- When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. [Attributed, perhaps falsely, to Mark Twain.
Real
True Narratives
- Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Grove Press, 2012), a memoir about the author’s Pentecostal upbringing that “wrings humor from adversity . . . but the ghastly childhood transfigured there is not the same as the one vivisected here in search of truth and its promise of setting the cleareyed free.”
- Vivian Gornick, Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): “. . . an urgent argument that rereading offers the opportunity not just to correct and adjust one’s recollection of a book but to correct and adjust one’s perception of oneself.”
- Menachem Kaiser, Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021): “‘Plunder’ has many moods and registers. It acquires moral gravity. It pays tender and respectful attention to forgotten lives. It is also alert to melancholic forms of comedy.”
Documentary and Educational Films
- 51 Birch Street: after a man’s mother dies and his father plans to move to Florida with his former secretary, his mother’s diary reveals some unsettling facts about the couple’s 54-year marriage
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Frida Kahlo, Portrait of My Father (1951)
- Salvador Dali, Portrait of My Father (1920)
- Ilya Repin, Portrait of Efim Repin, the Artist's Father (1879)
- Paul Cezanne, The Artist's Mother (1867)
- Paul Cezanne, The Artist's Father Reading His Newspaper (1866)
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Rembrandt's Father
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Artist's Mother (1639)
Fictional Narratives
Novels:
- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011).
- Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019): “Neiman contends that postwar Germany, after initially stumbling badly, has done the hard work necessary to grapple with and come to terms with the legacy of the Holocaust in a way that could be a lesson to America in general, and the American South in particular.”
- Alexander Starritt, We Germans: A Novel (Little, Brown & Co., 2020): “. . . Meissner offers a layered meditation on the ideology of the Nazi Party, and on what his actions say about him as a human.” (Germans holding themselves accountable for Nazism)
Film and Stage
From the shadow side:
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Theobald Böhm, Elegie in A-flat Major, Op. 47
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Compositions:
- Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, “Scottish”, was inspired by the composer’s experiences in Scotland.
- Glazunov, Suite Caractéristique in D Major, Op. 9 (1887)
- Kapsberger, lute works: Lutenist Paul O’Dette observes that Kapsberger’s contemporaries labeled his work as “unbelievably poor”, “inept trifles . . . bungling and unmelodious.” O’Dette, who performs these works brilliantly, calls Kapsberger “a pearl distorted.”
- Franck, Prélude, Chorale & Fugue for Piano, M21 (1884)
- Carbon, Six Spanish Lessons; Six More Spanish Lessons
- Carbon, Piano Sonata
Piano music of Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937):
- 3 Métopes (3 Poèms), M31, Op. 29 (1915)
- 4 Études (4 Studies), M3, Op. 4 (1902)
- 4 Polish Dances, M60 (1926), M60 (1926)
- 9 Preludes, M1, Op. 1 (1900)
- 12 Études (12 Studies), M34, Op. 33 (1916)
- 20 Mazurkas, M56, Op. 50 (1925) and M73, Op. 62 (Opp. 50 and 62)
- Fantasy in C major, M13, Op. 14 (1905)
- Masques (Masks), 3 Pieces, M35, Op. 34 (1916)
- Piano Sonata No. 1 in C Minor, M8, Op. 8 (1904)
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in A Major, M25, Op. 21 (1911)
- Piano Sonata No. 3, M38, Op. 36 (1917)
- Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Minor, M19 (1905, 1909)
- Variations in B-flat Minor, M5, Op. 3 (1903)
- Variations on a Polish Folk Theme in B Minor, M10, Op. 10 (1904)
Albums: