January 26, 2012
Alexander Historiatus
There must be a person somewhere at Gloucestershire's library headquarters who knows my name by heart at this point. That same person which regularly must say "Which odd, never borrowed before book do I have to go search the reserve stock for this time?". Well, Alexander Historiatus - A Guide to Medieval Illustrated Alexander Literature has a clean bill of borrowings judging by that front page pasted sheet for inserting return dates library books used to have before electronic tags.
Just when I was wondering how up to date this book published in 1963 is, I found "From Alexander to Jesus" through Anthony of Time's Flow Stemmed. It promises to be a great follow up to Historiatus which is mainly an inventory of manuscripts. Considering my knowledge of Alexander's mythology - a very different and rather more entertaining affair than historical fact - was close to nil, I'm happy to consider Historiatus as the ultimate source for now. Other than tracing the literary genealogy of the myths and its iconography, all this book gives me is a list of manuscripts and the libraries that hold them which means there is a lot of room for further readings and picture hunting. I might as well jot down some notes here.
The author, D. J. A. Ross, identifies the Greek manuscripts of the Romance of Alexander by Pseudo-Callisthenes going back to the third century AD as the main source for the Alexandrian legend and he proceeds to describe the main lines of transmission which originated versions of these stories, sometimes with local color added to it, in such places as Armenia, Spain, Syria, France, Germany, the Balkans and Russia (and by the author's own admission leaving out a myriad of asian and middle eastern variations on the stories). The origin of most of western Europe's accounts is Historia de Prellis Alexandri Magni by Bishop Leo of Naples in the mid tenth century which is an interpolated version of the Romance and evolved to include a number of other texts like the letters between Aristotle and Alexander, Orosius Historiarum Adversum paganos libri septem, Pseudo-Methodius, etc.
Ross ventures that the original picture cycle which was supposed to illustrate the original Greek manuscript of Pseudo-Callisthenes survived in Greek, Armenian and Latin illuminated versions and fragments or, at the very least, these illustrations were created as far back as the fourth century AD as two scenes from the cycle can be traced to mosaics from villa Soueidié in Baalbek, Lebanon, from that century (now housed in the National Museum in Beirut).
Source: Yewco on Flickr.
The same author wrote an article interpreting the mosaics by using the Romance of Alexander as his source for the iconography*. The first scene in the mosaics reflects Chapter X of Book I by Pseudo-Callisthenes where Alexander's mother Olympias is impregnated by the exiled Egyptian pharaoh Nektanebos disguised as an astrologer who convinces her to have intercourse with him by pretending he is actually the god Ammon and by mutating into a snake (very phalic, no?). In order to avoid Philip of Macedonia's wrath at arriving home from his battles and finding his wife pregnant, he magically sends Philip a message in a dream telling him a God is the father of his son and that his wife is not to blame. Later, Philip does doubt Olympia's fidelity and Nektanebos turns into a serpent again and shows his affection to Olympia during a banquet by kissing her with his forked tongue. The medieval and renaissance versions of this story translate the snake into a dragon.
Utrecht, c. 1467, in the National Library of the Netherlands (source: renzodionigi)
*****
A few of the episodes of Alexander's life are derived from the Jewish tradition: Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, the enclosing of Gog and Magog and the enclosing of the 10 tribes of Israel variation, the tale of the wonderstone and the visit to earthly paradise.
The tale of the visit to Jerusalem is already in the Jewish antiquities of Josephus and made its way into Historia de Prellis: Alexander, by honoring the high-priest and exempting the Jews from taxation found favor with God who let him conquer Persia.
Faicts et conquestes d’Alexandre de Jean Wauquelin : Arrivée d’Alexandre à Jérusalem. Willem Vrelant, c. 1467, Paris, Petit Palais, ms Dutuit 456, f. 140v.
Josephus identified the evil peoples Gog and Magog - who, according to Ezekiel will ravage the earth with Satan - with the Scythians. Alexander built a wall or a gate to enclose these peoples until the end of the world.
