliflower and added butter as well as freshly grated nutmeg, grated carrot for a salad, and prepared tartar sauce with T.'s help. Altogether it was a prodigiously healthy meal, which is unusual in our household -- (c: -- but, I must admit, not wholly filling.

Then I had a leisurely shower, and emerged in good time for "The Daily Show: Global Edition." This week's interview was with Bolivian president Evo Morales, who was more sympathetic than I had expected; I agree in principle with his nationalization of Bolivia's resources, but I'm always wary of the means employed to achieve such an objective, and from what I've read in other cases I fully agree with the truism that power corrupts. As for the "moment of Zen" at the end of the show, it was a clip from a news report on the Blackwater security firm (which is in the news because some of its employees -- mercenaries, as it were -- have shot at unarmed civilians in Iraq). The reporter and the Blackwater executive have just entered a company building; the reporter pauses and looks back at the door handles.
"Are those gun barrels?" he asks, in a tone of hesitant inquiry.
"Yes, they are."
"Nice touch," remarks the reporter, without a trace of irony.
"Yeah, it's part of the Blackwater tradition," responds the businessman.*

After the show Papa (who is back from what was a most agreeable trip to Heidelberg) and I played duets for the cello and piano: Camille Saint-Saëns's "The Swan," Beethoven's variations, Haydn's cello concerto in D major transcribed for cello and piano, and Mendelssohn's "Lied ohne Worte" Op. 109. My part didn't go so badly, but I haven't been playing the piano much lately. And the Beethoven variations are, I find, incredibly difficult.

After the piano session, I went for a walk to the Kleistpark. As I crossed the odorous intersection at the BVG building, I saw a street fair on the Grunewaldstraße; it was the same one, I think, where we went last year. The sun was setting, and a peachy glow illumined the grey clouds in the wan blue canopy and even cast a glamour on the tall whitish-grey building beside the Königskolonnaden. There is construction going on at the colonnades, so the field to the left where runners of darkly crimson roses used to leap from the grasses has been cleared of the turf and become an expanse of mud, the cobblestones in the centre have been ploughed up, and white-and-red-striped tape bars entry except into the colonnade itself. The grand trees beyond are as leafy and green as ever, except for the two rust-hued chestnut trees, a plum species, and an oak bright with reddish-brown and yellow and green that looked, I thought, like the Biblical "burning bush" beside its neighbour. The red berries are out on the holly and yew trees, the snowberries speckle the brush, and the rosebushes are full of hips. I also spotted two purple autumn crocuses and one spire of Canada goldenrod, and the bush with the frilly yellow flowers that I already saw in January(?) still has a flower on it.

Back at home I played the piano on my own: Mozart variations, short pieces by Schumann, etc. There is a hymn that begins, "O God, our hope in ages past," that I knew from Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, and I looked that up and found it in the dark green book out of which Mama, T. and I used to sing when we still went to church every Sunday, over ten years ago. I don't think we ever sang it, but I don't know for sure because I always had trouble remembering hymns if they did not have striking melodies (one that did have a striking melody is "A Mighty Fortress," which much resembles the German Christmas carol "Vom Himmel hoch").

In the back of my mind has been the unfortunate mishap on Friday: after double- and triple-checking the date and time and place of the language test at the FU, I turned up at Habelschwerdter Allee 45 at 19:30, only to find out that the test had already taken place at 09:30. I do have the sense that everything will turn out all right, but it's still a rather humiliating error. There is also plenty to do besides my intended trip to the Applications and Admissions office in the Iltisstraße, for instance calling the Barmer health insurance company to figure out how to get student health insurance or a waiver. I don't like running errands or doing paperwork (but, then, who does?), so we'll see if I'll shirk these tasks.

And now, since I am freezing at the "Wray Times" computer, due to the draft from Gi.'s Siberian room (he has a phenomenal endurance of cold, and had his window open earlier today), and despite my blanket and scarf, I'll call it a day.

* Loosely quoted.

