Modern Reading

Whether over lunch, or in the midst of bedtime ritual, beginning tomorrow and for ten consecutive weekdays (Jan 24 – Feb 4), BBC Radio 4 presents a reading of Mrs. Dalloway; embedded within what the BBC calls a “celebration of the birth of Modernism a hundred years ago”. Here, the reference is to literary Modernism and the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922 (and Eliot’s The Waste Land). Virginia Woolf’s ‘one day’ novel was published three years later, but fits very well in the modernist tradition – and may justifiably be considered (by the broadcaster) more readable (and listenable) than Joyce’s epic work; dense as it is in allusion and parody.

Start the Week tomorrow morning (with Kirsty Wark – the third presenter in three weeks – and I am still getting used to NOT starting the week with Andrew Marr!) starts the season with a discussion that broadens the scope of modernism beyond the literary – into the visual arts, music and the public space. One of the guests is Matthew Sweet whose ten part series 1922: The Birth of Now also begins tomorrow (through to Feb 4). [BBC is quite generous, and most of these links should remain live for some time.]

Presumably, there is more in store across the BBC but I can’t find the theme centrally organized (generally this is a problem with Sounds – and I know I’m not alone in this opinion!). I actually only became aware of an upcoming “Modernism” project through a passing reference on Feedback at the end of last year and was reminded with a programming note on Open Book last week. That episode, by the way, is all about Ulysses, and listening to the very interesting participants has motivated me to consider (and not for the first time, and as an important condition) diving in. Given this interest of mine in the modernists, and my interest in their interest in the ancients, I shouldn’t need to be pushed (one would think), and rather have been tempted to jump in long ago. Or do I have an insurmountable interest conflict?

Anyway, I have at least tracked down a very good digital version of Ulysses, and there is no shortage of study material, so I will collate what I have in a separate post for future reference. For the moment, may I just refer to Virginia Woolf’s struggle with Joyce (which she never really resolved – personally, I’m not totally convinced she read Ulysses in its entirety nor any of his other works) in particular and, more generally, Volume 2 of her diary which includes this year; one which for her was just another, and was to become for us (and maybe posterity), and unbeknownst to her, much more.

In just 90 minutes …

on January 20th 1942, at a lakeside villa on the outskirts of Berlin, the fate of millions of European Jews was sealed.

Am Großen Wannsee 56–58, where the Wannsee Conference was held – now a memorial and museum.

I recall vividly reading about the Wannseekonferenz for the first time, and how shocked I was at the cold-blooded, bureaucratic precision in which the gathered elite from the SS and political apparatus made specific the plan to annihilate the Jewish people – the so-called “Final Solution”. My initial horror was later reinforced by other accounts and documentaries, and I especially remember the British film, Conspiracy, in which Kenneth Branagh gives a brilliant and chilling portrayal of Reinhard Heydrich.

Now eighty years after the event, the German public television channel ZDF remembers that meeting, and its consequences, with a new TV film titled simply Die Wannseekonferenz. The link is to the ZDF internet site where it is already available for viewing, and it will be televised next week here in Germany. It is not as yet subtitled nor is there an English synchronization – hopefully we will be spared the latter. There is also a documentary piece, and a number of resources, unfortunately also only in German.

The internet site of the “Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz” (the memorial that has evolved right there at the scene of one of the most grotesque of crimes) is, however, excellent and does have an English presence. Of especial interest is the infamous protocol; the only documentation of the event, and upon which all secondary material is based. Following, is an informative – and captioned – video; just one of many excellent resources featured on the site.

The protocol of the meeting held on 20th January 1942.

Housekeeping at the Dalloways

With the end of year two of the pandemic, I note with pleasure – whereby, in these complicated days, that a relative state of being – where it was that one of our literary flights of fancy led. And, that was back to the London of a century ago, and all that could happen on just one day traversing the topography between Westminster and Bond Street – on the ground, in the heart and in the head.