The enclosing of the ten tribes of Israel is a variation on the previous tale where the tribes are enclosed for apostasy and it's the invention of Petrus Comestor on his Historia Scolastica which was a very popular book.
Faicts et conquestes d’Alexandre de Jean Wauquelin : Enfermement de Gog et Magog. c. 1448-1450, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms Fr. 9342, f. 131v.
Alexander is supposed to have visited Earthly paradise where his emissaries were given a stone carved with a human eye. It's impossible to weigh this stone unless it's covered in dust. Only then a feather will outweigh it (or two coins in another version).
Cod. Pal. germ. 336, fol. 149r, Bibliotheca Palatina, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
******
From the Germans come the adventures of Alexander in scientific research: flying and deep sea diving which eventually made their way to the French and Italian versions. The submarine adventure in particular is rather contrived. Alexander goes down to the bottom of the sea on a glass diving-bell taking with him a rooster, a cat and a dog (optional in some versions). The rooster lets him know if it's day or night, the cat's breathing purifies the air and the dog, well, the dog Alexander kills to get back to the surface as the sea won't tolerate a corpse in it. There is a chain for lowering and lifting the diving bell which, depending on the version, gets dropped to the bottom of the ocean either because of the treachery of Alexander's enemies or because his wife is convinced by her lover to do so.
"Le Livre et la vraye histoire du bon roy Alexandre". Roy.20.B.XX.fol.77 v, The British Library, London, Great Britain
"Le Livre et la vraye histoire du bon roy Alexandre". Roy.20.B.XX.fol.77 v, The British Library, London, Great Britain
*****
* Olympias and the Serpent: The Interpretation of a Baalbek Mosaic and the Date of the Illustrated Pseudo-Callisthenes, D. J. A. Ross, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , Vol. 26, No. 1/2 (1963), pp. 1-21
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (1)
January 24, 2012
Snapshot
Listening to the very civilized FIP and Monocle 24 radio stations.
Watching old french movies ever since finding out about the fabulous Dimitri Kirsanoff's Ménilmontant from 1926 (which means I should pay more attention to Pauline Kael who named it her favorite movie of all time). Fantastic camerawork and editing. Unusually subtle acting. Narration so perfect it can do without intertitles. So poetic. So well done. I am a fan. Jean Gremillon's Maldone. Rewatching Renoir's The Rules of the Game. René Clair. And so forth.
R has been practicing his jazz chords on the resuscitated piano.
I have been dueling with German grammar.
Planning to visit out of the way lakes in Wales.
Playing Hive. Perfect strategy board game for two.
Missing a Lisbon that doesn't exist. Before the burning down of the building holding childhood Christmas memories. Missing a time before I was born when, for once in their lives, the inhabitants of that silly little rectangle by the sea took matters in their own hands.
(always trying to spot my father in the crowds in these '74 revolution photos with no success)
Visiting Salisbury Cathedral and out of the way pubs serving underrated British food. That would be theBeckford Arms in Wiltshire. Behind it stood William Beckford's folly or Fonthill Abbey, the remains of which are in private property and unreachable to us common hikers.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
January 17, 2012
Read, read, read
El Mármol by César Aira
Too wacky for me. The narrator, a retired left wing man with the usual hangups, finds himself in an adventure with a Chinese young man inside a Chinese shop with extra-terrestrial life and multiple dimensions thrown in. The most interesting part was the narrator's questioning of his left wing egalitarianism when he catches himself making racist comments. Which came right after I had remarked it to myself.