Tag der Deutschen Einheit: A Sketch

Tag der Deutschen Einheit = Day of German Unity
(commemorates the formal reunification of West and East Germany in 1990)*

- walking up the "Potse" (Potsdamer Straße)
- beautiful blue sky, crisscrossed with broad jet trails and with grey mass of cloud coming from the north
- long queues to get to the French Impressionist exhibition (now in its last week) at Neue Nationalgallerie
- St. Matthäi Kirche - unusually beautiful, with beige-and-red banded bricks, translucent windows, dusty turquoise bronze roof, brown door, and dark green Italianate acacias with their symmetrical leaves and twisting shadowed trunks and branches before it
- "Die Welt" balloon aloft to right of Sony Centre, and the Deutsche Bank glass skyscraper; person walking at top of New-York-esque dark red building with gleaming gold tips
- "North American" scene behind Kulturforum: birds flying above the leafy "wilderness" of the Tiergarten, an odd solitude between a plane tree in the foreground and the golden glow of the Philharmonie
- huge banners at Kulturforum; one for Piranesi's views of Rome, a sketch of St. Peter's (?) that rippled in the wind and came alive, with the needle in the centre of the plaza quivering; Q: Are bright pink signs "Uli Richter" advertising an exhibition really that tasteful?
- black crow with smoky grey ruffle around throat
- passerby astutely explaining to companion at Philharmonie, "Concerts are sometimes given here."
- crossing through the Tiergarten behind the Philharmonie
- a soldier without visible arms; two security people in olive-coloured uniforms with a German shepherd (?) wearing a shiny muzzle; orange-uniformed personnel at gates barring entry in one direction; green and white police cars and vans scattered about
- people piddling into the bushes, not nearly inconspicuous enough
- illumined row of dark-green-stemmed snowdrop lanterns along path, with stream of people in one direction; white cloud art installation
- emerging out into the street; check-point where one had to quickly open any bags to let the orange-clad security people glance at their contents; masses of people, mostly over 19
- big black screens showing music performances, pounding sound, rather inert crowd with a few jumping fans with enough energy to scream and lift their arms, camera-man who looked puzzled and disturbed when a colleague included him in a shot of the lead singer and he evidently saw himself on one of the huge screens
- very few German flags visible, reflecting refreshing lack of nationalistic overtones
- crane bungy-jumping; ferris wheel; booths for grilled bratwurst, crêpes, jewellry, Chinese food, waffles, clothing, roasted almonds and chocolate-covered fruit and gingerbread, etc.
- grey stone marker "Den Opfern der Mauer, 13. August 1961"** with white paper garbage piled on top, photographed by at least three people who probably also perceived the irony
- refreshments: crêpe with apple sauce, Thuringian bratwurst (2 Euros)
- watched crêpe-maker ladle out batter onto a round black heating-plate, then take T-shaped device with a rounded bar to smoothly and evenly distribute the batter, flip the browned crêpe neatly onto another heating-plate with the help of a long metal spatula, then drizzle the interior with Nutella or apple sauce (other options: Cointreau, cinnamon-sugar, strawberry, apricot, etc.), and fold the crêpe into an envelope with the help of the spatula before placing it on a rectangular paper plate and handing it over with a serviette (2 Euro 50 with apple sauce topping)
- Reichstag and Kanzleramt (?) each with small grey-lined cloud overhead, which seemed a trifle ominous; Reichstag bathed in nice golden light; fresh air that was cool enough that I could see my breath for the first time this year; people spiralling up into the Reichstagsdom; people in the queue into the dome facing out toward the lawn instead of the door for once; young men throwing green frisbee and spinning a dark brown beer bottle to each other; rows of hedges (dusky purple, wine red, yellow, dark green), huge green lawn out of an eighteenth-century architectural engraving, long shadows across it, people ambling around the perimeters
- incredible sunset behind the Victory statue on the Siegessäule, with wispy white jet-trails, light and ripply golden clouds, faint sky, and glowing pearl of red-pink sun at the vanishing-point of the line of trees that ran along the road
- wearying walk home through the dark back down the Potse (refused to take bus, to T.'s heroically patient dismay); back home ca. 7:30

* According to the Wikipedia article, the "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" is held now and not on Nov. 9th, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, because the Kristallnacht also occurred on Nov. 9th.
** "To the victims of the Wall"

Feuilles d'Automne et du Journal

Since Tuesday evening I've been in the countryside to house-sit for and visit Uncle Pu and Aunt K. Autumn has arrived triumphantly in their garden, where brown acorns litter the ground, bright green horse-chestnuts shower down from their wrinkly-leaved bronze tree and shatter apart to display the dark nuts, the crowns of most trees are splashed with yellow and red and brown, and the corrugated orange-brown leaves of the beech are beginning to scatter themselves. The sunflowers still bloom brightly on their towering stalks but the orange marigolds are beginning to wither, the zinnias and Cosmos bipinnatus are still tall and colourful, the purple and yellow pansies still run wild and free, and the deep purple lavendar, paler oregano, and milky white bean blossoms are still discernible in the flower-beds. On the lawn, the small spring flowers -- violet horehound, white chickweed, pale pink mallow, daisies, and a host of others -- have reappeared from the well-watered grass. In the forest, tender dandelion leaves have reappeared, and around the house stand clusters of mushrooms, -- tall, tufted, whitish-grey caps and round, gnarled, dark brown discs.

