Book Review: Vienna by Eva Menasse

Looking back on the twentieth century, the family histories of most Europeans are full of tragic moments. There was World War One to begin with, but as we know the disaster far from ended there! Mutual hostility continued to smoulder between nations and then the Great Depression swept over the Atlantic to Europe making people crave for (non-existent) quick and simple solutions to recover economic prosperity and a feeling of strength, not to say worth. Power-hungry, artful and charismatic demagogues seized the opportunity. Fascism took root on the continent and under the leadership of Adolf Hitler it merged with Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. This is where the novel Vienna by contemporary Austrian writer Eva Menasse begins. In humorous anecdotes spanning the decades from the 1930s to the present it recounts the story of the author’s father and his Jewish-Catholic family that is inextricably linked to the Austrian capital as their place of origin.

Poetry Revisited: Moonset by Emily Pauline Johnson

Moonset

(from Flint and Feather: 1912)

Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,
That waking murmur low,
As some lost melody returning stirs
The love of long ago;
And through the far, cool distance, zephyr fanned.
The moon is sinking into shadow-land.

The troubled night-bird, calling plaintively,
Wanders on restless wing;
The cedars, chanting vespers to the sea,
Await its answering,
That comes in wash of waves along the strand,
The while the moon slips into shadow-land.

O! soft responsive voices of the night
I join your minstrelsy,
And call across the fading silver light
As something calls to me;
I may not all your meaning understand,
But I have touched your soul in shadow-land.

Emily Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)
Canadian writer and performer

Book Review: They Were Counted by Bánffy Miklós

The twentieth century before World War One is widely known as the belle époque although already at the time those willing to see could make out the signs of looming disaster. Then just like today, the vast majority preferred to block out forebodings of a ghastly future and went on with their lives as if what was to come were none of their business. The once celebrated and then long forgotten Hungarian classic They Were Counted by Bánffy Miklós shows Hungaro-Transylvanian nobility indulging in balls, hunting parties, horse races, gambling, political discussions, amorous adventures, duels, and voyages abroad. While young Count Bálint Abády represents his district in Hungarian Parliament in Budapest and runs after his married youth friend Adrienne, his sensitive cousin and gifted musician László Gyerőffy falls a victim to unhappy love and to the temptations of Bohemian life, most importantly gambling for high stakes.

Back Reviews Reel: April 2014

My reads of three years ago were quite diverse as regards the genre, while they were set in Europe – Albania and France – and the Americas – Brazil and the USA – respectively. I started into April 2014 with the coming-of-age classic The Three Marias by Brazilian author Rachel de Queiroz that was so daring when it came out in 1939 that it caused quite a scandal although by today’s standards it’s more than decent. The next book on my review list was the historical novel Broken April by contemporary Albanian writer Ismail Kadaré that brought me to the remote highlands of the Western Balkans in the 1920s where ancient rules still determined the lives of people and called for bloody family vendettas. To follow the awakening to true life of a fifty-year-old concierge in modern-day Paris who is the protagonist of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by French novelist Muriel Barbery was certainly more peaceful and philosophical. It’s one of my all-time favourites. Finally, I also read a satire that felt very topical although it first appeared in 1922, namely Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis who was the first US-American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Poetry Revisited: An Easter Rhyme by Barcroft Boake

An Easter Rhyme

(from The Bulletin: 7 May 1892)

Easter Monday in the city—
          Rattle, rattle, rumble, rush;
Tom and Jerry, Nell and Kitty,
          All the down-the-harbour “push,”
Little thought have they, or pity,
          For a wanderer from the bush.

Shuffle, feet, a merry measure,
          Hurry, Jack and find your Jill,
Let her—if it give her pleasure—
          Flaunt her furbelow and frill,
Kiss her while you have the leisure,
          For tomorrow brings the mill.

Go ye down the harbour, winding
          ‘Mid the eucalypts and fern,
Respite from your troubles finding,
          Kiss her, till her pale cheeks burn,
For to-morrow will the grinding
          Mill-stones of the city turn.

Stunted figures, sallow faces,
          Sad girls striving to be gay
In their cheap sateens and laces.
          Ah! how different ‘tis to-day
Where they’re going to the races—
          Yonder—up Monaro way!

Light mist flecks the Murrumbidgee’s
          Bosom with a silver stain,
On the trembling wire bridge is
          Perched a single long legged crane,
While the yellow, slaty ridges
          Sweep up proudly from the plain.

Somebody is after horses—
          Donald, Charlie or young Mac—
Suddenly his arm he tosses,
          Presently you’ll hear the crack,
As the symbol of the cross is
          Made on ‘Possum’s steaming back.

Stirling first! the Masher follows,
          Ly-ee-moon and old Trump Card,
Helter skelter through the shallows
          Of the willow-shaded ford,
Up the lane and past the “gallows,”
          Driven panting to the yard.

In the homestead, what a clatter;
          Habits black and habits blue,
Full a dozen red lips patter:
          “Who is going to ride with who?”
Mixing sandwiches and chatter,
          Gloves to button, hair to “do,”

Horses stamp and stirrups jingle,
          “Dash the filly! won’t she wait?”
Voices, bass and treble, mingle,
          “Look sharp, May, or we’ll be late;”
How the pulses leap and tingle
          As you lift her featherweight!

