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"]
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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:
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:
Sources:
http://www.online-literature.com/maria-edgeworth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Edgeworth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
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 aboundAnd it is 6 a.m. local time.
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Sources:
http://www.online-literature.com/maria-edgeworth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Edgeworth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
A Day of Note
Today has been a lovely, quiet birthday. Perhaps I wouldn't have chosen a gloomy cloud-covered day to herald my twenty-third year of living (counting the first twelve months), but now there are beautiful fluffy peachy clouds pulling across a serene light blue sky, so I can still take the weather as a good omen.
I woke up shortly before noon, which is, sadly, a triumph considering my bohemian sleeping hours of the past weeks. Then I brought order to my room. In the past two days I had crammed out old papers for sorting, and had typed up the most worthwhile portion of my literary oeuvre from my school days, besides which the contents of another moving box had been scattered on the floor, including stamps which I had collected years ago and hadn't been able to fit into my albums. After I had cleaned that up, T. (on the recorder) and I (on the piano) played the usual movements from a Marcello sonata, the entirety of Telemann's Suite in A minor, and three Schubert lieder ("Das Wandern," "Heidenröslein," and "Ave Maria"). Speaking of Ave Maria, I haven't mentioned yet that T. and I recently went through an "Ave Maria" phase, where we listened to many interpretations of both Schubert's and Gounod's songs. T. knew the Gounod "Ave" from her years in the school choir, but both versions were new to me. Now the novelty has worn off, but I do not yet feel violent whenever I hear the tunes, so it's fine.
Then I went for a walk to the St. Matthäus churchyard, with a pearly grey sky above, and dog droppings of the usual brown tints to either side. I still find the sidewalks dirty. Anyway, the Saturday market at the S-Bahnhof Yorckstraße (Großgörschenstraße) was in full roar. This time the cries were "2 Euro!", "Billiger! billiger! billiger!"*, and "Bananen für 79 Cent!" Last time I passed the market, the cries were "1 Euro"; I hope that the change in price doesn't reflect a rise in the consumer price index (at last my Macroeconomics course permits me to show off!). Today there were not only fruits (pineapples, oranges, apples, etc.) and vegetables (from okra through cabbages to corn) for sale, but also bales of cloth, shoes, jewellry, fish, etc. Intermingled with the shopping crowd there were also many small suitcases with long handles and wheels attached, which people pulled behind them. I think this arrangement is abominable; one is liable to trip over the things, especially since the bags are so small anyway that only an invalid could not carry them in his hand.
In the churchyard the trees are beginning to be flecked with yellow leaves, and the chestnut trees have turned rusty. I saw the first chestnut of the year lying on the path, and I was quite excited; horse chestnuts are, I think, some of the most beautiful things in existence. In Canada I pried open the green shells when they had fallen to the ground and kept the chestnuts in my room until I found that they become dull-coloured and wrinkly. But when they are split open, they are supposedly good at keeping away spiders (I seriously doubt that this is true). As for the flowers in the graveyard, there were red begonias, impatiens, one pink hydrangea, fading pink roses, tall Canada goldenrod, black-eyed susans, calendula, and red-flowered kalanchoe (blossfeldiana; it is apparently also known by the charming name of "Flaming Katy"). It is quite comforting to know that so many flowers still bloom at this time of year; our old garden was bright with flowers throughout May and even June, and then came the inevitable decline. And the lawn was moist and green as ever, as was a nightshade-like weed of flamboyantly large growth. The alder or beech hedges had just been trimmed, so they had a small and forlorn appearance similar to that of shorn sheep.
I sat down on a dark green bench facing the church and (in one of my short-lived impulses of wishing to become more knowledgeable) read the first page of the Chanson de Roland, as well as a goodly portion of the glossary in the back of the book. I enjoyed how close the old French is to Spanish, especially since that closeness is appropriate to the story. And I like old English and old French in general; the syntax and spellings are so funny. Take, for instance, "reis" (like the Spanish "rey") for "roi," and "ki" for "qui." And I finally realized that the towncrier's call of "Oyez!" comes from the French. Anyway, small drops of rain, and the promise of more, put an end to the reading session, and I wended my way back home.
Since then, everyone has realized that it's my birthday. There was a phone call from Aunt L., many renditions of "Happy Birthday," and a shopping trip by T. that resulted in a delightfully unhealthy repast of fruit gummies, Chinese rice crackers, and "Wackelpudding" (Jell-O); the birthday cake is in the oven.
