‘And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.’ W.G. Sebald and Life Imitating Art
On this past Friday, an item appeared on CNN.com that caught my interest. It concerned the finding of the remains of a German mountaineer who went missing in 1986:
‘The remains of a German mountain climber who went missing 37 years ago while hiking along a glacier near Switzerland’s iconic Matterhorn have been recovered, as melting glaciers lead to the re-emergence of bodies and objects thought to be long lost.’
I was immediately put in mind of The Emigrants, a book by W.G Sebald. Sebald was himself an emigrant; originally from Germany, he had held a variety of university teaching posts in England before deciding to become a permanent resident of that country.
From Wikipedia:
‘Sebald’s works are largely concerned with the themes of memory and loss of memory (both personal and collective) and decay (of civilizations, traditions or physical objects). They are, in particular, attempts to reconcile himself with, and deal in literary terms with, the trauma of the Second World War and its effect on the German people.’
The Emigrants was first published in German in 1992. It appeared in English four years later. The book is made up of four novellas, the first of which is entitled Dr. Henry Selwyn. This is the conclusion of that first section:
‘In late July 1986 I was in Switzerland for a few days. On the morning of the 23rd I took the train from Zurich to Lausanne. As the train slowed to cross the Aare bridge, approaching Berne, I gazed way beyond the city to the mountains of the Oberland. At that point, as I recall, or perhaps merely imagine, the memory of Dr Selwyn returned to me for the first time in a long while. Three quarters of an hour later, not wanting to miss the landscape around Lake Geneva, which never fails to astound me as it opens out, I was just laying aside a Lausanne paper I’d bought in Zurich when my eye was caught by a report that said the remains of the Bernese alpine guide Johannes Naegeli, missing since summer 1914, had been released by the Oberaar glacier, seventy-two years later. And so they are ever returning to us, the dead. At times they come back from the ice more than seven decades later and are found at the edge of the moraine, a few polished bones and a pair of hobnailed boots.’
This is the visual that accompanies the CNN story:
***********************************
Ravinia: An Outstanding Experience
The Chicago Symphony was conducted by Mei-Ann Chen.
First on the program: Ethiopia’s Shadow in America, a Suite by Florence Price. If this composer’s name is new to you, I very much recommend that you seek out her story. It is a classic case of truth being more wondrous, and more fascinating, than fiction.
I doubt whether anyone in the audience had heard this music before. Judging from the applause, it was well received. I, for one, found it enchanting.
Next up: Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. The pianist was Jeremy Denk. The music was…well, it was Beethoven; no more needs to be said.
Here, the soloist is the great Mitsuko Uchida; the conductor is Mariss Jansons; he conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Now came an intermission, and now also came a rip roaring thunderstorm. The wind blew mightily, the lightning flashed. Even though we were in the pavilion, and thus had a roof over us, we got slightly wet!
However, the second half of the program continued right on time. This consisted of Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, an opulent work that is a real showcase for the orchestra. Needless to say, the CSO made the most of it.
This final movement of this symphony features the famous Fanfare for the Common Man. As I was searching YouTube for this piece, I was astonished and greatly gratified to find a film of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in 1985. Aaron Copland himself was in the audience! (He may be seen at the 0:30 second mark.)
Should you wish to listen to the symphony in its entirety, this is the YouTube version that Ron was able to locate for me:
I’d like to recommend this survey of the available recordings of this symphony. Dave Hurwitz is a genial and extremely knowledgeable presenter; Ron has been following him for quite some time:
One of the joys of last night’s performance was the enthusiasm of the audience. Jeremy Denk received an instant standing ovation! And deep appreciation was expressed for this brilliant, world renowned orchestra and the evening’s charismatic, superb conductor.
Throughout the Copland symphony, the thunderstorm was raging. The Copland work has lots of assertive tympany, but at times it seemed as though the orchestra and Mother Nature were duking it out!
A word about the venue: We were impressed, not to say amazed, by the beauty of Ravinia. Gorgeous plantings and decorative features were frequently encountered:
A truly memorable evening.
‘How easy it is to fall in love with a dog. You just do. They make you.’
One of the unexpected and delightful pleasures of our current location is the frequent appearance of small dogs. Many of the residents here are dog owners, and the courtyard that our unit backs onto is a favorite place to walk and exercise these little ones.
A gentleman walking his schnauzer is a frequent sight. I appreciate the way in which he accompanies his canine friend, always pausing when necessity demands, and waiting patiently.
