When the processing is over

All good things come to an end – earthly lives, sovereign reigns, civil queues, cavalcades and processions. And so, yesterday, did all of those as they relate to the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. Some say people pass – away, on, to the other side, whatever – but I say it is Time that passes, and we all just the accompaniment – irrespective of our stand in this life.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral Procession leaving Westminster Abbey after the state funeral (19.Sep.2022)

Culminating with a State Funeral at Westminster Abbey and a Committal Service followed by a private interment at Windsor – with all the intermittent comings and goings and spectacular processing – these few days since the Queen’s death on 8th September have been extraordinary to watch (thank god for the BBC; this hopefully to be remembered when the license fee debate reemerges as it surely will); the precision of events, the organization, all just awesome to behold (the tainted reputation of Diana’s infamous “grey suits ” – embraced it has to be said by the Sussexes – suddenly and probably temporarily rehabilitated). Beyond the personal and collective grief displayed with abandon, the fair-minded and inquisitive observer has been initiated in a multitude of historical and constitutional rites and rituals. For instance, the so-called Accession Council’s formal proclamation of the death of one monarch and the accession of the new – the Privy Council given a public airing. Or those final moments in St. George’s Chapel when the crown, scepter and orb were removed from atop the Queen’s coffin to be replaced by the Lord Chamberlains’ broken wand, then to be lowered to the lament of a lone piper into the vault.

I dare say there is such a thing as being too captive to tradition, but there is also something to be said for the consoling power of ritual and the promise of continuity offered by tradition and precedent. And, if one is (as I often am) in awe of the British talent for theater, it has to be admitted that the occupants of successive Royal Households right up to the Windsors have more than played their role.

Every corner of the medial landscape is strewn with words and images from the last week or so – some appropriate, some not so. For something a little different amongst various degrees of sentimentality and silliness, A.N. Wilson’s piece in The Spectator is a sensible contribution (if you can get it…by which I mean circumvent the paywall) and on a more scholarly note, I let some literary and academic voices from the UK, speak on their (Her) Majesty on Radio 4 – you can’t say HM’s broadcaster was not prepared for these days of passing.

The Queen

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – The Queen – died yesterday at Balmoral. Ancient isles morn – as do I, for she was my Queen too; as a child of the realm, she a presence in my entire life. The Queen offered constancy and dignity in an ever changing and fractious world – for seventy years and in places far flung. As with many who have long harbored republican sentiments and just as long lived in denial of her mortal state, I too have been taken aback by the welling of emotion that the Queen’s death has summoned from deep within. Psychologically, unresolved “mummy issues” comes to mind to explain what I can only identify as an overly sentimental reaction on my part. But I have already noted an abundance of, shall we say, rational persons of standing, of, shall we say, approximately my age, mentioning how much the Queen reminded them of their mother. And I don’t think they are talking about physical resemblance or occupational or situative dispositions but, rather what, until yesterday, was the living, breathing symbolism for an entire generation, an epoch.

So, the second Elizabethan age ends, and that of King Charles III begins; a new era (called what? Caroline? Carolean?) to be observed with less baggage, greater distance, less emotional attachment, but perhaps more rigorous intellectual curiosity. And that cannot be a bad thing.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – born 21st April 1926, died 8th September 2022
The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in London, 1953. Photograph: STF/AFP/Getty Images

Out of France

Patrick Modiano & annie Ernaux

Read in the last days, two of my most favored French writers. Two novels with significant differences and some intrinsic similarities. Both modest in length and profound in content.

Firstly, Patrick Modiano’s newest work Chevreuse (Gallimard, 2021), read by me as Unterwegs nach Chevreuse (Hanser, 2022) and with an English translation due to be published as Scene of the Crime by Yale University Press next year.

I remember repeating – to only then deny – the oft heard criticism that one Modiano is some how not much different to the one that came before, and it would not surprise if the same arguments are not still to be heard in respect of Chevreuse. I even admit to brief moments of déjà vu, during which I did wonder whether I hadn’t strayed into familiar territory, situation. But why should I not, for that uncertainty is essential to memory. So one reads on, and is again seduced by that particular atmospheric that Modiano effortlessly conjures; imbued with images of the past; of person and place; haunting and defining each future until they too bow to the dictates of time.