* "Cheaper! cheaper! cheaper!"
P.S.: I haven't written a blog entry for so long on the strict but helpful principle that, "If you have nothing to say, keep your mouth shut."
I woke up shortly before noon, which is, sadly, a triumph considering my bohemian sleeping hours of the past weeks. Then I brought order to my room. In the past two days I had crammed out old papers for sorting, and had typed up the most worthwhile portion of my literary oeuvre from my school days, besides which the contents of another moving box had been scattered on the floor, including stamps which I had collected years ago and hadn't been able to fit into my albums. After I had cleaned that up, T. (on the recorder) and I (on the piano) played the usual movements from a Marcello sonata, the entirety of Telemann's Suite in A minor, and three Schubert lieder ("Das Wandern," "Heidenröslein," and "Ave Maria"). Speaking of Ave Maria, I haven't mentioned yet that T. and I recently went through an "Ave Maria" phase, where we listened to many interpretations of both Schubert's and Gounod's songs. T. knew the Gounod "Ave" from her years in the school choir, but both versions were new to me. Now the novelty has worn off, but I do not yet feel violent whenever I hear the tunes, so it's fine.
Then I went for a walk to the St. Matthäus churchyard, with a pearly grey sky above, and dog droppings of the usual brown tints to either side. I still find the sidewalks dirty. Anyway, the Saturday market at the S-Bahnhof Yorckstraße (Großgörschenstraße) was in full roar. This time the cries were "2 Euro!", "Billiger! billiger! billiger!"*, and "Bananen für 79 Cent!" Last time I passed the market, the cries were "1 Euro"; I hope that the change in price doesn't reflect a rise in the consumer price index (at last my Macroeconomics course permits me to show off!). Today there were not only fruits (pineapples, oranges, apples, etc.) and vegetables (from okra through cabbages to corn) for sale, but also bales of cloth, shoes, jewellry, fish, etc. Intermingled with the shopping crowd there were also many small suitcases with long handles and wheels attached, which people pulled behind them. I think this arrangement is abominable; one is liable to trip over the things, especially since the bags are so small anyway that only an invalid could not carry them in his hand.
In the churchyard the trees are beginning to be flecked with yellow leaves, and the chestnut trees have turned rusty. I saw the first chestnut of the year lying on the path, and I was quite excited; horse chestnuts are, I think, some of the most beautiful things in existence. In Canada I pried open the green shells when they had fallen to the ground and kept the chestnuts in my room until I found that they become dull-coloured and wrinkly. But when they are split open, they are supposedly good at keeping away spiders (I seriously doubt that this is true). As for the flowers in the graveyard, there were red begonias, impatiens, one pink hydrangea, fading pink roses, tall Canada goldenrod, black-eyed susans, calendula, and red-flowered kalanchoe (blossfeldiana; it is apparently also known by the charming name of "Flaming Katy"). It is quite comforting to know that so many flowers still bloom at this time of year; our old garden was bright with flowers throughout May and even June, and then came the inevitable decline. And the lawn was moist and green as ever, as was a nightshade-like weed of flamboyantly large growth. The alder or beech hedges had just been trimmed, so they had a small and forlorn appearance similar to that of shorn sheep.
I sat down on a dark green bench facing the church and (in one of my short-lived impulses of wishing to become more knowledgeable) read the first page of the Chanson de Roland, as well as a goodly portion of the glossary in the back of the book. I enjoyed how close the old French is to Spanish, especially since that closeness is appropriate to the story. And I like old English and old French in general; the syntax and spellings are so funny. Take, for instance, "reis" (like the Spanish "rey") for "roi," and "ki" for "qui." And I finally realized that the towncrier's call of "Oyez!" comes from the French. Anyway, small drops of rain, and the promise of more, put an end to the reading session, and I wended my way back home.
Since then, everyone has realized that it's my birthday. There was a phone call from Aunt L., many renditions of "Happy Birthday," and a shopping trip by T. that resulted in a delightfully unhealthy repast of fruit gummies, Chinese rice crackers, and "Wackelpudding" (Jell-O); the birthday cake is in the oven.
* "Cheaper! cheaper! cheaper!"
P.S.: I haven't written a blog entry for so long on the strict but helpful principle that, "If you have nothing to say, keep your mouth shut."
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