Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

In Les Misérables, many people are suspicious of Valjean’s generosity and humility, wondering what his motive might be. After all, Hugo suggests, if he renounces things for himself, he must want something greater than the things he renounces. Valjean is unaffected by it all. Only when he sees that accepting an honor can be of use to others does he accept it.

Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort of an adventurer."  We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed him everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored him, and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. When he was known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and he received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile. In proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him. "Society" claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan, opened both leaves of their folding-doors to the millionnaire. They made a thousand advances to him. He refused.  This time the good gossips had no trouble. "He is an ignorant man, of no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read."  When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business." When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, "He is an ambitious man." When he was seen to decline honors, they said, "He is an adventurer." When they saw him repulse society, they said, "He is a brute."  In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion of the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King again appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined; but the prefect resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore him, the people in the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from her threshold, in an angry way: _"A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he drawing back before the good which he can do?"_  This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume I – Fantine; Book Fifth – The Descent Begins, Chapter II, “Madeleine”.] 

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. [Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave III: “The Second of the Three Spirits”.]

Novels:

• Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel (Poppy, 2018): “. . . the story expertly dissects teenagers’ tortured relationships with popularity and social media.”
• Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart: A Novel (1958), “chronicles the life of Okonkwo, the leader of an Igbo community, from the events leading up to his banishment from the community for accidentally killing a clansman, through the seven years of his exile, to his return, and it addresses a particular problem of emergent Africa—the intrusion in the 1890s of white missionaries and colonial government into tribal Igbo society.”

Novels from the dark side:

• Christine Smallwood, The Life of the Mind: A Novel (Hogarth, 2021): “If you think Dorothy might be protesting too much, she would probably agree. Second- and third-guessing herself comes naturally.”

Poetry

Poems:

·      Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”

·      John Keats, “On Fame”

·      James Joyce, “Be Not Sad”

From the dark side:

·      Edgar Lee Masters, “E.C. Culbertson”

·      Edgar Lee Masters, “Granville Calhoun”

·      Edgar Lee Masters, “Harry Carey Goodhue”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Compositions:

• Carlisle Floyd, Susannah (1954) (approx. 106’) (libretto): the title character maintains her innocence and virtue despite scurrilous and unfounded accusations made against her. Links are to a recorded performance by Studer, Hadley & Ramey (Nagano) in 1994, and to a live performance at Undercroft Opera in 2012.
• Douglas Moore, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) (backstory and libretto): a man leaves behind his practical wife, who is not interested in wealth or pretension, for a much younger woman with expensive tastes. He dies in poverty, as does his second wife, many years later.
• Raga Tilak Kamod is a melodious Hindustani classical raag for late evening. “ This composition is about music. It describes the virtues of a good performer as one who has command over the rag, tal, intonation of notes and enunciation of words.” This command of every aspect of the music conveys the sense of being untroubled. Links are to performances by Vilayat Khan, Budhaditya Mukherjee, Ravi Shankar, Kishori Amonkar, and Kishori Amonkar.
• Joaquín Rodrigo, Elogio de la guitarra (1971) (approx. 14-18’) evokes both festival and funeral.
• Harry Partch, Delusion of the Fury (1969) (approx. 72-73’), “is a complex theater piece in two acts, telling two stories, the first from Japanese Noh Theater, the second from an African folk tale. Both pursue the idea that anger (Fury) is a delusion, never helping to solve anything.” Performances are by Ensemble of unique instruments in 1998, and Ensemble MusikFabrik in 2022. Here is the 1969 film version.
• Francesco Antonio Bonporti composed several sets of sonatas for two violins and basso continuo. They are uniformly unhurried and even-tempered. Labirinti Armonici has recorded Op. 1 (1696) (61’), Op. 2 (1701) (58’), and Op. 4 (1706) (64’).
• Raga Bairagi Bhairav is a Hindustani classical raag for early morning. “This raga corresponds to Mayamalavagowla in Carnatic music, which is the first raga taught to beginners.” “There is a tribe of people in India known as Bairagi, who are basically devotees of Vishnu. The word Bairagi is likely an alteration of the word Vairagi which means one who has let go of worldly desires.” Performances are by Nikhil Banerjee, Rajan & Sajan Mishra, and Jasraj. 

Albums:

• Hound Dog Taylor, “Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers” (1971) (44’) – it may be blues but he’s happy anyway.
• Edward Simon with Afinidad & Imani Winds, “Sorrows & Triumphs” (2018) (71’) – the two imposters to be treated just the same.
• Ahmad Jamal, “Marseille” (2017) (60’): “With nothing left to prove (at age 87) and in complete command of his instrument and his group, Jamal seems willing to open his approach and add baroque and expansive touches to what once was a measured, minimalist style.”
• Byron Allen Trio, “The Byron Allen Trio” (1963) (43’): “Allen and company have the harmelodic looseness of Ornette but Allen stakes out his own turf. He is bluesy-rootsy and outside the bop-structured changes-based music of the prevailing orthodoxy like Ornette, yet he has his own sound and phraseology.”
• Immanuel Wilkins, “The 7th Hand” (2022) (59’): “The album consists of an hour-long suite comprised of seven movements that strive to bring the quartet closer to complete vesselhood by the end, where the music would be entirely improvised, channeled collectively.”
• Bon Iver, “For Emma, Forever Ago” (2008) (37’) “is a ruminative collection of songs full of natural imagery and acoustic strums-- the sound of a man left alone with his memories and a guitar.”
• Sufjan Stevens, “Carrie & Lowell” (2015) (44’): “Stevens has always written personally, weaving his life story into larger narratives, but here his autobiography, front and center, is itself the grand history. The songs explore childhood, family, grief, depression, loneliness, faith, and rebirth in direct and unflinching language that matches the scaled-back instrumentation.”
• Sigur Rós, “()” (2002) (71’) “conveys unaccountable levels of banked power, stupefying beauty, and personal meaning for the listener, not despite but because it is untethered from authorial meaning.”
• Tangerine Dream, “Phaedra” (1974) (156’) is “a brilliant and compelling summation of Tangerine Dream's early avant-space direction balanced with the synthesizer/sequencer technology just beginning to gain a foothold in nonacademic circles.”

Opposite:

• Alfred Schnittke, Cello Sonata No. 2 (1994) (approx. 14-17’) sounds like worrying. Excellent performances are by Ivashkin & Irina Schnittke, Thedéen & Pöntinen, Østerlind & Gryesten, Geringas & Schatz, and Rostropovich & Uriash.

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Ludovico Eunaudi (composer), “Nuvole Bianche”
• Alicia Keys, “Unbreakable” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

• Searching for Bobby Fischer, about a chess prodigy who could take it or leave it
• Richard III, about a notoriously ambitious king
• Timon of Athens: a man destroys himself with vengefulness after his “friends” fail to return his generosity
• What’s Up, Doc?: Nothing ever bothered Bugs, or Barbra