In our former neighborhood, there were many dogs of all sizes, but I was dismayed by the sight of their humans glued to their phones as they walked, paying little or no attention to their pets.
Another frequent visitor to the courtyard is a very cute, very lively beagle. Name: Snoopy, of course!
Recently, a very small denizen has been making the scene. Chihuahua? Not sure. He looks something like this:
There’s a really neat little fellow that we often encounter in the library. Once again, I’m not sure of the breed, but he looks quite a bit like this little one:
His name is Rambo!
*************************
The title of this post is a quote from The Rescue by T. Jefferson Parker. I’m half way through this wonderful novel and I wish it would go on forever.
“His passion for art is beyond all reason, a tormented love, like Tristan and Isolde, that won’t be fulfilled or diminish.” – The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel
From roughly 1994 to 2001, Stéphane Breitwieser stole more than two hundred art objects from various small museums throughout western Europe. His efforts were aided and abetted by his innamorata Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus. Together they roamed the small treasure houses of Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and France, seeking out the works of art that possessed a special appeal.
Michael Finkel tells a fascinating story. The plot is extremely involving, as are the author’s forays into Breitwieser’s psychology. Above all, this is the story of a compulsion run amok. The chief architect of this unmitigated disaster is funded by his mother and his grandparents. Money is no object; in fact, he never sells the pieces he steals. He wants only to lie in bed with Anne-Catherine and gaze upon their purloined treasures, artfully displayed in their bedroom redoubt on the top floor of his mother’s house.
The Art Thief is subtitled ‘A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession.’ It is indeed dangerous, and not just for the thieves – also for the precious material that has been looted.
Here are some of the objects that fell victim to Breitwieser’s unstoppable rampage through Europe’s gem-like (but alas, poorly secured) small treasure houses:
And of course, the image on the book’s cover: The Sleeping Shepherd by Francois Boucher:
I was mesmerized by this book. Highly, highly recommended.
MAM – or, there’s more to Milwaukee than beer and brats
Boy, is there ever….
Drum roll: The Milwaukee Art Museum.
Outside:
Inside:
Easily the most astounding edifice I’ve since…well, since I don’t know when.
Another picture of the lobby area – no, scratch that prosaic descriptor – it is Windhover Hall. At its peak, it is 90 feet high.
Ninety feet!! And several times a day, a portion of that huge roof – called the Burke Brise Soleil – opens and closes, like enormous wings:
The museum backs up onto Lake Michigan:
To get to the galleries – Oops, almost forgot about them! – you walk down a long hallway:
At intervals there are objets d’art, placed on the right, so that the light from the lakeside illuminates them. Below is one that I particularly liked:
As for the collection, it was quite appealing although not exactly revelatory – just right, in other words, for a midsize art museum. I didn’t actually see much of it, as I mainly stayed on Level One. (There are four floors and over forty galleries.) Of course I was delighted to see works from the nineteenth century, Old Masters, and the items that date from ancient times:
**********
Please forgive a digression here. It has been made necessary by the appearance in this narrative of Gerrit van Honthorst. Honthorst was a skilled and zealous follower of Caravaggio. He was so good at it that for many years a painting attributed to him turned out to actually be by Caravaggio himself. A years long search for this work had borne no fruit until 1993, when…But wait, I won’t explain any more in this space, but I strongly urge you to read Jonathan Harr’s terrific book The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece.
The work in question is The Taking of Christ, dated about1602.
I liked the contemporary pieces more than I expected to – some of them, anyway:
This was fun:
Oh, and give this guy a wide berth. Even though he’s got his eye on you…
Plenty of people did a double take when they saw this ‘man,’ myself included.’
There’s a lovely cafe on the lower level. You can exit from there right onto the walkway along the lake. The cafe featured blueberry muffins which were themselves works of art. I had two!
The only disappointment was the Museum Store. It could use a better selection of books and jewelry.
The architect / engineer responsible for this astonishing structure is Santiago Calatrava. Have a look at his Wikipedia page. He is truly a master of the Marvelous.
Review: The Lock-up by John Banville
Prior to this one, I’d already read several titles by this highly esteemed Irish author. One was Christine Falls, a mystery, written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black; the other was The Sea, winner of the Booker Prize for 2005.
At the time, I didn’t find either title especially memorable, but I’ve been intrigued by the reviews The Lock-up was getting. The novel is set in post World War Two Ireland. There’s a Jewish element in the story, and I admit that’s always a hook for me.
