ANNI '30 - The Thirties The Arts In Italy Beyond Fascism

The pamphlet that accompanies the exhibition on Italian art in Fascist Italy is provocative and augurs well for a good two hours of art enjoyment. The exhibition does not deliver all that it promises. Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones contends that far from showing 1930s Italian art as a cauldron of experimentation, it takes the viewer through a “bleak journey into the aesthetic lifelessness of a totalitarian society”.

The day I visited the exhibition (November 24) I overheard snippets of conversation, some of which echoed my own impressions while others seemed unduly harsh. Here is a sample:

I understand that the Fascists didn't have a strict policy on art like the Nazis or Stalin did... No guidelines, no style privileged over another, no particular theme, no explicit political message...strangely liberal for Mussolini.

What happened if the state decided it didn't like a particular work of art?... I'd have been nervous about producing anything and entering any work in those state-sponsored competitions...

They were allowed to experiment but nobody did... So much of it looks like work by other artists from other places...like these Van Gogh-like paintings.

It's worth bearing in mind that what we are seeing was filtered by decisions made by a curator in 2012...

In the end, I'm not sure the exhibition has much to say about Fascism at all, at least not more than it has to say about the limiting effect of employing art as an extension of state... This stuff was not asked to do much and it does very little. Not like those great big, colourful Soviet posters we see from time to time..they're beautiful even if they were ideologically driven and heavy-handed.

If the art had been hung up somewhere and just the dates of the paintings and the names of the artists were posted, I bet that most people would say that this was an exhibition of amateur art in the Depression era in Italy...

My verdict: the little posters punctuating the exhibition which told the personal stories of people who lived through the decade were charming but too many of the paintings lacked “soul” - and perhaps that is what made them representative of the Fascist decade in Italy.

ANNI '30 - The Thirties The Arts In Italy Beyond Fascism is at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from 22 September 2012 to 27 January 2013

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Atheism in Modern History by Gavin Hyman (2007)

There is a brilliant essay in the Cambridge Companion to Atheism written by Gavin Hyman entitled Atheism in Modern History that should be read by anyone who is interested in the historical and theoretical movements that have shaped western religion. This essay is not easy, it assumes a familiarity with philosophical concepts but it is cleverly structured and it defines and clarifies ideas as it moves along.

It begins with the story of a witch-hunt that occurred in France in 1632 — an event which is emblematic of the “trauma of the birth of modernity” because its failure represents the confrontation of a society with the certainties it is losing (theism, faith) and those it is attempting to acquire (modernity).

The next section describes how medieval theism develops into “secularism”, “agnosticism” and “atheism” of all stripes, citing the important cultural developments which precipitated these shifts in thought. The core of the essay, the thesis, resides in the idea that medieval theism, the one espoused by Thomas Aquinas did not and could not have conceived of atheism as we know it today and that it was the work of one unwitting Duns Scotus (a monk!) which so shifted the theological/philosophical paradigm that the possibility of doubt was introduced into Christian thought.

Essentially, the Thomistic idea that God is “transcendent”, forever apart and therefore always unknowable to us was compromised by Duns Scotus and those who followed. Before, only Divine revelation which was of course, only God's prerogative, could allow us a glimpse into His nature. Then came the revolution — God was not “transcendent”, He could indeed be apprehended by us: we now saw that we shared in God's nature. He was infinite and we were finite, He was omnipotent and we were not, of course, of course — but now, the terms by which we could describe Him and our relationship to Him could be “clear and distinct”. We could apply logic to the question, we could use scientific evidence, archaeological findings, we could bring the force of our learning to the study of God and religion in order to get closer to Him. Or, we could use Enlightenment tools to doubt and to build new explanations for our existence...

There is much to recommend this essay to believers and non-believers alike. Bravo to Professor Hyman.

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Modern Poetry in Translation 5 (1969)

Used bookstores like Pele Mele in Brussels offer the reader many inexpensive, serendipitous encounters with literature that even the biggest standard bookstores cannot provide.