Out of the city, westward beyond the 16th arrondissement with its bourgeoisie enclave of Auteuil on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne and into the idyllic country side of the Chevreuse via the Rue du Docteur-Kurzenne in Jouy-en-Josas. These are the main places of the journey that our writing protagonist Jean Bosmans takes us on as he excavates his childhood, his more youthful years and some intermittent; in search of the past and in the interest of his literary form – and that of Modiano; the third person, if you will, in command of the narrative. (A choice of perspective that perhaps allows for some distance – whether reliable is another matter.)

Typically (for Modiano), this narrative exists in multiple time frames – the elderly writer Bosmans in approximately the here and now, his younger self during the mid-1960s, and the child of fifteen years previously. Whereby it is those middle years that drive the particulars of the story; those youthful years of first experiences and great expectations. And, it is no wonder, for they are his formative years as a writer, and he is beginning to understand that one of the greatest tools for his craft lay in the fusion of memory – that is, lived experience and emotion as it roots itself in the subconscious and takes on its on life over time – and the creative processes of imagination.

Chance meetings that aren’t (for instance, with the lovely Camille, incongruously called “tête de mort”, about which I note an English translation predicament: “dead head” is very literal but perhaps too much “Grateful Dead” for my tastes!), a sinister cast of characters with changing names, too many coincidences, too many echoes from blurred childhood memories, all stimulate the young writer’s imagination, and all the time Modiano, with his wonderful gift for blending the stations of his own life with those of his fictive, half-fictive characters, is creating a new reality – for the page, the reader and maybe even himself.

continue reading …

Coloring antiquity

This NYT article alerted me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition entitled Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color; an adaptation it seems of that which I viewed at the Liebieghaus (the home, so to speak, of many of the exhibits) in Frankfurt – there called “Gods in Color” – in February 2020, and about which I posted here. In fact, various versions have been touring the world over the last decade or so, but given the larger space available (not to mention, the budget) it is possible that the Met show is more ambitious. The Met web page is very informative (as was also that during the Frankfurt show) but new is an app than encourages virtual recreations and reflects the collaborative work of those behind the polychromy project. (And everybody knows nothing works without an app these days!)

My own photograph of the reconstruction of a marble archer – taken at the Liebieghaus, Frankfurt, in February 2020.

Of course, times being as they are, it is inevitable that the conversation surrounding the content and merits of the show would be dominated by matters of identity. And given the particularities of the project and the issues that arise from the reconstructions of Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch Brinkmann, the pivot is not hard to make.

And the NYT piece certainly doesn’t let down in this respect; pointing out how the Brinkmann team’s reconstructions have led to degrees of disquiet in academic and research circles. It seems some would contend that these particular reconstructions have been afforded such celebrity in recent years that it is often overlooked that they, in fact, represent only the scholarship of one pair of researchers, and should not be seen as a definitive verdict. This further leads to wide-ranging debates (often motivated through self or particular interest) on variations of polychromy and, of course, whiteness – and not just during antiquity. In this respect, the Times points to an interesting 2017 blog post from the historian, Sarah E. Bond, and this very lengthy and very excellent 2018 New Yorker article.

The following YouTube video (also on the Met site) is an excellent introduction to the scholarly and technical background to the project.

Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann on their research into ancient sculptural polychromy and their work in creating full-size reconstructions of original Greek and Roman artworks.

By the way, I was incredibly informed by the exhibition in Frankfurt – loved it, really; even if a favorite jacket came to grief in the cloakroom and it was to be my final cultural adventure before the pandemic took over our lives. If I knew anyone in New York I would highly recommend heading for Fifth Ave. (through March 26, 2023), and I am also fairly sure it will turn up elsewhere in the future – probably with new exhibits.

Playing Faust

I mentioned here that Goethe’s Faust will soon no longer be compulsory reading in most of the German secondary curriculums. But these nine minutes – courtesy of Michael Sommer and his Playmobile support cast – should very well be.

