Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

In Hugo’s Les Misérables, Valjean’s reflections did not end with his own responsibility. Right or wrong, he also considered the social context of his comparatively insubstantial crime.

Then he asked himself--  Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains expiation. Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not equivalent to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the man who had violated it.  Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a crime which had lasted nineteen years.  He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of work and an excess of punishment.  Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume I – Fantine; Book Second – The Fall, Chapter VII, “The Interior of Despair”.]

Richard Wright wrote of the social and economic injustice he knew from childhood.

• Black Boy (1945), an autobiographical novel about Wright’s childhood.
• Uncle Tom’s Children (1938), a collection of novellas about African-American life in the Deep South during Wright’s era.
• The Outsider (1953), of a black man’s attempt to escape and dismal past and start over in Harlem.
• Eight Men (1961), eight stories of “black men living at violent odds to the white world around them.”
• Early Works (Library of America, 1991).
• Later Works (Library of America, 1991).

Tillie Olsen wrote about struggle against injustice from a feminist perspective.

• Yonnondio: From the Thirties (University of Nebraska Press, 1974).
• Tell Me A Riddle (1961).

Anzia Yezierska wrote about tenement life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

• Hungry Heart (1920).
• Salome of the Tenements (1923).
• Bread Givers: A Novel (1925).
• Arrogant Beggar (1927).
• The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection (Persea Books, 1993).

Other writers who raised consciousness about injustice in the United States:

• Meridel Le Sueur, Ripening: Selected Work (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1993).
• Martin Delany, Blake or The Huts of America (1859, first published in book form in 1970), written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the life of African-American slaves in the ante-bellum United States.
• William Attaway, Blood on the Forge (1941), “a scalding, uncompromising novel on the Great Migration and its impact on the Southern black man”.
• Ann Petry, The Street: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin, 1948): a too-little known novel on the social injustices confronting a young African American woman in the 1940s.
• Omar El Akkad, American War: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017): “El Akkad’s novel, his first, opens in a distant future when the United States as we know it is barely a memory, permanently knocked off the world stage by climate change, plague and intrastate conflict. The novel’s nominal narrator (a conceit that is quickly pushed into the background) is a historical researcher who has devoted his life to studying ‘this country’s bloody war with itself.’”
• Nell Zink, Doxology: A Novel (Ecco, 2019): “It has many . . . things on its mind, including a subversive history of American politics from Operation Desert Shield through the start of the Trump presidency, and it’s superb. In terms of its author’s ability to throw dart after dart after dart into the center of your media-warped mind and soul, it’s the novel of the summer and possibly the year.”
• Alexandra Kleeman, Something New Under the Sun: A Novel (Hogarth, 2021): “A Climate Nightmare in a Burning Los Angeles”.

Other novels highlighting social awareness:

• Jennifer Haigh, Mercy Street: A Novel (Ecco, 2022): “Abortion, guns, vigilantism, drug dealing, white supremacy, bitter misogyny and online fetishism all figure in the tableau Haigh expertly details.”
• Pankaj Mishra, Run and Hide: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022): “It’s a tale of three university classmates coming of age in the ‘New India,’ an era of turbocharged economic progress accompanied by ‘the ideologies of self-cherishing that, emanating in Britain and America, arrived, fully articulated, in India in the late 1980s.'”
• Jennifer Close, Marrying the Ketchups: A Novel (Knopf, 2022): “A large Irish American family; a large Irish American bar and restaurant owned by said family; said family reeling in the wake of the death of a grandparent; a wayward daughter returning to her birthplace after a failed career in a different city; multiple points of view in alternating chapters as various members of the Irish American family struggle with marriage- and work-related problems . . .”
• Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead: A Novel (Harper, 2022): this is Dickens’ David Copperfield reset in Appalachia. “Of course Barbara Kingsolver would retell Dickens. He has always been her ancestor. Like Dickens, she is unblushingly political and works on a sprawling scale, animating her pages with the presence of seemingly every creeping thing that has ever crept upon the earth.”