Penguin ed. 2021

A particular literary journey inspired, at least to some extent it seems, by the publication of two new editions of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway – one from Penguin Random House (with a forward by Jenny Offill and introduction and notes by Elaine Showalter) and an annotated edition from Merve Emre published by Liveright (w.w. norton). Or was it the other way round, and these publications came with an awareness of renewed interest and the potential of a new readership amongst younger generations?

Whichever, as a matter of ‘housekeeping’, and before they go astray amongst my chaotic collection of bookmarks and the like, following are links to just three of the articles that I have collected during the year. (Some other good pieces, unfortunately, require subscriptions.)

There are many Christmas stories…

this one from Vladimir Nabakov. A mail from The New York Review of Books today offers a free read (for the moment anyway), and I quote:

Rul’ 25.12.1928

“In the Review’s November 16, 1995, issue, we featured a new translation, by Dmitri Nabokov, of a 1928 short story by his father, Vladimir. “The Christmas Story,” originally published on December 25, 1928, in the Berlin Russian-language journal Rul’, tells the tale of a preeminent writer in the new USSR, a once-great master now despairing of finding a new subject in a changed world and unable to shake from his mind the image of a Christmas tree. Nabokov’s story may be read for free [here].”

The New York Review of Books, December 26, 2021.

(Update: January 12th 2022 - Unfortunately, the above link now appears to go only so far, and a subscription is required to read the complete story.)
Cover of Bezbozhnik in 1931 against the felling of Christmas trees

Reading this, and with the Soviet now relegated to the annals of history, and Russia in the steely grip of an autocrat and an oligarchy that accommodates (and flirts with to various degrees) the Orthodox church, Nabokov’s story is ostensibly one particular to its time. But, the symbolism of a Christmas tree, with a red star atop in jest, for instance, or as a representation of the fusion of the Church with Western capitalism, retains its resonance for the contemporary reader; for a virulent and state-mandated nationalism and anti-West (if not anti-capitalist!) tenor flourishes still in post-Soviet Russia, as it did in those post-revolutionary days at its beginnings in the midst of which the Nabakov family’s fate was mired.

And, in any era, in this time, there are countless who know and as many who can imagine, the totality of the immigrant experience – what you take with you and what you leave behind. And, the baggage is most heavy with the customs and beliefs of all those formative years preceding departure; often treasured more in the chosen land than ever done in the old country. Nabakov’s short story beautifully conveys the dichotomy of experience with which many peoples of the Soviet countries had to grapple – at home and abroad – and imagined in the person of an older, eminent writer looking for literary inspiration in an increasingly uniform and sterile society while remaining true to the system of collective will. Just as the nostalgic Novodvortsev could not escape the vision of his country folk gathered about the light and riches of a Christmas tree, nor could the comrade Novodvortsev that of the poverty and injustice lurking in its shadow. Comrade N. wins out in the end – reason, as he sees it, trumping emotional flights of fancy that would herald only trouble.

With triumphal agitation, sensing that he had found the necessary, one-and-only key, that he would write something exquisite, depict as no one had before the collision of two classes, of two worlds, he commenced writing. He wrote about the opulent tree in the shamelessly illuminated window and about the hungry worker, victim of a lockout, peering at that tree with a severe and somber gaze.

1928, Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov

The Russian émigré newspaper Rul’ was founded by Nabakov’s father in 1922 by the way, and a copy of the story as originally published – under the pen-name of Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин) – is accessible here at the Berlin library (page 2 and 3). Nabakov lived in Berlin from 1922 until 1937 – a long time and an eventful time in the history of the world. His father was assassinated there, he was married and his son was born there, Berlin was the setting for his early writing and novels. But Nabakov remained ambivalent, even distrustful, of the city and its people, had few German friends, spoke the language not well and remained firmly entrenched in the Russian émigré community. Presumably, he was so lacking in knowledge of German politics and the affairs of state that the events of 1933 came as a surprise for him! We are talking about the twenties in Berlin! Party or poverty and not much in-between – well, so the common narrative. But for Nabakov, seemingly, an uninspiring time. Or is something missing in this version? I am not totally convinced. As a matter of interest, this very informative piece about the Berlin of those years is on the still active website of Dieter E. Zimmer (✝2020) – and lots of other stuff about Nabakov is also there to be explored.