******
De la elegancia mientras se duerme by Vizconde de Lascano Tegui
This is the favorite of this recent batch. The self-styled Vizconde hobnobbed with the parisian bohemians in the 20's and it shows. It's a sort of diary/autobiography of a murderer but written like nobody could write it today - and even then a pedophilic bit had an addendum by the typographer protesting same. No fears, no compunctions. Death and sex. Savage and poetic at the same time. Here's an excerpt which doesn't add to the story other than establishing the narrator as outside society norms:
I saw the two white she-goats once more. One of them was looking at me. She has eyes like a young woman's. The afternoon was filled with silence and I felt a goat inside me who understood her. Goats are the animals closer to me and I couldn't help but return that gaze and start approaching the more comely of the two - whose pink udder is a woman's breast.
******
Selections from Delacroix's Journals
It's always comforting when great celebrities of the past sound so silly. Silliness is underrated.
******
The life of Berlioz by himself
After watching his opera (extremely) loosely based on Cellini's life , I read a short bio of the composer which promised to be as colorful as Benvenuto's own. And sure enough, Berlioz wrote autobiographical texts which are full of drama, exaggeration and exclamation marks.
******
Mis Dos Mundos by Sergio Chefjec
Chefjec follows the tradition of the philosophical rambling while going on a walk - I see it more as an essay than fiction - which is always such a pleasurable read if you are so inclined yourself. In this case you spend half of the book wondering where it's going and the other half where it's gone. And then you need to reread it because it's short and you can't believe how short it was despite seemingly containing details and descriptions numerous and ample enough to fill a large tome. It's the literary equivalent of fibre in your stomach: a book that expands inside your mind. And then you want to reread it again because there are bits here and there that seem to be paraphrasing other authors - Cortázar, Borges? - but you can't really narrow it down because it's all done so seamlessly. I enjoyed it greatly and the only fault I can find is that I am left wondering why does Chefjec believe he has only two worlds. I don't think he's thinking it through.
******
Au nord par une montagne. Au sud par un lac. À l’ouest par des chemins. À l’est par un cours d’eau by László Krasznahorkai
It's rather surprising how some authors are able to change their whole general theme - not just the setting for the stories but also their concerns (which they disguise as literature). Most write the same book time and time again with slight variations (Philip Roth or Paul Auster come to mind). This was my first Krasznahorkai but it seems almost impossible to relate this novel to the others that have been translated into English from what I gather from synopses and reviews. This one feels like a long new agey oriental style meditation aid - the visualize a beautiful pagoda type - and I'll readily admit that this judgment is substantially based on a very personal and profound prejudice which prevents me from taking seriously any western take on buddhism. Not that I didn't have pleasure reading it - I even dreamt of Japanese monks one night - but I'm surprised it's not being recommended in yoga classes.
******
Earthly Visions: Theology and the Challenges of Art by T.J. Gorringe
I don't understand it. It's probably my fault but it seems there is hardly any challenge in seeing God in secular paintings if you are so disposed. The joy of creation, the abundance of God's offerings, Jesus as the image of God creating the precedent for further representations of God's world, the supposed spirituality of abstract painting can be easily channeled into religion-like ecstasy, etc. Didn't finish it.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
January 11, 2012
Trimming Delacroix's 1849 Journal
Saturday, 18 January
I have been reading about an English judge who desired to live to a great age and accordingly proceeded to question every old man he met about his diet and kind of life he led. It appears that the only thing they had in common was early rising and, above all, not dozing off once they were awake. Most important
Tuesday, 27 January
This morning I received a letter announcing the death of Gericault.
Tuesday morning, 2 February
Got up about seven o'clock. I ought to do this more often.
Wednesday, 3 March
It takes a pitchfork to rouse me; I drop off to sleep when there is nothing to stimulate me.
Thursday, 4 March
Fedel came to see me at the studio and we dined together.
Sunday, 7 March
Fielding and Soulier came to the studio.
Tuesday, 16 March
Dined at Tautin's with Soulier and Fielding.
Friday, 19 March
Looked at the Goyas in my studio with Edouard. Then we saw Piron. Met Fedel. We all dined together.
Thursday, 25 March
Went to Saint-Cloud with Fielding and Soulier, and dined there. Evening at Pierret's - punch.
