Books read:
April
The Outsiders (Hinton)
To Sir, With Love (Braithwaite)
Changing Places (Lodge)
Oresteia (Aeschylus)
Education and Economic Decline in Britain (Sanderson)
May
Purgatorio (Dante)
University to Uni: The politics of higher education in England since 1944 (Stevens)
Electra (Sophocles)
Electra (Euripides)
Iphigenia in Aulis (Euripides)
June
Things Fall Apart (Achebe)
Iliad (Homer)
July
The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)
From that Place and Time: A Memoir 1938-1947 (Dawidowicz)
Twilight Sleep (Wharton)
Le Nozze di Cadmo e Armonia (Calasso)
Sunday, August 14, 2005
It's a relief to be in a city where cars are kept in their place, where car lanes in the ring road are even being eliminated to make way for more trolley tracks. Of course no car lanes would be the ideal, and the other day I read that in the 18th century the city's "ancient walls were torn down to make way for a promenade." There's an idea! (The train station, which is across the ring road (former promenade, former wall) from the old inner city, bills itself as a "promenade" but they mean "mall" — although, come to think of it, that's what "mall" used to mean.)
I can't stop thinking about my students. Once I handed out the Indo-European family tree to my Saturday fifth graders. "Hey look, Anisha! There's Gujarati!" said Viren, whose family is from Gujarat. He and Anisha are the only Indian-American students in the class. All the other students are Korean-American, and I suppose felt a bit left out. Patrick suggested, "The Korean word for bread is pan. Do you think there's a connection?" I had to tell him that Korean is almost universally considered a language isolate (unless it has some relation to Japanese, but even that is disputed). But bless him for suggesting the word for bread and not, say, computer, or satellite. (I can't believe I didn't ask them for one, two, three, mother, father in Korean and Gujarati. I'll do that in the fall.)
A spectacular storm the other day. I was taking the train straight across Germany, and for the last three hours of the trip lightning flashed large on the horizon every few minutes, but there was no thunder, and it didn't seem to be raining. When I arrived the lightning was still flashing, but still no thunder, and no rain. I settled down and had dinner. "When thunder does come, it'll be ear-splitting, and last minutes, to make up for these hours of silence," I thought. It was warm & people were sitting at outdoor tables. Around midnight, within the space of one minute, the wind rose and the heavens opened. People barely had time to save their drinks. I raced two blocks and got soaked. My room faced onto an airshaft, and when I opened the window the noise was so loud it was like being under a waterfall.
The next morning, a harvest of tree branches, and even a couple of trees.
(I suspect this is the sort of thing that's really not that interesting to read, but I wrote it anyway because I like remembering it — it was so dramatic.)
The next morning, a harvest of tree branches, and even a couple of trees.
(I suspect this is the sort of thing that's really not that interesting to read, but I wrote it anyway because I like remembering it — it was so dramatic.)
I'm staying in the room of my dear friend Amber, who's out of town. If you want to see what Amber looks like, take a look at John Eliot Gardner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists' recording of Bach's Ascension Cantatas. There's Amber, smack in the middle of the CD cover, next to Bach. She did not pose for the picture, and she didn't even know it existed til she saw the CD in a store. It has to be her — it's small, but it looks like no one else, and she was spending a lot of time in the Thomaskirche the year before the CD came out. We were all astonished. (It so happens that she plays the baroque violin!)
The Thomaskirche is Bach's church — where he worked, where he's buried — at the altar, no less. I sang there once, & thought, "I can't believe I'm singing Bach's music in the presence of Bach's bones!" At moments like those relics & ancestor-worship make perfect sense.
The Thomaskirche is Bach's church — where he worked, where he's buried — at the altar, no less. I sang there once, & thought, "I can't believe I'm singing Bach's music in the presence of Bach's bones!" At moments like those relics & ancestor-worship make perfect sense.
Funny scene in a food shop: (my German is not so good, so I tuned in and out)
Cast of characters: shopkeeper, customer, and me, looking at pastas and occasionally eavesdropping.
The customer was telling the shopkeeper about his love life; he's apparently scheming to win someone over, and was looking for the right cheese for the occasion. The shopkeeper gave him a sliver of Manchego to taste and held up the huge wheel, declaring, "Women love this cheese!" I tuned out for a while, until I heard the customer say, "Maybe I think about things too much." When he left, the shopkeeper wished him good luck. I wish I had paid more attention to their whole long conversation.