Take “Modern Poetry in Translation 5 (1969)”, which features Czech poetry written in the decade that saw the rise and crushing of liberalizing tendencies within both the government and its citizenry. This movement, known as the Prague Spring (1968) inevitably/understandably came to colour the artistic output that followed; this slim volume of poetry offers us an entry point into the psychology of an era. In fact, when approaching a text from the past like this one, a quick read through the editorial and publication information and any added notes regarding problems with publication or distribution can conjure of a feeling for the times that a history book can't really do...

MPT 5 was founded by British poet laureate Ted Hughes and fellow poet, educator and translator Daniel Weissbort. Auspicious beginnings. Hughes was only 39, Weissbort 34, London was “swinging”, the Beatles had arrived, the government was Labour and people were suspicious of the Soviet Union's intentions and tactics. So, the editorial reads a bit like a political pamphlet admonishing our poets for infusing their poetry with “hallucinations, ultimately self-indulgent”, a product of our “easy democracy” while our Eastern brothers are “in tune with the rhythms of their people in a direct, dynamic way”. Histrionics aside, the poetry is a pleasure to read.

There are, of course, direct political statements made - no question about what Jiri Kolar intends in his poem entitled “Advice for a Sycophant”, when every second line reminds collaborators to merely “Blame it on the Party”. The “Romeo and Juliet” poem by Jiri Sotola is completely different. It is a cinematic, romantic, intimate telling of the famous story where the here nameless lovers meet for the last time on a tram, between two trains:

They touch hands and leave,
each on his own, for their compartments, their tombs,
switch off the light, pull shut the sliding door, to sleep,
to sleep, or rather: to lie watching the ceiling,
listening to the rumble of the wheels
and the beating
of the heart.

I was struck by how well my impressions of this stunning artifact were encapsulated in the final two lines of “The Twentieth Century” by Antonin Bartusek:

You see, we took snapshots as we went.
The truth came out in negative.

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The Master by Colm Toibin (2004)

Colm Toibin's 2004 novel “The Master” is a well-researched, sensitively written piece of hybrid writing, blending fact and fiction to produce a beautiful, complex read.

It is a fictionalized account of the people, places and events that shaped the life of the real novelist, playwright and essayist Henry James that will satisfy present James fans and will make new fans out of the uninitiated.

Read the first two pages - the mood, the literary style, and the problematic quest for emotional maturation (one of the central themes that will come to dominate the book) are already there: When Henry the protagonist recounts a dream where he finds himself near his beloved mother, in a half-familiar Italian square where she “beseeches” him to give her “something”, (succor? pity? consolation? a word of love?) “he cannot help her” and instead wills himself to “wake in a cold fright”, immediately looking for ways to “numb” or “distract” himself. Henry is failing – the master fails...

Henry masters the rendering of psychological states in his professional life but he cannot, dare not examine the emotional terrain that shapes his own being. People around him want Henry's friendship and love but he measures these out like J. Alfred Prufrock, in “coffee spoons”. Yes, perhaps Constance Fenimore Woolson's suicide was precipitated by Henry's emotional negligence, but what can he do, he asks himself? And when Henry himself seeks intimacy we watch, cringing, as he backs away from perfect opportunities to connect with others.

Colm Toibin ends the novel with Henry putting his relatives on a train, returning to his house alone, “moving around it relishing the silence and the emptiness” and preparing to “capture” and “hold” the world as he “observed” it in a new book. Clearly, it cannot be otherwise for Henry...

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"Natasha and Other Stories" by David Bezmozgis (2004)

The trick with a short story is to provide enough detail to render the characters three-dimensional and believable while simultaneously leaving enough space for plot so that the episode recounted makes the reader want to stop for a moment before moving on to the next story.

Natasha by David Bezmozgis does just that.

The seven stories in the collection follow the Berman family - Bella, Roman and their son Mark - as they emigrate in the late 70s from Latvia to settle in the Jewish Eastern European section of Toronto.