Saturday, 27 March
Pierret came in. Dined with him.
Sunday, 4 April
Everything tells me I need to live a more solitary life.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
January 10, 2012
On Literary Prizes
"Isn't it a necessary condition that the books which change the course of literature are, precisely, illegible at the time? Even more probable is that literary prizes have the peculiarity of not addressing the new but the contemporary, which is precisely its opposite."
--Anibal Jarkowski, in Clarín (2/1/12) on the 70th anniversary of the first edition of Borges's The Garden of Forking Paths which did not win the National Book Prize because it was "an arbitrary brain exercise" among other great things.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
January 08, 2012
Sharing
My nocturnal procedure is emerging from the search for a harmony between the barbarian and barely legible reality and its antagonist, more readable, but also more artificial for it reads the world as if everything has an explanation.
My procedure is capable of creating precursor methods. Borges’s method could be, with Gombrowicz’s, one of the closest forerunners. I recall that in Ricardo Piglia’s Crítica y ficción, he refers to Borges and talks about his theory of lineages and comments how this writer, by building the genealogy of his own oeuvre, put into practice a reading tactic that harmonized two antagonistic and very distinct Argentinian literary styles (he joined José Hernandéz and his gaucho poetry with Sarmiento) to establish the two strains on which he founded his original poetics, his innovative procedure.
Piglia concentrates on the famous story “Borges and I” and says that it is a paradigmatic piece because it is a sort of microscopic version of the great tradition of the autobiography of the artist, “with a fantastic turn, a sort of literary Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. For Piglia, Borges’s theory of lineages (Borges himself would be the point at which those lineages cross) created an extreme tension around the old dicotomy of Argentinian literature which, by having it as a given that the two writing traditions were radically opposed, made it mandatory to swear allegiance either to Hernández or Sarmiento.
Borges took a shortcut and vampirized the two, he converted himself into the two of them at the same time. Maybe he took his theory of lineages to extremes because he understood that if he opted only for one of the theories he wouldn’t attain the complexity he wished for his work. Borges, we are told by Piglia, is a populist like Hernández who believes that experience is more imporant than books but also, at the same time, somebody who lives behind the closed doors of a library and who thinks that the world is constituted solely by culture and reading: “The remarkable is that, of course, he does not solve the contradiction but instead maintains the two elements alive and present. And for that he had to invent a form, a procedure, a type of fiction which allows him to sustain the tension.”
- Vila-Matas, Chet Baker piensa en su arte (Ficción Crítica). I'm to blame for the translation but that's what VM's publishers get for not going much further than France.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
January 04, 2012
Walking up Calle de Caracas, Madrid
...
R: So "secretária" in Portuguese means both a desk and the person who works as a secretary?
C: Yes.
R: That's rather sexist for the "secretária", isn't it?
C: Well, there's "secretário" for men but in general means more of a prestigious role... so it does sound sexist.
R: I always loved the Spanish word for desk: "Escritório". Where you do your writing, your "escritos" and so "escritório". It's perfect.
C: Doesn't make any sense to me. It probably comes from the latin scriptorium which was the room where the monks copied books. The Portuguese word for "Escritório" makes more sense because it means office rather than desk. It's the place where "writing" work is done.
R: Well, office in Spanish is "oficina".
C: I suppose it has the same origin in english and in spanish. Something to do with "oficio", professional work? Anyway, "Oficina" in Portuguese means garage, where you take your car to get fixed. Or more generally, a place where manual labor is done.
R: A mechanic's garage in Spanish is "Taller".
C: Hmm. "Talher" is almost homonym and is Portuguese for cutlery.
R: I forget how to say cutlery in Spanish.
C: Good. Otherwise we could go on like this forever.
...
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (1)
January 03, 2012
Moving continents. Readings-wise.