On Wednesday the sky was intensely blue and billowy white clouds sailed over the sky, growing slowly larger and greyer as the day advanced. This morning it was all grey and gloomy, and the green grass glowed hectically from the mist. It was also much colder than yesterday.

Yesterday, which was the day of the house-sitting, I read through a whole issue of Die Zeit, minus two sections. I began with a fashion supplement, with many photos, and articles about Christian Dior and the renovation of the Madeline Vionnet brand, as well as, if I remember correctly, an incongruous brief interview with former chancellor Helmut Schmidt about the "Machtwort".* Among the photo series, there was a black-and-white one of a male model leaping off Berlin monuments which perplexed me. In one shot he leaps from the front steps of the Reichstag, which is shown at a low angle with the pillars soaring above him to the sky, and "Dem Deutschen Volke" clearly visible. When the pomposity of the building at that angle, the words, the fact that the photo is black and white, and the air of machismo that is usually found in photos for male fashion, are combined with the fact that the model accidentally raised one arm at an unfortunate angle, I think I'm not being hysterical if I say that the photo has a distinct thirties-ish flair and should have been better thought through. And -- the monuments that formed the background of the next photo were two towers of the Olympia-Stadion with the Olympics logo suspended in the middle (Olympics -- 1936 -- hmm). But, if one ignores this, the Reichstag-photo was excellent in composition and detail, down to the two or three tourists who appear, in a touch of subtle humour, in the bottom right-hand corner.

Then I read about the US financial crisis, the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, an interview with the CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroën on the occasion of the launch of a new Peugeot car, André Gorz and his new book about his wife D., low-income housing in a slum in Mumbai, an interview with Germany's minister for human rights about the Sudan, the proposed "blue card" for immigrant workers, etc. The writing style was mostly stodgy, and many English words (oh, horrors!) were used where they were not necessary. But I'll admit that when I trawl through the New York Times, Manchester Guardian, and Globe and Mail online, it's only about once a week that I'll find an article whose style I really admire. The politics of Die Zeit don't appeal much to me either -- self-satisfied and tending to what I'd consider the right wing, and written from the perspective of an expensive German or American armchair with a very limited view on the world. The article on the US financial crisis was only one example of the illusion that the US government can do no wrong unless it's so obviously wrong that a five-year-old who watches the news once in a month can't overlook it (I exaggerate). This loyalty and willingness to give the benefit of the doubt is charming in itself, but if it is only granted to rich, powerful men living in perfect comfort and safety in their own luxurious spheres, and not to their millions of victims, I think it is no longer a virtue but a serious flaw. Still, one great virtue of Die Zeit is that the articles are consistently deep and detailed (it is, after all, a weekly publication), whereas too many articles in my beloved regular newspapers are column-filling fluff.

I re-read The Swiss Family Robinson on my train ride home. In the S-Bahn between Ostbahnhof and Friedrichstraße someone offered the street magazine again, but this time he spoke quite heartily, and had a Turkish accent (the voice tends to be rather deep, the difficult soft "ch"s pronounced "sh," etc.). I still didn't give any money (I never do), but it was less depressing than usual. On the one hand I think that being overly sensitive to the visible aspects of urban poverty (not only here; also in Victoria and Vancouver) is silly and useless, if I don't do anything to improve matters, and if it bothers me more to see than to know about the poverty. On the other hand I might still end up doing something -- like donating to homeless shelters when I have a job.

When I was at home again, it began to rain outside. But I felt again the odd dichotomy of fall and winter: the colder and wetter and darker it is outside, the more magnificently comfortable it is inside. It's like reading about winter in the middle of summer; it gives me a cuddly feeling, and tales of frostbite and subzero temperatures call forth little sympathy. Rain tapping on the windowpanes, to give a specific example, is also deeply soothing, though I do detest dripping-wet umbrellas and bags and rain-coats, especially in buses.

My previous anxiety about the approach of winter (especially the grim limbo of January and February) has also been much alleviated by the prospect of studying then; in UBC, the work was so absorbing and agreeable that it seemed like winter lasted a week or two, then the cherry trees and magnolias were blossoming again. (Besides, the central heating of my dorm room kept me so warm that I usually kept the vents closed; even outside, the climate was phenomenally mild, due to the sea that laps the edges of the campus, and to the rainclouds for which Vancouver is famous.) I'm mentally preparing to do more difficult and joyless work here, but I think that doing any instructive work with people who are half-way agreeable is better than doing nothing, and occupies the mind beautifully well.

