More on Susanna's #Me Too Moment: This Time at BAM

Having recently written about perhaps most most poignant #Me Too moment in the Bible -- well, not in every version of the Bible -- I was interested to read the following story in the May 4, 2019 New York Times: "La Susanna Topples the Patriarchy." (Click on that link if you wish to read the review.)

I wrote about Susanna's story after listening to the streamed version of Handel's oratorio of the same name as performed by Trinity Church's outstanding orchestra and chorus.

In contrast, the Times review cited above concerns a performance of the story by Heartbeat Opera and Opera Lafayette at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).  It's based on a 1681 work by Alessandro Stradella, but apparently significantly re imagined to enhance it's relevance for a contemporary audience.  Unfortunately, I am not currently in New York and won't be able to see it.

The most significant change is that in the BAM version, the young Daniel (who goes on to become an important Biblical prophet) isn't the person who saves Susanna.  After all, he is a male and having a man save a woman just won't do in the prevailing social climate. This version, according to the review, is about "a young feminist's coming into her own."

Interesting.  There is little in the Biblical version that would suggest Susanna is a feminist.

How does the BAM production stack up as "an evening out?"

"This production is meant to be a lecture. It certainly felt like one," said Joshua Barone at the conclusion of his review.

I think I'll listen to the Trinity Church version again.

Susanna's #MeToo Moment, Brought by Trinity Church

Back in the days of the Babylonian exile -- say around 550 bce -- one Jewish family is doing rather well.  Joacim, a wealthy man and his very attractive wife, Susanna, live in a prominent house with a large garden through which a stream flows and in which large trees grow.

A couple of local elders, who, among other things, help sort out disputes in the community, often carry out their duties  at Joacim's place and have become much taken with Susanna's charms.  Joacim. to carry out his business, has to travel and is sometimes away from home.

Susanna likes to bath in the garden's stream and one day sends her servants inside to find some things she needs for her ablutions.  Driven by lust, we are told, the two elders spot an opportunity, enter the garden and demand that Susanna have sex with them.  If she refuses, they will claim to have caught her committing adultery with a younger man, who then escapes, and have her put to death, Susanna is told.

When it comes to #MeToo moments, it doesn't get much worse: toxic masculinity at the top of the patriarchy.

Susanna, an exceptionally virtuous woman who lives by the laws of Moses, refuses their advances, but with no one else around, knows the community will believe the elders and she will die.

Leaving readers in suspense for the moment, I will pause to note that George Fredric Handel put Susanna's story to music in 1749  -- one of his English language oratorios that were sung, but not acted.  This was after Italian opera had fallen out of favor in London.

The very excellent baroque orchestra and choir of Manhattan's Trinity Church just put on a performance of "Susanna" in three parts, which readers can find here. Clicking on the appropriate links will stream the oratorio, part of an ongoing project by Trinity to perform all of Handel's bible-based oratorios, the most famous being "Messiah."

But back to Babylon.

Susanna is brought to public trial in which the respected elders serve as judges, prosecutors and witnesses. No one defends Susanna.  (Joacim is not specifically mentioned in the Bible as being at the trial although Susanna's children and other family members are.  In Handel's oratorio, he is depicted as hurrying home to his wife whom he believes is innocent, having heard news of the events from afar. "Is fair Susanna false? It ne're can be!" Joacim sings, with great conviction.)

But just as Susanna is condemned to death, a young man named Daniel steps forward and demands to question the elders separately as to what they saw in the garden.  When they tell him different stories -- locating the alleged act of adultery under different trees -- the assembled public sees that they are lying and rather than Susanna, they are put to death.  Just like that.

Daniel goes on to become one of the Bible's most important prophets.

The story of Susanna is a somewhat curious one as biblical scholar Jennifer A Glancy explains in her article "Susanna: Apocrypha." Interested readers can click on that link to discover why.

But what about Trinity Church's "Susanna?"  I HIGHLY recommend it!

Why Most Fiction Constitutes a Bunch of "Me Too" Books

Have you ever had the feeling that most of contemporary fiction is little more than a bunch of "me too" books? Where everyone seems to be writing more or less the same thing in any given genre?

Of course the characters have different names and different characteristics and the plots have different twists, but fundamentally the differences are not that great. Perhaps you like that: since you bought and presumably read a particular book, publishers are pretty sure your would like another that is very similar, and based on sales, that seems to be the case.

If you're an author, and would like to write something different, in most cases, you can forget it, or publish it yourself and hope to heck you are far better at marketing than you are at writing, no matter how good a writer you are.

My basis for saying this is an article called "Comping White" in a recent issue of the "Los Angeles Review of Books," by Laura B. McGrath.

While Ms McGrath was trying to determine why the American publishing industry remains dominated by white folks, her extensive study is actually just as interesting from a different perspective. Ms McGrath, by the way, is an associate director of the Stanford University Literary Lab, a research collective that applies computational criticism, in all its forms, to the study of literature. I couldn't find a definition of "computational criticism" on the Lab's website, but it appears to involve counting things up and then drawing certain conclusions, much easier to do in the digital world than previously.

Ms McGrath apparently did a great deal of counting. "The question of counting, and who counts, in literature is an important one to me," she said, conflating two meanings of the word "count."

McGrath focused on publishers' seasonal catalogs from 2013 through 2019 to figure out that has been going on in the industry, extracting in the process "metadata about 10,220 new fiction releases."

What she discovered, with the help of one editor, is that what matters most when it comes to deciding whether or not to publish a new book is whether it is comparable to existing, successful titles.  In other words, is it "me too" fiction?

"The logic is straightforward: Book A (a new title) is similar to Book B (an already published title). Because Book B sold so many copies and made so much money, we can assume that Book A will also sell so many copies and make so much money. Based on these projections, editors determine if they should pre-empt, bid, or pass on a title, and how much they should pay in an author advance. Above all, comps are conservative. They manage expectations, and are designed to predict as safe a bet as possible. They are built on the idea that if it worked before, it will work again."  So says McGrath in her LA Review of Books article.

The nature of a particular author is also a significant factor in all of this, the article says.

“You get into the type of author that somebody is, and the type of audience that they’re reaching more than you do content," McGrath quotes another editor as telling her.  In other words, if you've written a successful book, it doesn't much matter how good what you next write is. You'll get published again.  This is called "author-audience alignment." And, well, your first book probably was a success because it copied the approach of a book that was previously successful.

"Comps perpetuate the status quo, creating a rigid process of acquisition without much room for individual choice or advocacy," McGrath said, terming prevailing publishing industry practices "basically systems of exclusion."  Her point is that such practices help keep the industry racially white; my point is that even if you are white (as I am), if you don't want to write a "me too" book, forget it.

"Manhattan Morning," by the way, is not a "me too" title, and now you know what that means. You haven't read it!