the two guides of life

The sublime and the beautiful, as Schiller would have it, guides us from birth and through our dreary life.

So, I’m stuck with those damn Romantic poets again, which I find rather tedious (so full of feeling, so full of depth, so full of significance. It weighs too heavy on my psyche; I am choking on emotions and drowning in sensations). I could, possibly, really appreciate Blake because of the illustrations; they restore some sort of balance to my senses (and they keep me interested). One good thing however (as distraction, not for essay-writing) is that it gives me a convenient opportunity to indulge in the awe-inspiring, the moving, the transcendent, the admirable…the Sublime.

So here I am, hands-on with Kant and Burke and Scruton (always Scruton). I find Kant quite unreadable but his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime is fairly straight-forward and accessible. What a joy! And it was all going so very well. You know, I think I truly understand him, and it feels like he understands me.  Then the third chapter comes along. The chapter discussing the sexes.

“The fair sex has just as much understanding as the male, but it is a beautiful understanding, whereas ours should be a deep understanding, an expression that signifies identity with the sublime.” So basically, women like the decorative, trivial, delicate and charming, not the sublime. This is thanks to our so called beautiful understanding, which also helps us refrain from anything fundamentally, reasonably or principally useful. Descartes and Newton, planets and stars, geometry and geography, heroic battles and honorable Greeks concerns us not. “Deep meditation and a long-sustained reflection are noble but difficult, and do not well befit a person in whom unconstrained charms should show nothing else than a beautiful nature.”

In Kantian philosophy aesthetics and ethics are linked, as virtue is both morally and aesthetically beautiful. This is one of the reasons I like Kant, because he sees the beautiful and the sublime in human nature, and I need some of that because sometimes  (ok, most of the time) I lack a bit (ok, a lot) of that necessary faith in humanity. I am some sort of borderline misanthrope. But again, we women seem to have drawn the short straw and ended up with the beautiful qualities while men got the sublime.

“I hardly believe that the fair sex is capable of principles, and I hope by that not to offend, for these are also extremely rare in the male. But in place of it Providence has put in their breast kind and benevolent sensations, a fine feeling for propriety, and a complaisant soul.”

No offence Kant, but Providence can take its propriety and shove it. I will keep my principles thank you very much. Thank heavens then for Caspar David Friedrich , don’t you think? No sexism here is there? Yes, perhaps the man is facing  a more immediate danger, as in the terrifying sublime. But the sunrise is equally, if not more, sublime if you ask me. It actually seems to possess both qualities, the beautiful and the sublime; the splendid sublime – the two guides of life.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Woman before the Rising Sun

with octaves of a mystic depth and height

I was just sent this:

“I think Tony Blair is one of the most un-Dostoevskian characters in Britain.”

The words are the archbishop of Canterbury’s, and I have to say, bloody brilliant.

If you read the whole Guardian article, you realise that the Dostoevsky reference was not taken completely out of the blue, but prompted by a question on Tony Blair’s performance at the Chilcot Enquiry, asked at a lecture given on Dostoevsky.  Nonetheless, rather amusing, especially coming from the clergy, don’t you think (Why do I imagine priests being dreadfully boring?)?

Oh, but wait, it gets better;

“I did once rather unkindly say that Tony Blair did do God but he didn’t do irony. Irony is when you recognise that your own sense of dramatic power is always something that is going to be absurd in the light of truth. The readiness to cope with that absurdity is something that you have to learn in order to grow up.”

Word.

sleep for the winter is crying ’sleep no more’

My blogging activity, as you might have noticed, is somewhat limited to quoting from books I read and changing the header image from one sleeping girl to another. This is to illustrate my state of mental and physical exhaustion. Nowadays I am constantly drained, lethargic and tired. I don’t know why.  I’m being told that it is the weather. That it is that time of the year.  I sure hope not, I really don’t have time to wait for the sun to come out. I need energy, inspiration and enthusiasm now. Pronto!