The book gets off to a promising start: Rosa Jacobs, a young woman of Jewish background who is well known for loudly espousing numerous causes, is discovered deceased inside a car in a self-storage unit. The set-up strongly hints of suicide. But doubts about this conclusion surface almost immediately. The investigation is being conducted primarily by DI St. John Strafford; he in turn is aided by Quirke, a pathologist whose insights are highly valued by his colleagues in law enforcement.
I soon began to have problems with this novel. To begin with, one has to give Quirke some leeway; he has recently suffered a terrible bereavement. Nevertheless, I found him uniquely unattractive – pushy, arrogant, and smug. Worse, as a character, he seemed to me inconsistent, especially toward the novel’s conclusion.
Strafford was easier to take, yet still oddly bland (even though he partially redeems himself by listening to Mahler on his newly acquired gramophone).
Zounds! It made me long for Adam Dalgliesh, Reg Wexford, Guido Brunetti, and their ilk.
John Banville writes beautifully. There is no gainsaying his command of the English language, to wit:
‘The grooves of the record were so fine, how could they contain such tremendous storms of sound?’
And this, rather more rhapsodic:
‘His surroundings were especially congenial at evening time, with the traffic stilled, and the greenish-gray light coming up from the canal and filling the deep embrasure of the window with its mild effulgence.’
Embrasure, effulgence…I love those words!
As I read on, it seemed to me that The Lock-up veered in several different directions. From the point of view of structure, it left something to be desired. For one thing, I kept losing sight of Rosa Jacobs and the conundrum of her death. This was due to the welter of other material that kept cropping up.
I pushed through to the end anyway. I felt as though I’d fought the good fight, getting there!
This may sound odd, but I think this novel would make a good book discussion group selection. I’d be interested to know if other readers shared my reaction to it.
Garlands Garden, supplemental – in which Yours Truly receives the unlooked-for gift of a squash plant with huge leaves
And little squashes peaking out from beneath them.
Day one:
So, what happened was this: I was proceeding as usual to my planter box garden to water the denizens of said planter box. (We had gotten some rain, but then it stopped, so once again the water had to be hand delivered.)
I had no sooner arrived when a gentleman approached me most purposefully: he had, he said, a plant that he could not identify growing in his allotment at a alarming rate. It was crowding his tomatoes! Could I identify this…this thing? I walked over with him and took a look. It was a summer squash, already beginning to produce. This excellent entity had already made an appearance in a previous post:
Somehow, in the course of this interaction, said gentleman convinced me that I should take custody of this rampant vegetative entity. Either that, or it was going into the trash! Now, wouldn’t that be a shame and a waste?
So he dug up the squash plant and we conveyed it to my modest allotment. He wielded a mean trowel, and we had that baby in the ground in no time. I then proceeded to deliver the promised moisture via the snake-like hose.
I then returned the hose to its proper station (a much trickier undertaking than it would at first seem to be). When I got back to my allotment, another gardener was gazing ruefully at the plantings. It soon became obvious what she was looking at: although the annuals continued to flourish, the gigantic leaves of the squash plant seemed to have heaved a collective sigh and keeled over. I said: “It appears to be in shock.” We shook our heads sadly.
What next? Well, we shall see…
Day two:
I wish I could report a dramatic recovery – or any sign of recovery – for the summer squash. Alas, all is as it was yesterday – maybe even worse.
At least, the annuals are growing and glowing!
I administered the water cure once more. I will return to this subject when and if I detect a change.
Better Luck with Nonfiction, Part Two
“Where did Pam and Sherri go?”
In 1971, Pam Jackson and Sherri Miller, good friends from high school, were on their way to a party being held at a gravel pit outside the town of Vermillion, South Dakota. It was dark; the streets were poorly lit; the girls became hopelessly lost. Eventually they encountered three teenage boys in their own vehicle. Sherri and Pam explained that they couldn’t find the location of the get-together; the boys suggested to the girls that they simply follow them, as they too were headed for the party.
As they were nearing the gravel pit, the boys missed their turn off. Author Lou Raguse recounts what happened next:
“Hey, you missed the driveway!” said Steve from the passenger seat, prompting Pat, the rural road “expert,” to realize in embarrassment that he needed to turn around. Steve and Pat lived in the country not far from the gravel pits. They thought they knew the area well, and they still couldn’t find the spot on their first try. Mark, a town kid, shrugged. He had never been out there before, and every country road looked the same to him. As Pat turned their car around, Mark realized the Studebaker was no longer behind them. “Where did Pam and Sherri go?” Mark asked. Pat idled the car for a few minutes as the boys waited. The Studebaker’s headlights never materialized. Mark began to think perhaps the girls saw some cars and turned into the driveway to the party. Or maybe they had second thoughts and decided against going to this drinking party where very few of their friends would likely be.