Interrupted…

in the midst of Yuletide

some tidings, though not unexpected, when they do come still jolt one to the very core; so it is with the death of one of the United States’ finest writers.

Joan Didion: December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021

There could be very few who have not been bedazzled by the beauty and coolness – in structure and syntax – of Joan Didion’s prose, the integrity and incisiveness of her investigations into the American culture and society of the last half century – uncompromising, often going there where it is at its very darkest. Who could not have appreciated her intellectual brilliance and the finest sense of irony that she brought to her stories – be they fact or fiction? As I have done, how many others have cried with her and for her – because of injustices done or out of grief crying to be heard; knowing well that all those tears are really for oneself – perhaps as the writer, Didion, would have wished? As a chronicler of, not only her time and her country, but her inner self with all its contradictions and human frailties and failures, Didion has no peer. She will remain present, until she is not.

The New York Times is full of accolades – here is their obituary, and tributes from two generations -a younger represented by Parul Sehgal and, old habits die hard, Kakutani (luck or subscription whichever comes first!). Available, for the moment at least, (edit. Jan 7 2022) Available to subscribers, this very famous 1991 essay written for The New York Review of Books about the trial of the Central Park Five in which Didion deconstructs the prosecution’s arguments, exposing the racial profiling and the political pressures about which they erected their case. Be warned, thirty years ago long form was really that – long! And every word, every page worth it. As prescient as the issues she raises in here essay were then, regrettably they remain the reality to this day.

This afternoon I watched again Griffin Dunne’s 2017 Netflix documentary about his aunt (I had a need to return to her – Christmas or no Christmas!). Not everybody was satisfied if I remember, and it cannot help but be a labour of love, but the warts are there to be found, and I liked it. Here is the trailer on YouTube:

Now the following I haven’t seen; but also available on YouTube is the 1972 film “Play It As It Lays”, for which Didion wrote the screenplay with her husband John Gregory Dunne based on her 1970 novel.

Screenplay by Joan Didion, based on her 1970 novel of the same name.

Didion speaks of this film not very favorably – something like “not what I wrote!”- in the abovementioned documentary, but it’s there asking to be watched! (As a side note, I find myself wondering: whatever happened to Tuesday Weld?)

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Shades of the past

As I said I would here, to provide some company through the lonely nights of winter, I have restarted my lapsed Netflix account. And, Rebecca Hall’s film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s Passing was indeed one of my first treats unto myself.

There have been any number of reviews around the place in the last month or so, but I particularly like this one from Imani Perry for Harper’s Bazaar. Amongst other things, it defends the film against some of the criticism of casting. Perry’s counter argument in some ways presumes the immediate reaction that I too had; that is, it a stretch to imagine that either Tessa Thompson (who plays Irene) or Ruth Negga (as Claire) could have got away with passing as white in 1920’s America. But on reflection, I get the point Perry makes. Perhaps only the obviousness of the performers Blackness, allows the viewer to embrace the Black gaze and to, for instance, imagine the risk Irene is taking when she seeks refuge from the sweltering day in that ritzy hotel restaurant, or to contemplate the nerve and concentration required in Claire’s deception of her racist husband. In both cases the tension is tangible, and the player’s gestures and the subtle movements of camera and lighting enhance the atmosphere of a shared experience.

Like Perry, I was very much convinced by Rebecca Hall’s artistic decision to shoot Passing in black-and-white. Monochromatic mixes to various degrees have become not uncommon in contemporary film and photography; so much so, that one wonders sometimes to what end – to seduce with misplaced nostalgia, to just kind of “look old”? But here, it makes sense in two very important ways: realistically, in terms of the period in which the story is set and symbolically for the stark opposites and all the grey areas in-between suggested by the tonality. And, in both these cases, conjured is powerful imagery of America’s social and racial divide – then and now. The ‘look’ is completed by an intelligent cinematography that follows and gently brushes the characters; there is a blurriness around the edges that blends intimacy and ambiguity – lives and situations not quite focused, out of reach.