The stories are chronological, told in the first person by Mark Berman the adult, and they are narrative gems. The narrator is able to translate the mood of the household, the neighbourhood and the intervening decades (Mark is about 30 when he recounts the incidents from his life) into language that is precise, unadorned and yet so very expressive. The style might even be described as cinematographic with scenes that could easily be filmed - sometimes panning out, sometimes zooming in on an object or comment - elevating the mundane to the epic and maintaining a perpetual sense of foreboding for this somewhat unfortunate, ordinary but nonetheless complex little world on Bathurst Street: Nine-year-old Mark wonders innocently (and the reader frets in proxy) at what's become of his father and the wife of the influential Dr. Kornblum while dinner is served. The Natasha of the title is a 14-year-old girl whose unnerving sexual worldliness induces a physical and psychic shiver but offers no self-evident meaning, establishes no causal links, and provides no resolution.

"Natash and Other Stories" portrays situations and responses that are existential in execution and outlook – they are modern and brilliant.

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Dali: Hidden Faces

 
Guess who, at the age of 16, wrote in his journal entitled “My Impressions and Intimate Memories”, “When I come back, I will be a genius and the world will admire me. I may be despised, misunderstood, but I will be a genius, a great genius because I am certain of it”.
The inimitable Salvador Dali, of course. Showman par excellence, iconoclast, bombast and man of deep contradictions, Dali was indeed a genius. Today his life and work are not “despised” or “misunderstood” and in fact, a stroll through a traveling exhibition of his work (held at 19 Grand Place in Brussels) will show just how influential his work has been to the development of art (fine art, decorative arts, advertising, film) and psychology (the subconscious, the erotic, the dream state).
The exhibition displays a bit of everything: some of Dali's sculptures, early efforts at drawing and writing, a copy of his novel entitled “Hidden Faces”, a deck of Tarot cards, playing cards painted on plates, magazine advertisements for women's stockings and more. On display are also items that reveal his curious, ever-shifting contradictory political opinions. He paints a picture of Mao and superimposes Marilyn Monroe's face on it. He takes a photo of Stalin, another of Franco, puts these up against his own face and has someone take a picture of these three moustachioed men – to say what? He was expelled from the Surrealist club for refusing to toe the party line and said that he was apolitical, although he admitted to being an anarchist and a monarchist – both at the same time. Dali's politics changed over time as did his addresses, his financial standing and his friends and allies but he remained his own best publicist, an imaginative thinker and a superb artist.

Salvador Dali Exhibition Brussels Grand Place until September 10, 2012

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)

I think that author Jane Smiley is right about Charles Dickens' Great Expectations: readers would accept either ending if they didn't know there were two, but since both versions are available to us, the jury's still out.

Author David Nicholls calls the original ending (the one that Dickens chose to suppress on the advice of several friends) “incredibly bleak” and the second, the official ending “unrealistically romantic and sentimental”. Which is better, asks one reader, the first one where Pip and Estella bid each other farewell because “the fire no longer burns” or the second one which offers hope because the fire “hasn't stopped burning”? Someone makes the comment that if the first version had been filmed it would have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and the second at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

While debates about the relative merits of the two endings continue, some readers have chosen an altogether different response – from George Bernard Shaw to film director Alfonso Cuaron to secondary school students. Shaw pronounces that Dickens has “made a mess of both” and supplies his own unequivocally unhappy ending where Pip tells us, “Since that parting, I have been able to think of her without the old unhappiness; but I have never tried to see her again, and I know that I never shall”. What a hard, hard man.

Cuaron's delightful modern update set in part in an artist's studio in 1998 New York City ends with Estella asking Finn (Pip) for forgiveness while holding his hand and looking out to sea.

And the most original of all is a short video by Peter, Sydney and Rakela, three students who have Pip pour out his heart in a suicide letter and ingest pills.