Poetry

An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence

[Pablo Neruda, “The Dictators”]

Poetry books:

• Kevin Young, Brown: Poems (Knopf, 2018): “This new collection of verse by the poetry editor of The New Yorker (and director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) is political in the best, most visceral way — critical, angry, squinting hard at the culture — while remaining at the same time deeply and lovingly personal.”
• Lawrence Joseph, A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): “Not the first poet to meditate on political economy and empire, Joseph is distinguished by his knowledge.”
• S. Brook Corfman, My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites (Fordham University Press, 2020): “Poems of fear and foreboding that live with the knowledge of climate crisis, without resorting to self-righteousness or self-flagellation.”
• Rita Dove, Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems (W.W. Norton and Company, 2021): “It’s about the weight of American history, which Dove treats as news we’re still actively metabolizing.”
• Martín Espada, Floaters: Poems (W.W. Norton & Company, 2021) “combines a sharp political awareness with a storyteller’s knack for finding beauty and irony in the current moment”.

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Mieczysław Weinberg was a Polish composer whose compositions reflect his suffering under the Nazi regime. For many years, he was known as Moisey Vainberg, a name under which much of his work appears.

• Fantasia for Cello & Orchestra, Op. 52 (1953) (approx. 18-19’) “begins with cellos and basses playing softly in octaves, giving way to harried dancing, then flickering away into the darkness.”
• Symphony No. 8, “Polish Flowers”, Op. 83 (1964) (approx. ), is a choral symphony that recounts the horror of Nazi occupation and offers an idyllic vision of freedom and equality under what Weinberg imagined would be the Soviet liberators. “The Polish Flowers subtitle comes from a set of poems by leading Polish writer Julian Tuwim (1894-1953), from whom Weinberg borrows the texts. In his cycle Tuwim considers, appropriately, Poland's 'troubled past and ominous future'.”

Leyla McCalla is a “Haitian-American singer, songwriter, arranger, cellist, and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla (who) combines folk, jazz, and classical elements with the Louisiana musical traditions of her adopted New Orleans home”. She uses her music to ask questions such as: “What does democracy look like? Who does it work for? How long can it last?” “McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful, and witty. It vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive, and contemporary and features lyrics sung in English, French, and Haitian Creole.” Here is a link to her releases.

Samba Touré, of Mali, plays and sings desert blues. His “music is defined by hypnotic guitar grooves and the intense spirit of the Sahel.” “Like most Malian songs, Samba’s lyrics convey moral messages as well as introducing us to different elements of Malian culture, such as the importance of family.” On “Binga”, “he sings about the malfunctioning education system, the damage mankind is wreaking upon the natural world, rural poverty and the illusion of seeking a better life abroad. Despite this, there is a palpable optimism for the future of his homeland throughout; he urges the Malian people to stand tall and hope for better days to come.” On “Baarakelaw”: “Each song is a tribute to those who work small, demanding jobs in a dusty, bustling West African city like Bamako: street water sellers, itinerant tailors, housekeepers employed by families.” Here is a link to his albums and singles.

Arthur Honegger’s final three symphonies are social commentary during a turbulent era.

• Symphony No. 3, H. 196, "Liturgique" (1945) (approx. 30-33’): “Written for the concert Between War and Peace, performed on April 30, 1995 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.”
• Symphony No. 4 in A Major, H. 191, "Deliciae Basillensis" (1946) (approx. 27-31’), “was written in the aftermath of the second world war and attempts to escape the gloomy mood of its times by evoking earlier happiness in Basel.”
• Symphony No. 5 in D Major, H. 202, "Di Tre Re" (1950) (approx. 21-23’)

Uniformly serious in tone, Miloslav Kabeláč’s first six symphonies comment on life in Czechoslovakia during and after World War II.

