A Charming Little Tale On The Role of Language by Rushdie

The Nov. 23, 2020 issue of The New Yorker features a charming little tale by Salman Rushdie on the the role of language, and the importance of freedom of expression, in a functioning democracy. It's charming in that "language" (not any particular one) is depicted as a person of the female gender and like an actual person, can suffer certain indignities.

"She fears she may be decaying. It’s even possible—though it’s hard for her to admit this, even to herself—that she may die.

"Nobody’s listening."

"Nobody cares."

Nominally, the main character in "The Old Man in the Piazza" is an elderly individual who is first an observer of an era of strict Political Correctness when no one is allowed to say anything negative about anyone or anything.

When that era ends, people argue about everything and the old man, possibly because he has presumably been around long enough to have accumulated wisdom, becomes a popular mediator, at first reluctantly, but then with a sense of enjoyment. But, alas, his popularity becomes so great that people are afraid to disagree with him -- bringing on what is arguably a new era of Political Correctness.

At this point, Lady Language has had enough and begins to scream uncontrollably although at such a pitch no one can hear her and, gathering up her skirts, she departs the position in the piazza she has occupied for eons, at one time surrounded by young men who where presumably certain poets of an earlier age consumed by the beauty of language. But they are long gone.

The result of the exit of Lady Language: "our words fail us" and no one knows what to do about anything, including the old man, who if actually wise can't impart wisdom any more.

In the usual New Yorker interview that accompanies the publication of short stories, Rushdie says he prefers an argumentative society to that in which speech is controlled. "The ability to have such disagreements is what one might call 'freedom,'" he said, noting that this applies to all societies and that no great import should be attached to the seemingly Italian setting or to references to certain topics, such as denigration of immigrants (Rushdie being one) that appears to reference the prevailing Trump era here in the U.S.

When an Artist is a Celebrity, Role Confusion Can Result

 When an artist becomes sufficiently well known, he or she acquires an additional identify: that of a celebrity and suddenly that person's persona is as important if not more important than the art.

Such appears to have happened with respect to German artist Neo Rauch, the subject of a Nov. 11, 2020 New York Times article on a topic that has gotten a lot of interest in recent years: the apparent rise of a new right wing movement in Germany.

What triggered this was an incident last spring in which a German art historian named Wolfgang Ulrich argued that Rauch was contributing to the country's right-wing drift because Rauch had made public statements criticizing political correctness. The operative word was "statements" -- as opposed to, for instance, "paintings," which is Rauch's artistic medium.

Lets think about that for a moment.  If Rauch had not become a prestigious artist thanks to the quality of his work (The New York Metropolitan Museum has given him a solo show), no one except perhaps persons in the immediate vicinity of his remarks, would have cared in the slightest what he had said. But as a celebrity, those words were another matter.

Ulrich, the art historian, seemed to realize he was walking on thin ice because, according to the NYT article, he went on to claim that Rauch's alleged right-wing sentiments were reflected in his art as well because the surrealist worlds he creates on canvas constitute refuges from "a contemporary society he hates." In other words, there is nothing obviously and explicitly right-wing within them.

In view of his contention, one wonders if Ulrich would thus conclude that every person who plays an on-line fantasy game, often taking on another identity in the process, is doing so as a means of taking similar refuge and thus has right-wing inclinations as well?  I don't think so.

Ulrich's apparent failure to be able to point to any explicitly right-wing leanings in Rauch's paintings squares with prevailing views among art critics generally. While the paintings have been interpreted as signaling a sense of alienation, they haven't been identified as pointing in any particular political direction as an alternative.

Wikipedia, for instance, quotes art historian Charlotte Mullins as saying that while the paintings suggest a narrative intent, closer scrutiny immediately presents the viewer with enigmas: "Architectural elements peter out; men in uniform from throughout history intimidate men and women from other centuries; great struggles occur but their reason is never apparent; styles change at a whim."

According to the NYT article, Rauch's work "is known internationally for paintings that blend elements of Pop Art, Surrealism and Social Realism."  They "feature dream-like groupings of figures in garish colors, assembled into horrific or comic scenes."

An example is below:

 

A couple of years ago, Rauch told a major German newspaper he objected to political correctness because it reminded him of the authoritarian regime of former Communist East Germany, where he was born. He also said everyone should be wary of the current "cancel culture" movement.

The point of all of this is: shouldn't one view the flap over Rauch's comments as more in the nature of concerns about the influences a celebrity (in our celebrity-driven culture) might have on what others think rather than anything having to do with art?

 

 

One Way To Look at Poetry -- and the Lyrics for an Aria

 The Nov. 11, 2020 New York Times has a review of "African American Poetry," as compiled by Kevin Young, currently poetry editor at The New Yorker and soon to become director of the Smithsonian's African American Museum in Washington D.C.  At present, Young also heads the New York Public Library's research center on Black culture.

Young's new anthology, at about 1,110 pages, is a roundup of poetry by African Americans over the past 250 years and, among other things, attempts to save some Black poets from obscurity.

The Times review, by Parul Sehgal, was very positive. Among other things, he said, it reads like a form of history.

What jumped out at me, however, was what might be viewed as a definition of poetry by Sehgal. To wit: "Whatever the style, whatever the shape of the vessel, the particular holding power of the poem is clear. More efficiently than almost any other form, a poem can convey a feeling of simultaneity; the past can saturate the present, the future can rear up behind us, a mood can tip between lament and praise song."

I am far from an expert on poetry -- in fact quite the reverse -- but that definition rang some bells for me because I have been attempting to write the libretto for an operetta that would be done in a neo-Baroque style. Among other things, that involves writing lyrics, generally in rhyme, for individual songs, or arias. This is in contrast to most contemporary operas which generally employ continuous music with voices coming in and out, albeit sometimes for extended periods, but generally not singing anything that can stand alone as "a song."

In the Baroque style, which emphasizes the vocal capabilities of singers first and foremost, the lyrics need to be kept very short. That means packing as much meaning or as many ideas as possible into very few words to achieve a result somewhat similar to that described by Shegal above.

Readers interested in the operetta project can check out this page on my author's website.

A New Yorker Story More About the Parents Than the Child

 The latest New Yorker short story, "Hansa, Gretyl and Piece of Shit." by Rebecca Curtis, raises more interesting questions about the parents of the chief protagonist, a young girl named Gretyl, than it does about her. She's a passive girl who tends to blame herself for anything that's wrong and as such, is not that interesting,

Some might argue that's a description of all-too-many girls, and perhaps that's the point. If so, it seems just a bit out of date.

Gretyl's parents are the key to this distressing tale, albeit one with a politically correct ending.

In a nutshell, this is a family of three daughters considerably spread out in years and by the time Gretyl is coming of age, the parents do little more than feign interest in their last offspring despite her increasingly distressed physical condition.  Gretyl's mother is into the nice things of life and her father, a pilot often away, has begun to wonder if he should start over again with a new wife who can give him a son.

Gretyl is depicted as singularly passive and accepting of her plight as an illness, now routine if quickly addressed, takes a devastating hold. Her only friend, a stray cat she secretly feeds, meets a dreadful fate, seemingly becoming a nail in Gretyl's own coffin. But they will be reunited in the afterlife, or so Gretyl eventually appears to believe.

Saved by an immigrant intruder, Gretyl also marries one and becomes a workaholic anesthesiologist not in San Francisco, but in Oakland. And as we all know, there is no there there, at least not a there one wishes upon oneself. Loyal and supportive of her criminally apathetic parents as time passes, she's depicted as a saint.

With the German fairy tale a structural device, the ending is appropriately a mostly happy one -- far too happy when it comes to Gretyl's parents.

The bottom line: Ms Curtis has a prose style well suited to story telling, but she needed a better story to tell. It did serve to remind me that it had been a while since I had listed to Englebert Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretyl" and it's beautiful "Prayer Duet." Now if only one could have come across something like this while reading the story. And hmmm -- in the opera, Hansel is generally played by a woman. Nothing new in opera, but in tune with these times of gender fluidity. perhaps Ms Curtis will consider incorporating something along those lines for her next offering.

- - - - - 

After I posted this review, I got to thinking there might be another way to look at this story. Perhaps it can be viewed as a political allegory even though Ms Curtis made no mention of that possibility in her author interview.

The backdrop is President Donald Trump's run for office in 2016 plus various subsequent statements. Central to his election campaign was a call to strictly limit cross-border immigration ("rapists and murders") and to, if possible, halt all immigration from Islamic countries. In conjunction with this, Trump was widely viewed as seeking the continuation of "white supremacy" when it comes to who controls the U.S.

In brief, the chief protagonist of the short story in question, a teenage girl named Gretyl, is near death as a result neglect by her lily white parents.  Outside, a seemingly threatening, non-white man appears to be lurking and there are reports of break-ins and robberies in the neighborhood.

But in the end, the immigrant, a man originally from Palestine, but who grew up in Kazakhstan (Islamic regions) saves Gretyl and she goes on to marry a Persian-American and, except for one thing, leads a productive life focused on helping people who are disadvantaged. 

The moral: the long-dominant white population Trump wants to preserve and protect are losers and our salvation lies with immigrants and especially, in this case, if they have an Islamic background.

Perhaps Ms Curtis could be encouraged to comment.

Black Writers Make Progress Despite "Systemic Racism"

 We've heard a lot in recent months about how the U.S. is fundamentally defined by "systemic racism" -- in other words, discrimination against non-white citizens, and especially Blacks, is baked in the cake because the country was established on that very basis despite certain idealistic postulates.

Thus, one branch of this theory goes, reform of existing institutions can't, by definition, produce equality and justice. Absent a major transfer of power, Blacks in particular can't get anywhere.

In the face of such arguments, I've been trying to see if there might be a counter-narrative, at least in the arts. Could it be that things aren't quite as bad as it is currently fashionable to depict them?

The Nov. 9, 2020, Arts section of the New York Times  has an item about a woman, who somewhat against the tide, writes short stories and is just having her second collection, "The Office of Historical Corrections" published. Replete with a photo of the author, Danielle Evans, the piece was awarded two thirds of a page.  Not bad publicity!

Ms Evans is Black and what interested me was what she had to say about that. In a nutshell, while there is still room for improvement on one front or another, a lot of progress has been made.

Asked how things have changed, Ms Evans had the following to say:

"I'm less afraid that I'll be the only Black writer that somebody reads or that there will be only one book by a writer of color each season that people are talking about. It's much more true now that you'll hear, 'Here are eight books by Black writers. Let's think about what they are saying to each other.'"

While that's good news for those unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to making America a better society, it's also good news for Ms Evans as a writer. It gives her, she said, more freedom to write about riskier, weirder material because she doesn't have to worry about being taken as representative of her race.

Where is change still needed?  In Evans view, white writers need to talk more about race and Black writers should be asked to review books written by whites, in part to point out what's missing there. 

"People of color notice absences, we notice the treatment of secondary characters, where the language gets weird. And that's useful for everybody."

There was a time -- well, it seems very naive now -- when the notion of where thing ought to go was "integration." The concept was that if discriminatory barriers could be broken down, we could all be the same despite differing skin colors, religions, whatever. Well, not anymore. Racial differences need to be noted, acknowledged in a positive fashion, explored, understood and valued.

Here's Evan's take on that when it comes to literature:

"We should be talking about race more as a function of craft -- of everybody's craft. Maybe it shouldn't be the first paragraph of every review, but it should be noted that books have a racial context. Conversations would be more interesting for it. Part of the answer is making that conversation more visible in more places, so it doesn't feel hyper-visible  when it's focused on the work of Black writers."

Moving away from race and onto the state of literary fiction, Evans believes it has a future despite many claims to the contrary.

"If I put the right story in someone's hands, it can change their life," she said. In that context, she pointed in particular to Toni Morrison's 1992 novel "Jazz."

 

The World of Art Has Abandoned Beauty and Aesthetics

 Once upon a time, beauty was a noble virtue and a philosophic ideal as opposed to a trip-wire of political correctness. Aesthetic considerations, often refined, formal and generally acknowledged if always subject to challenge, then determined what was beautiful, what was not. And the art world was the main venue where debates over relative beauty took place.

Not so much, if at all, anymore.

"Art today is less about the formal or aesthetic properties of an object than a way of talking about the intricately entangled, increasingly unstable world in which we live."  So said Ben Eastham, a London-based art critic in an essay entitled "The Case for Embracing Uncertainty in Art."