Perhaps at the heart of this debate is the question of consistency. I agree with Shaw when he writes that Great Expectations is “too serious a book to be a trivially happy one”, but at the same time, the characters are not caricatures, they are capable of psychological and moral growth so that a nuanced ending, one which at least suggests hope and reconciliation is in order.

 

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Stanley Kubrick Photographer (2012)

Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels)

The photographs Stanley Kubrick took of boxer Rocky Graziano taking a shower were regarded as far too risque for the readers of Look Magazine in 1950 and they were locked in a vault until recently when they became part of a retrospective of Kubrick's work currently visiting museums around the world.

Kubrick's 300 assignments for Look (1945-1950) helped define the magazine's “gritty ethos and its commitment to a narrative arc”. Each assignment was tasked with telling an interesting story, and each one does, so that while the subject matter ranges from the outlandish (circus scenes) to the mundane (passengers on the subway), the innocent to the corrupt (paddy wagons!), wealthy businessmen (Bethlehem Steel) to old time jazz musicians, and the well-heeled to the poor, each shot for each assignment is part of a complex story. Nobody is just one thing: Mickey, the 12-year old Brooklyner is a poor shoeshine boy in post WW2 America, he is also an amateur boxer, one of nine siblings, somebody's son and a child who keeps pigeons.

Kubrick was good to Look Magazine and the relationship was reciprocal – Kubrick learned to compose for film while giving the magazine great visual essays. A loop from Kubrick's early film entitled “Killer's Kiss” (1955), shown amidst the photographs, effectively demonstrates how (in this case), he can capture the controlled violence of a boxing match in both film and photography. Take a look: the boxing photos in the exhibition are like the boxing frames in the film.

Kubrick honed what became a renowned capacity for representing text and subtext in striking imagery and this exhibition convincingly depicts this intersection of talent and skill.

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Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife (2006)

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage has been variously described as an allegory, satire, parable, tale, memoir of a Boston borough and a humanist magic realist text. And I would add to that list, a bildungsroman.

Firmin himself, both narrator and protagonist, is a self-professed “trespasser, vagabond, bum, pedant,voyeur, gnawer of books, ridiculous dreamer, liar, windbag, and pervert.” He is also a rat!

This short (148 pages), tightly written book follows the life of a runt-rat (thirteenth offpsring to a mother with twelve teats) who grows up in a neighbourhood bounded by the Rialto theatre (which shows Hollywood fare by day and pornographic films after midnight) and the Pembroke Bookshop (which stocks a universe of “Big Ones” like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake as well as contraband books from Olympia and Obelisk presses, judiciously stored in a safe at the back of the store). It's all there: philosophy, psychogeography, literary theory, Freud and Ginger Rogers.

Firmin is a rat but in every other way he's like you and me: he wants for love and friendship, he's hurt by betrayal, he wants to be warm and dry and well-fed and he wants his life to have meaning. Sam Savage charmingly draws these parallels to deliver a blunt message, if Firmin the rat can find his humanity surely we can too.

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The Clothes on their Backs by Linda Grant (2008)

Linda Grant has been writing the same tragi-comic novel over and over since 1995. The narrator is an assimilated English-Jewish woman, there is some trans-continental travel, a love affair or two (sometimes) gone wrong, post-holocaust characters trying to live a normal life, and a surprise or mystery at the core of the narrator's family. I love them all.

In The Clothes on their Backs, the narrator, Vivien Kovaks (Kovacs Klein), is in her mid 50s and looking back to 1977 where the bulk of the action takes place, the year that the National Front became dangerously active in the UK. She organizes an encounter with her newly-located Uncle Sandor (a character based loosely on real-life slumlord Peter Rachman) and agrees to transcribe his bleak life story. The result is an extraordinary clash of ideas and personalities, rich with Yiddish constructions and immigrant trials, shadowed by the delightfully elusive questions: does he know who she is? Does he know that she knows who he is?
This enterprise culminates in a fiasco of a birthday party, a failed family reunion and a violent, race-related altercation.