There is also the prospect of Christmas. Though it is ridiculous that the Christmas Stollen and Lebkuchen and Marzipanstangen and Dominosteine have stocked the shelves of Plus since the first week of September (we've bought Nürnberger Lebkuchen but conscientiously avoid the rest), I like that it makes me feel that Christmas is not so far away. This feast, to me, is not so much about the presents and deeper religious significance of the day itself. It's about the preceding month: the food (nuts, mandarin oranges, chocolate, marzipan, etc.), lovely music, old dark-tinted paintings illumined with gold, fir branches and holly berries, letters to and from friends, winter literature, and the sense of domestic comfort (i.e. no school). All of this will brighten my hours and hover pleasantly in my consciousness until roughly the Epiphany, when sober reality strikes again.

* Machtwort = "word of command" [literally: word of might; roughly equivalent to "ultimatum"]

Cui bono?

This afternoon the letter from the FU finally came, and I've been accepted! Now I just have two major hurdles to overcome: a German language test on October 5th, and then filling out my immatriculation forms. I'm relieved, but cautious. T.'s letter has not come yet, however.

After I had received the letter, uncle Pu and I went on an excursion to the CD store Zweitausendeins. It's near the Wilmersdorfer Straße U-Bahn station, and near Pudel's old apartment. The store itself is small, but bright with the windows and the white walls, determinedly but not ostentatiously modern, and lined with tables full of CDs, books, and film DVDs. The CDs discriminatingly cover a wide variety of genres, among which jazz and classical seemed the best represented; the books included translations of Bertrand Russell, a volume of or on Kurt Tucholsky, and a children's book which had on its cover a nearly unbeatably tasteless illustration of a lady wearing far too much rouge as well as a red dress reminiscent of pre-Revolutionary France, with a bright pink poodle beside her. In the store windows, which Pudel and I took a closer look at as we left, there were also books on painters like Goya and da Vinci, with lesser-known works on their covers.

Once outside, we wandered along the side-streets in a "nostalgia tour" for Pudel, while I admired the dark green trees and the bright house façades, which ranged from drab and unimaginative modern ones that had assumed a despondent air with the passing of time, to ornate and stately older ones. The stores ranged from a small art gallery through a Chinese import shop and a mystery novel bookstore to kebab stands. When we regained the "pedestrian precinct" at the U-Bahn station, the buildings suddenly became sleek, shiny monuments to consumerism, and -- and this is very important -- instead of the common orange litter-bins, there were genteel dark grey ones. H&M, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks, MediaMarkt and Woolworth have each established themselves there. The people who were lolling about or walking past were mostly fashionably dressed and had an air of moderate affluence.

First we popped into the Dunkin' Donuts; Pudel bought me a Boston creme doughnut, which is my favourite kind. While we were waiting I admired the different varieties: "autumnal" doughnuts covered in highly artificial-looking blue- or pink-coloured glazes, brownies, "munchkins" (which I, as a Canadian, know as Timbits), etc. Then we went to a spacious McDonald's, which is furnished pretentiously in a space-age-esque style in black and red. I've never had a McDonald's burger and don't intend to start, so I asked for onion rings (onions, unlike cows and chickens, cannot suffer). The kitchen crew consisted of teenagers and of one exhausted-looking woman with hollow eyes whose soul seemed to have been sapped of vigour by years of joyless labour. As I ate, I perused the paper mat, which proudly informed the reader about the high quality of McDonald's fare -- 90 % of the potatoes originating in Germany, all the lettuces being grown out-of-doors, etc. The onion rings were not composed of rings of onions, but of a ring-shaped slurry of onion; as I ate and pondered, I realized that this is probably for the sake of efficiency, since the cores and the small inner rings of onions go to waste in the traditional dish. And the portion was piffling, perhaps eight medium-sized rings; this, on second thoughts, is good because otherwise one could really get fat by eating them.

Then we went home via the unusually odorous U-Bahn. As we sat in the train a person came by and offered the street magazine for 1 Euro 20, and asked for donations, in the usual low and cheerless voice, with the lack of conviction and senseless rapidity of someone who is uttering a formula she has uttered a million times before, without expecting any response.

Anyway, my mood was not as dampened as one might expect when we reached home again. Even the grey light that had cast its gloom on the scene at Wilmersdorfer Str. had brightened by the time we re-emerged from the subterranean labyrinth.

Maria Edgeworth and Her Novels

Yesterday evening I de-sacrificed my online reading, and spent nearly four very agreeable hours exploring the online oeuvre of Maria Edgeworth. I've read most of her works, and enjoyed some very much, so I'm inclined to write a little about her.

