Side by Side by Sondheim, and Nabokov’s Bend Sinister
One of the innumerable areas in which I’m woefully ignorant is musical theater, but I was spellbound last evening by a production of Side by Side by [Stephen] Sondheim at the Community Players Theatre in Bloomington, IL. Among the amazingly talented players was Robert McLaughlin, an English professor at Illinois State University (and, as it happens, my dissertation chair). The previous Sunday Dr. McLaughlin gave a 45-minute talk on Sondheim and his vast contributions to American musical theater, somewhat in commemoration of the composer and lyricist’s eightieth birthday. Though the talk was brief, it gave me some insights into Sondheim that allowed me to understand and appreciate Side by Side more than I would have had I not heard it. Dr. McLaughlin has written a book on Sondheim and his work, and he says it’s just about ready to go to his editor. Though a neophyte fan of Sondheim, one of things about his art that I appreciate is his embracing subject matter because of its inherent interest to him — not because it was a commercial “sure thing.” (As a part-time librarian, I see the claptrap that flows across our circulation desk from the likes of Nora Roberts, James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks — and I’ve considered writing similar nonsense in hopes of becoming wealthy, but I can’t bring myself to do it; I have too many other projects in mind, none of which has any genuine prospect of making me one penny richer. It was Melville’s lament as he toiled on Moby-Dick, while the reading public clambered for another Typee or Omoo. By the way, I only draw the lines of comparison between the likes of Sondheim and Melville and myself insofar as I too can relate to being drawn to the decidedly “noncommercial.”)
On another front, in a rather roundabout way I’ve been led to reading an early Nabokov novel, Bend Sinister (1947), via my interests in Gass, who knew Nabokov at Cornell in the 1950s. It was Nabokov’s second novel that he composed in English; he’d been publishing in Russian since the mid ’20s. Maurice Couturier calls Bend Sinister “one of the first ‘American’ novels about World War II” (Critique 34.4 p. 248). I’m only ninety pages or so into Bend Sinister, but I’m struck by some similarities between its main character, Adam Krug, and William Kohler, Gass’s main character in The Tunnel. For example, both are rather antisocial university professors who relish intellectual sparring with their colleagues. Neither Krug nor Kohler thinks very highly of humanity, following the atrocities of the Second World War especially. Intriguingly, in a section I read this morning, Krug has a recurring nightmare in which he dreams of “a tunnel of sorts”: Nabokov writes, “The yawn of the tunnel and the door of the school, at the opposite ends of the yard, became football goals much in the same fashion as the commonplace organ of one species of animal is dramatically modified by a new function in another” (Henry Holt & Co. first edition, 1947, p. 63). I hadn’t necessarily been looking to Bend Sinister as a direct source for Gass’s fiction, but some of the connections thus far are, as I said, intriguing.
I continue to gather notes for an article on the fallout shelter and its effects on the American psyche in the ’50s and ’60s. I was hoping to have something publishable by May, but that seems unrealistic and sometime this summer is more likely. Meanwhile, I continue to work on The Authoress, which goes well but slowly. This afternoon I’ll attempt to make progress on one or both fronts, but I also should grade some research papers (my goal is to have all 90 or so graded by April 30).
Notes on Romeo and Juliet, print-on-demand, et al.
