Media & Journalism – Page 4

A timely coincidence

5th May 1821: On this day, the publication in Manchester of the first edition of The Manchester Guardian and, on Saint Helena, the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Today The Guardian celebrates its 200 year anniversary – no mean feat when one considers the fragile nature of media enterprises, not just in our own time, but the struggles for survival of newspapers and periodicals from their very beginnings.

The Manchester Guardian No. 1, May 5, 1821.

The Manchester Guardian (as it was called until 1959) was founded by John Edward Taylor in the aftermath of the closure of the Manchester Observer. This more radical publication had been charged with sedition for their role in agitating for parliamentary reform and promotion of meetings on St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, that culminated in a mass gathering on 16th August 1819 during which the cavalry charged into the crowd of thousands of mostly ordinary folk protesting against economic hardship and demanding the rights of greater suffrage and representation.

A coloured print of the Peterloo Massacre published by Richard Carlile

The massacre would become known as Peterloo, a portmanteau created from the location, St. Peter’s Field, and the Battle of Waterloo that had taken place four years earlier. That battle, which marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, was also the beginning of trade restrictions and the infamous Corn Laws in Britain that benefitted the gentry and land owners but, by raising the price of food staples, brought hardship to the working classes. Some in attendance in Manchester that day would very well have been there on those Belgian fields and participated in one of Britains greatest military victories. Just is that not.

That on the very same day as the publication of the first edition of The Manchester Guardian, that same French emperor who had been defeated at Waterloo should die (and with his boots on) on a remote island in the middle of the South Atlantic, could hardly have been expected to be reported upon – long as it was before even rudimentary undersea telegraph cable – but the coincidence would surely have later been noticed and remarked upon. [And indeed it was, following a July 14 (just had to be didn’t it!) report from Paris, on July 28, and here it is from the The Guardian archives]

Napoleon on Saint Helena, watercolor by Franz Josef Sandmann, c. 1820

And so it is, two hundred years after his death, Napoleon’s shadow still looms large in the annals of history; he continues to fascinate, for better or worse, and France still struggles to come to terms with a legacy full of contradictions. And The Guardian is still around to tell us about it.

Words never fail

Sadly, many things failed Virginia Woolf, but what very rarely did, were words.

Reminded by hearing Gillian Anderson’s recitation of Virginia Woolf’s suicide note, and remembering that from Juliet Stevenson, I want to record here the only surviving recording of Woolf’s voice. Recorded on this day in 1937 for a BBC program entitled “Words Fail Me”, listening to the surviving segment through all the noise and crackle of years gone by, one can still discern the so-admired and oft commented upon sonorous quality of her voice.

Virginia Woolf, segment from Words Fail Me, BBC, April 29, 1937

The radio essay was adapted to the written form as “Craftsmanship”; collected by Leonard in the posthumous volume The Death of the Moth and other Essays (1942). There, I notice that her essay is dated as 20th April, 1937, so perhaps she wrote it up cleanly the week before, or her dating (or Leonard’s) went awry. One can presume the BBC is correct.

This and other anomalies surrounding this and other recordings and transcripts are written about here by S.N. Clarke from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.

Riding the Waves

Much has been said and written about Virginia Woolf’s 1931 novel The Waves, and as the 90th anniversary of its publication approaches, BBC Radio 3 featured on Sunday (& perhaps only available for a limited time) a programme focusing on the musical, lyrical attributes of this, perhaps her moodiest, most experimental work.

To begin with, I was intrigued by Woolf’s novel having been the inspiration behind Steve Harley’s “Riding the Waves” from 1978. That was a long time ago, and listening to it now there is a familiarity; whether because of a recognisable turn of phrase or the rhythms of Cockney Rebel I am not sure – a definite Woolf connection I remember absolutely not.

Riding the Waves, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel

As Harley readily admits, he takes the words out of Woolf’s mouth, or rather from the pages of her novel, but it is a warm tribute to a long dead female writer who quite obviously touched the soul of a young vagabond minstrel in the wayward 70s.

Different is Max Richter’s composition XVI. The Waves: Tuesday (from Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works, Deutsche Grammophon, 2015) that brought to an end Wayne McGregor’s 2015 ballet “Woolf Works” for The Royal Ballet. A beautiful contemporary piece that fuses elements from the classical with electronic acoustics to capture the essence of the novel – and Virginia Woolf’s life. Listen well; imagine the ebb and flow of tides, the waters lapping and seeping through sand and upon rocks, clouds scuttling across the sky above. Just like the characters in her novel as they traverse time, waves are forever in motion – rising and falling, drawing near and receding into the distance. Becoming but a memory of their former self … only to reassemble and reemerge again. A haunting reminder of time past and the promise of rebirth. Richter’s musical meditation re-imagines the rhythm of nature and life.

