Tag Archives: biography

Gorilla Aesthetics

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There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.–Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the Species

I have a gripe against Darwinism. Why did my species evolve to create buildings on cold, snowy islands like Manhattan without developing super thick skin? Or better yet, why does my species not live only on tropical islands? Yet another snow storm in progress here at Art Ravel’s shivering office. (It’s so cold the office itself is shivering.)

Darwin is everywhere. More and more books keep coming up on him. My ears now prick up at the name, since I attended a book tour lecture that links current aesthetics with our evolutionary past. (That book, too, got a mention in the New York Times.) Yet Darwinism and evolution isn’t the prickly subject it once was. Why the spout of interest?

Perhaps it’s because his 200th birthday is coming up. It may be that radical thinker Charles Darwin himself was a fascinating man, no doubt party true. However, it is also the case that biographers feel that they need to argue either that racism is inherent to Darwin’s theories or, on the contrary, that he was an abolitionist and his theories show a common origin for all mankind.

If people are still arguing about him and theories are still sprouting from his ideas, perhaps Darwin’s worth the glut of pages. I have it on good authority that The Origin of the Species is fascinating reading. Im not actually going to read it, but I thought I might put up some lovely gorilla art in Darwin’s honor. Unfortunately, there is no lovely gorilla art. (See above.)

Of Russians: Returning to Babel’s Verve

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My Russian kick (first Chekhov, then Vladimir Sorokin) has led me back to Isaac Babel, and the rogue is finally starting to get interesting. As I mentioned in a previous post, I ambitiously took out Babel’s collected short stories from the library, then found one story might have been enough for me. On a second perusal, I find his lively verve thrilling and terseness masterful.

Babel’s folksy tales are rollicking in a way Sorokin’s The Queue was not. (To The Queue‘s credit, it ended with a hilarious dialogue of sex sounds.) Babel writes the Jewish experience in Odessa in the 1920s and 30s, so he isn’t dealing with Communism as Sorokin is. Yet he critiques society in a way that suggests he must poke fun at life because he must somehow bear the status quo. These Russians attempt humor through criticism, or criticism through humor, but I’m not sure to what effect, as I haven’t laughed out loud as of yet.

I flipped through Babel’s collection again, hopping from Odessa stories to Red Calvary stories to autobiographical stories. There’s always a joke on someone by the end, and with a modicum of detail he suggest a world of characterizations. His people don’t always have great depth, but they fit in their role in society that grows increasingly complex as we read his cycles of stories. His portrait is one of Russia rather than an individual. Humble lives are transformed into red-blooded exercises in existence. What I’m trying to say is, Babel is a great storyteller.

Babel, photographed upon his arrest

Babel’s life is a story unto itself: he survived the 1905 pogrom that killed his grandfather. He became a journalist and fiction writer, only after fighting in wars and studying finance for lack of other options. He become silent under Stalin’s tightening control. Accused of being an aesthete, Babel would pay for his artistic licence (see Wikipedia article here):

After the suspicious death of Gorky in 1936, Babel noted: “Now they will come for me.” …In May 1939 he was arrested at his dacha in Peredelkino, and eventually interrogated under torture at the Lubyanka….After a forced confession, Babel was tried before an NKVD troika and convicted of simultaneously spying for the French, Austrians, and Leon Trotsky, as well as “membership in a terrorist organization.” On January 27, 1940, he was shot in Butyrka prison.

Reportedly, while Babel confessed under torture, “once he realised he was doomed, he recanted” but “it made no difference.” His last recorded words were,

“I am innocent. I have never been a spy. I never allowed any action against the Soviet Union. I accused myself falsely. I was forced to make false accusations against myself and others… I am asking for only one thing — let me finish my work.”

Annoying Annotations of a Besotted Byronite

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My recent homage to ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’ Lord Byron made clear that not only was Byron idolized as a celebrity in his time, but that I adore him myself, making him a patron saint of this blog for example. I was inspired to write that post partly by the old biography of him I found at the library. Well, this staid biography by Longford contains a discovery of a most upsetting nature! Of a nature so vile, I have been tempted to put the book down unfinished.

Some creature, of repellent handwriting and distinct ammorality, has annotated this book! Scrawled in No.2 pencil all over its margins!

“Lord Byron then went to Venice…” becomes annotated by some childish scribble such as “As he should! Pisa was far too provincial for him” (the excess of exclamation points is distinctly annoying.) This person, no doubt some susceptible very young or very old female, defends Byron against any negative charges brought against him by his peers, defends his incestuous love for his sister, defends his leaving his sick 4-year-old daughter in a nunnery to die of typhoid fever, and calls Shelley a ‘tiresome bore’! She quite obviously shows her jealously of his many mistresses, and roots for Byron to leave them all and break their hearts. She keeps saying things like, “But Byron was never a class-traitor or atheist, thank god!” Yes, thank god he was a selfish, incestuous poet who was ‘revolutionary’ but title-proud…?

So look you, o noble notater, come forward. I challenge you to a duel. Something must be done to stop your forever marking up books to turn dialogues into trialogues, and if death is the answer, so be it. I demand the satisfaction.

And you readers, if you happen to come across a female of inexplicable and strong feelings towards the sundry elements of Lord Byron’s life who is an amoral, elitist with strongly round handwriting, probably defensive of some petty title she inherited, and likely a dumpy figure and big red nose, please tell her my challenge.