The Rest of West and other stories

Moving on to the two lesser known of Nathanael West's novellas, proved to be more of an excursion into the exotic than Had been expected. The Dream Life of Balso Snell and A Cool Million are both picaresque, a bit like Don Quixote and Candide, but also grotesque.

The introduction to the Wordsworth Classics edition says of Balso Snell that,

To call this a work of precocious undergraduate humour might seem ungenerous to both undergraduates and their literary efforts. One critic, Daniel Aaron, reviewing it in 1947, called it 'scatalogical and pretentiously wise' and this is such an exact judgement that it demands little elaboration. 

Snell's adventures having entered the Trojan horse via its posterior aperture result in encounters with literature and ideas that are ingenious in parts, taken to extremes and sometimes cleverly funny. That doesn't add up to a satisfactory work but it's only 20000 words and so one can stay with it. If it's a critique of literary endeavours then its gaucheness can be explained away as an element of its methods. If it is deliberately appalling some might count such appallingness as part of its success. The thing about 'experimental' writing is that there is no need for it to see print unless the experiment came off. As such, it's hard to like but of interest in its strangeness.

All of West's stories end in violence, as if some terrible end is inevitable. In A Cool Million, Lem Pitkin sets off to New York to make his fortune, as promised by the American Dream. Through a terrible series of misadventures he loses an eye, half a leg, his teeth, is scalped but remains undaunted as his ongoing disfigurement proceeds. It is a cartoon-like inversion of the myth that anybody can make it in New York. His death is not the end of his debasement, though, as he is taken up as a symbolic hero by the National Revolutionary Party, the vehicle for an ex-President that has loud echoes in the USA today, who proclaim that,

'He did not die in vain. Through his martyrdom, the National Revolutionary Party triumphed, and by that triumph this country was delivered from sophistication, Marxism and International Capitalism. Through the National Revolution its people were purged of alien diseases and America became again America.'

That sounds familiar and if the current incumbent was thought to have read any literary fiction, you'd think he'd read that. Thus, while The Day of the Locust is a fine book and Miss Lonelyhearts a success, it's almost in West's more dubious books that he's more interesting. Neither Balso Snell or Cool Million add much to his literary reputation but the former adds the dimension of surrealism and a genuine shock value and the latter by now looks prescient about MAGA and all the unhinged mania that comes with it.

I don't need to make room for West in the top echelon of my favourite prose fiction writers. It's by no means as fixed a list as its poetry equivalent anyway. But there was enjoyment to be had in reading him and I'm glad I did.

-

Next up, seized upon in the Chichester Oxfam shop because I was in the market for it anyway, Marco Polo's Travels. I'm expecting something picaresque and unlikely-sounding from him, too.

--

But last night. well on the way to justifying the licence fee on its own, the Radio 3 concert was Tenebrae with the Britten Sinfonia doing James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross, the Allegri Miserere and other almost as compelling pieces. 

It must be approaching thirty years since the MacMillan was broadcast late one night and the first disc of it subsequently appeared. It comes now with the big advantage of being familiar but that brings with it no trace of contempt, only a deeper thrill, if anything. A colossal piece that is both austere and shines forth. There is The Protecting Veil, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Errollyn Wallen, the Philip Glass Violin Concerto but MacMillan, with Veni, Veni and Isobel Gowdie to be taken into consideration, has provided music as memorable and powerful as any living composer.

Worth looking up. 

Southampton

 The daylight needs to be disposed of, the bus pass can take you anywhere. At the pace of its own choosing, admittedly. I lived and worked in Southampton for a time circa 1983 or 84 and then more happily worked there 1987-91. While I go through it on trains from time to time I've not got off much in the last ten years. Eight years ago for the Jess Davies Band on the release of the one and only record I had a hand in writing and then to see/hear Isata Kanneh-Mason play Clara Schumann. I'd have to check older diaries to see when it was we went to see Bowling for Soup. A free bus ride to see it again, then.

It was never an unpleasant place but it's always lacked charisma. Two 'careers' that I only ever regarded as jobs sent me there but I never wanted to stay. I arrived just in time to find a Corals and see Planters Punch, the only runner for Mr. Henderson at Bangor, steered home by Nico. Then it was lucky I went to the Art Gallery first because it closes at 3pm, somewhat weirdly. They have an early Hambling, an Auerbach, Van Dyck, Renoir, Gainsborough. There was an exhibiton by Emma Richardson but sadly the painting about ghosts isn't available on the internet to put here. It was far and away the most captivating. 

But, all these years on, the places where I lived and were employed are all gone. The dive where I lived has been replaced, or maybe only remodelled into an updated building of similarly compact living spaces. I followed the walk into Above Bar and wasn't sure of the precise premises where I'd suffered the indignities of junior retail management in an unsuitable job with wildly incompatible colleagues. While they seemed to think salesmanship was an honourable profession, it was clearly pathologically absurd to me. 

And the office block I worked in later in the first glory days of a life in the civil service has been replaced, as have so many buildings, with apartments. And yet there is still a housing crisis.