(Albert Moore, Apples; A Sleeping Girl; Lord Leighton, Flaming June; Maurice Denis, The Sleeper; Tamara de Lempicka, Dormeuse)

what is meant by happiness (part II)

“But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness) – ‘Yes, you were right. It’s going to be wet tomorrow.’ She had not said it, but he knew it. And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Peder Severin Kroyer - Havepartie med Marie Kroyer

what is meant by happiness

“These were the things she wanted; gay house-parties, people with beautiful wavering complexions and masses of shimmering hair catching the light, fragrant filmy diaphanous dressses; these were the people to whom she belonged – a year or two of life like that, dancing and singing in and out the houses and gardens; and then marriage. Living alone, sadly estranged, in a house of a husband who loved her and with whom she was in love, both of them thinking that the other had married because they had lost their way in a thunderstorm or spent the night sitting up on a mountain-top or because a clause in a will, and then one day both finding out the truth. “

Dorothy Richardson, Backwater (Pilgrimage II)

Edmund Tarbell, Mercie Cutting Flowers

all that is solid melts into air

Will there really be a “Morning”?
Is there such a thing as “Day”?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called “Morning” lies!

(Akseli Gallen-Kallela Lake Keitele; John Singer Sargent Girl Fishing; Parrish Spring Morning, “Will there really be a “Morning”?” by Emily Dickinson)

words don’t come easy

Now I remember why I stumbled across the Slow Manifesto last night. I was about to google “Slow Man” when the automated suggestion “Slow Manifesto” caught my attention. Needless to say, I completely forgot about Slow Man.

So here we go again…Slow Man…Cotzee. Oh yeah right, C-o-e-t-z-e-e, thanks google (such a know-it-all).

Complete Review says “No consensus [among the reviewers], with quite a few quite disappointed.” I’m not sure whether I’m disappointing or not. I’m not overly familiar with Coetzee’s authorship so I suppose I did not really know what to expect. Except that it was about a man who lost his leg, and frankly how much fun could that be? So I read Elizabeth Costello before Slow Man because I knew they would interlink somehow. I wish I hadn’t. I did not really like Costello, an author (Coetzee’s alter-ego?) who gives, or listen to other people give, lectures. So her presence in Slow Man was annoying as hell. Otherwise, a quite pleasant novel. -What you would expect from a Nobel Prize winner? I don’t know, what do you expect from a Nobel Prize winner? -Something touching. Moving. That crawls underneath your skin? In that case, no. -But a literary experiment? Yes, perhaps. But a pretty boring one. Or maybe the experiment, the initial question, was interesting, but the result, the answer, was boring. Such things happens. -Pushing boundaries is not interesting? If you have nothing of  interest to say I see no need with pushing boundaries, only for the sake of pushing.

In Elizabeth Costello I took loads of notes because I thought she was quite clever to begin with. Then she loses her mind (Alzheimer’s?…I have no backing for this theory, I suspect it is not even the case. But either that, or I lost my mind because I could not follow any of her reasoning after chapter 6.). In Slow Man she is not so interesting, does not do or talk much at all actually. But there is something she says about language that hit a nerve with me:

‘Ever since you reminded me of your French past, you  know, I have been listening with pricked ears. And, yes, you are right: you speak English, you probably think in English, you may even dream in English, yet English is not your true language. I would even say that English is a disguise for you, or a mask, part of your tortoiseshell armour. As you speak I swear I can hear words being selected, one after another, from the word-box you carry around with you, and slotted into place. That is not how a true native speak, one who is born into a language.’

‘How does a native speak?’

‘From the heart. Words well up within and he sings them, sings along with them. So to speak.’

I have two word-boxes. One that once wasn’t a word-box at all. It was the true language of a native who spoke from the heart. But I pushed the language into a word-box because it wasn’t good enough for me. Too limiting. I still carry it close to heart, but it is not the same. As for the other word-box, I speak English, think in English and maybe, possibly dream in English, although I don’t think I dream in any language at all. But of course, there will always be that accent, that process of selecting the words, the unnaturalness in speaking, the contrived in the writing. I was too greedy and wanted a language that was not mine. Now, all I have are my two word-boxes, and no langauge. No song.