She was an Irish authoress, the daughter of the well-educated clergyman, writer, and inventor Richard Lovell Edgeworth. She lived from 1767 to 1849, and wrote her most important works after the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic era. During her lifetime she was widely celebrated; even King George III read Castle Rackrent, prominent people from Jeremy Bentham through Lord Byron to Talleyrand admired her books, and Sir Walter Scott corresponded with her for many years. I assume that she was much in fashion during Victorian times, too, and the American writer Louisa May Alcott was undoubtedly much influenced by her.

So much for her biography. Her writing is thoroughly didactic; though she does not lack imagination and a natural enjoyment of storytelling, her tales are really constructed for the purpose of "pointing a moral," which is most likely the result of her father's and her own lifelong interest in educational questions. She makes sure that no good action goes without a reward and that no bad action goes without punishment, she uses italics to emphasize her point, and she has no shyness about directly enunciating a moral. Some of her works are too long, and she stacks up illustrations of wrongdoing and its consequences ad absurdum. But in her works for adults the moralizing is sometimes more subtle, and her points of view are usually surprisingly enlightened and modern. She extremely rarely, for example, mentions religion. This modernity can probably be attributed to her father's broad acquaintance and interests, both scientific and artistic, also at a time when religious skepticism was rife in intellectual circles. In England her father knew Erasmus Darwin, and joined the Lunar Club, whose members also included James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood; she was also related to the Abbé Edgeworth, who was the confessor of King Louis XVI and a highly regarded man in French society.

It is due to this background also that her works are interspersed with literary references; she quotes Alexander Pope,Thomas Gray, John Gay, Voltaire, etc., and mentions scores of others. She also adorns her prose with a broad variety of interesting anecdotes, and she sprinkles French and Italian expressions throughout her writing. These displays of knowledge are not affected, I think, but reflect the conversational powers that were treasured in the society of her time, and give much insight into contemporary thought and literature. It is nice to read her books, to have one's mind entertained as well as the soul, and to come away not only with curiosity about the quotations, but also a wish to learn more in general (though I never do). And her books and stories are a treasure-trove of detail about daily life.

Miss Edgeworth wrote nine major novels: Belinda, The Absentee (which was originally a play), Castle Rackrent, Ennui, Ormond, Harrington, Patronage, Leonora and Helen. She also wrote many plays, comedy-dramas, mostly set in Ireland. And, aside from essays, she wrote many stories for young and old. The stories include "Murad the Unlucky," set in Haroun al-Rashid's Baghdad and very much in the style of the Arabian Nights; "Rosanna," about a simple and virtuous rural Irish family; "The Good Aunt," about a boy and his education at home and at boarding-school; "Madame de Fleury," a tale based on the real life of a lady in revolutionary France; and bleak tales about the evils of procrastination ("To-morrow") and so on, that are clearly meant for an older audience.

I read Castle Rackrent too long ago to be able to describe it, but it is probably the least idealized and most modern of her works. It has no "mushy bits." Ennui is a compromise between Castle Rackrent and The Absentee, about a young Irish nobleman who fritters away his youth in England and suffers endlessly from boredom (hence the title), until he returns to Ireland and then encounters a misfortune that rouses him to earn his own living and make something of himself. The Absentee was once much admired; it traces the fortunes of Lord Colambre, the son of an Irish absentee landlord, Lord Clonbrony. Lord Colambre has been raised in England and educated at Cambridge, and so has no real connection to Ireland at first, until he starts to rediscover his homeland for himself; the father would have no objection to returning to Ireland; the mother disclaims any Irish tendencies in favour of being as English as she possible can, and she strains to become a personage in London society. The central themes of the book are England vs. Ireland, and the problems associated with absentee landlords (stewards who exploit the peasants, etc.). Ormond is another celebration of Irish virtues mixed with a caution against Irish failings (short temper, bibulousness, etc.), and it has an intriguing change of scene to Paris.

Belinda is a conventional and long-winded tale about an innocent young lady entering a society that is largely devoid of innocence, somewhat in the vein of Fanny Burney, and Maria Edgeworth herself tired considerably of it before she finished writing it. Harrington is also conventional and one of my least favourite of her books; it was written in response to a reader's justified complaint about the unflattering caricatures of moneylending Jews in her other works. But, as far as I remember, the plot is weak and the characterization unconvincing, particularly because she probably did not know any Jew, let alone one who was fortunate enough to be wealthy (without being a money-lender) and well-educated. Helen, her final novel (published in 1834), is about a young lady who comes to stay with her friend after her guardian dies, meets an intelligent and generous young man, and then is prevented from marrying him after she is falsely suspected of having been entangled with another man -- until the inevitable happy ending. The heroine is loveable, I think, and if I knew high society I would undoubtedly be delighted with the way the authoress depicts it in the book, but I don't find the long and painfully gradual dénouement very realistic or enlivening.