Cast of characters: shopkeeper, customer, and me, looking at pastas and occasionally eavesdropping.
The customer was telling the shopkeeper about his love life; he's apparently scheming to win someone over, and was looking for the right cheese for the occasion. The shopkeeper gave him a sliver of Manchego to taste and held up the huge wheel, declaring, "Women love this cheese!" I tuned out for a while, until I heard the customer say, "Maybe I think about things too much." When he left, the shopkeeper wished him good luck. I wish I had paid more attention to their whole long conversation.
Three blocks away from where I'm staying in Leipzig you will find, on three adjacent blocks, the once and future courthouse (a museum under the DDR); the university library; the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy School for Music and Theatre; and behind that, the Institute for the Art of the Book. (Leipzig was once home to most of Germany's publishing houses.) It's intense. All these were built in the second half of the nineteenth century, in Leipzig's glory days; they all have impressive façades with columns and pediments and grand staircases. The courthouse is nearly as broad as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and much taller, with a one large and three small cupolas. The 1907 trial for high treason of Karl Liebknecht was held in it, as was the show trial of those accused of setting fire to the Reichstag in 1933. Karl Liebknecht grew up on an important boulevard (now named after him) just a block away. The university library is exquisite; its lobby is a bit like the lobby of the New York Public Library, but smaller and not so white or severe.
These grand buildings mark the entrance to the "Musikviertel," the music neighborhood, where most streets are named after composers. This used to be the neighborhood not only of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, but also of the Gewandhaus, which stood in front of the university library. When I first came to Leipzig that spot was a parking lot; now there's a totally nondescript university building. I'd been told that the Gewandhaus was completely destroyed in WWII, but a plaque on the new building says otherwise: "the ruins of the old Gewandhaus lay here until March, 1968, when they were dynamited." That's the same year the grand old university building, damaged but still functional, was dynamited, along with the sixteenth-century chapel that stood next to it. (See www.paulinerkirche.de for information on efforts to rebuild it.) The plaque listed famous conductors who had given concerts in the old Gewandhaus, and spoke of its legendary acoustics. It also showed a picture of the building with its admirable motto: RES SEVERA VERUM GAUDIUM. "True joy is a serious thing." (At first I thought it meant, "A difficult thing is the true joy," which would have been even more appropriate.) Apparently the architect was one "Martin Gropius." "Gropius" is not a common name, and some professions run in families: could Martin be related to Walter, who's responsible for the Pan Am building? How depressing.
—> Apparently Martin was Walter's great-uncle. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gropius has a picture of the old Gewandhaus (with the University Library on the right).
I've looked at rental prices in Leipzig, and no apartment is as expensive as my measly two rooms in Brooklyn. No price was listed for one five bedroom apartment with a dining room and two balconies; maybe that could compare. And these buildings are nothing to sniff at; they're as fine as anything on Riverside Drive, but smaller — 6 or 7 stories instead of 10 or 15; their façades have more detail; and they often come with bay windows, turrets, even caryatids, as well as access to a garden, or at least a view of one.
These grand buildings mark the entrance to the "Musikviertel," the music neighborhood, where most streets are named after composers. This used to be the neighborhood not only of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, but also of the Gewandhaus, which stood in front of the university library. When I first came to Leipzig that spot was a parking lot; now there's a totally nondescript university building. I'd been told that the Gewandhaus was completely destroyed in WWII, but a plaque on the new building says otherwise: "the ruins of the old Gewandhaus lay here until March, 1968, when they were dynamited." That's the same year the grand old university building, damaged but still functional, was dynamited, along with the sixteenth-century chapel that stood next to it. (See www.paulinerkirche.de for information on efforts to rebuild it.) The plaque listed famous conductors who had given concerts in the old Gewandhaus, and spoke of its legendary acoustics. It also showed a picture of the building with its admirable motto: RES SEVERA VERUM GAUDIUM. "True joy is a serious thing." (At first I thought it meant, "A difficult thing is the true joy," which would have been even more appropriate.) Apparently the architect was one "Martin Gropius." "Gropius" is not a common name, and some professions run in families: could Martin be related to Walter, who's responsible for the Pan Am building? How depressing.
