September-October 2024 Miscellany

Orlando Furioso

As referenced previously, I have been reading Orlando Furioso, the work of Ariosto. In some ways, actually saying commenting on this is superfluous - it has been so influential, whether it be known or not, that further remark is probably less than useful. 

I examined previously one segment of it, perhaps the wildest (in terms of sheer wonder). But the piling up of overlapping quests, ensorcellments and duels is most impressive - and will probably bring to mind the longer-lasting kind of heroic fantasy series (be it a novel or something animated).

Interestingly, there's little hint of the 'National Epic' about it. The specific ties to place and people relate to patrons and local rulers in Italy. No wonder it drifted out of memory in a (Romantic, post-Wagner) world. 

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Speaking of, I recently watched Die Walküre for the first time. Perhaps you won't be so very charmed by Siegmund and Sieglinde's circling interaction, but the frustrated machinations of Wotan, caught between ambition, law, familial affection and his own prideful nature are fascinating. It's the sort of grand conflicted potency that still animates certain strands of popular media.   

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Megalopolis, dir. Francis Ford Coppola

I don't generally bring to my readers' attention something I think less than good, or at least interesting. I suppose this is an exception.

Perhaps you've already seen the critical responses. This film has a poor reputation. I went in unknowing (beyond certain actors and 'America as modern Rome').

What a strangeness; what a lack of subtlety and deftness and invention. Perhaps we may expect that from a film calling itself a fable, that implicitly develops on the broad lessons and characters of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

THE HEART MUST BE THE MEDIATOR
BETWEEN THE HEAD AND THE HANDS!

But then it does so while spinning together an over-complex plot, a series of lush visual references that are far too specific (in their 2024-ness and their Roman-ness) to make sense. Cf. again Lang.

  

[You can find this intertitle on a shower curtain. 
In order to imply what about your ablutions?!]

This goes doubly so when referencing the Catiline Conspiracy, and all the associated cultural connotations. If you are going to invoke Marcus Tullius Cicero*, it would be a mistake to place him as a power-hungry blowhard. Certainly a Cicero-esque figure can be an antagonist, an opponent - but what a waste to invoke a great public speaker and lawyer, and then equip him with the poorest of arguments. This is aside from the various suggestions the trial of a traitor to a republic might bring to mind. 

If it's a fable, it's far too specific. If a fantasia, it's too obvious. If a 'relevant' political-social drama in an uchronia, too blatant and unnatural. 

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A recent discovery (when looking up images of Balaam and his Ass) was Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925). A Jew, born in Austro-Hungarian Galicia - now in the western part of Ukraine. He became an artist, with a line in both Art Nouveau and Orientalism.

See this image of a young Moses (and an old Moses):

Explicitly a Prince of Egypt.

  

or an older King David:

Note the Lammasu.

His image of Judea is a Near Eastern people among Near Eastern peoples. To say nothing of a muscular one: consider Moses above, and this (bearded, explicitly masculine) angel confronting Balaam.

  

From all that, it may not be a surprise to learn that he was involved in early Zionism, even visiting then-Ottoman Palestine. 

I don't mean to imply that his work only focused on such themes - he was an illustrator who took commissions. Including some lovely bookplates.

Visit lovely Samoa!

This bookplate is straight out of E.R. Eddison.

At any rate, I'm quite enchanted by some of these.

Samson in captivity. Remind you of something?

An invite to the Inhalatorium

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The Dark Brain of Piranesi and Other Essays, Marguerite Yourcenar, 1962

This pairs (to a certain extent) with Jacques Barzun, whose Dawn to Decadence I've been working through. In both cases, we have a French writer, writing in English (Yourcenar lists a translator, but at the time most of these were written, she had lived off the coast of Maine for many years - I'm moderately sure that translator here means 'editor for Anglophone consumption') on a variety of literary and historical topics from across Europe. Piranesi is front and centre, but there are pieces on Thomas Mann, Agrippa D'Aubigne and the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (never heard of her before). So, in part, this is a fascinating survey and introduction. Unlike Barzun, of course, it isn't drawn into a grander scheme. 

So, these are new (to me). They are well-situated in European letters. They are also beautifully written - delightfully clear and frequently beautiful. To say nothing of funny:

"A client of necromancers and astrologers, Catherine [de Medici] would doubtless have been less surprised to find herself accused of the crime of sorcery by d'Aubigne than acquitted of it by scholars who no longer believe in the powers of the Evil One."

As with the Memoirs of Hadrian, throughly recommended. 

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It's been interesting reading reviews of Hugh Cook over at False Machine - see here and here. Just from the reviews, The Worshippers and the Way sounds oddly like Punth avant la lettre - I'd be fascinated to hear from any readers who could say for sure!

*As once portrayed by Anton Lesser.