Titus Andronicus

"I tell my sorrows to the stones..."

"I tell my sorrows to the stones..." These chilling words from Shakespeare's tale of loyalty betrayed by power reverberate profoundly in our world today, and in my mind this play's subject matter takes it off the shelf and puts it into the forefront of the current Shakespeare canon. I say this despite readily admitting that the language of Titus Andronicus does not equal that of Shakespeare's later plays - that it is the most crudely wrought of all his works - but even this fact does not devalue such a powerful, passionate, and indignant vision of a world utterly deprived of justice.

The only word for this vision would be apocalyptic, and it is interesting to me that Shakespeare initiated his career as a tragedian with such a work, and ended it many years later with an equally apocalyptic work in King Lear, and that in both of these plays the fatal element is human nature. That, it seems to me, is what Shakespeare most wanted to leave us with as a writer, an impression that human nature itself is the critical element in human tragedy - that we essentially create tragedy with our own hands, and without a widely shared vision underpinning a moral order there is no way to construct a reality devoid of horror. So for readers who have the strength to endure its terrible violence and unrelenting pathos there is a message to be taken from this play that is crucial, and that is that there is simply no limit to human cruelty once a shared spiritual and intellectual vision is lost.

That appears to have been Shakespeare's first and last word to posterity, this unflinching look at the horror of life in a world predicated on nothing but the struggle for survival. For this reason alone Titus Andronicus is a great play and should be among the must-read works for anyone seeking to understand the broader meaning of Shakespeare's contribution. It is a recurring question in human existence, one that must be faced again and again by each successive generation, and in Titus Andronicus Shakespeare clearly wanted to convey the devastating result of the failure to reach for a higher spiritual plane.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2014 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The Brothers Karamazov

A Stunning Meditation On The Human Experience This novel is simply the finest novel ever written. The themes are universal, to a degree that they not only hold up over a century later, even for an American reader like myself, but speak directly and prophetically to the chaos and conflict of modern times. Even the great works of Tolstoy - a superb novelist and contemporary of Dostoyevsky's - in spite of their magnificent scope and brilliant historical detail, seem at times dated, dogmatic, and naïve in contrast with the brilliant insight see in The Brothers Karamazov.

As a result of the vast social convulsions in the century since the book's publication, few great 19th century writers are able to reach out to address our current concerns, as well as the universal questions of human existence, in a way that approaches the unflinching honesty and authority of Dostoyevsky.

The father and four brothers in the novel are archetypes, yet so intimately drawn that they walk and breath on the page - and for better and worse, they are people of irrepressible passion - people who confront the moral and social calamity of their times with a remarkable courage and gusto. Even when that passion becomes confused and twisted, or passes into actual depravity, they are never beaten into apathy under the unrelenting bleakness of a collapsing social order and a failing imperial state.

Through what at first glace seems exaggeration, Dostoyevsky paints an engrossing and devastatingly realistic portrait of his times, and he has been accused of exaggeration. He has been accused of being an insufferable romantic - of creating characters that are fantastic - of writing a kind of surrealistic distortion of existence employed for lurid effect. But if one goes through the book line by line it turns out that the opposite is true. It is his unflinching refusal to embellish, or prettify the world his characters inhabit, that gives his work it's disorienting quality.

He forces us to take off our rose-colored glasses, and see his world as he see's it, and this fierce vision is not for everyone; but those able to enter that vision may take away from it an understanding of life's meaning that is unequaled in fiction. Because, in spite of the patricide, the unrelenting grimness, and the omnipresent cold and deprivation that permeate this novel (and much of his other work) Dostoyevsky is determined to leave us with an appreciation of the power and endurance of the human spirit, a renewed vision of the wonder of human life, and finally, a conviction that neither the three surviving brothers nor we ourselves have passed beyond redemption.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2014 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Red Sorghum, by Mo Yan

Hat's Off To Mo Yan!

The first thing that struck me in reading this novel was just how well it translated into English. My experience with Japanese and Chinese fiction in translation has never been very satisfactory, and I have generally been left with the feeling that I was missing much of the meaning in the original work. That was not true at all in this translation of Mo Yan's masterpiece, Red Sorghum. The quality of the prose in English is astounding, and of course great credit must be given to the translator, Howard Goldblatt, for this achievement. I suspect though that it is easier to effectively translate a singularly great work of fiction than to translate lesser works, so I think most of the credit probably goes to the author, but whatever the case there is no doubt this translation is a literary classic.

From the very first page one is impelled into this story, and the great cultural gap between America and rural China simply disappears, the reason being that Mo Yan is a brilliant observer of human nature, and human nature is universal. Reading this work I knew these people, which is an amazing thing to communicate across such vast cultural boundaries, and if that had been the works only accomplishment it would been a fine novel, but that is merely the beginning. . .

The narrative has an epic quality (a description bandied about too much by reviewers, but which I think in this case is warranted) that is reminiscent of War and Peace; but in no way does it borrow from that novel. It has a feel quite its own, an intermingling of the rustic and the mythical, of minute observation with panoramic scope, woven together seamlessly and building with inexorable power into something akin to the myths of the heroic age. Yet at no point in this remarkable journey does the story lose its believability!

The setting is a region of rural China dominated by plantations of red sorghum, its great tasseled heads stretching endlessly in the clear country air. This grain is made into wine and distilled liquor, which many of the inhabitants are rather too enamored with, imbuing the atmosphere of the book with a sort of inebreated intensity, a spirit of recklessness, and of passions of all kinds given all too free a reign - which adds to the work's larger than life, quasi-mythical quality.

It is set in the 1930's, a time of two wars waged at once: the Chinese Civil War, and the long brutal war against Japan. As we get to know and even care about these very human, very flawed characters, we also see their gradual rise to greatness through their confrontation with the absolute brutality and unrelenting terror of their times, in a savage and soaring vision of a great people put through the fire of a hellish era. Such is the stuff human nature is made of that we are capable of being debased and heroic, glorious and petty, fragile and indomitable all in the same instant, and it is not just every novelist that captures this, so hats off to Mo Yan, and hats off to Red Sorghum!

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2016 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

"Dead Souls" is Deadpan

In contrast to the gloomy title of the book, "Dead Souls," is actually a whimsical, if twisted romp with one 'Chichikov,' and his manservant, 'Pertrushka,' through provincial Czarist Russia in the mid 19th century. In what must be one of the greatest works of deadpan humor ever written, the entire purpose of Chichikov's extended journey is to buy surfs who've died since the last census, but are still listed on the landowners books, in order to somehow use them as collateral for loans. (He isn't buying the actual bodies of these deceased surfs, of course, just their names from the ledgers.)

The exact plan he has in mind is never more than hinted at in the book, so we're forced to speculate on the nature of the nefarious scheme he's concocting in that little head of his! I say "little head" because though Chichikov is convinced he's very clever, he's really not.

This ludicrous and murky adventure leads them from one farcical encounter to another with a panoply of Russian characters of the time, from the belligerent and impetuous Nozdryov, to various vacuous, self-important officials, to an over the top miser, named Plyushkin, who's gigantic estate is literally collapsing due to his insatiable need to hoard - everything.

Valiantly Chichikov struggles with the endless obstacles to this ridiculous quest with mixed success, and by the time it's over you suspect his whole plan will probably fall through. But no matter, no one really expects to accomplish anything within this hopelessly corrupt and nepotistic imperial order. You feel they are all just going through the motions.

As the book goes on we become aware that this Chichikov considers himself both a patriot and a serious man, and it is this dead pan humor, and the perfectly idiosyncratic way Gogol writes it that set this work apart from so much lesser comedy. Chichikov (and perhaps even Gogol himself!) see nothing either ridiculous, or dishonest, in this ludicrous scheme. An absurd little man, with an even more absurd little manservant whom must content himself with the scraps from his master's table, surrounded by people who's endeavors in life are equally petty, tawdry, and absurd, they seem perfectly content (when they aren't being beaten up or arrested). In fact they are quite taken with their importance. This dissonance, this dissociation from reality is what drives the humor. Humor that is somewhat subtle, but if you are open to it, it will leave you rolling on the floor in stitches.