—> Apparently Martin was Walter's great-uncle. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gropius has a picture of the old Gewandhaus (with the University Library on the right).
I've looked at rental prices in Leipzig, and no apartment is as expensive as my measly two rooms in Brooklyn. No price was listed for one five bedroom apartment with a dining room and two balconies; maybe that could compare. And these buildings are nothing to sniff at; they're as fine as anything on Riverside Drive, but smaller — 6 or 7 stories instead of 10 or 15; their façades have more detail; and they often come with bay windows, turrets, even caryatids, as well as access to a garden, or at least a view of one.
Recently read:
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster. I can't believe I've waited so long to read this one — it's been on my list since I was ten. It's an excellent little book; I often had to catch my breath at how perfectly the puzzle pieces fit together, how clever and funny it all was. Some of Juster's conceits reminded me of Calvino — the invisible city, the boy who never touches the ground til he grows up — except that it's 1000 times better than anything I've read by Calvino.
From that Place and Time, A Memoir, 1938-47, by Lucy Dawidowicz. I was at first very excited to read a whole book by someone who went to my high school; she even talks about it:
Meanwhile, in 1928, I entered Hunter College High School, then an all-girls' elite high school, known for its rigorous curriculum which required four years of English, three years of mathematics and Latin, two years of French or German, as well as biology and physics. As for history, all I can summon up is the unhappy memory of an American history course which consisted of tables of railroads (names, dates, and mileages) and of tariffs (names, dates, and the imports on which duties were imposed).
The English courses mattered most to me and they nurtured my love for literature, poetry especially. We had some splendid teachers, who introduced us to the English poets from Shakespeare to Swinburne. All women, a few of them became the objects of those prelesbian crushes endemic to all-girls' schools. On our own, we discovered contemporary poets, notably Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose verses fed my romantic imagination. T. S. Eliot was still an unknown name to me.
Reading spurred me to writing, especially to poetry. I was soon admitted into the school's literary clique, and joined the staff of Argus, the school's literary journal, becoming its editor in my senior year. Through Argus, I was introduced to the excitement of printing, the clutter of the printing shop and the clatter of its linotype machines and presses. I felt very important as I read and corrected galley proofs, my fingers smudged with printer's ink.
The rest of the book is extremely absorbing and (like many memoirs, I suspect) a very fast read. I only wish her sketches of people were more complete. Perhaps she spreads herself too thin, out of a sense of duty — she gives a page or two each to about thirty people, so that the reader ends up with a blurred impression of even the most interesting characters. Photographs might have helped.
I'd thought this was going to be a complete change from the Iliad, but on the very first page Dawidowicz likens Jewish Vilnius to Troy. It was strange to read how hatred of Germany kept her up at night just days before going to Germany, and thinking, as usual, how much I love Germany.
Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton. Not one of her best; in fact at some points I couldn't help suspecting she hadn't bothered to re-read what she had written. But I'll say no more, since I'm a great fan of Wharton's. I recommend The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, four novellas of Old New York (in particular The Spark, and the novella that begins with a fire in a hotel on Christmas day), but NOT Ethan Frome or The Age of Innocence. The Reef is excellent, but I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction; it's Edith Wharton's The Waves: humorless, extreme, relentlessly inward-looking, and very beautiful and moving. But not for the uninitiated.
Le Nozze di Cadmo e Armonia, di Roberto Calasso. I really wanted to like this one. Calasso takes his myths seriously, on their own terms, and writes about them without jargon. But I'm afraid he's incapable of being organized. Not that I think literary criticism ought to have an argument, and I understand that everything is connected to everything else, but still! Think of the poor reader! His prose is never less than melodramatic; his favorite words are "first," "last," "only," "never before," "never after," "everything," "nothing," "without equal," "alone among." It's like playing everything in vibrato. Sooner or later one becomes petulant and pedantic: "We have no knowledge of a more mysterious smile than the one that rumpled the forehead of the lord of the dead." "Are you quite sure? Have you made a list of mysterious smiles, and compared them?" Often I couldn't help laughing, as when I read, "We owe it to that laugh if the world has not yet fallen to pieces." But he has an even more annoying habit than mere hyperbole: hyperbolic paradoxes. I felt like he wanted to take my breath away, to knock me out, and he would use torches, acrobats, and special effects if he could. So I can't recommend this book, but I can't deny that I've learned plenty from it (though I probably would have done better just to browse through the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World — yes, encyclopedia prose would be just the thing after this wild ride. There are two excellent ones online: the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Jewish Encyclopedia, both written in stately late nineteenth-century English. The ODCW, being still in print, is not online.)