XVI. The Waves: Tuesday

And the prologue? Tuesday. Written in her famous hand on the upper right hand corner of that final note; known to touch even the most hardened amongst us. Beautifully spoken by Gillian Anderson, perhaps capturing the sonorous quality of Woolf’s voice that also has its place in legend.

The Book Review (2) – The Podcast

As The Book Review looks back over a 125 year history, an accompanying podcast does so of its own modest 15 years, and with fifteen favourites. The Review editor and podcast host, Pamela Paul, admits the difficulty in culling down her selection to an acceptable level, and provides some brief and succinct notes of recommendation.

For me; some that are mentioned were caught in a timely way and some missed, some naturally interest more than others; but certainly there is something to be learnt from all. Given that, as I write, I am in the midst of Caste and fairly recently read The Warmth of Other Suns, I especially appreciate Isabel Wilkerson speaking in 2018 on her own work and Michelle Obama’s memoir and the Great Migration – one of those missed, and which is now very relevant to some of my reading projects.

An art interlude

Alice NeeL: People come first

At The Met: March 22 – August 1, 2021.

Alice Neel at The Met 2021

A rare retrospective of the work of the American realist painter Alice Neel. Even virtually, her images can be appreciated as powerful reminders of our shared humanity and strived for dignity; irrespective of where we may be on our eternal search for self and place; sought by the privileged or the deprived, in home, studio or on the street. Terrific pictures in my opinion, and I love that she insists upon “pictures”; snapshots from real life, not for her the formalities of portraiture! The exhibition primer explores the sources of Neel’s inspiration; to be seen written in the faces and on the streets of Harlem.

In an excellent piece at The New York Times, Roberta Smith lauds Neel into the pantheon of modern painting; contextualising her radicalness in terms of the social and political turmoil of the twentieth century, and the complex interaction between those powerful exterior forces and the equally palpable interiors of the subjects, and in the virtuosity in which Neel, with colour and texture, bring all these facets together in her composition.

One reads, also, of the brilliant Met installation; the curators playing with chronology, thematics and historical; Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey have their say in the following excellent little video which was a virtual opening of sorts. I don’t know the pandemic status in respect to museums in New York at the moment, but it is to be hoped that, through this show, Neel’s work will find renewed attention and viewership into the Summer months.

Virtual opening introduced by Max Hollein and presented by the co-curators Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey.

The Book Review (1): Passing review

This year The New York Times Book Review celebrates 125 years of doing just that which its title suggests. During that time, one may imagine it has made and broken enough writers, made many a reader’s heart beat faster, and some to break – over person or product of passion. Enough books lauded, quickly to be relegated to obscurity; some dismissed – or simply missed – now with a place in the realm of classic; but often simply the right words found at the right time – by reviewer and reviewed alike.

There are probably reasons not to have a NYT subscription, but an interactive pieces like this, which in tracing the years of the Book Review also, by the by, passes review on the changing cultural parade of a whole century plus some years more, and Paral Sehgal’s essay “Reviewing the Book Review”, are not amongst them!

There will surely be much more to look forward to during the year as The Review dives into its archives and appraises its history, and considers its role in the complicated literary and cultural present and in the ensuing years.

When Black is (not) white

“Passing” by Nella Larsen

With the success of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half last year (which I wrote about here), it could hardly surprise that Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel would resurface and be talked about again, and therefore appropriate that Bennett be at the centre of this T Book Club event.

And here is Bennett’s accompanying essay, which exacerbates on some of the topics that arose in the conversation, and introduces new ones.

Not just about Passing, Brit Bennett also speaks on the person Nella Larsen, beyond the writer, and the complicated paths her life took. After years of obscurity – the NYT famously overlooked her death in 1964 – Larson was rediscovered by feminist academics during the 1970s, and given place amongst the (mostly male) Harlem Renaissance. Interest in Larsen has been sustained through the ensuing years, including what Darryl Pinckney calls a definitive biography in 2006 by George Hutchinson, which he reviewed at The Nation upon publication. I mention the biographical information (via Pinckney and Wiki) only because, it seems to me, the oddness – or, the inconsistencies – of Larson’s life are not dissimilar to those to be discerned in the novel.