Patronage, which was published in 1814, is most likely my favourite book of Maria Edgeworth's, because it has so much to offer. The heroine is Caroline Percy, an unrealistic but pleasant compound of prudence and high-mindedness and generosity, but the book closely follows the fortunes of many other characters, particularly her brothers: Godfrey Percy, a soldier; Alfred Percy, a lawyer; and Erasmus Percy, a doctor. The memorable personalities also include Lord Oldborough, an experienced politician with strong will and strong principles, but a considerable lack of the softer virtues, and a near inability to trust anyone. In this book the countless subplots are, I think, justified, because they are interesting and worthwhile elements in a broad and detailed picture.

Leonora is an epistolary novel that exemplifies the Edgeworthian morality that I find questionable. The heroine is a newly married woman who invites her friend Olivia to stay with her, in an attempt to shield Olivia from rumours about her personal life that would otherwise ruin her social life. Leonora's husband, in the meantime, takes it into his head to flirt with Olivia, first of all to amuse himself by drawing out her foibles, then to test his wife's love for him by trying to provoke jealousy, and finally because he is infatuated by Olivia. The test worked well enough, but Leonora considers that it is due to her sense of trust in her husband that she repress her jealousy and ignore the flirting, so her husband doesn't see it. Her friend and husband are convinced that she is emotionally cold (whereas she is only intensely suffering in saintly silence), and eventually run off even though the wife is expecting a child. But the married couple is reunited after Leonora's mother sends her daughter's letters to the delinquent spouse to reveal the true feelings of the wife, and a deus ex machina reveals the true perfidy of Olivia. So the themes are wifely duty, society and reputation, and the cult of sensibility that was in vogue in France at the time versus good old-fashioned English virtue.

Anyway, to speak of the morality, I've never comprehended the nineteenth-century idea, which Maria Edgeworth evidently shares, that a wife is supposed to suffer her husband to run around with other people, and that the best cure is to make the home so pleasant that he won't want to leave it. First of all, the pleasant home idea probably doesn't work; secondly, the idea implicitly places the burden of blame on the woman, whereas the husband may really be a good-for-nothing; and, thirdly, it presents a double standard since women were decidedly not permitted to philander, and so their life was even more unfairly embittered than that of a betrayed husband would be. But I guess that these objections are now self-evident, or divorce would never have become such a common institution.

"Madame de Fleury" poses another serious problem. The titular heroine, though a society lady, opens a school for poor working-men's children in Paris. One of her pupils, Victoire, displays a talent for poetry, but Madame de Fleury resolves not to notice, develop, or encourage it. There are many reasons given for this resolve, all of them highly paternalistic. Here is one reason not to encourage talented young people, which is explained in a truly Edgeworthian sentence:

Early called into public notice, probably before their moral habits are formed, they are extolled for some play of fancy or of wit, as Bacon calls it, some juggler's trick of the intellect; they immediately take an aversion to plodding labour, they feel raised above their situation; possessed by the notion that genius exempts them, not only from labour, but from vulgar rules of prudence, they soon disgrace themselves by their conduct, are deserted by their patrons, and sink into despair, or plunge into profligacy. [1]

[Footnote 1: To these observations there are honourable exceptions.]

Source: Tales and Novels, Vol. 6, "Madame de Fleury"

Maria Edgeworth goes on to tell that other pupils of Madame de Fleury have talents in music and dancing, but that their talents go equally undeveloped, for the same reasons and because theirs are "talents which in their station were more likely to be dangerous than serviceable." I understand that the opera and theatres at that time did not offer safe careers, but I think that the pupils' talents could have been developed for their own amusement. Madame de Fleury's idea essentially means consciously stunting a child's mind and soul, and I don't find that permissible.

Last of all, the style, though not brilliant, tends to flow quite clearly. It is still much tinged with eighteenth-century language -- clear grammatical structures and abstract terms. Where the Irish brogue appears, it seems natural and is certainly legible, which cannot always be said of that of other authors; the colloquialisms of the time are also well used depending on the character of the speaker. And every now and then the narration contains a good observation. For example: "A woman may always judge of the real estimation in which she is held, by the conversation which is addressed to her."

Anyway, I'll stop here; for, to quote a couplet by Alexander Pope which Maria Edgeworth also quoted in Patronage:

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

And it is 6 a.m. local time.