• Symphony No. 1 in D Major for strings and percussion, Op. 11 (1941–42) (approx. 32’)
• Symphony No. 2 in C Major for large orchestra, Op. 15 (1942–46)
• Symphony No. 3 in F Major for organ, brass and timpani, Op. 33 (1948–57) (approx. 21’)
• Symphony No. 4 in A Major, "Chamber Symphony", Op. 36 (1954–58) (approx. 24’)
• Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Minor, "Dramatic", for soprano without text, and orchestra, Op. 41 (1960) (approx. 40’)
• Symphony No. 6, "Concertante", for clarinet and orchestra, Op. 44 (1961–62) (approx. 22’)

In a lighter vein, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (Gilbert and Sullivan) skewered Victorian-era Britain’s society, conventions, and even royalty, in their comic operas.

• Trial by Jury (1875) (approx. 33-60’) (libretto) is a spoof on the British legal system, based on Gilbert’s brief experience as a barrister. Performances are from a D’Oyly Carte recording, a 1974 TV movie, Opera Australia, New Zealand in 2012, and a University of Texas production.
• H.M.S. Pinafore, or The Lass That Loved a Sailor (1878) (approx. 58-91’) (libretto), satirizes the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority, and pokes fun at social conventions in general. Performances are by Welsh National Chorus & Opera (Mackerras), by Edinburgh University Savor Opera Group in 2012 and a D’Oyly Carte recording from 1959.
• The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Duty (1879) (approx. 108-121’) (libretto), is an extended jab at conventions, civilization, and nearly everything else G&S could get their literary hands on. It is “is packed full of sentimental pirates, blundering policeman, absurd adventures and improbable paradoxes.” Performances are a 1968 D’Oyly Carte recording, a 1983 film version, a 1989 BBC production, a performance at Loyola Opera, an Australian TV version, and at Aberdeen Gilbert and Sullivan Society in 2023.
• Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride (1881) (approx. 120-125’) (libretto), lampoons male chauvinism and vanity in the military. Performances are from a D’Oyly Carte recordings in 1961, the Australian Opera in 1995, and a performance at Harvard-Ratcliffe)
• Iolanthe, or The Peer and the Peri (1882) (approx. 126-142’) (libretto): “Gilbert had taken pot shots at the aristocracy before, but in this "fairy opera," the House of Lords is lampooned as a bastion of the ineffective, privileged and dim-witted. The political party system and other institutions also come in for a dose of satire.” Performances are from D’Oyly Carte in 1960, Sydney Opera House in 1976, a 2005 New Zealand production, and The Orchestra Now (Bagwell) production in 2023.
• The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu (1885) (approx. 124-152’) (libretto): the Japanese setting was a thin disguise for a grand poke at English bureaucracy. Performances include a 1966 film version, a production at Houston Grand Opera in 2015, a 1982 Stratford production, a 1987 English National Opera production, a 1917 D’Oyly Carte recording, a 1958 D’Oyly carte recording (Act 1; Act 2), a 1973 D’Oyly Carte recording (Act1; Act 2), and a performance at Lyric Opera of Dallas in 1985. See also this Groucho Marx clip.
• The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and His Maid (1888) (approx. 143-156’) (libretto), is the darkest of the G&S operas/operettas. Performances include a 1950 D’Oyly Carte recording (Act 1; Act 2), a 1964 D’Oyly Carte recording (Act 1; Act 2), a 2009 New Zealand production, and a 2003 Rowan Opera Company performance.
• The Gondoliers, or the King of Barataria (1889) (approx. 132-149’) (libretto), is a satire on class distinctions and their often-preposterous methods of resolution. Performances include a recording conducted by Malcolm Sargent (Act 1; Act 2), at Stratford Festival, a 2010 New Zealand production, at University of Birmingham in 2023, and a performance at Loyola Opera in New Orleans.
• Utopia Limited, or The Flowers of Progress (1893) (approx. 103-155’) (libretto): “The principal absurd reversal in the play is that the “primitives” actively invite, rather than resist, colonization, in contrast to actual British colonialism.” Performances include a 1975 D’Oyly Carte recording (Act 1; Act 2), a 1989 BBC recording (Act 1; Act 2), a 2011 New Zealand production, a 2008 production at Very Light Opera Company of Minneapolis.