We welcomed 2012 in Madrid. It was a perfect weekend. We are no strangers to the city and there was nothing to do but to walk aimlessly taking in the architecture and to stop randomly for vermouth here, sherry and cheese there and tapas everywhere. Museums were closed solving the problem of checking-out-all-special-exhibitions induced anxiety. On Monday the Prado graciously opened for the Hermitage exhibition - showing the most horrible Matisse I have ever seen, among other things. The mandatory hour inside La Central bookshop at the Reina Sofia - the most cosmopolitan and artistic of bookshops - yielded a nice harvest of future readings.
I had been reading English fiction to keep up with the local zeitgeist and then I realized I don't give a flying fuck about the local zeitgeist. Pardon me for the expletive but it's still milder than the sentiment. Last year I got sucked into reading the Hare with Amber Eyes - I hated it with a passion - so I should have known better than attempt to read any books recommended on best of 2011 lists. Well, stupidly, a couple of recommendations on the TLS got me to Philip Hensher's The King of the Badgers*. That intellectual disaster coupled with Enrique Vila Matas erudite "critical fiction" in "Chet Baker piensa en su arte" made me realize I am wasting my time with anglo fiction. Too much storytelling, not enough introspection. Too much creative writing techniques that aren't even that creative. In short, not enough Art. Not enough Beauty. Not enough Philosophy.
Vila Matas talks about trying to find a path for the novel which sits somewhere between Joyce's Fineggan's Wake, the beautiful and daring unreadable, and Simenon's Hire, quality writing that follows conventions. So, literature that is both artistic and readable. He spends pages and pages commenting on Sergio Chefjec's "Dos Mundos" as an attempt to achieve just that. I had never heard of Chefjec and, somehow, reading reviews and biographies I ended up with Aira and Saer on my to-read list. Quevedo was overdue, recommended by Borges. I can read all these in their original language. What was I thinking wasting my time with badgers?
I was going to inaugurate the Argentinian season with Aira but R snatched it. He says Aira writes like Murakami. I guess he means well written, bordering the surreal trash.
(next stop: old french authors I somehow missed - in french!)
(problem: I love german literature and always stop myself from reading it by conjuring up the fantasy that, some day, my german will be good enough to read in the original. High time to do something about that?...)
*****
*I'm hoping it's an ironic novel. It's a portrait of contemporary England taken from the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. It's a long succession of tabloid stereotypes: constant fear of crime, pedophiles who are random strangers and kidnap your kids and keep them in basements, council housing people being involved in fraud, brown skinned people selling drugs, gay couples having sex and drugs orgies despite the "normalcy" of being able to get married, dishonest italians, hot gay brazilians, english housewives being pimped by their husbands for free sex, people living above their means and blaming the bankers for not being able to pay mortgages, rude teenagers, american academics on holidays disguised as research projects. The drugs of choice, the slang, the preoccupations are so of today and of such a tiny geographic importance that the novel will be dated quickly. Like the tabloids.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
December 29, 2011
Christmas
I was sitting down at the table reading the Book of Disquiet while my father dozed off in the couch after a mostly sleepless night of wandering around from room to room in the apartment. I saw his eyes slowly opening and the barely perceptible glint of curiosity in them when he saw me. Unexpectedly, he gingerly stood up and gently snatched the book I had closed down, using my finger as a bookmark. He paged through it, quickly lost interest, and his face brightened up with recognition when he saw the photo on the cover. He said "It's Fernandinho!" as if Pessoa had been his childhood pal or a beloved family member.
Appropriately, I was reading a passage where Pessoa - or Bernardo Soares, his lonely, philosophical heteronym - was saying that to live is to be a new person every day. If you feel like you felt yesterday, you are not feeling at all: you are merely remembering how you felt. Pessoa means well and he's got a good point but he obviously never sat in the same room as somebody with dementia. I was also thinking what an interesting literary illustration to a chapter on Kahneman's "Thinking, fast and slow" - which I just finished reading - the passage is. Kahneman talks about how we have a "remembering self" and an "experiencing self" and how we rely so much more on the former - a study cited showed that most people would go through an important surgery with no anaesthetic if promised that they would have no memory of it. Kahneman says something like memories are all we have from the experience of living and therefore we confuse the memory with the experience itself: a cognitive illusion. Since memories themselves are subject to biases, the decisions we make based on them might be flawed and not lead to our own best interests.
