A Work of Art

 I found the following Chekhov story on Project Gutenberg, and it made me smile.

SASHA SMIRNOV, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm, something wrapped up in No. 223 of the Financial News, assumed a sentimental expression, and went into Dr. Koshelkov’s consulting-room.

“Ah, dear lad!” was how the doctor greeted him. “Well! how are we feeling? What good news have you for me?”

Sasha blinked, laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated voice: “Mamma sends her greetings to you, Ivan Nikolaevitch, and told me to thank you. . . . I am the only son of my mother and you have saved my life . . . you have brought me through a dangerous illness and . . . we do not know how to thank you.

“Nonsense, lad!” said the doctor, highly delighted. “I only did what anyone else would have done in my place.”

“I am the only son of my mother . . . we are poor people and cannot of course repay you, and we are quite ashamed, doctor, although, however, mamma and I . . . the only son of my mother, earnestly beg you to accept in token of our gratitude . . . this object, which . . . An object of great value, an antique bronze. . . . A rare work of art.”

“You shouldn’t!” said the doctor, frowning. “What’s this for!”

“No, please do not refuse,” Sasha went on muttering as he unpacked the parcel. “You will wound mamma and me by refusing. . . . It’s a fine thing . . . an antique bronze. . . . It was left us by my deceased father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir. My father used to buy antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs . . . Mamma and I keep on the business now.”

Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table. It was a not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship. It consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures in the costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which I have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. The figures were smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as is improper for the reader even to imagine.

Looking at the present, the doctor slowly scratched behind his ear, cleared his throat and blew his nose irresolutely.

“Yes, it certainly is a fine thing,” he muttered, “but . . . how shall I express it? . . . it’s . . . h’m . . . it’s not quite for family reading. It’s not simply decolleté but beyond anything, dash it all. . . .”

“How do you mean?”

“The serpent-tempter himself could not have invented anything worse . . . . Why, to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the whole flat.”

“What a strange way of looking at art, doctor!” said Sasha, offended. “Why, it is an artistic thing, look at it! There is so much beauty and elegance that it fills one’s soul with a feeling of reverence and brings a lump into one’s throat! When one sees anything so beautiful one forgets everything earthly. . . . Only look, how much movement, what an atmosphere, what expression!”

“I understand all that very well, my dear boy,” the doctor interposed, “but you know I am a family man, my children run in here, ladies come in.”

“Of course if you look at it from the point of view of the crowd,” said Sasha, “then this exquisitely artistic work may appear in a certain light. . . . But, doctor, rise superior to the crowd, especially as you will wound mamma and me by refusing it. I am the only son of my mother, you have saved my life. . . . We are giving you the thing most precious to us and . . . and I only regret that I have not the pair to present to you. . . .”

“Thank you, my dear fellow, I am very grateful . . . Give my respects to your mother but really consider, my children run in here, ladies come. . . . However, let it remain! I see there’s no arguing with you.”

“And there is nothing to argue about,” said Sasha, relieved. “Put the candlestick here, by this vase. What a pity we have not the pair to it! It is a pity! Well, good-bye, doctor.”

After Sasha’s departure the doctor looked for a long time at the candelabra, scratched behind his ear and meditated.

“It’s a superb thing, there’s no denying it,” he thought, “and it would be a pity to throw it away. . . . But it’s impossible for me to keep it. . . . H’m! . . . Here’s a problem! To whom can I make a present of it, or to what charity can I give it?”

After long meditation he thought of his good friend, the lawyer Uhov, to whom he was indebted for the management of legal business.

“Excellent,” the doctor decided, “it would be awkward for him as a friend to take money from me, and it will be very suitable for me to present him with this. I will take him the devilish thing! Luckily he is a bachelor and easy-going.”

Without further procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat, took the candelabra and went off to Uhov’s.

“How are you, friend!” he said, finding the lawyer at home. “I’ve come to see you . . . to thank you for your efforts. . . . You won’t take money so you must at least accept this thing here. . . . See, my dear fellow. . . . The thing is magnificent!”