Other compositions:

• Luciano Berio, Coro (Chorus), for forty voices and forty instruments (1976; extended 1977) (approx. 57’), is based on Pablo Neruda’s poems, from his book Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1931-1947). “A line repeated often is 'come and see the blood on the streets', a reference to a poem by Pablo Neruda, written in the context of savage events in Latin America under various military regimes.” The composer conducted the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (I-VIII; IX-XX; XXI-XXVII; XXVIII-XXIX; XXX-XXXI); he also conducted the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Cologne Radio Chorus in 1980. Grete Pedersen conducted a version for eight voices in 2020.
• Kurt Weill, Symphony No. 1, “Berliner Sinfonie” (1921) (approx. 25-27’), “reflects something of the turmoil of post-World War I.” Both of his symphonies represent a departure from the “decadent” music for which he is best known; that music too, comments on German culture at the time. Excellent performances are conducted by Bertini in 1968, de Waart in 1974, Alsop in 2005, Beaumont in 2005, Gruber in 2023, and Mallwitz in 2024..
• Kurt Weill, Symphony No. 2, “Symphonic Fantasy” (1934) (approx. 26-30’): “In 1933, with Hitler in power, Weill escaped to Paris where he wrote Symphony No. 2 . . .” Excellent performances are conducted by Bertini in 1968, de Waart in 1974, Jansons in 1998, Alsop in 2005, Beaumont in 2005, van Steen in 2021, Shani in 2022, Gruber in 2023, and Mallwitz in 2024.
• Weill, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) (1930) (approx. 133-149’): “In an imaginary American city, God consigns its licentious citizens to hell but they truculently reply that they are already there.” “The piece was intended as an allegory of exploitation and hedonism as well as an indictment of a capitalist world that was doomed to end in flaming destruction.” Recordings feature Lenya in 1956, Stratas in 1979, Silja in 1987, and McDonald in 2007 ***.
• Christian Lindberg, “2017” (2017) (approx. 33’) is a 33-minute tone poem expressing what the composer thought of the election of a fascist President in the United States. The composer made the premier recording.
• Tālivaldis Ķeniņš, Symphony No. 7 (1980) (approx. 29’): “The mezzo-soprano solo links the composer more tightly with his family roots, expresses itself in more trusting and optimistic feelings; however, the unease in the harmonies and rhythm likely cannot hide the composer's fears about out era. The concluding epilogue is like an Agnus Dei. The finale should express hope and faith, which stands over life's troubles, soothing our darkest predictions, and suppressing our fears.” Andris Poga conducted the work in 2022.
• James Lee III, Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (2018) (approx. 22’) was “inspired by historical aspects of indigenous Americans”.
• Francis Poulenc, Les animaux modèles (The Model Animals), FP 111 (1942) (approx. 41-42’) is a ballet based on fables by Jean de La Fontaine, in which animals represent human characters. “. . . there is a serious purpose behind the fable, and the ballet is undoubtedly a parable of wartime France, languishing under Nazi occupation at the time of composition (the composer himself had been recently demobbed as ‘Private Poulenc’).”
• Arnold Rosner, A My Lai Elegy, Op. 51 (1971, rev. 1993) (approx. 26’) “expresses both rage at the senselessly cruel violence of the incident commemorated and hope that humanity will find a way to rise above such brutality.”
• Jacques Hétu, Symphony No. 5, Op. 81 (2010) (approx. 46-48’): “After an elegiac opening, the first movement, ‘Prologue (Paris before World War II),’ develops into almost a Scherzo in mood, depicting the playful atmosphere of people enjoying life before the outbreak of hostilities. Second comes ‘The Invasion,’ . . .  The third movement, ‘The Occupation,’ also recalls Shostakovich in his ability to convey desolation and anguish. The finale, ‘Liberation,’ is mostly a hymn of celebration, though it also depicts the difficulties of sustaining liberty.”

