Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV., there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the said documents to disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. [Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris, or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Volume I, Book First, Chapter I, “The Grand Hall”.]

Gish Jen has written a series of novels about Chinese immigrant life in the United States.

• World and Town: A Novel (Knopf, 2010).
• Typical American: A Novel (Tuirtleback Books, 1992).
• The Love Wife: A Novel (Knopf, 2004).
• Mona in the Promised Land: A Novel (Knopf, 1996).

William Trevor has written at least 2,000 pages of short-story fiction. "The default condition in his stories is loss and disappointment." He writes directly, allowing simple observations to tell his stories.

• William Trevor, The Collected Stories (Viking, 1992).
• William Trevor, Selected Stories (Viking, 2010).
• William Trevor, Last Stories (Viking, 2018): “This truthfulness of fragility is William Trevor’s credo. It is why we honor him as the supreme master of his honest art.”

Other novels and stories:

• Douglas Kennedy, Leaving the World: A Novel (Hutchinson, 2009).
• Geraldine Brooks, March: A Novel (Viking, 2005): Brooks won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize with this novel about a man who leaves his family to support the Union in the Civil War.
• Michael Chabon, Moonglow: A Novel (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 2016): “‘After I’m gone, write it down,’ the narrator’s grandfather tells him. ‘Explain everything.’”
• Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach: A Novel (Scribner, 2017): “For Anna the sight of the sea provides an ‘electric mix of attraction and dread’ while for Eddie it’s ‘an infinite hypnotic expanse’ and for Dexter it’s ‘never the same on any two days, not if you really looked.’ Egan really looks, and so do her characters. Turning their backs on the crowded constraints of their urban lives, all three look to the ocean as a realm that while inherently dangerous also promises the potential for personal discovery and an almost mystical liberty.”
• Margaret Drabble, The Dark Flood Rises: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017): “ . . . this humane and masterly novel by one of Britain’s most dazzling writers is something else as well, deeper than mere philosophy: a praisesong for the tragical human predicament exactly as it has been ordained on Earth, our terminal house.”
• Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift: A Novel (Hogarth, 2019): “ . . . an intimate, brainy, gleaming epic, set mostly in what is now Zambia, the landlocked country in southern Africa. It closely tracks the fortunes of three families (black, white, brown) across four generations.”
• Tishani Doshi, Small Days and Nights: A Novel (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020): “. . .  about a woman whose mother’s death prompts her to leave her unhappy married life in America and rebuild her home and family back in India.”
• Hillary Leichter, Temporary: A Novel (Coffee House Press, 2020): “. . .  a brisk, wildly imaginative first novel by Hilary Leichter, the unnamed protagonist is a temp worker who trudges between 23 jobs.”

Poetry

Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel--
Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens--
But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Ballades by the score with the same old thought:
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
And what is love but a rose that fades?
Life all around me here in the village:
Tragedy, comedy, valor and truth,
Courage, constancy, heroism, failure--
All in the loom, and oh what patterns!
Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers--
Blind to all of it all my life long.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics,
While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines?

[Edgar Lee Masters, “Petit, the Poet”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Frédéric Chopin, 24 Preludes, Op. 28 (1839-1841), reflect many moods in short duration. Chopin wrote 24 of them because there are 24 musical keys: he was modeling them after Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Yet they are personal, “deeply tied with upheavals in Chopin's personal life . . .” at the time he composed them. Top recorded performances are by Alfred Cortot in 1933-1934, Benno Moiseiwitsch in 1949, Maurizio Pollini in 1974, Rudolf Serkin in 1976, Martha Argerich in 1977, Evgeny Kissin in 2000, Nikolai Lugansky in 2002, Rafał Blechacz in 2007, Alexandre Tharaud in 2008, Grigory Sokolov in 2011, Ingrid Filter in 2014, Nelson Goerner in 2015, and Behzod Abduraimov in 2021.

Ludovico Einaudi, “Seven Days Walking” (2019) (52’), is a musical journey through seven days of lived experience, symbolizing the components of a life. “The meandering flow of his thoughts as he walked in the Swiss countryside was something he wanted to capture in music.”

Gabriela Lena Frank, Hilos (Threads) for clarinet and piano trio (2010) (approx. 72’): “Scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, the eight movements mix and match the players to allude to the beauty of Peruvian textiles both in their construction and in their pictoral content of everyday life.” [the composer] 

Antonin Dvořák, Poetic Tone Pictures (Poetische Stimmungsbilder), Op. 85, B. 161 (1889) (approx. 55-60’), consists of thirteen pieces for solo piano. “Rather than following a narrative, these 13 substantial pieces are more meditations on their titles . . .” “. . . the 13 character pieces that comprise the Poetic Tone Pictures reveal an incredibly rich, enchantingly diverse world of inner images.” The composer wrote: “It is . . . a pity that probably few pianists will have sufficient courage to play them all in succession (they last almost three-quarters of an hour); yet only in this way can the listener obtain a proper notion of what I intended, for this time I am not just an absolute composer but also a poet.” 