Lots of fun! And, more generally, Sommers Weltliterature to go offers an off-beat and creative introduction to some great works of literature – from ancient times to the contemporary. Mostly in German, but so cleverly constructed that even non-speakers should be able to get the gist and, if all else fails, the auto-translate works reasonably well. Potentially, also, an excellent resource for German language learners.

Salman Rushdie

That, after all these years, this price-tag, bounty, or, if you will, fatwa, hanging over Salman Rushdie has been acted upon, is truly devastating. Yesterday, Rushdie was attacked and stabbed multiple times during an event at the Chautauqua Institution, a venerable arts and education venue, in western New York State. His personal fate remains in the balance, and that of a writer’s right – even duty – to contribute to public debate, something that Rushdie vehemently pleaded for in his literature and presence – irrespective of duress – over many years, likewise.

The focus has, of course, immediately turned to this, so-called fatwa edict from over three decades ago. But, I am just as concerned about the wider pervasiveness of intolerance, to the point of hate, in our discourse; one that has become almost inextricable from the free exchange of ideas and opinion, and the tradition of respectful debate.

And these concerns have, in recent years, moved way beyond fanatical religious or political animosities, and are very much in the middle of society – with very much main stream disputes about gender, language, food – you name it and I could probably come up with a recent example. For some – even most – these very often social media driven shitstorms – to use a very un-Deutsch but nevertheless Deutsch expression – are fleeting; sometimes though they fester and take on a much darker tenor… And, it has to be said, tensions are being created and stretched at all ends of the political and pseudo-political spectrum.

For me, the despicable attack against Rushdie has led to a confluence of ideas – some of which I have been occupied with of late anyway. Beyond, those omnipresent contemporary preoccupations just mentioned, another is the 75th anniversary of the partition of India, and how informed I was of the birth of the modern state of India and the legacy of the colonial state that preceded it, and in a wonderfully literary way, by Rushdie’s magnificent novel, Midnight’s Children. More so than by some non-fictional accounts I have read, and certainly more than by more strident renderings that have veered increasingly towards an unreflected post-colonial rhetoric that can have not good societal repercussions.

Any offerings of condolence would be trite and unheard, but there are issues here I want to write about further.

Sunday 14 August: Though suffering from horrific wounds, Salman Rushdie’s condition in a Pennsylvania hospital is reported – and from reliable sources – to have stabilized somewhat. One can only hope that to be so, and a good recovery possible. On The Guardian site this morning an excellent Observer piece by Kenan Malik that explores some of the concerns I mentioned above.

Melbourne girls both

Good grief – what an odd expression; coming, surely, only at the end of a good life. Such is my state of the doldrums. If it’s not enough to confront, and daily, one’s own mortality and those near, there are those more distant who have somehow been there on life’s journey.

The death of two Melbourne girls made good – very good – and only days apart, moves one (such as I) for whom they were omnipresent from childhood through teenage years, then fading into the background as time passed and life got messy – but always sort of there. Essential accompaniments to the sound track of this one life.

Until she came to my mind last year in an unusual context, I hadn’t thought of Judith Durham for a long, long time, and I was initially quite taken aback at how familiar she remained, and the ease with which she transported me back to my childhood – suddenly I was there (in front of the TV) watching The Seekers farewell concert in Melbourne in 1967 – and how thrilled I was to hear her distinctive voice again.

As fate would have it, in a Guardian piece reporting Judith Durham’s death on 5th August, Olivia Newton-John is mentioned as one, after The Seekers played at her Melbourne school, inspired by Durham, and is quoted as once having said: “She was one of the first Aussie girls to make it overseas.” Olivia Newton-John died on 8th August, just three days after Judith Durham.

Not everyone’s music to be sure – too folksy, too poppy, whatever – but, even when not, in and about Melbourne, at different times, everyone’s darlings, both. In retrospect, it is clear that the trajectory of their careers and how that effected their lives says a lot about the demands of the music business and the pitfalls of celebrity. Especially when that celebrity is catapulted outside the provincialism of home-shores and played out in the international arena. For Judith Durham, her relatively modest star shined only for a relatively short time; the end of which she alone determined. For Livvy (everybody in Melbourne called her Livvy), it was a fame, that was greater, lasted longer but took its tribute. Two women, two talented artists – both driven and confined by the dictates and the expectations of an industry, both visited by serious illness, but nevertheless bravely making the (very different) decisions that each could live with. Until they couldn’t anymore.