Albums:

• Mohammed Fairouz (composer), “Native Informant” (2013) (78’) is mainly a “lament for the victims of the Egyptian Revolution” of 2011 and musical commentary on the Lebanese Civil War.
• Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies, “This Land” (2021) (46’): “The Guthrie songs, that also include 'I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore,' have the rollicking flavor of a town square band concert c. 1915. Similarly, Hill's anticlerical sermon has a medicine-show theatricality so evocative that you can almost smell the brilliantine.”
• Clifford Lamb, “Blues & Hues” (2019) (47’): “. . . the two versions of “Peace Requiem” – a poignant, socially charged, century spanning African American history lesson featuring onetime Raelette Alex Brown and poet/rapper Anacron – will garner the most attention . . .)
• Billy Bang, “Vietnam the Aftermath” (2001) (71’): “After tucking them away for a long time, violinist Billy Bang decided to put these recollections to music”; “Vietnam: Reflections” (2005) (70’): “. . . an album that blends traditional Vietnamese folk melodies with modal grooves and tender ballads, he moves further towards reconciliation.”.
• Terri Lyne Carrington, “Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue” (2013) (62’): “It’s 50 years since Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach got together and made Money Jungle, an immediately arresting, full-on, sophisticated bluesy brawl of an album imbued with all the passionate political commitment of the times.”
• Vijay Iyer, “Uneasy” (2013) (71’): “Even as they negotiate complex parameters of rhythm and harmony, the trio’s expertly attuned playing evokes the openness of improvisation and the urgency of justice.”
• Eric Bibb, “Dear America” (2021) (52’) is “ode to America’s history, passing through the glory, pain, fighting, and bitter moments.”
• Jon Boden has recorded a trilogy of albums about life in the wake of climate change. The third one, “Last Mile Home” (2021) (49’), is the best. “The album’s story is of an older couple leaving their home on the edge of Sheffield to walk, through a post-climactic landscape, the eighty miles to the North Sea coast in the aim of finding a new home.”
• Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dynamic Maximum Tension” (2023) (112’): “Railing against authoritarianism and disinformation, this music has an edge.”
• Jowee Omicil, “SpiriTuaL HeaLinG : Bwa KaYimaN FreeDoM SuiTe” (2023) (61'): “The hum of revolution intersects with syncretic religion on Jowee Omicil’s quietly explosive latest album Spiritual Healing. Over the course of a one-hour suite, the Haitian-Canadian saxophonist and his band explore the night of 14th August, 1791, when Saint-Domingue slaves gathered at the Bois Caïman for a vodou ceremony. Out of that ceremony emerged the spirit of insurrection and a plan.”
• Cara de Espelho, “Cara de Espelho” (2024) (37’) is an awareness-raising album about contemporary right wing politics.
• Thandiswa Mazwai, “Sankofa” (2024) (55’): “. . . Mazwai's Pan-African beliefs inhabit the songs; even the album title is a Ghanaian concept of reclamation. Songs like 'children of the soil' abound with West African polyrhythms and tones, but are sung in a vocal style specific to Thandiswa.”
• Avishai Cohen, Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori & Ziv Ravitz, “Ashes to Gold” (2024) (44’): “The title Ashes to Gold draws from the Japanese art of kintsugi, which mends broken pottery with gold, making something new from shattered pieces. For Cohen, this metaphor speaks directly to our fractured reality, where something beautiful can be born out of destruction.” Cohen’s specific reference point was Israel’s war in Gaza in 2023.
• Jamil Sheriff, “The Debt” (2025) (37’): see the track titles

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Paul Simon, “American Tune” (lyrics)
• Beyoncé, “Formation” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• David Alfaro Sequeiros, Man the Master, Not the Slave of Technology. (1952)

Film and Stage

• A Face in the Crowd, about a charlatan who gains a public forum and then is exposed. The film is about the dangers of an uninformed citizenry in the age of mass media.