Sources:
http://www.online-literature.com/maria-edgeworth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Edgeworth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin

Waiting, and waiting, and waiting

It is now well into the middle of September, at which point, as a certain document of the Freie Universität promised the applicants for study in the higher semesters, we are supposed to hear back from the university. At the 20th of September, I firmly resolved to call an end to my dolce vita, and to go on the job search if I have not yet heard from the FU. So I have duly put an end to pajama days, looked on the web for jobs again, and even made the grand sacrifice of stopping my online reading entirely and of going to bed reasonably early. But, if I had expected any reward from fate for these sacrifices, I would have been disappointed, because the mail-box has remained yawningly empty of any university response. I've passed through the stages of anger and sadness, and have now, I believe, arrived at acceptance, though I frequently slip back. After a year of feeling guilty about not doing anything, and then taking endless pains to figure out how to apply, I am considerably tired of waiting. I don't even know if I made some error in my application, which increases the suspense considerably. Of course I can imagine how much paperwork the FU people probably have to deal with, but I think I have a right to be annoyed. I wish that I would finally have something to be happy about again -- or at least something to distract me from being unhappy for no real reason except that my future seems like a bleak and profitless void.

Pride and Prejudice on Film

Yesterday evening I discovered, to my great delight, that the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice is available on YouTube. I had watched it at least twice (legally) on Canadian television, but I very much wanted to see it again. It is the fifth adaptation of Jane Austen's book that I've seen, aside from an overwhelmingly perky musical that was put on in my high school. By now I don't know whether watching or reading Pride and Prejudice is more pleasant or painful, since I know it inside out, line by line, and word for word; I have the same jaded feeling, and the same lack of objective distance, that an orchestra may have toward Beethoven's Fifth Symphony after performing it one hundred and fifty-two times. It is one of my favourite books, but I would much prefer it if I'd read it once instead of a million times.

BBC adapted it as a television mini-series twice, one in 1980 and the other in 1995. The second one, with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as Fitzwilliam Darcy, is the benchmark interpretation, and perhaps my favourite. It has period music, period furniture, period costumes, and period everything, presented with excellent taste; a broad and detailed coverage of the plot and dialogue of the book; and fine, memorable acting that does bring the characters to life. It is, in itself, also a masterpiece of harmonious detail. But it has a heavy air of seriousness and an even excessive visual perfection that can get on one's nerves.

The 1980 mini-series, with Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul, is more uneven but also more human, and similarly but not as obviously historically accurate. The lighting is terrible; the glare strongly calls to mind 1980s television sitcoms or, even worse, soap operas, except where, mercifully, it is exchanged for natural lighting. The acting is of an odd theatrical sort; the lines are beautifully enunciated, but there is little realness about it. Sometimes I had the sense that the actor for Mr. Bennet had wandered in from a Charles Dickens play. And Mr. Rintoul mistakes the rigidity and uninterestingness of a monolith for reserved grandeur. It is odd that actors can make such a long film without being more absorbed and at ease in their roles, but I imagine that it is the inevitable consequence of the lighting, and of working in television sets instead of in real rooms. But, aside from the humanness, there are two great recommendations in favour of this version. First, the book is presented nearly word for word, and some of the enigmatic dialogue and reactions are clarified. This isn't an unmixed blessing because it makes the whole film too slow-moving, but it's something. And, secondly, the characters like Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley are not treated with the severe contempt which falls to their lot in the other films. The book is, quite frankly, snobby, but I don't think that this aspect need be reproduced.

Then there is the 2005 film with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen. It exemplifies my idea of films, as books with one-third of their intellectual substance; it bears the same relation to the book that a picture postcard bears to a letter. But, as such, it is quite satisfactory. It differs from every other adaptation because it is clearly an early nineteenth-century, not late eighteenth-century, interpretation. It would have been more suitable if the film had taken this approach with later works like Persuasion, because Pride and Prejudice, as an earlier work, and one full of wit and ebulliency, fits far better in the Classical than in the Romantic movement. (I think that Jane Austen's works technically belong to the Augustan Age, which is a compromise.) But the Romantic aesthetics are beautifully presented, I think, with the palette of dark greens and greys and browns, and fine wild scenery, rather than the light colours and tamed scenery of the 1995 BBC adaptation. The passage of a mighty pig through the hallway beside the kitchen may be an over-literal manifestation of the Romantic preoccupation with simple country life, but the clotheslines full of billowing linen and the duck-pond and so on are not too intrusive. And, even if I disagree with many of the interpretations of the characters, I find the acting good, and like the easy camaraderie between the Bennet sisters.

