Category Archives: literature

Nobel Prize for Literature: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. Who?

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden — France’s Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works characterized by “poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy” and focused on the environment, especially the desert….The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy’s recent picks of European authors”

I am a failure. The Swedish Academy did not select me for this year’s Nobel. To insult my pride on top of this injury—I did not know who Le Clezio was.
I am now entering crisis mode. Was Enghdal right to critique American literature as too insular? I don’t think my literature is in dialogue with Le Clezio. Maybe I could get his phone number and we could start one…
Here he is now:
“Ello?”
“Hello. Is this Mr. Le Clezio?”
“Oiu. Et vouoo are you?
“I’m an American calling. The Nobel has finally shamed me into dialogue with you. What global themes does your work embrace? Whose dick did you suck in Stockholm?–I mean, what book of yours should I read first?”
“I em not eenterested.”
“But Mr. Le Cle–“

BANG

There was no need to slam the phone with such force. Damn frogs never had any manners. I’m going to call Roth and Updike to commiserate. Seriously though, why does the Academy pick typically obscure, European writers?

Salome (A Wilde History)

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In anticipation of tonight’s opera at the Met, I am going to tell you a secret about me: I am in love with a dead gay man. It’s true; Oscar Wilde has been the man in my life long before I had a man. He wrote a biblical tragedy of all things, this decadent fop. Then Strauss turned his Salome into an opera, and that is what I am going to see tonight.

1) A Play by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde wrote Salome in 1891 in French, and an English translation came out in 1894. (Translated by Wilde, not his no good lover Bosie despite the fact the Wilde still gave him credit in the Dedication.) The play tells in one act the Biblical story of Salome, stepdaughter of Herod, who, to her stepfather’s dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Rehearsals for the play’s debut in London began, only to be banned. The play eventually premiered in Paris in 1896, but by then Wilde was in prison.

2) Illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley

An outrageously talented artist, Aubrey Beardsely had already been greatly influential prior to his death at age 26. In 1891, at age 18, he met Wilde, who was in the process of writing Salome. Wilde asked Beardsley to illustrate the English version. He was a prefect choice for both the play and for Wilde.

Beardsley “developed a perverse and playfully theatrical style partly inspired by Greek vase painting. The venomous elegance of his drawings has an ornamental rhythm akin to the abstract decorations of Islamic palaces. For Salome, Beardsley ironically appropriated the decadent theme of the evil, emasculating woman.” (From Michael Gibson, Symbolism)
Wilde, on Beardsley’s muse: as having “moods of terrible laughter”

3) An Opera by Strauss

Those in the know (and I am not referring to myself), argue that Strauss’s Salome is the first “modern” opera and his first major operatic success. Richard Strauss composed it in 1904, and wrote the libretto as well, in German. The opera’s music is supposed to be gripping–-relating the themes of perversion, evil, and cruelty.

In Production:

The New York Times had a favorable review of the Met’s production and especially of the singer in the role of Salome. The closer it is to Wilde’s original version, and to Beardsley’s striking vision, the happier I will be.

My esteemed father would like to add that, in his opinion, nobody over 50 years of age or 250 pounds should attempt the Dance of the Seven Veils.

Fit the Second: Styles and Times

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Some authors are in step with their time; others seem to write worlds outside of it. One way is not inherently better than the other. However, in Carrol one greatly enjoys his departure from Victorianism in his childs poem. While I keep reading de Quincey, I am not enjoying the way he exercises the style of his era, using it as an excuse to tell the most dull details of his childhood as a wordy confession of–nothing!
Carrol’s musical nosense is so much more than Sussical. It’s really brilliant, topsy-turvy–fun–but with harmonious internal order that extends to the logically played-out rules of his world, even if the world he depicts is going snark hunting. In some ways, his language is very caught up in the Victorian culture of his day, but his subjects and the made up vocabulary he uses to match it are outside of what we typically think of as Victorian. The stories he tells are children’s stories, and his work can be seen as a method of escape. Despite the trappings of Victorianism, it’s hatboxes and tea ceremonys and mannerly insistence on order, Carrol uses fiction as an escape valve, with the joy of a child throwing his mother’s clothes on the floor and writing on the walls in red lipstick.
Thomas de Quincy can go shove it. I slogged through another installment, and like Sysphis have slight concerns I might have to repeat the effort tommorow all for naught. This long-winded autobiography should not be entitled “Confessions of an Opium Eater”–he does not confess. I wish he would. I am distinctly uninterseted in his excellent command of Greek and his views on the manners of bishops. However, if one wants insight into the typical style of Regency England, it’s quite appropriate. It’s all Jane Austen avoided in her social satire–de Quincy would have been a tiresome bore who fancied himself quite the revolutionary. In some way, his novel inspires me. I’m going to come up with a very sensational title, then write a weather report. Maybe posterity will keep getting tricked in to reading me.