Other works:

• Woldemar Bargiel, 3 Character Pieces (Drei Charakterstücke), Op. 8 (1854) (approx. 10’), present the individual as a tapestry.
• Arnold Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7 (1905) (approx. 42-47’): “By 1904, (Schoenberg) felt ready to test his rapidly-developing skills in the more demanding realm of ‘absolute’ chamber music; the String Quartet No.1 in D minor, Op.7 represents this pioneer effort in the genre of lengthy, pure music.” “In a sketchbook of Schönbergs from 1904, some programmatic notes have been preserved, probably referring to the music of the first quartet: they range from 'rejection, defiance' and 'desperation' to 'enthusiastic strength to fight, development of fantasy, energy' and 'greatest intoxication of the senses,' to 'quiet happiness and the return of peace and harmony.'”
• Franz Schubert, 6 Moments Musicaux, Op. 94, D. 780 (1828) (approx. 22-31’) “are rich in character and display Schubert’s many moods, the paradox of Schubert’s life and indeed of all human existence and the wonder of being alive – from happiness and hope to profound introspection and poignancy, intimacy and tenderness, terror, rage and desolation.” Top recorded performances are by Brendel in 1974, Demus in 1974, Helmchen in 2008, Imogen Cooper in 2012, Korstick in 2014, and Kvitko in 2023.
• György Ligeti, String Quartet No. 1, “Métamorphoses Nocturnes”, (1954) (approx. 20-23’): “. . . there is no specific ‘theme’ that is then varied. It is, rather, that one and the same musical concept appears in constantly new forms - that is why “metamorphoses” is more appropriate than ‘variations’.” [the composer]
• Erich Korngold, String Quartets 1-3 (1920-1945) (approx. 74-77’) express the busy-ness of life in the 20th century. Top recordings are by Aron Quartett in 2010, and Tippett Quartet in 2023.
• Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, For Piano (1992) (approx. 22’): “. . . like life itself, full of contrasts and clashes.” [Jens Cornelius, from the booklet accompanying this album.]
• Henryk Górecki, String Quartet No. 2, "Quasi una Fantasia", Op. 64 (1991) (approx. 32-40’): many dark-hued themes with no apparent unifying thread
• Alexander Goldenweiser, Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 31 (approx. 27-40’)
• Gabriel Fauré, 13 Barcarolles (1881-1921) (approx. 57’)
• Sergei Prokofiev, War & Peace (1942) (approx. 167-211’) is an opera based on Tolstoy’s novel. Performances are conducted by Wanamaker, Gergiev, and Bertini.
• George Enescu, Symphony No. 2 in A Major, Op. 17 (1912) (approx. 48-57) “is lush and Straussian, its increasingly opulent scoring placing it firmly in the pre-Great War period. Its three substantial movements form a beautifully coherent design . . .”
• Alban Berg, Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Wind Instruments (1925) (approx. 35-42’)
• Cecil Coles, Overture "The Comedy of Errors" (1911) (approx. 11’)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams, The House of Life (1903) (approx. 25') (lyrics): “. . . The folk-song has now taken its place side by side with the classical songs of Schubert … Is not folk-song the bond of union where all our musical tastes can meet? … And where can we look for a surer proof that our art is living than in that music which has for generations voiced the spiritual longings of our race?” [the composer]
• Michael Maier composed “The Fifty Fugues of Atalanta Fugiens” (approx. 75’), the titles of which refer to episodes in someone’s life.
• Lera Auerbach, 24 Preludes for piano, Op. 41 (1998) (approx. 58’) (here they are with violin and piano, also here, and here): these are “short tone-poems that feature polystylistic writing, harmonic contrasts, color, and texture”, expressing a wide variety of moods. Extending on these are her 10 Dreams for piano, Op. 45 (approx. 22’).
• John Adams, Harmonium (1980) (approx. 34’) “began with a simple, totally formed mental image: that of a single tone emerging out of a vast, empty space and, by means of a gentle unfolding, evolving into a rich, pulsating fabric of sound.” [the composer]
• Alexander Tcherepnin, Eight Pieces for Piano, Op 88 (1954/1955) (approx. 14’): eight moods, essentially, evoking episodes in life.
• Paul Paccione, Tapestry Studies (2011) (approx. 27-28’): “is a collection of nine etude-like pieces that explore different musical genres (habanera, invention, serenade, aubade--the morning equivalent of the evening serenade; and a march).”
• Nastasia Kruscheva, The Book of Grief and Joy (approx. 18’) 
• Dmitry Kabalevsky, Cello Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 77 (1964) (approx. 30’), “offers an amalgam of mournful phrasing, harrowing experiences, satiric wit, and tremendous tension and excitement.”

Here are two string quartets from Romantic era composers, which sound more like Modern-era works. They suggest the vicissitudes of life.

• Claude Debussy, String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10, L. 85 (1893) (approx. 25-26’): “. . . the opening theme of his quartet recurs in all four movements. But unlike earlier designs where the theme appears, essentially unchanged, within each movement as an isolated, nearly extraneous element . . .”
• Maurice Ravel, String Quartet in F Major, M. 35 (1903) (approx. 28-31’): “Ravel employs multiple themes, the two main themes of the first movement and one from the second. The themes recur with less variation, their essential natures intact, functioning much like themes in a single sonata to give his quartet a strong sense of order as a large-scale process of integration and balance.”

Albums:

• Rahsaan Barber, “Mosaic” (2021) (96’) “manages to capture the vibe of the proverbial smoke-filled, wood-paneled jazz club of yore . . .”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Carole King, “Tapestry” (lyrics)
• The Beatles, "A Day in the Life" (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Paul Klee, Highways and Byways (1929)
• Paul Klee, Main Path and Byways (1929)

Film and Stage

• Scenes From a Marriage, exploring the contradictions of life and how we delude ourselves