The book parallels different and ultimately flawed ways of responding to the world: Uncle Sandor is brave but incapable of nuanced morality, Viven's father is afraid of the consequences of his actions and runs away. Vivien has the monumental task of understanding the suspicious, paralyzing world she grows up in, freeing herself from its constraints and finally forgiving herself for failing from time to time.

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Invisible by Paul Auster (2009)

Clancy Martin writes in The New York Times that unlike Auster's last few books where "ïrony vacuums out the content" Invisible is a "crisp, elegant, brisk(ly)" written bildungsroman based on an incestuous love affair which is the key to the protagonist's personality. Clancy Martin is happy to reread it.

James Urquhart, critic for The Independent, is not. Above all, Urquhart is not convinced by Auster's use of all three narrative forms, describing it as "deliberately congested authorship" which yields a "confusing", "rather wearying" narrative style.

Edward Docx, reviewer for The Observer and himself a novelist, applauds Auster's novels generally, but pans this one. Apart from the sins of "precociousness" and endless "cultural citations", the novel evades the heart of the project: to perform the "nightmarishly difficult task of actually writing about character, rendering a scene vividly, describing incest."

My own response? I enjoyed and even welcomed the cultural references, including the mention of Perec, the exotic addresses in Paris, the names of foods - "croissants, brioches and tartines beurrées". The narrative successfully unites form and content such as in the last few pages of section three, written by Jim, which offer a condensation of events, stripped of detail because the protagonist is dying and can only muster a few scant notes. What pathos there is in the last sentence of that section: "They are all ghosts now, and W. will soon be walking among them." I'm with Clancy Martin here: Invisible "has the illusion of effortlessness... it is such a pleasure to read."

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The Enlightenment, Naturalism, and the Secularization of Values by Alan Charles Kors (2012)

Alan Charles Kors has written a twelve page article called The Enlightenment and the Secularization of Values which tracks the changing intellectual landscape of western thought from the end of scholasticism to the Enlightenment. He contextualizes ideas and encapsulates historical moments, moving from the abstract to the concrete, adding biographical detail and essentially making 300 years of shifting thought on a subject that is complex and still wholy relevant today, quite reader-friendly. His hand is even - athiests, deists, Christians and materialists are represented. As are French, British, Italian and Swiss thinkers. There is even a passing nod to Thomas Jefferson.

Can you trust this article? It comes from an organization called The Council for Humanist Secularism which publishes a number of magazines including Free Inquiry (the journal in which Kor's article can be found). The organization's mandate is to”advocate and defend a nonreligious lifestance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy and humanist ethics”.

Can you trust the author? He is Princeton and Harvard educated, he currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He writes for libertarian and conservative journals, is an ardent defender of free speech and has most recently published a book about witchcraft in Europe.

Professor Kors writes sensitively about beliefs - be they religious, political or moral. I trust him.

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Ravelstein by Saul Bellow (2000)

Written in Bellow's 85th year, Ravelstein is a novel that goes everywhere, does everything and does it in style. It is part novel, part autobiography and part biography (of the late, great political philosopher Alan Bloom - aka Abe Ravelstein). It is also a love letter to his readers, his students (at the University of Chicago) and to his then defunct friend Bloom. The book fulminates - mixing history, philosophy, opinion, and details about places and people which are rich and intoxicating. Sometimes the references are common knowledge, sometimes they are obscure and sometimes they are downright, maddeningly impenetrable. No matter - read on! Ravelstein and the narrator (Chick) tease out of their past association, moments that have shaped their lives and are now helping them crystallize their ideas on old age, death and faith.

For me, Ravelstein has served to remind me of the Pangle lectures (a student and colleague of Alan  Bloom) I attended as an undergraduate. It has also led me to investigate the Straussian controversy in American academia: who's labeling whom what? and what wickedness did Leo Strauss (philosophical father of Bloom and Pangle) bring with him from the German academy in 1937?

Who knows what Bellow intended but he certainly succeeded in producing an erudite, difficult and often comic final great novel.

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