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.
It was only last year on seeing an episode of Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation, that I connected the Gullah Geeshee and their cultural heritage with the Sea Islands and their significance to the history of slavery, the Civil War and Emancipation, that I had concurrently been studying. A travelogue piece in the NYT from the previous year interested me further, with its depiction of the region and how it is being endangered by tourism and environmental changes – and ignorance.
Then, on reading this, I was surprised to realise the Gullah Geeshee had touched me, and unbeknownst to me, as a young school girl – a lifetime away and thousands upon thousands of kilometres as birds fly and fish swim. I see before me an orange songbook and there it is: Kumbayah! Do I also remember a “negro spiritual” citation? I think so, but not much more – certainly nothing of its specific origins nor even that it meant “come by here”. What I do remember, is that my class sang it as a round at a regional eisteddfod – I do declare if we didn’t win!
H. Wylie, a Gullah Geechee man, singing “Come By Here” in 1926. It is the first known recording of “Kumbaya.” [ Gordon, Robert Winslow, and H Wylie. Come by Here. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197143/>.]
My imagination may stretch as far as the Georgia, South Carolina shores, but the reality of my life is elsewhere so here is another version. I can’t even tell you how famous The Seekers were in my childhood, and may well explain the song’s popularity in Australia.
The Seekers 25th Anniversary Reunion Concert Melbourne 1993
Wherever and for whomever – a song of invitation, and an opening of home and heart. Belatedly, but I am glad to have learnt – and by chance – the roots of Kumbaya and little bit about the Gullah Geeshee.
Last year, Olivia Laing suggested in a piece for the NYT that, as we navigate the trials and tribulations that the Covid pandemic is demanding of us, we should take heed from Virginia Woolf when it comes to matters of illness; use these uncommon times of seclusion to sharpen our perception and turn loneliness into a creative force. And at the The New Yorker at about the same time, Evan Kindley pondered that famous one day which we have been gifted to share with Mrs. Dalloway as she steps out into the June sunshine and savors the vibrating life of the city; coming as it did after years of war and grief and illness. Of all these things Woolf was so very well acquainted.
Reading these pieces at the time, I wondered whether only the most privileged would have the luxury of time and resources to spend in such moments of profundity. And, how many of us could accept the hardships bestowed upon us, certain of our day in the sunshine? Now though, on reflection, I think my hesitation was based on a very narrow and materialistic view of what creativity is and from where it comes, and ignores its diversity in forms of expression and reception. An inner life and an imagination have we all – and it is affordable for most. And an imagined future has a sort of reality; one that spans each fleeting moment and affords a myriad of possibilities.
Writing up my notes on Woolf’s diary recently, I was prompted to reread her 1926 essay “On Illness”, which was received without much enthusiasm for publication by T.S. Eliot, and having thought about her death in the last days, the trials of her physical well – and not well – being during her life time are never far away.
In this spirit of reflection, I liked very much this piece in The Conversation by Cardiff University lecturer, Jess Cotton; she writes of how after a year of pandemic and difficult conditions for teachers and students alike, and now with some reason for optimism, Mrs. Dalloway provides one way to rediscover the simple joys and pleasures of life – a way that does not deny nor is vengeful, rather that looks inward; mining all the moments and memories that allow one to regret and to mourn, and then move on. (The essay may also be read here.)
Virginia Woolf’s letter to Leonard written a few days previously.
On Friday 28th March, 1941, Virginia Woolf walked across the downs to the flooding River Ouse near her beloved home in Sussex, as she would have done so many, many times before; but on this day she filled her coat pockets with stones aplenty and just kept on walking into the watery depths.
On her desk she had left a note to Leonard, written a few days previously. Her body was not found until the 18th April. In the midst of war and tormented by mental illness and personal anguish, Virginia Woolf departed the mortal world.
Juliet Stevenson reading Virginia Woolf’s suicide note.
Not long ago I dug up this review at The New Yorker by W.H. Auden of the so-called “Writer’s Diary” published in 1954 – and admiring and generous it indeed is, of Woolf in particular but also of a neglected generation of women writers in general. I don’t think Auden lived long enough to read the whole kit and caboodle; which I suggest would have delighted him even more. He finished his piece thus:
I do not know how Virginia Woolf is thought of by the younger literary generation; I do know that by my own, even in the palmiest days of social consciousness, she was admired and loved much more than she realized. I do not know if she is going to exert an influence on the future development of the novel—I rather suspect that her style and her vision were so unique that influence would only result in tame imitation—but I cannot imagine a time, however bleak, or a writer, whatever his school, when and for whom her devotion to her art, her industry, her severity with herself—above all, her passionate love, not only or chiefly for the big moments of life but also for its daily humdrum “sausage-and-haddock” details—will not remain an example that is at once an inspiration and a judge. […]
“A Consciousness of Reality” by W. H. Auden in March 6, 1954 issue of “The New Yorker“.