On seeing the bronze the lawyer was moved to indescribable delight.

“What a specimen!” he chuckled. “Ah, deuce take it, to think of them imagining such a thing, the devils! Exquisite! Ravishing! Where did you get hold of such a delightful thing?”

After pouring out his ecstasies the lawyer looked timidly towards the door and said: “Only you must carry off your present, my boy . . . . I can’t take it. . . .”

“Why?” cried the doctor, disconcerted.

“Why . . . because my mother is here at times, my clients . . . besides I should be ashamed for my servants to see it.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense! Don’t you dare to refuse!” said the doctor, gesticulating. “It’s piggish of you! It’s a work of art! . . . What movement . . . what expression! I won’t even talk of it! You will offend me!”

“If one could plaster it over or stick on fig-leaves . . .”

But the doctor gesticulated more violently than before, and dashing out of the flat went home, glad that he had succeeded in getting the present off his hands.

When he had gone away the lawyer examined the candelabra, fingered it all over, and then, like the doctor, racked his brains over the question what to do with the present.

“It’s a fine thing,” he mused, “and it would be a pity to throw it away and improper to keep it. The very best thing would be to make a present of it to someone. . . . I know what! I’ll take it this evening to Shashkin, the comedian. The rascal is fond of such things, and by the way it is his benefit tonight.”

No sooner said than done. In the evening the candelabra, carefully wrapped up, was duly carried to Shashkin’s. The whole evening the comic actor’s dressing-room was besieged by men coming to admire the present; the dressing-room was filled with the hum of enthusiasm and laughter like the neighing of horses. If one of the actresses approached the door and asked: “May I come in?” the comedian’s husky voice was heard at once: “No, no, my dear, I am not dressed!”

After the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders, flung up his hands and said: “Well what am I to do with the horrid thing? Why, I live in a private flat! Actresses come and see me! It’s not a photograph that you can put in a drawer!”

“You had better sell it, sir,” the hairdresser who was disrobing the actor advised him. “There’s an old woman living about here who buys antique bronzes. Go and enquire for Madame Smirnov . . . everyone knows her.”

The actor followed his advice. . . . Two days later the doctor was sitting in his consulting-room, and with his finger to his brow was meditating on the acids of the bile. All at once the door opened and Sasha Smirnov flew into the room. He was smiling, beaming, and his whole figure was radiant with happiness. In his hands he held something wrapped up in newspaper.

“Doctor!” he began breathlessly, “imagine my delight! Happily for you we have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra! Mamma is so happy. . . . I am the only son of my mother, you saved my life. . . .”

And Sasha, all of a tremor with gratitude, set the candelabra before the doctor. The doctor opened his mouth, tried to say something, but said nothing: he could not speak.

Auden on Shakespeare — Part One

As I mentioned in a post at the beginning of this year, 2024 has been the year of Shakespeare, and I have been reading all of his works — the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. My friend Brenda is on the journey with me.

We're getting close to the end. Ten plays left as of this writing. I'd like to say that it has all been fantastic, enjoyable, amazing, but I can't. Some of it has been painful to read. The plots can be thin and overused. The characters can be flat.

But, there is also brilliance. Words and phrases and characters and descriptions. Jealousy, outrage, revenge, love, infatuation. I have favorites — The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, probably at the top of my list. More on that once the project is complete.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share some brilliance from one of the supplemental works we've been reading to bring clarity and perspective to Will's works. It's WH Auden's Lectures on Shakespeare. Below are a few excerpts:

Regarding Richard III, Auden says that the play concentrates on an individual character: the character of a villain. He goes on to say, "There is a difference between a villain and one who simply commits a crime. The villain is an extremely conscious person and commits a crime consciously, for its own sake." Auden makes a lot of distinctions, and I always find that they make me pause and reflect. 

In his lecture about The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he closes with a provocative comment: 

"It is harder for the guilty to admit guilt and accept forgiveness than for the innocent to forgive. Many promising reconciliations have been wrecked because both sides were ready to forgive, but neither side was ready to be forgiven."