I don’t do politics

Well, I actually do, and a lot, just not here! But I will take the time to record here the beginnings of a new government in Germany (that is, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland) today, 8th December, 2021.

A more than unusual, a historical constellation will govern this country for the next four years (in the normal course of affairs). Referred to here as an Ampel (think: traffic lights!) – a coalition that stretches from the gold-gilded free-thinking liberal edges (FDP) to wide strewn sun-kissed green pastures (Grüne), with the once rosy-red, now sadly faded, everyman/woman in-between (SPD).

The latter, with just a modest 25% of the vote, is the largest faction and consequently it’s uninspiring candidate, anything other than an everyman, the political careerist Olaf Scholz, was today elected by the Bundestag as the new Bundekanzler. (Would it be defame to suggest that – after Müsil – Scholz is a certain sort of “man without qualities” but, worse, one who has never taken the time to take time out; so stands there but the bland surface upon which an increasingly intellectually lazy folk can reflect back upon themselves each passing irritation.)

We have, then, a colorful conglomerate with an unremarkable CEO at the helm – but at least a new government has been formed (and in a professional and relatively timely fashion) that has some potential; an approach to governance is suggested that is more adaptable to these fast changing times, and proposals and – god, forbid! – ideas being floated that at least aspire to a vision of a better, more equable future for Germany and a more focused position on the opportunities afforded on the broader, international stage. And, hopefully, an imaginative and competent enough personnel tableau to bring all this to the fore. Four years to do so.

Angels grounded

Mrs. Woolf & the Servants by Alison Light, pub. Penguin 2007

Alison Light’s 2007 book Mrs. Woolf and the Servants – referred to by me here – is indeed a wonderful read, and for many reasons. Significantly, it goes some way in satisfying my curiosity about the complicated relationship of the said Mrs. Woolf with her servants, and, more generally, in offering through this particular example an engrossing and informative account of the domestic power structures of the middle and upper class households (in Britain), and as a microcosm of the hierarchical distribution of power in greater society, from the end of the Victorian era through to the post-war twentieth century. The gap in my own knowledge was quickly apparent – and gaping! – and Light’s book has gone some considerable way towards remedying my ignorance.

Even from the prologue, I was heartened to read that Alison Light’s motivation for writing the book came from her reading of Virginia Woolf’s diaries and her discomfort, on one hand, and fascination on the other, with Woolf’s language concerning her domestic help over the years, and like me especially with respect to Nellie Boxall. (And I must add: it was just as heartening to hear a British scholar of such standing – and to the Left! – admit to her previous ignorance of the historical importance of domestic service in Britain, and especially for women.)

Broadly chronological, the book traces the history of domestic servitude parallel to that of Virginia Woolf’s life. But ‘parallel’ is a misplaced word here (when thinking about time it may always be!); more precisely, these lives and histories are intertwined in ways obvious and not so; imbued with a public presence that abides by social norms, and a behind closed doors intimacy that is mutually dependent (and, as Light says, unequal); in both spheres easily sentimentalized – then and now.

Woolf is not necessarily the star of this narrative, but rather the accompaniment for the lives of others: of Sophie Farrell, the treasure of the Stephan household in late-Victorian Hyde Park Gate, of Nellie and Lottie Hope, inseparable, in service and out, almost a life long, and of the Batholomews and Annie Thompsett and the Haskins and Louie Everest all who made Monks House the “home” Woolf had needed for her emotional well-being and creative and professional development as a writer. Would she have been generous in accepting this supporting role? I think so, I hope so.

And, as employers, the Woolfs are hardly set decorations – it is important what Light has to say about their role as representative of an intellectual class in the first half of the twentieth century: the disparity that existed between the political and societal agenda that was being propagated and the actuality of a way of life that contributed to the cementing of rigid class structures. I think it is fair to say that it was the highly political Leonard who spoke and wrote loudest on the rights of the working class, but maintained an imperious attitude to those employed in his own home.

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