Gogol, a real eccentric, was said to have taught history at a Russian University, and not to have had the vaguest idea what he was talking about. In later years he determined to make up for his "terrible mistake" of writing Dead Souls and not writing "a great patriotic work to glorify Mother Russia." He spent a decade or so attempting to write that work, and threw the result away. His genius was in seeing the foibles and absurdities of life with a hawk eye and not understanding that himself. Truth and hilarious wit were his instinctive genius as an author, but they were in revolt against his patriotic, pro-czarist, and Pro-orthodox self!

Being a staunch conservative and having written a book widely acclaimed as social satire worthy of Jonathan Swift, did not make poor Gogol a very happy man, and setting out to write the True Patriotic Book about Russia he failed utterly and the disappointment destroyed him. There was never a sadder case of a artist misunderstanding his own genius. Yet it resulted in one hell of a good comedy in 'Dead Souls!'

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2015 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Fado Tradicional

Below is a review that I wrote for the CD "Fado Tradicional" by the internationally acclaimed Portuguese fado singer, Mariza. The review is accompanied by a poem I wrote to commemorate this great artist, and I thought it would be worth posting here because I was very humbled by having Mariza herself thank me for it. Below is the poem also in its Portuguese translation, as I would like to eventually have it set to music, as a fado, a singularly Portuguese and Brazilian tradition.


I recently bought a copy of Fado Tradicional and although I've already listened to it a half a dozen times I have just begun to savor it. Mariza at times devastates with soul wrenching poignancy, as in her first two albums, Fado Em Mim, and Fado Curvo, and at times grows on you like fine wine. Fado Tradicional belongs to the second category, that of a fine wine. Every time we listen we are more attracted, more entranced.

She is without doubt, in my mind, the great singer of this generation and I've asked myself at times - "What is the essence of her greatness?" I think it's her singular embodiment of the musical tradition she espouses. It is as if she were made for the fado, and the fado were made for her.

The fado tradition shines clearly as the world's greatest folk tradition. It surpasses the idiom of folk music and enters the realm of high art. It is perhaps the greatest expression of Portuguese culture, a culture still imbued with the spirit of romanticism, something singular and beautiful in our too often soulless, pragmatic age . . . something powerfully redeeming in its essential nobility.

Fado Tradicional explores the roots of Portugese fado and I appreciate these songs even more when I read the lyrics in translation as I listen to the music, because the words are important in this album. The lyrics of the fado surpass that of most folk traditions. They are poetry. And in this album the interplay of the poetry and music is the experience, and the experience is sublime!

Mariza

Your voice is like a freshening wind,
Like a storm from a frozen sea, in sultry Alfama,
Or the scent of a rose on a dark winter evening,
That fills the eyes with tears.

Those black grapes of the Douro.
Their succulent leaves against the dark earth, and the sun,
I long to know the taste of them, of their dark wine,
That fills the soul with peace.

Those winter nights in Mouraria,
The ragged peddlers, the Gypsies, and the faint accordion,
Everywhere the angelic mourning of the guitar,
And that restive yearning of the street.

In those dark streets of Lisbon,
I hear your voice with every step,
It is always with me;
It is the sound of my longing.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2015 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Mariza

Sua voz é como um refrescar vento,
Como uma tempestade de um mar congelado, em sensual Alfama,
Ou o perfume de uma rosa em uma noite de inverno,
Que enche os olhos de lágrimas.

Essas uvas pretas do Douro.
Suas folhas suculentas contra a terra escura, eo sol,
Eu desejo saber o gosto deles, de seu vinho escuro,
Que enche a alma de paz.

Aquelas noites de inverno em Mouraria,
Os camelos pobres, os ciganos, e os fracos acordeão,
Em toda parte o luto angelical da guitarra,
E esse anseio rebelde da rua.

Nessas ruas escuras da cidade de Lisboa,
Eu ouço sua voz a cada passo,
Ele está sempre comigo;
É o som da minha saudade.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2014 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com