Following are a pair of videos as tribute. Chosen at random from You Tube, they are sentimental for sure, some would say overly so, but they are songs I remember vividly. Firstly, coming to my notice because it was embedded in The New York Times obituary and is wonderfully remastered, is a video from The Seekers’ 1965 hit “I’ll Never Find Another You” and, secondly, and it’s harder to find free stuff for Olivia, this (available for the moment at least) 1978 performance in Amsterdam of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from the mega-film Grease released that year, in which she starred with John Travolta – and which, as I remember it, made her a superstar.

The Seekers’ first hit single, I’ll Never Find Another You, recorded at Abbey Road studios in London in the autumn of ’64, reaching #1 in Feb ’65.
Live in Amsterdam, 1978.

In both songs, You sing of some idealized other You. By the many who, in one way or another, grew up with You both, You are remembered. Not just because You were so exceptional, but rather because, during those heady days of youth when everything or nothing seemed possible, we could imagine – with just a little bit of good fortune – being just a little bit like You.

Philip Larkin b. 1922

…that year again

This time, the birth year of the British poet Philip Larkin. With little tolerance for “modernist” pretensions, or that which he may so have considered, it is interesting that Larkin should be born at a time when that particular movement was turning the literary establishment upside down, and in that year that such legendary modernist texts like T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and Joyce’s novel Ulysses were published and creating furor. Perhaps from mother’s womb, to the cradle and onward, Larkin was predestined to rebel against the new or, at least, make the old new again.

Philip Larkin (1969) by Fay Godwin. © The British Library Board

Philip Larkin was born in Coventry on 9 August, 1922, a hundred years ago today, and died on 2 December, 1985. In the years since his death, and particularly those most recent, Larkin has fell afoul of many who seek to (re)define the British literary canon – an endeavor not without merit. His sins appear to have been numerous (and contested) – misogynistic, sexually compulsive and irresponsible, racist, antisemitic, and some would say just plain not very nice – traits so defining and presumably inextricable from his work that examination boards have dropped him from the curriculum (not being cancelled, though, says The New Statesman).

Larkin’s poetry is only as difficult as one wants it to be, highly accessible and, I think, not at all dated – definitely stuff for young, curious minds. Certainly I could imagine a contemporary British school student, irrespective of background, being able to imagine more in Larkin, getting more from Larkin, than, say, a young German vis-à-vis Goethe. Yes, Goethe, he who is being relegated from the compulsory to the optional category of the German secondary curriculums in some states. Including, Bavaria, the state in which I live, with the demotion of Faust in 2024. I am quite sure Goethe’s well documented erotic predilections had nothing to do with that decision, rather a reasonable approach in broadening the range for a particular epoch in which Germany is not short of literary representation. Unfortunately, in England, Larkin seems primarily to have fallen victim to his white maleness as educationalists scramble to make amends for the colonial mindset and lack of diversity that had hitherto characterized the curriculum. That is understandable, but … Why Larkin?!

What do I know about Philip Larkin? Not much. I haven’t read Andrew Motion’s biography nor any other biographical material, including controversial correspondence with mother, girlfriends and others that have surfaced, nor anything much in the way of scholarly or gossipy articles. But it seems clear Larkin was a very complicated man, plagued by melancholy and inadequacy to the point of depression, and influenced (as are we all) by the society (human and situational) he kept. And, a wonderful poet. I only know some of his work, and those the familiar pieces known to many, but I think them splendid. Following are links to some of these, and other reference material.

Auntie, reluctant to show her age these days (change: all just a matter of cosmetics), lets herself go this week and the next and, with the (probably fleeting) acceptance of their listener’s demographic, presents “Larkin Revisited” on Radio 4: “Across ten programmes and ten Philip Larkin poems, Simon Armitage, the poet laureate, finds out what happens when he revisits and unpicks Larkin’s work in his centenary year.”