Love's Labour's Lost is a play he thinks is "not the greatest of Shakespeare's plays," and I agree. One of the fascinating asides in his lecture is about sight:

"Sight is the most intellectual of the senses: you can see possibilities, your sight is under the control of your will, it is the organ of choice. Eve saw the apple was good to eat. The lower senses are innocent — guilt and love are conveyed by the eye. Sight is active, hearing obedient. Iconographically, the Virgin Mary in the Annunciation is represented as conceiving through the ear."

When discussing A Midsummer Night's Dream, Auden said the following about myth:

"Myths present an analogous fusion of accident and substance. The use of myths. A myth must have universal applicability, otherwise it becomes a private symbol, and the universal experience must be one to which the individual is related in a unique way — either intermittently, or happily or unhappily. There is no need for a myth on the law of gravity, since we all behave under its influence in the same way, but there is a need for a myth on the experience of falling in love, because its effects are unique."

About the Sonnets, he asks: "Why should so much poetry be written about sexual love and so little about eating — which is just as pleasurable and never lets you down — or about family affection, or about the love of mathematics?" Well...

He goes on to say, "Falling in love is the discovery of what "I exist" means."

It's not uncommon for Auden to go in a very unexpected direction. When discussing Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, he decides to talk about fat...

"Why do people get fat? — because they eat humble pie as their food and swallow their pride as their drink. What does drink do? It destroys the sense of time and makes one childlike and able to return to the innocence one enjoyed before one had sex. Why do people get fat? "Getting the wind up": men imitate pregnancy in fatness, which is a symbol for the young child and a pregnant mother. The Greeks thought of Narcissus as a slender youth, but I think they were wrong. I see him as a middle-aged man with a corporation, for, however ashamed he may be of displaying it in pubic, in private a man with a belly loves it dearly — it may be an unprepossessing child to look at, but he's borne it all by himself."

So many nuggets like that one. Sometimes I just laugh out loud.

For Julius Caesar, Auden embarks on a discussion of groups:

"Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene. First things in Shakespeare are always important. There are three types of groups of people: societies, communities, and crowds. A society is something I can belong to, a community is something I can join, a crowd is something I add to."

In his lecture on As You Like It, he quotes Goethe — "Es bidet tin Talent such in Der Still, / Sich pin Character in dem Strom Der Welt," talent builds itself in quietness, character in the stream of the world.

To read Shakespeare and have Auden in your ear is a wonderful experience. We've also been reading Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, which is more historical but also very illuminating.

Perhaps some of these quotes don't have the same effect unless you're engrossed as we are on this project of reading Shakespeare. But hopefully you'll find something here to make you stop and think. Auden does that to me over and over again.

More insights from reading Auden in an upcoming post.

Who was Ellis Bell and what was ‘his’ connection to Emily Brontë

On this day, 30 July 1818, Emily Jane Brontë was born. 

Today we celebrate her achievements – one everlasting novel and hundreds of poems.

When she began her writing career, like her sisters and many other women, she wrote under a male pseudonym – Ellis Bell. She and her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, published a book of poetry under their respected male names (Currer and Acton, for her sisters). Download a free copy here (their book of poetry is in the public domain).

 

In 1847, Emily’s only novel, Wuthering Heights, was published. It is considered to have “haunting beauty and psychological depth,” and it remains a classic of English literature. Learn more about the novel here. Download a free copy here (public domain).

 

Like her sisters and other members of her family, Emily died of tuberculosis in 1848. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë were published posthumously in 1923. Available here (public domain).

 

Modern Odyssey Books recently published a literature-inspired puzzle book titled In Search of the Brontë Sisters. Discover Emily, her novel, and her poems (and her sisters) and have fun with word search and cryptograms. The books are currently available across all Amazon global marketplaces (for US: here; UK: here).

 

"Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy."

 

Below is one of Emily’s poems, titled A Daydream. Take a moment to read and enjoy and celebrate this inventive young woman from another time.

 

A Daydream

By Emily Brontë

 

 On a sunny brae alone I lay

 One summer afternoon;

 It was the marriage-time of May,

 With her young lover, June.