At first I thought it was The Dolphin we sometimes had our liquid lunches in and it seemed like the ultimate degradation that it is now a gym but on the way back The Red Lion was still there. But all trace of the imposing administrative centre overlooking the park has vanished, as by now have several of the friends I had in there 35 years ago. At least in Nottingham the houses, school and church I knew were still intact along with Trent Bridge, Meadow Lane and the City Ground.

But, notwithstanding those golden years of introduction to the civil service culture to which I owe so much, Southampton never had it for me. I'm not saying I feel at home in Portsmouth but one loses such affiliations by moving about too much and instead become a ready-made outsider, especially if one's temperament suits it so well anyway.

So, no, in spite of the several good people I ever knew who had Southampton allegiances, I'll know to keep on passing through and not go back. It featured on my university applications as first choice in 1978 for reasons that are hard to think of by now. I'm not convinced I missed much, or that Southampton University did, when nothing came of that.  

Nathanael West

 Forty-five years ago, my forage into the C20th American novel for the sake of unit 305 included some Fitzgerald, Catcher in the Rye, Saul Bellow, The Bell Jar and The Sound and the Fury. A despairing look at Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Not much else. My essays were on Eugene O'Neill/Tennessee Williams and Sylvia. I wish I'd read Nathanael West but I think I imagined The Day of the Locust was science fiction, as per that of the triffids, and even then that was a genre I disparaged with the utmost gusto.

One great reason for reading West would be that his books can be read in a day. Four of them fit into a neat little paperback. A better one is that he's tremendous.

Miss Lonelyhearts is almost shockingly cruel in places. I'd say 'cynical' by way of praise, where it is a good thing when understood properly, but most seem to take it as a negative the way it's come to be used. Since the whole theme of C20th American Lit seemed to be the 'American Dream' and its casualties, heaven knows where we are by 2026 when this tawdry view of it was available in the 1930's. The broken lives, the commodification of misery, maybe it's a shame it ends so dramatically but, as with Gatsby, it's as if it's not tragic enough unless it does.

The Day of the Locust is possibly more substantial although both belie their low word counts with big themes and quality writing. Here is the first famous fictional Homer Simpson and one wonders at the reference point because surely Matt Groening would have rest West. 

He is an awkward, downbeat character finding himself among the community of Hollywood extras who live with more hope for their film careers than their talents justify,

Faye's affectations, however, were so completely artificial that he found them charming. 

....

He believed that while she often recognized the falseness of an attitude, she persisted in it because she didn't know how to be simpler or more honest. She was an actress who had learned from bad models in a bad school.

 

There is a great deal to like about West and I'll pile straight into his other two novellas, grateful to have caught up with this element of a reading list from all those years ago. I did once add Sherwood Anderson, and Carson McCullers. I'd read some Hemingway before I got to university, and Ken Kesey. I don't remember Edith Wharton being on the list. The C20th was only 80% through. 

I'd like to think that eventually I will have read enough, and maybe even 'got it' enough, to be worthy of the B.A. (Hons) that, quite honestly, seemed like an underwhelming achievement but that might not be my fault. They seemed happy enough to present me with a certificate. I suspect that the conferring of degrees is not quite the great thing that those who don't have them imagine. Not in 1981 and maybe not in 2026 either.

But I'm here to celebrate Nathanael West, not denigrate educational qualifications. It's another victory for following one clue after another. I arrived at him via Weldon Kees and, yes, one can make the connection.

Audio

The Studio Album.

Piece of cake with this simple, home use technology. I'll knock up some sort of document to go with it, whether or not it amounts to sleeve notes, see if I can think of a better title than Audio and a picture for the cover and there it will be.

It looks like it e-mails okay, the file size not being too big to go, so it could be made freely available. It remains to be seen if I'll re-record it before doing that. It comes in two parts because, as recording engineer, I accidentally began a new file before track 3.

George Martin put Cilla through numerous takes for Anyone Who Had a Heart and Burt Bacharach wanted even more for Alfie before they were happy. I maybe ought to be slightly fussier than using my first takes without being quite so perfectionist but I'm not trying to make a million-seller.

The track listing is,

Twilight
Piccadilly Dusk
The Cathedrals of Liverpool
Starý židovský Hřbitov
Fiction
Move Over, Darling
Herbstregen
Situation
Rainyday Woman
Windy Miller
Romanticism
Success 

 

Twelve poems approximating to the greatest hits without that being a suitable title because I'm not claiming greatness for them, or even that they were hits. There is always a borderline area where one or two look lucky to get in ahead of one or two others.

But it's an enjoyable thing to do while also making one feel as if one is attempting to be a 'heritage' artist, re-packaging the back catalogue or, as the Sex Pistols more forthrightly put it, Floggin' a Dead Horse. But it might have the effect of initiating some rekindling of the motivation to try to produce more of such things. If the right idea shows up, I'd be glad to. Whether it does anything to encourage 'live' performances is another matter.

However, with a few weeks without musical events to report on, at least DGBooks is back to talking about books and even that which the original idea was to do, my poems. 