In the novel, Elizabeth Costello offers Paul language lessons. ‘I will teach you how to speak from the heart.’ So dear Mr. Coetzee, I know you are not Elizabeth Costello but I know a part of her is you. Would you please give me language lessons and teach me to speak from the heart?

absence makes the heart grow fonder

Dear blog, no I have not forgotten about you, at least not completely. I am occupied with participating in the revolution against speed. Live slower – Live better. I’m not too sure what this is all about but it makes sense, doesn’t it? To live slower. To see more.

An endless idea? Here’s mine:

The brain’s ability to concentrate is limited and often wasted on blocking out the unnecessary information that surrounds us: noise, movement, images. We exhaust our mental capacity on processing external perceptions, leaving us unable to deal with our own thoughts. How to live slower? How to avoid distraction? Retreat to where we came from, where we belong – nature. Here nothing competes to catch your attention. The mind can wander with ease, without having to climb obstacles or build barricades. Focus on what you choose to focus on, not what is thrown in your face. When there are no other people around, there is only yourself and your own needs to consider. Set your own pace, think slowly, let an impression sink in and last. When there are no distracting noise, even silence can be heard.

Pruszkowski -Eloe

Drenched in moonlight, the lonely road winds through the forest. The snow-covered tree branches hangs heavy under the weight, bowing before Luna Noctiluca. The crystals form a white, crispy carpet, crunching underneath my feet. I am walking on water, am I not? The air is cold and dry and every breath hurts. Pleasurable pain. The snow is falling gently, settling on the ground with a silent sound. The sound of falling snow, like feathers brushing against each other. Like sparks of electricity between feathers brushing against each other. Like sparkling electricity of the energy that fluctuates between feathers brushing against each other. Each snowflake unique, never two of the same. Like us humans; unique, never two of the same (-Cliché? Yes of course. Nothing wrong with clichés if they are true.) Snow crystals get caught in my eyelashes, my body heat melts them. For a moment they flow like tears down my cold cheeks before freezing into a thin layer of ice on my skin. The pulse slows down but the heart beats stronger. Live slower – Live better. Find passion in stillness. Hear poetry in silence. Join the revolution.

(It is also an excellent excuse for simply being lazy. It has always been my ambition to lead the revolution from underneath a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in my hand and a purring cat in my lap.)

when the wild winds coldly blow…

…this is what I like.

Essay: Zadie Smith on the essay. (bonus: Joan Didion anno 1967)

Perspective: everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy. (bonus: very funny!)

Philosophy: The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand.

Radio: Weekend Woman’s Hour

Tune #1: Tougher than the Rest with Bruce Springsteen (bonus: fashion anno 1988)

Tune #2: Pata Pata with Miriam Makeba

Poem: “Spellbound” by Emily Brontë:

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Painting #1: Waterhouse – St Eulalia

Painting #2: Millais – Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind

Painting #3: Friedrich – Winter Landscape

we are the people we’ve been waiting for

Education is dead! Long live education! I am highly anticipating this documentary, should be released soon methinks, also, can I add; I ♥ Ken Robinson.

mingle sweet song and sunshine together

Edward Poynter Horae Serenae (detail)

Franz von Stuck Ringelreihen

Duncan Grant Dancers

Henri Matisse Dance

I’m on a google-ban as well as a blogging-ban, but again, for things that really irritate or excite me, I make an exception (procrastinating? Me? Never.). Have I ever mentioned how much I love Edward Poynter? Well I do. Almost as much as von Stuck (did you know that I share this affection for him with Hitler? He was Hitler’s favourite painter. This von Stuck – Hitler relationship is actually freakingly interesting, at least if you have some inclinations towards the superstitious. Will have to return to this subject methinks, we could do a von Stuck Special). I like Duncan Grant very much too, although, admittedly, much more because of my fascination with the Bloomsbury set then for his actual art. His Dancers is on display at Tate, the colours are simply dazzling, just not my thing. It reminded me a lot of Matisse, and then Tate confirmed this by saying it is probable that Matisse provided inspiration for Grant. So Matisse is included here too although I am actually not a big fan.

a long rant about education policies

I’m currently on a sort of blogging-ban because I have such a monstrous amount of uni work to do this week. Very high goals have been set in terms of word count so I can’t really afford to waste any of them here. But, but, but. Today Lord Mandelson has stirred up debate with the announcement of a new Plan for Higher Education. So I will make an exception so that I can get these frustrations out of my system and then I’ll go back to my Dostoevsky, I promise.