“I guess they didn’t need our help after all,” Mark said to his friends as Pat put the car into gear and started driving back toward the party.
Here is the concluding paragraph of this opening chapter:
Mark, Steve, and Pat found the grassy driveway to the gravel pits, turned in, and followed the car tracks into the property around a bend where dozens of cars were parked. Loud music blared as teens stood around a small bonfire. School was over, summer was taking hold, and it was party time. The boys didn’t give a second thought to Pam and Sherri, not realizing their chance encounter had just set off a mystery that would haunt the region for the next four decades.
At that moment, I had to close the book. I was overcome by dread, stunned by the deadly simplicity of that last sentence. Could I even continue reading what was bound to be a tragic story? I could – in fact,, I had to. One more close look at those artless faces, and I felt that I owed them and their story my full attention.
Journalist Lou Raguse unspools a narrative of tangled accusations, claims, and counter claims, all of which cause extreme stress on three different families, several law enforcement agencies, and numerous other hapless individuals across the span of over forty years.
Full of surprises, shocks even, and utterly riveting.
******************************
Unlike the Vanished in Vermillion story. which unfolded over decades in obscurity, the case at the heart of We Once Were a Family played out in the glare of publicity nationwide. In 2018, six children met their deaths in what at first appeared to be a terrible accident.. The parents were a gay married couple, Jennifer and Sarah Hart; they too were killed when their S.U.V. plunged off a cliff along California’s Pacific Coast Highway. So: Markis,19; Hannah,16; Devonte, 15; Jeremiah, 14; Abigail, 14; and Ciera, 12, and their parents. Eight deaths which, apparently, were the result of a horrible accident.
The children, all African-American, were actually two sets each of three siblings, adopted at different intervals. According to gushing posts on social media, they were part of a supremely happy family. Investigative journalism revealed wide cracks in the facade. Nevertheless, reportage on the Harts generally reflected an attitude of admiration for Jennifer and Sarah for taking on the responsibility of these children.
Meanwhile, very little attention was being paid to the origins of the children and how they came to be placed with the Hart family. Journalist Roxanna Asgarian decided to remedy this omission. The resulting book is filled with revelations that are at the same time all too believable and utterly heartbreaking.
To me, this paragraph summed up the whole situation:
It’s possible that a major reason the Harts escaped accountability for so long, and the children were not saved, is that many people, both inside and outside the child welfare system, held a common assumption: that these six Black children must be better off with the white women who adopted them, that whatever issues they were having as a family must have been an improvement for the children over the poor conditions of their early childhood homes.
So: why read such an unrelentingly grim saga? As with the Vermillion story, I see it as a way of bearing witness, an act of homage to those who were wrongly deprived of their lives – and a glimpse into a situation that can, with some commitment, be rectified in order to safeguard future generations.
Better Luck with Nonfiction, Part One
*********************************
The House of Dudley is easily one of the most readable histories I’ve encountered in a long time. I surprised myself by racing through this book. Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchette and Joseph Fiennes, is one of my all time favorite films. The love story of Elizabeth and Robert Lord Dudley is endlessly fascinating. It provided the impetus for my reading of The House of Dudley, which actually covers the whole period of the reign of the Tudor dynasty. The love story is an admittedly small part of that story – small but crucial.
Delicious clips from the movie – like the one below – are easily found on YouTube.
******************************
From the Kirkus review:
‘Scottish immigrant and Sierra Club founder [John] Muir and conservation-minded President Theodore Roosevelt are remembered as the saviors of Yosemite and the neighboring redwood-rich slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada.’
The book contains a memorable – and frequently reproduced – photograph of the two of them, taken while they were camping in Yosemite:
Actually, Roosevelt is but a secondary presence in this narrative. The other main character is Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of The Century Magazine and passionate advocate of conservation. Johnson was a member of the East Coast intellectual elite and rarely traveled west; the opposite, of course, was true of John Muir. nevertheless, Johnson and Muir became close friends and carried on a spirited correspondence, much of which is transcribed in these pages. (Amazing what people could accomplish without cell phones.) Together, they saved much of the irreplaceable beauty of California.
We have these two indefatigable fighters to thank for preserving this precious place. (The fight, needless to say, is ongoing.)
(Never been there myself; hope to go some day.)
Books to the Ceiling 