At the thought the heart beats quicker
          Than an old Bohemian’s should,
Beating like my battered ticker
          (Pawned this time, I fear, for good).
Bah! I’ll go and have a liquor
          With the genial “Jimmy Wood.”

Barcroft Boake (1866-1892)
Australian bush poet

Book Review: Celebration in the Northwest by Ana María Matute

To give way to feelings of inferiority and fear, to envy and ill will, to hatred and malice is never a good idea because it leads straight into a life of ever growing misery. Once caught in the vicious circle of such harmful emotions, it’s difficult to break out and to see the good in life or other people. Often the seed for a negative view of the world – and lifelong unhappiness – is planted in the soul already in earliest childhood like in the case of the main protagonist of Celebration in the Northwest by Catalan author Ana María Matute. As a man in his mid-forties, Juan looks back on his childhood and youth, notably on the mixture of hatred and love that he felt for his half-brother Pablo who was his complete opposite in looks as well as character and whom he chased away in an attempt to make him share his misery.

New on Lagraziana's Kalliopeion: Bruges-la-morte by Georges Rodenbach

A Widower’s Grief:
Bruges-la-morte by Georges Rodenbach

Women or men who need to come to terms with the loss of a loved one are popular figures in literature. Since readers like happy endings, the grieving often find new joy, maybe even new love by the end of the story and at first this also seems to be the case in the late nineteenth-century novel Bruges-la-morte by almost forgotten Belgian journalist, poet and novelist Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898). But he was obsessed with death and so it’s little wonder that his symbolist chef-d'œuvre first published in 1892 is a thoroughly gloomy piece of prose poetry, a short Gothic novel in the vein of his contemporary Oscar Wilde. The book focuses on the melancholy scene of dead or moribund Bruges in Belgium at least as much as on the woebegone protagonist who has chosen the city to indulge in his infinite sorrow after the death of his adored wife and in keeping her memory alive.

Read more » (external link to Lagraziana's Kalliopeion)

Poetry Revisited: The Weaver of Bruges by M. M. P. Dinsmoor

The Weaver of Bruges

(from The Highland Weekly News of March 19, 1884)

The strange old streets of Bruges town
Lay white with dust and summer sun,
The tinkling goat bells slowly passed
At milking-time, ere day was done.

An ancient weaver, at his loom,
With trembling hands his shuttle plied,
While roses grew beneath his touch,
And lovely hues were multiplied.

The slant sun, through the open door,
Fell bright, and reddened warp and woof,
When with a cry of pain a little bird,
A nestling stork, from off the roof,

Sore wounded, fluttered in and sat
Upon the old man’s outstretched hand;
“Dear Lord,” he murmured, under breath,
“Hast thou sent me this little friend?”

And to his lonely heart he pressed
The little one, and vowed no harm
Should reach it there; so, day by day,
Caressed and sheltered by his arm,

The young stork grew apace, and from
The loom’s high beams looked down with eyes
Of silent love upon his ancient friend,
As two lone ones might sympathize.

At last the loom was hushed: no more
The deftly handled shuttle flew;
No more the westering sunlight fell
Where blushing silken roses grew.

And through the streets of Bruges town
By strange hands cared for, to his last
And lonely rest, ‘neath darkening skies,
The ancient weaver slowly passed;

Then strange sight met the gaze of all:
A great white stork, with wing-beats slow,
Too sad to leave the friend he loved,
With drooping head, flew circling low,

And ere the trampling feet had left
The new-made mound, dropt slowly down,
And clasped the grave in his white wings
His pure breast on the earth so brown.

Nor food, nor drink, could lure him thence,
Sunrise nor fading sunsets red;
When little children came to see,
The great white stork—was dead.

M. M. P. Dinsmoor
no information about the poet available,
maybe Mrs. Margaret Dinsmoor who wrote a poem for the
150th anniversary of Windham, New Hamphire, in 1892

Book Review: Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard

Some experiences and decisions can cast a lifelong shadow on our souls making us overly suspicious and critical of everything and everyone. Such general contempt is likely to make us unhappy and unpopular on the long run… although not necessarily. Some people who like to rant meet admiration from their surroundings, especially the cultured ones. In the Austrian novel Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard a bitter old man contemplates his bitter old friend who sits on a settee in the Viennese Kunsthistorisches Museum to contemplate a Tintoretto portrait of a white-bearded man. For over thirty years the man on the settee has been looking for a flaw in the Renaissance painting because unable to bear with the illusion of perfection he early made it his habit to find fault at everything and everyone. No great creative mind escapes his criticism and he gladly rants about them thus filling his friend with admiration.

Poetry Revisited: On Leaving Bruges by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Huidenvettersplein in Bruges via Wikimedia Commons

On Leaving Bruges

(from Ballads and Sonnets: 1881)

The city's steeple-towers remove away,

Each singly; as each vain infatuate Faith

Leaves God in heaven, and passes. A mere breath

Each soon appears, so far. Yet that which lay

The first is now scarce further or more grey

Than the last is. Now all are wholly gone.

The sunless sky has not once had the sun

Since the first weak beginning of the day.

The air falls back as the wind finishes,

And the clouds stagnate. On the water's face

The current breathes along, but is not stirred.

There is no branch that thrills with any bird.

Winter is to possess the earth a space,

And have its will upon the extreme seas.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

English poet, illustrator, painter and translator