The two major faults I find in the film, are both, I believe, owing to the filmmakers' intention to aim at the demographic of young girls. Firstly, though the screenwriter has updated the dialogue very well, at least from the 21st-century perspective, it consists of repartée rather than real wit, and the screenwriter and director(s) clearly did not know enough about the manners of the time. Elizabeth and Jane Bennet put their elbows on the table at dinner; Mr. Bennet offers tea to Lady Catherine de Bourgh even though it would have been Mrs. Bennet's role; and everyone listens to private conversations through the doors. And, what is more serious, Elizabeth says in front of Mrs. Bennet that Jane "may well perish with the shame of having such a mother"; I think that the strict code of respect to one's parents would have prevented her from saying that, even if her conscience and reason didn't. Secondly, the film is really concentrated on man-chasing. In it Jane goes to London not for a change of scene because she is tired and depressed, but in order to have a chance of meeting Mr. Bingley. And Elizabeth is as interested as anyone about the advent of Mr. Bingley, etc., in the neighbourhood. But in the book, Jane Austen essentially criticizes the silly preoccupation with potential husbands, and with their wealth, rank, appearance, and even manner. She emphasizes that Elizabeth and Jane have something else in their heads, whereas, for instance, their sisters Kitty and Lydia don't. Even if, practically speaking, it was often even necessary to be married in her time, she was (I think) arguing that women need not and should not go against their true feelings and conscience, or give up their self-respect, to that end.

Anyway, the fourth adaptation is a 2004 Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice, with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson. The film is also mostly targeted to young girls. So two thirds of the intellectual substance have been removed, too, but the screenwriter and director add a little again, mostly by discussing the identity of modern India and the (pernicious) creed and influence of American business. It's a good-hearted film, with colourful and infectiously cheerful dancing scenes. One scene that I particularly liked was where Chandra Lamba (Charlotte Lucas), who is engaged to Mr. Kohli (Mr. Collins), reprimands Lalita (Elizabeth) for her dislike of Mr. Kohli, who may be greedy and conceited and unattractive in his manners, but who is also kind-hearted -- this is a worthwhile thought, and a nicer interpretation than any other. Altogether the translation to the modern day, in Amritsar, Goa, London and Los Angeles, is admirable, even if it is a very loose one.

Finally, there is the 1940 black-and-white film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. There are two major flaws: firstly, it verges on the superficial and frivolous much as the 2005 film does (though I think that it has less giggling); and secondly, there is nothing English and nothing early nineteenth-century (let alone late eighteenth-century) about it. The setting, costume, behaviour, and manner of speaking in the film are American of an indefinite period. The film is not a literal adaptation of Jane Austen, particularly since it is written based on a play that was based on the book, not based on the book itself. But, aside from this, it is an excellent comedy -- well-made, fresh, and very amusing. The character acting is splendid; I especially liked Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins, Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennet, Frieda Inescort as Caroline Bingley, and Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I think that Greer Garson's Elizabeth Bennet has little in common with the original, but she is likeable -- so is Laurence Olivier, who portrays an unusually realistic and many-sided Mr. Darcy. And Bruce Lester as Mr. Bingley is, I think, perfect for the part; only Charlotte Lucas was miscast. The direction -- camera, acting, everything -- is done with a good eye for detail. At the Assembly Ball Elizabeth remarks of Mr. Darcy, "He certainly has an air about him," -- the camera cuts to a view down the middle of the dance floor; the line of ladies drops a curtsey to the right, and the line of gentlemen bows to the left, with the exception of one, who remains upright and merely inclines his head stiffly -- that is Mr. Darcy.

The music was nice if simple, using three motifs: a conventional one for the Bennets, a stately one for the party at Netherfield and at Rosings, and a droll and very English-sounding one with the clarinet for Mr. Collins; besides, there is the English folksong "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton." The dialogue was also good, some retained from Jane Austen, and much added. For instance, Caroline Bingley remarks condescendingly at a garden party that she has thrown, "Entertaining the rustics is not as difficult as I had feared. Any simple, childish game seems to amuse them excessively."

But in the film on YouTube the dialogue was even more amusing because someone had added error-filled English subtitles. Lines gained a surreal quality: Lady Catherine's inquiry, "Are the chickens still laying satisfactorily?" became, "Are the chicken seedlings satisfactory?" and when Mrs. Bennet felt faint, and her daughters wanted to revive her by holding a burnt feather to her nose, "No broth! Where are the bird feathers?" became, "No broth with bird feathers!" But best of all was "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," which Robert Burns would not have recognized:

Flow gently/sweet aspen/among thy green vale,
Flow gently/I'll sing thee/your song in thy praise
The green prairie stare laughing/thy screaming forebear
I charge you/this sterling morn/my slumbering fair.

And that should be enough Pride and Prejudice to last me another year.