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster. I can't believe I've waited so long to read this one — it's been on my list since I was ten. It's an excellent little book; I often had to catch my breath at how perfectly the puzzle pieces fit together, how clever and funny it all was. Some of Juster's conceits reminded me of Calvino — the invisible city, the boy who never touches the ground til he grows up — except that it's 1000 times better than anything I've read by Calvino.
From that Place and Time, A Memoir, 1938-47, by Lucy Dawidowicz. I was at first very excited to read a whole book by someone who went to my high school; she even talks about it:
Meanwhile, in 1928, I entered Hunter College High School, then an all-girls' elite high school, known for its rigorous curriculum which required four years of English, three years of mathematics and Latin, two years of French or German, as well as biology and physics. As for history, all I can summon up is the unhappy memory of an American history course which consisted of tables of railroads (names, dates, and mileages) and of tariffs (names, dates, and the imports on which duties were imposed).
The English courses mattered most to me and they nurtured my love for literature, poetry especially. We had some splendid teachers, who introduced us to the English poets from Shakespeare to Swinburne. All women, a few of them became the objects of those prelesbian crushes endemic to all-girls' schools. On our own, we discovered contemporary poets, notably Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose verses fed my romantic imagination. T. S. Eliot was still an unknown name to me.
Reading spurred me to writing, especially to poetry. I was soon admitted into the school's literary clique, and joined the staff of Argus, the school's literary journal, becoming its editor in my senior year. Through Argus, I was introduced to the excitement of printing, the clutter of the printing shop and the clatter of its linotype machines and presses. I felt very important as I read and corrected galley proofs, my fingers smudged with printer's ink.
The rest of the book is extremely absorbing and (like many memoirs, I suspect) a very fast read. I only wish her sketches of people were more complete. Perhaps she spreads herself too thin, out of a sense of duty — she gives a page or two each to about thirty people, so that the reader ends up with a blurred impression of even the most interesting characters. Photographs might have helped.
I'd thought this was going to be a complete change from the Iliad, but on the very first page Dawidowicz likens Jewish Vilnius to Troy. It was strange to read how hatred of Germany kept her up at night just days before going to Germany, and thinking, as usual, how much I love Germany.
Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton. Not one of her best; in fact at some points I couldn't help suspecting she hadn't bothered to re-read what she had written. But I'll say no more, since I'm a great fan of Wharton's. I recommend The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, four novellas of Old New York (in particular The Spark, and the novella that begins with a fire in a hotel on Christmas day), but NOT Ethan Frome or The Age of Innocence. The Reef is excellent, but I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction; it's Edith Wharton's The Waves: humorless, extreme, relentlessly inward-looking, and very beautiful and moving. But not for the uninitiated.
Le Nozze di Cadmo e Armonia, di Roberto Calasso. I really wanted to like this one. Calasso takes his myths seriously, on their own terms, and writes about them without jargon. But I'm afraid he's incapable of being organized. Not that I think literary criticism ought to have an argument, and I understand that everything is connected to everything else, but still! Think of the poor reader! His prose is never less than melodramatic; his favorite words are "first," "last," "only," "never before," "never after," "everything," "nothing," "without equal," "alone among." It's like playing everything in vibrato. Sooner or later one becomes petulant and pedantic: "We have no knowledge of a more mysterious smile than the one that rumpled the forehead of the lord of the dead." "Are you quite sure? Have you made a list of mysterious smiles, and compared them?" Often I couldn't help laughing, as when I read, "We owe it to that laugh if the world has not yet fallen to pieces." But he has an even more annoying habit than mere hyperbole: hyperbolic paradoxes. I felt like he wanted to take my breath away, to knock me out, and he would use torches, acrobats, and special effects if he could. So I can't recommend this book, but I can't deny that I've learned plenty from it (though I probably would have done better just to browse through the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World — yes, encyclopedia prose would be just the thing after this wild ride. There are two excellent ones online: the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Jewish Encyclopedia, both written in stately late nineteenth-century English. The ODCW, being still in print, is not online.)