 

 From her mother's heart seemed loath to part

 That queen of bridal charms,

 But her father smiled on the fairest child

 He ever held in his arms.

 

 The trees did wave their plumy crests,

 The glad birds carolled clear;

 And I, of all the wedding guests,

 Was only sullen there!

 

 There was not one, but wished to shun

 My aspect void of cheer;

 The very gray rocks, looking on,

 Asked, "What do you here?"

 

 And I could utter no reply;

 In sooth, I did not know

 Why I had brought a clouded eye

 To greet the general glow.

 

 So, resting on a heathy bank,

 I took my heart to me;

 And we together sadly sank

 Into a reverie.

 

 We thought, "When winter comes again,

 Where will these bright things be?

 All vanished, like a vision vain,

 An unreal mockery!

 

 "The birds that now so blithely sing,

 Through deserts, frozen dry,

 Poor spectres of the perished spring,

 In famished troops will fly.

 

 "And why should we be glad at all?

 The leaf is hardly green,

 Before a token of its fall

 Is on the surface seen!"

 

 Now, whether it were really so,

 I never could be sure;

 But as in fit of peevish woe,

 I stretched me on the moor,

 

 A thousand thousand gleaming fires

 Seemed kindling in the air;

 A thousand thousand silvery lyres

 Resounded far and near:

 

 Methought, the very breath I breathed

 Was full of sparks divine,

 And all my heather-couch was wreathed

 By that celestial shine!

 

 And, while the wide earth echoing rung

 To that strange minstrelsy

 The little glittering spirits sung,

 Or seemed to sing, to me:

 

 "O mortal! mortal! let them die;

 Let time and tears destroy,

 That we may overflow the sky

 With universal joy!

 

 "Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,

 And night obscure his way;

 They hasten him to endless rest,

 And everlasting day.

 

 "To thee the world is like a tomb,

 A desert's naked shore;

 To us, in unimagined bloom,

 It brightens more and more!

 

 "And, could we lift the veil, and give

 One brief glimpse to thine eye,

 Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,

 BECAUSE they live to die."

 

 The music ceased; the noonday dream,

 Like dream of night, withdrew;

 But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem

 Her fond creation true.

Latest Pages of April 1st on July 4th

Below are a few recent pages out of the April 1st Project.

But first an excerpt of the description of Woolf Works — a ballet about Virginia Woolf that focuses on Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves — and the inspiration behind it.

For one thing, Woolf herself was fascinated by dance and absorbed aspects of its language into her own creative process to generate writing that was rooted in feeling and the body, as much as in the brain. She famously wrote parts of The Waves while listening to Beethoven on the gramophone and, writing to Vita Sackville-West in 1922, she argues that literary style is ‘all rhythm… Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far far deeper than words’. 

Then, of course, there is the way that her fiction shifts the focus from the outer details of life to the rich inner narrative unfolding continuously within the mind; she plunges us into a world in which events are strung together thematically rather than chronologically, and the fabric of emotion and sensation appears denser than the brittle world of objects. All of this might be seen as the natural territory of dance. ‘The “book itself”’, Woolf argued, ‘is not form which you see, but emotion which you feel’ – and it is certainly true that no other writer’s work reads, sounds or feels like hers.

Woolf’s modernism, moreover, was founded on a deep engagement with other art forms. Apart from dance, she drew on painting, photography, music, film, even astronomy – and it is partly this multi-dimensionality that lends her writing its apparently limitless virtuosity, and makes her world so heightened, vivid and all-encompassing.

Now for the pages:

 

Keeping Things Whole

A lovely poem for this day:

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Yesterday's Sunset

 

Holes

I recently read the Young Adult (YA) novel titled Holes. What a delight! It's the story of a wrongly convicted boy who must attend a camp as part of his sentence. It's a fast read with a tightly written plot and a great sense of humor. I found that the past was hidden in the present, what seems obvious isn't, and what isn't obvious really is. There is much to love -- friendship, determination -- and much to make you cringe -- cruelty, adversity. But ultimately it will leave you with a smile.