The plan has not been released yet; this is all said in the true spirit of making a mountain out of a molehill, and in response to Mandelson’s appearance on BBC’s Today and the numerous agitated articles published shortly afterwards.  Education policies are always interesting because they are about change, with the purpose to improve, but then in the end they only seem to increase the problems that already exist.

First off, I agree with Mandelson. I agree with everyone who thinks higher education needs to be improved. When he says that “universities are not islands, they are not ivory towers, they have to respond to the world around them” I think exactly, they are not, although they would very much like to think so. I often get the feeling that the university world is confined to its own little academic bubble, entirely disconnected to reality. But where Mandelson sees solutions, I see more trouble.

To label students as consumers sounds absolutely bonkers. Of course the more information students get about what to expect from their education, the better. But to demand a university to provide a prospective future is not making any sense to me. First of all, it would increase the idea that education is all about the result, not about the learning process. Secondly, what if a student can’t get the job he/she hoped for after completing a degree, or with the estimated salary. Are you supposed to hold you university responsible for false advertising? Of course there should be a strong feeling of responsibility towards the students to provide them with the best education possible. But not because they are paying customers, but because they are knowledge-seeking, enthused young people who, as the future of our society, deserves that investment. Why should you need money as a motivation to provide that?

I am glad they are addressing the lack of social ability in students. But you don’t increase social ability by teaching them to be demanding, picky and dissatisfied. That to me sounds like very destructive qualities for any person, student or no student. If you want to increase social ability you should infuse good work ethics, communication skills and adaptability. To make the university liable, not only for the quality of the teaching but also for the final outcome is a little bit misleading. Responsibility should be shared between the academic body and the students. Students should know their rights, but also their obligation. Students get away with so much these days, because universities are afraid of losing course fees, increasing drop-out rates and bad reputation. Demands on the student need to be higher, not the other way around. If you can’t hack it, you’re out. Seriously, weed out the week. The thing is; university is not the meaning with life, it is not the final goal of human achievement. It’s for some people but not for all. To give everyone a degree, leads to academic inflation, diminishing the value of academic studies and therefore doing society a huge disfavour because people are investing a lot of money into something that in the end of the day is not worth anything.

Which bring me to my final point. I don’t like the idea of education as part of the capitalistic system, it should stand outside of that. To raise the ceiling for student fees will, I think, result in an even more prominent hierarchy between universities. A high status university will be able to provide high employability numbers, creating high competition for the places, and of course take the highest possible fee rates. Presumably, the educational standard will be great. But what about the university with low status, poor employability prospects and low demand? Their fees will be low, the teaching will be bad (or at least not as good), and so will the students’ academic ability. This means two people with the same degree have two very different educations and that, to an employer, means two very different things. It is a complete distortion not only of university education, but of the value of knowledge. Admittedly, I know squat about funding of HE. But what I do know is that you cannot put a price on knowledge, nor should you want to. And what was that I heard about Scotland? Oh, yes, university studies are FREE.

i’m not in paris

On Woman’s Hour they are talking about Coco Chanel and now Francoise Hardy is singing about her friend the rose and also, I imagine, about withering away, decay and death (must learn French) and I’d like to be in Paris right now, more precisely with the cherubs and the nymphs on Pont Alexandre III, because over-the-top art nouveau is the perfect antidote to dreary autumn weather and that vacant feeling left by the long-gone melancholy glamour of the 60’s. And in Paris quality red wine is mandatory. Steel constructions and stone ornaments filtered through a red-wine haze is what makes it so beautiful.