Two moments of déjà-vu in Berlin:
I went to the Museum of Musical Instruments the other day. It's housed in a pathetically ugly building right near where the wall used to be, and the minute I stepped through the door I knew I had been there before. Six years ago I went to a concert of the Berlin Philharmonic. I was late, the lobby was empty, and when I went to the ticket counter the seller gave me a ticket and said, "There's no time for you to pay. Just run! Run!!!" And so I ran, up a kind of vertical labyrinth of stairwells and landings and balconies, with stained glass walls and spherical light fixtures like mobiles hanging from the ceilings. At every level an usher cheered me on & pointed me to the next stairwell. I reached my seat in the brief stillness before the music began, holding my breath so as not to pant audibly.
And now the old Philharmonic is a museum. What a difference from that evening. Now the atmosphere is one of slow, quiet luxury, as if those beautiful objects, already burnished and intricately wrought, were being aged to perfection. I saw a guitar with skulls, each no bigger than small coin, carved on the side.
Then, an hour later, walking along Unter den Linden, I passed by the Meissen shop. I've walked down Unter den Linden many times in the past few years, but the last time I noticed that shop was the first time I saw it, in 1986. My parents and I had gone to East Berlin for a day trip, and my mother was tempted to buy a set of Meissen dishes, though it was hard to tell if the store was open or closed. She had bought some dishes in Prague a few years earlier, but they broke in transit. The sky was cloudy, the buildings were grey, and the Meissen shop seemed to be the only one for a very long stretch. What a contrast to yesterday, when the sky was blue and the buildings cream-colored, the treetops swung in the sunlight, and the sidewalks were crowded with café tables and ice cream eaters. (I saw the shop in July 1986, so the trees must have been in leaf then as they are now, but somehow I don't remember anything green at all.)
Another ill-fated purchase from behind the iron curtain:
A cheese cake from Poland. My parents bought an extra one for me to taste — I wasn't travelling with them — because according to my mother it was just like her mother's cheese cake, but by the time they got back to Italy the cake had gone mouldy.
I went to the Museum of Musical Instruments the other day. It's housed in a pathetically ugly building right near where the wall used to be, and the minute I stepped through the door I knew I had been there before. Six years ago I went to a concert of the Berlin Philharmonic. I was late, the lobby was empty, and when I went to the ticket counter the seller gave me a ticket and said, "There's no time for you to pay. Just run! Run!!!" And so I ran, up a kind of vertical labyrinth of stairwells and landings and balconies, with stained glass walls and spherical light fixtures like mobiles hanging from the ceilings. At every level an usher cheered me on & pointed me to the next stairwell. I reached my seat in the brief stillness before the music began, holding my breath so as not to pant audibly.
And now the old Philharmonic is a museum. What a difference from that evening. Now the atmosphere is one of slow, quiet luxury, as if those beautiful objects, already burnished and intricately wrought, were being aged to perfection. I saw a guitar with skulls, each no bigger than small coin, carved on the side.
Then, an hour later, walking along Unter den Linden, I passed by the Meissen shop. I've walked down Unter den Linden many times in the past few years, but the last time I noticed that shop was the first time I saw it, in 1986. My parents and I had gone to East Berlin for a day trip, and my mother was tempted to buy a set of Meissen dishes, though it was hard to tell if the store was open or closed. She had bought some dishes in Prague a few years earlier, but they broke in transit. The sky was cloudy, the buildings were grey, and the Meissen shop seemed to be the only one for a very long stretch. What a contrast to yesterday, when the sky was blue and the buildings cream-colored, the treetops swung in the sunlight, and the sidewalks were crowded with café tables and ice cream eaters. (I saw the shop in July 1986, so the trees must have been in leaf then as they are now, but somehow I don't remember anything green at all.)
Another ill-fated purchase from behind the iron curtain:
A cheese cake from Poland. My parents bought an extra one for me to taste — I wasn't travelling with them — because according to my mother it was just like her mother's cheese cake, but by the time they got back to Italy the cake had gone mouldy.
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