In retrospect, Auden would perhaps have been surprised at just how profound and enduring Woolf’s influence has been on following generations of writers and readers alike, and that it is an influence that is intrinsically emotional and psychological rather than stylistic – for most know only too well, that to be so tempted would certainly end in, what Auden rightly predicted as, “tame imitation”.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Euripides’ “The Bacchae” in the March 18th 2021 episode of “In Our Time”.
Listened to this week, and with (Dionysian!) pleasure: Melvyn Bragg’s BBC Radio 4 program “In Our Time”, and his conversation about Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae with Emily Wilson, Edith Hall and Rosie Wyles.
Mention of Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History from 1992, led to some moments of reflection. A few years ago after reading The Gold Finch, and remembering the hype surrounding the publication of Tartt’s first book (I guess it became a bestseller), I read The Secret History, and whilst I would have recommended it as a good enough read, I recall my expectations for literary fiction were not really fulfilled. (By the way, similarly so, my opinion of The Gold Finch.) A likeable enough but vacillating narrator and his capricious bunch of classics cohorts at an elite college, certainly sucked one into their vortex of deceits, large and small, but I had the feeling at the end of having been chewed up and spat out – unsatisfied, left cold. That the story’s murder and mayhem was created in the pursuit of Dionysian pleasure and dabbling in bacchanalian ritual, I had all but forgotten; rather, what stayed with me was the disturbing ease in which the accoutrements of privilege could be weaponised by an amoral didactic, catapulting young lives into the abyss (in the novel: both in a real sense and an allegorical).
But back to Bragg’s program…On the website there is further information – both concerning the subject matter and the guests. The text can be found here at Perseus; not as easy reading as the above discussion is to listen to, but the theatre of life rarely is – the truth being in the performance, and the borders of pleasure and tragedy fluid.
To set the stage, so to say, and to understand the context of Ancient Greek performance, I recommend Edith Hall’s Gresham Lectures of 2018, of which the following video is part.
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.
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.
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?
Only a few days ago I completed reading, in German translation, Sue Prideaux’s quite wonderful Nietzsche biography I am Dynamite! Explosive is it not, neither in the physically reactive sense nor posing as celebrity exposé, but rather a fabulously choreographed display of fireworks in a night sky – tantalising in sight and sound, a vivid array playing against the dark expanse; up there with a whoosh, brilliant and pointed in the ascent, hanging tenuously in the heavens, then falling fast and with a fizz, fading to nothing…
Should God be dead, nothing beckons from an afterlife thus denied, but neither Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche nor his legacy are nothing.
Like many – or most – I have not read Nietzsche and, like just about as many, those thoughts I have had in passing have been heavily compromised by the association of his person and philosophy with Hitler and Nazis and everything that implies – a false premise it now seems clear to me, neither of his making nor intent. Also, I should say, I have been just as aware of enough voices over the years pleading a case for Nietzsche and seeking to free him from the abuses of history, but these included complex philosophical arguments beyond most (read as: me!), and so one is (again, read as: I am!) left with the baggage of Halbwissen.
Pub. Tim Duggan Books, 2018.
For that reason I don’t dare delve too deep here, but because I enjoyed reading it so much, I must put down some words of recommendation, and insist that Prideaux’s book is absolutely not an academic philosophical treatise, though the philosophy is there for those who wish to look, and only demands an interest in the subject – sympathy for him is assured to follow; for all but the most hardened anti-Nietzchean.
No, not sympathy for the devil, but for a long dead, white man (characteristics seriously out of vogue!) of stellar intellect; an original thinker and non-conformist who struggled with physical and mental disabilities most of his life (the precise nature of which remain unclear), burdened with a despicable family – most especially sister Elisabeth, so instrumental in the perversion of his ideas and work. And charming and funny he could be – I’m sure Prideaux didn’t invent these traits; she found them and relays them on to her readers.
Should God be dead, what is there but to live a life; joyful and rich in experience and pleasures. And these pleasures Nietzsche seeks, in his writing life, in the choices he makes, and the friendships he fosters.
In speaking of these friendships, it is interesting that threesomes seemed to play an important part in Nietzsche’s life – and were always doomed to failure; whether with his mother and sister or in his relationship with Lou Andreas-Salomé and Paul Rée. (How I want to believe Andreas-Salomé could have saved him, but probably not.) But what I found especially fascinating, was the saga (it had to be a saga I suppose!) surrounding Nietzsche’s quite extraordinary friendship with Richard and Cosima Wagner. So wonderfully rendered by Prideaux; to be imagined, the brilliance of this triumvirate and their quest for a Dionysian alternative to the rational Zeitgeist. Alas, short-lived; away from the idyllic Tribschen, and driven by their conceits and obsessions with all things Bayreuth, the Wagners’ anti-Semitic, anti-French, even anti-European sentiments, which had increasingly irritated Nietzsche, are intensified to embrace a virulent German nationalism that was contrary to all the cultural ideals to which the three had once aspired. Conspired. Suffice to say, it becomes clear that the relationship is not going to end well, and it doesn’t.