And, indeed, that quote is the only place in the entire, lengthy essay where the word "aesthetic" or "aesthetics" occurs. How about "beauty?"  That word doesn't occur at all.

Perhaps it all started in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp contributed a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt" and entitled "Fountain" to a New York art exhibition. Whatever the genesis, matters have come a long way since then, to the point where aesthetic considerations are about the last thing an art museum is likely to consider when mounting an exhibition of contemporary works. What the works, or what the artist (since the works themselves are often incomprehensible), says about society (rarely if ever anything positive), and whether the artist can be viewed as a disadvantaged minority of one sort or another, seem to be what matters most.

In other words, the world of art is today just another extension of the world of politics and social criticism. Why does it survive as such? Well, there is still a certain mystique about the whole business and a fascination over the celebrity it can bring. In addition, there is apparently still sufficient cache in acquiring works of a known-name artist as a trophy of one's wealth and power, and perhaps even as a store of value -- if a lot more questionable than, say, owning a Monet painting.

Some will, of course, be quick to point out that social commentary or overt criticism has long figured in at least some prominent works of art (Picasso's "Guernica" for example), but almost always in the past presented in a context of aesthetic principles. That, according to Eastham, has pretty much disappeared.  If that leaves viewers puzzled as to what they are seeing, or why they are seeing it, so be it, he maintains.

"Where movements have historically been defined by shared forms and subjects linked to their sponsors (church, state, merchants), the art of today can only loosely be identified by some common characteristics: it foregrounds ideas over forms and materials; borrows liberally and not always responsibly from disciplines as varied as philosophy, ecology and sociology; is preoccupied by forming connections between disparate ideas and cultures; is sceptical of received wisdoms; takes place in a globalized world; is, to quote Marshall McLuhan, “whatever you can get away with” or, to paraphrase Robert Rauschenberg, “whatever I say it is.”

So where does that leave aesthetics and beauty? Out in the cold, or as we continually see, in the enveloping arms of commerce where the nobility of beauty is devalued on a daily basis.

Humdrum-Sex, Disturbing Violence Loom Large in "Ghoul"

 Back about four years ago, when I was reading The New Yorker regularly (I stopped because I thought the magazine's coverage of the arts had significantly deteriorated), I came to realize that most of its weekly short stories were "downers."  You can read what I had to say about that here.

Well, I decided to re-subscribe and the latest short story, "Ghoul," by George Saunders, fits easily into that trend. It's unrelentingly dystopian if rather imaginatively set in an underground theme park that calls to mind Dante's "Inferno."

Asked in a New Yorker author interview whether the story has a message, perhaps as a metaphor to the current U.S. sociopolitical situation, Saunders said he didn't know what his story meant. He described it, in effect, as an exercise in writing -- an attempt to write something that will "try to get the reader to finish the story -- no easy feat -- by making each little motion of the narrative compelling."

How does he accomplish that? In large part in the tried and true manner -- heavy doses of sex and violence. Not much in the way of innovation there, but as we know, sex and violence sells -- and the New Yorker pays authors well for the stories it publishes.  

While the sex is depicted as rather casual, very open "mating" about which no one is much concerned, the violence is another story.  This theme park is run on the basis of a bunch of rules and the population (sort of a circus-performer-like tribe) is encouraged to rat on each other when transgressions take place.  As opposed to Dante, that brings to mind George Orwell and "1984." Those deemed guilty in "Goul" are kicked to death by their colleagues and friends, and one way to break the rules is to not kick hard enough.

When the chief protagonist, a man named Brian, gets involved in one of these situations, he has a bit of an awakening that Saunders identifies as perhaps the most significant moment in the tale.

“Sometimes in life the foundation upon which one stands will give a tilt, and everything that one has previously believed and held dear will begin sliding about, and suddenly all things will seem strange and new.” [Brian thinks to himself]  Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I find I’ve reached the same conclusion as Brian (aided, I’d say, by the process of writing this story): it depends. It depends on what we do next in the face of this new understanding of ourselves."  So Saunders told the New Yorker.

Readers can make of that what they will and that's the point, Saunders would say.