But I’m not in Paris. I am sitting at home, eating lunch consisting of chai tea and riesen chocolate while wrestling with Mikhail Bakhtin. Actually it’s a bit of a triangle drama between me, Bakhtin and Milan Kundera. Francoise is cheerleading, although it’s not clear whose side she is on. Possibly on Dostoevsky’s. He is also here, standing in the corner, with his polyphonic novel, looking terribly misunderstood.

Milan Kundera says “The novelist is neither historian nor prophet: he is an explorer of existence” and “existence is not what has occurred, existence is the realm of human possibilities, everything that man can become, everything he is capable of.”

And I think, really, are we not all explorers of existence? At least our own existence. I think I’m going to put that on my business card either way. Explorer of existence and gratifier of human mankind. Charges on a pro rata basis. And Francoise sings j’ai besoin d’espoir sinon je ne suis rien which I think I will use as an advertising slogan (really, must learn French).

I clearly have nothing of importance to talk about. So bye. Au revoir, a bientot mes amis.

don’t tell me peace has broken out

This time it makes perfect sense why two critics’ views of a show are miles apart. You remember Phedré getting one respectively five stars from the Independent and the Guardian? This time it is The Telegraph who thinks Mother Courage and Her Children, currently running at the National Theatre, is worth one star while over at the Guardian it has been rewarded with four. Charles Spencer calls it one of the most embarrassing spectacles I have ever seen in a theatre, a desperate ploy to make Brecht, the discredited old Marxist, seem relevant and modern while Michael Billington thinks it’s one of the greatest plays of the 20^th century. As another Guardian writer points out; As a rule, the more Conservative the newspaper, the less its critic likes Mother Courage.

Without getting overtly in to my political views here; I am very, very fond of my Brecht. This three hour spectacle was not embarrassing at all; most of it was actually quite enjoyable.

Fiona Shaw gives her all as Mother Courage, scampering around the stage like a gypsy-cum-rock star and is noticeably exhausted in the end. Her hard-headiness and sharp-witted nature makes her a charismatic and principally likeable character. But as Brecht pits war against morality, her capitalistically driven business-sense, that not only allows her to endure the 30 Year War but also to profit from it, has fatal consequences as she loses each of her three children. There is in Mother Courage (both the character and the play as a whole) a gradual build-up of a deeply emotional dimension, which I have to say I found lacking in this production. You could argue that Brecht favoured Intelligent Thinking over Emotive Feeling but in fact he was of the opinion that the two cannot be divided. His call for an epic theatre was based on the view that it was not enough to incite emotion in the audience; those feelings also had to be examined.

So with Brecht you get a bit of a disjointed narrative, stage directions read out loud (in this case by Gore Vidal. You know, I really thought he had kicked the bucket a long time ago but apparently he is still going strong.), dressers and costume changes on-stage, musicians and random song outbursts (this role is given almost entirely to Duke Special which I think explains the hordes of screaming teenagers). Director Deborah Warner has been more than faithful to Brecht’s intentions. A barn is a barn, not because it looks like a barn but because there is a sign that tells you it is a barn, that kind of thing. But all those distancing effects need to be balanced by an engagement of the heart as well as the mind. It gets a bit like with Moulin Rouge. It’s loud (extremely loud), confident and showy and while you’re watching it does feels really impressive. But afterwards you leave feeling surprisingly unaffected with only some stupid song stuck to your brain. Nonetheless, even though Mother Courage is not all there, Brecht sure is and somehow that is more than enough.

the winner takes it all

Today is not only the day when this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature has been announced but also National Poetry Day.

T.S Eliot has been voted the Nation’s Favourite Poet in a poll at BBC’s Poetry Season. Not a bad choice. Sadly, although not very surprising, not a single female poet made it to the top 10. I voted for Christina Rossetti, but I seem to have been in minority.

As for the Nobel Prize, it was announced at noon today by Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. My predictions for these kind of things are never right but I did really think it would be an American winner this year, or at least non-European. But no, Rumanian-born German writer Herta Müller is the winner with the motivation that she with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed, Apparently her first comment was I cannot believe it, I do not deserve it, I am overwhelmed. Congratulations Herta, I’m sure you deserve it!