It was almost lunch time and the subject of food - or maybe the hunger is spur enough- is one of the few that my father still has any initiative about. But his brain is like a TV set with all the channels jumbled and showing simultaneously, layered on the same screen. I can divine his intentions from habit and intonation but every sound and image interferes with his speech and what comes out of his mouth is a mish mash of short term memory references and words distantly associated with the subject he wants to approach: "Let's go talk to mother and see if she wants to go carve Fernando Pessoa", he said.
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (3)
December 13, 2011
Readin' and watchin'
Handwritten volume 1 of Jane Austen's works at the Bodleian.
Death comes to Pemberley by PD James. So much fun. I read (or re-read) all of Jane Austen's in the past year and was hoping for that headline, you know, the same one I hope to hear about Shakespeare someday: "Treasure trove of author's manuscripts found in grandma's attic." It starts out almost pitch perfect and then loses the Austenite turn of phrase midway, time by which it doesn't matter anymore because you're in the middle of the whodunnit.
The folding star, Alan Hollinghurst. I'm on a Hollinghurst binge. This one's a uninhibited Death in Venice except it takes place in Belgium and there's no death. With the standard Hollinghurst fictional biography of an older gay man thrown in.
Allegory and the Migration of Symbols, Rudolf Wittkower. Essays. Iconography is always entertaining. Didn't know about Carracci's divinarelli pittorici (visual riddles):
(a builder behind a wall showing top of head and trowel, a capuchin monk in his pulpit bending down to take a breath in the middle of his sermon, a knight jousting with his lance behind a wall, a blind man begging right around a corner with his alms box and stick showing.)*
The Bayeux Tapestry by Carola Hicks. I wanted a long description of the tapestry and a short history of it but this book is the precise opposite. Learned there is a 1885 replica of the tapestry in the Reading museum which is only a 1 hour train ride away. That will save me a bit of time.
(I've been meaning to keep a cinema diary but I always forget about it)
The Cave of Dreams, Werner Herzog. Where can I get a print of those beautiful 30'000 year old paintings of lions? I'm not sure I care much about having this movie shot by Herzog - it gives it a quirky feel but that's all. Given the quality of the subject matter, I'd be amazed by any cheapie discovery channel doc about the Chauvet caves.
George Harrison Living in the Material World by Scorsese. Rather odd. George Harrison is not the stuff of legend but then I realized his wife was the producer. Put off by all the new agey superficiality. Surprised - that's unfair but, you know, sports celebrities and all that - by Jackie Stewart's insights. Terry Gilliam looking very non star struck and the only one to point out the irony of calling Harrison an anti-materialist when on his dying days he was buying a house in Switzerland to avoid taxes. I resent having the editing done as if the subject matter is so well known that you need not to give the viewer any other information about the clips they're watching (also, I entertain this hope that in a hundred year's time no one will know who the Beatles were but Yoko Ono will be hailed as a great conceptual artist.)
Filme Socialisme, Godard. I have no idea what was that about. Maybe a long piece of video art. Best line I've heard in a while (maybe it's a quote like most dialogue in the film is) was when the little kid who is painting something we can't see replies to the lady asking him what is he doing: "I'm welcoming a bygone landscape". Than it turns out he's painting a Renoir.
*image and description stolen from:
Annibale Carracci and Invenzione: Medium and Function in the Early Drawings
Clare Robertson
Master Drawings , Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 3-42
Published by: Master Drawings Association
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1554287)
Posted by claudia Permalink | Comments (0)