Three African American women in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, ca. 1925

But, that is the thing with the unreliable; it titillates, seduces and ultimately leaves –has to leave – some things unresolved. And so it is with the voice of Nella Larsen speaking to us through Irene Redfield. I recall Brit Bennett mentioning Irene’s world to be a rare example of a historical depiction of middle-class Black America, and it is this term “middle-class” that perplexes me; but that is generally so, for its definition is very dependent upon context – in place and in time – and neither being American nor clear on the historical demographics of New York, I may have a different understanding of a socio-economic scale. And so I am left to be wowed at what a middle-class that must have been in Harlem in the 1920s! The Redfieds for instance: doctor, wife; juggling social calendar and committees; entertaining and being entertained by literary luminaries; trips abroad, private schools; upstairs, downstairs; separate bedrooms (which I mention because of the spatial factor – what it says about the relationship between Irene and Brian is another matter!); housemaid, cook. Many of these are attributes I find difficult to relate to the middle-classes – somewhat too uppity, to my mind! Is the Harlem of her novel that in which Nella Larsen lived, the society to which she aspired? Or has she over-imagined both?

Custom made

“The Custom of the Country” by Edith Wharton (1913)

Edith Wharton, if she was ever out of vogue, is now very much ‘in’ again – talked and written about, her stories adapted to screen. Not so long ago I wrote about House of Mirth, and have recently been prompted (see the embedded video) to read her 1913 novel The Custom of the Country; and, unlike the aforesaid and The Age of Innocence both of which I know well, for the first time.

A conversation with Claire Messud about Edith Wharton & “The Custom of the Country”

Written a dozen or so years after House of Mirth, the general contours of The Custom of the Country remain the same – powerful female heroines (are they?) and splendid (or splendidly despicable?) supporting characters; embedded in that particular East Coast milieu of the Gilded Age into which one is either born or gains admittance at great cost, and a graceful exit doomed to fail. But, however overtly similar, it would be wrong to suggest that Wharton is limited in her vision, locked within the same familiar template; for this later novel very well demonstrates how her own path in the ensuing years, culminating in a divorce and self-decreed exile on the other side of the Atlantic, informed her writing life. And despite affinities shared, Wharton’s heroines in these two novels are in opposite trajectories – in House of Mirth, Lily Bart’s once promising outlook is hurtling towards a tragic end, whilst in The Custom of the Country, the irrepressible Undine Spragg is on the ascendant – life as a series of career moves.

Undine is an anti-heroine I would say, a protagonist without virtue – beyond her beauty, feted by some and envied by all – and ruthless in her pursuit of advancement in society; resolute she is for sure, but vacuous and amoral. In a young nation, a hierarchy has already been established – between old money and new, inherited and earned. And though Undine may slip up or miss a step as she ascends the social ladder, when all seems lost, she (unlike Lily Bart) always manages to regain control and live for another day.

The title of the book is not peripheral, and does suggest one of the novel’s main themes – how class structures and behavioral norms operate in different countries. (A Wikipedia entry gives another interpretation, the veracity of which I can not confirm.) Customs are to be adhered to, or challenged, or simply ignored, and Undine successfully adapts each as befits a situation. Abiding to custom, often means deception, improvisation, manipulation; all wiles to which she is adept. Undine marries when she will, and divorces likewise; she keeps company that she shouldn’t for all to see or closeted from the prying eye; when in one place she pines for another, and then another. And that money grows on trees, is for her not an adage, but a wife’s expectation. More generally, there is a way of recognising her actions as a product of the custom of man (and country); as proffered by a Mr. Charles Bowen in a conversation with Mrs. Fairford (Undine’s sister-in-law), which I quote in length because it says so much:

“[…]you say his wife’s extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that’s not what’s wrong. It’s normal for a man to work hard for a woman—what’s abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it.”
“…But why? Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again—I don’t mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven’t we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take enough interest in THEM […]
“Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she’s so important to them that they make it worth her while! She’s not a parenthesis, as she is here—she’s in the very middle of the picture. I’m not implying that Ralph isn’t interested in his wife—he’s a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman’s drawing-room or in their offices? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? The emotional centre of gravity’s not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it’s love, in our new one it’s business…”
The Custom of the Country, Chapter XV, Kindle Edition (location 1856-65)