The Studio Album

     The new laptop promises to be quite a success. Already I've taken it upstairs and looked at a book on it from the safety of my remote eyrie away from the possibility of kids playing outside. I then went on to watch some greyhound racing and landed a modest gamble on the fav in the long distance open race, which always seems the sensible option in dog racing. Thus, while there is still money in the account, I availed myself of 10/1 about Jagwar for the National although if I were you I'd wait until the day when the advertised prices might be better.

However, I found the microphone and sound recording features, too.  

I find this visual representation of my first go at reading a poem a thing of rare beauty. The title and each of the fourteen lines come in similar, but all different, shapes of sound suggesting variety within discipline which is what I like to think it is - like something by Haydn, perhaps. It has immediately given rise to ideas of recording a little album of poems. I've never doubted that poems are to be read aloud, it's just I don't like doing it in public for a number of reasons. But recorded in private without all the protocols of the 'live' reading, much of that is avoided.

So, something to think about. 8 poems, maybe 10, all done on one file hoping it would be of e-mailable size although I have my doubts.                        

Schubert and Melancholy

I remain haunted by having said a couple of months ago that I 'never found Schubert down-hearted'. Not the only daft thing I ever said and for the most part I meant it but the disbelief it was met with makes it one of the more questionable of recent times. I've not seen Lilac Time, the 1934 film with Richard Tauber, so I can't blame it on that.

I spent much of a day playing discs of Schubert and still found much more 'lightness of touch' than depression. I don't find the Unfinished Symphony at all pessimistic.

I wondered if melancholy was a temporary condition or a character trait and found it can be both. Sadly, as it were, Robert Burton's Anatomy was rather longer that what I wanted to read 45 years ago in C17th Lit. I expect both Montaigne and Dr. Johnson are good on the subject, and more succinct.

So I ordered a Schubert biography from the library. He's about the most important composer whose life I've not read yet anyway. Elizabeth Norman McKay's book is excellent, balancing the demands of the life, the music, contemporary ideas and events very well and covering the 31 years in 340 pages in plenty but not too much detail.

But if ignorance is no defence, it looks like I'm guilty as charged. It says the Piano Sonata, D. 784, is,

one of the darkest of all his compositions, autobiographical in the emotions it expressed of pain, distress, anger, and ill temper,

and, yes, I was familiar with it. 

Perhaps the best short answer to a complicated question is summarized in a chaper on Two Natures in which Schubert could be a sociable, attractive and popular personality but increasingly refusing to be bound by social convention. The latter part led one witness to note,

how powerfully the craving for pleasure dragged his soul down to the slough of moral degradation.

It seems likely that debauchery, of which the book is short of lurid detail, was a factor in his death just short of 32. There is a suggestion that his friend Schober was a bad influence.     Quite how he found the time for such indulgence as well as reaching well over 900 opus numbers in so brief a life is hard to say, especially as there were fallow periods and illness.

It's a remarkable life, as were those of Mozart and Beethoven, to name only two. So is there some law that genius is bound to live an extraordinary life. Not necessarily, despite the prodigious output of music and children, Bach doesn't appear to have been outrageous.

But I'd better be more careful about my pronouncements. No, I don't generally find Schubert's music down-hearted but he was clearly 'bi-polar'. For me, though, it is the 'sincere, incapable of malice, friendly, grateful, modest, sociable, communicative of joy' character that comes most through the music. The world's not an easy place to negotiate for some and his talent and commitment was to his art rather than applied to the world. He comes across as a sort of ruined saint, somehow not quite on a par with Beethoven but not very far behind him at all.  

Leora Cohen & David Gray in Chichester

 Leora Cohen & David Gray, Chichester Cathedral, Mar 24

There might come a time when, due to climate change, thousands of years of literature and music will need to be annotated with footnotes explaining the characteristics of the seasons described in such things as Chaucer, Vivaldi and Keats's Ode to Autumn. For the time being, though, they are still more or less recognizable and this year in the UK, Spring arrived exactly on time and with it some musical programmes to mark the event.

As with several of his pieces, it wasn't Beethoven that gave the Spring Sonata its name and he might not have had it specifically in mind in the abundance of the Allegro. The sharing and coherence of Leora and David together belied the fact that he was a late stand-in for the advertised pianist. The Adagio was indeed molto expressivo, captivating as I think (did it?) shift into the minor key and it might most credibly have been a nocturne. After a capricious Scherzo, it turned out to be the cheery, classical Rondo that I, for one, went home with playing on repeat in the memory.

It is a measure of Beethoven's colossal status that such a piece would count as a major item in the oeuvre of many lesser names but would take some time to arrive at when listing his. I'm glad to find that the Violin Sonatas are on my shelves - these days I can never remember- and so I'm grateful for this reminder to go back to them.

Grieg's To Spring was sonorous and song-like, Leora's violin rich over David's finely modulated piano but one imagines Lili Boulanger's D'un matin de printemps was where their technique was more thoroughly tested. Mercurial and flighty but with spaciousness in its more extended lines, it was possibly the most Spring-like piece, being 'changeable' as the day's sudden turn back to cool and overcast reminded us that it can be.