I’ve been meaning to say a few words about the production of Romeo and Juliet that I saw March 5 at Sangamon Auditorium. It was produced by The Acting Company/Guthrie Theater, and was very well done–a treat indeed in Springfield, Illinois. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a live production of Romeo and Juliet (discounting Prokofiev’s ballet version that I attended a couple of years ago, also at Sangamon Auditorium), and it has been many, many years since I’d read it. According to the Norton Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream were probably written at about the same time, with scholars not certain of which was quilled first. As luck would have it, I saw A Midsummer last, well, summer at the Shakespeare Festival, which prompted me to watch the Michael Hoffman 1999 film version in the meantime. There are numerous points of comparison between R&J and Midsummer, not the least of which being that the story of Pyramus and Thisbe that concludes Midsummer is a parody of Romeo and Juliet’s. I of course am still on my trauma-theory hobbyhorse, so I watched the play from that perspective. While a goodly number of scholars are at work on the early modern period, especially Shakespeare, as a site of trauma and how it was manifested in the literature of the time, I have not spent a lot of time (yet) with their findings. Nonetheless, during the play I was struck by the dynamics of the Shakespearean-style stage (Sangamon Auditorium is a picture-frame stage, but The Acting Company director had set up the stage to work, as closely as possible, like a Globe-style construction). To say there’s been a lot written about the Shakespearean-style stage would be a gross understatement, and I’ve read a fair amount. I know, for example, that one line of thought is that the stage was constructed to resemble acting in a three-sided alley, which was where the early London (and other large city) troupes would have performed initially. That theory, though, doesn’t contribute much to understanding the spareness of the sets, and the stream of continuous action (and even simultaneous action) that sets (ha) Elizabethan/Jacobean performances apart from more contemporary designs–designs which came to place great importance on realism in set and costume and special effects (the cinema of course contributed to this trend as it evolved from the late nineteenth into the twentieth century). Watching R&J, it occurred to me that the Shakespearean-style design mimics the human mind–especially (here I go) a traumatized mind. That is to say, the flow from scene to scene reflects the so-called stream-of-consciousness narrative style that modernists perfected (and that was then taken further, artistically speaking, by postmodernists); and, in a sense, one scene will usurp the audience’s attention, just as a traumatic memory imposes itself into the present moment; moreover, simultaneous scenes, being played out at various points on the stage, very much resemble the competing memories/images that trauma victims have to contend with. Ghosts are regular features of Shakespeare’s plays, of course, and R&J is no exception–though Mercutio’s ghost seems to be more certainly a manifestation of Juliet’s traumatized mind than, say, the ghost of Hamlet’s father, or the ghosts who appear to Gloucester in Richard III, or Banquo’s ghost as he interrupts Macbeth’s coronation feast.
Perhaps this notion–that the Shakespearean-style stage is mimetic of the mind, especially the traumatized mind–has been explored previously. I’ll eventually have to pursue some research on the matter.
On another front, my story “Unnatural Deeds” (a title taken, incidentally, from Macbeth) came out this past week in Leaf Garden. Leaf Garden‘s editors, like many editors/publishers these days, are trying to bridge the gap between online journals and traditional print journals by doing both cost effectively via on-demand publishers (for example, Lulu). The Oak Bend Review, which published my story “Missing the Earth” about a year ago, works in the same manner as Leaf Garden. In fact, OBR uses Lulu as well. Basically, the work appears online so that anybody in the world (who has an Internet connection) can read it, but it’s also available in a print journal format. The potential of a global audience is attractive about online publishing, and the option of an in-hand version is appealing for a host of traditional reasons. I wonder, though, who exactly is reading online journals (of which there have been an explosion in recent years)? One drawback to the print-on-demand formats is that, from my experience, the contributing author must purchase copies if he or she wants them (traditional print journals have almost always paid in one or two free copies of the issue, often with a reduced rate for additional copies if an author wants them). For example, I bought a copy of Leaf Garden No. 8, with my story in it, and it cost me over $30 with shipping, etc. That’s a full-color version, granted, and less expensive black-and-white versions will eventually be available (apparently), and I’ll no doubt buy a few of those, too. Also, the print-on-demand copies tend to be rather cheap looking, in terms of the quality of the paper, and the quality of print and/or art reproduction. But–and this is an important “but”–these online journals with an option for print-on-demand are much, much more feasible, from a budget standpoint, than traditional print journals, especially ones that are trying to put out a high-quality product. The high, high cost coupled with low, low readership (and getting lower all the time it would seem) make traditional print journals money-losing endeavors for virtually all publishers (many of whom, if not most of whom, are university sponsored–universities which are hypersensitive these days to drains on the budget). It could very well be that traditional high-cost journals are an endangered species; and these hybrid journals like Leaf Garden and Oak Bend Review are on the leading edge of where “serious” writing is headed this century.
I sent my article on cultural trauma, postmodernism, and William H. Gass to a European editor last week; we’ll see if it gets accepted for publication (he had expressed an interest in the article based on the slimmed down conference paper version I’d sent him). I’m beginning to research (or beginning more extensive research) on the phenomenon of the fallout shelter in American culture and how it may have affected the mass psyche (I have a journal in mind for that one, too, and the next submission deadline is mid-May–not sure if I’ll be able to make that). I’m also working on “The Authoress,” and I’ve been sending my story “Walkin’ the Dog” around (it’s really the last publishable short story I have right now–it’s tempting to take a break from the novel to write a story or two, but I’m reluctant to do that, especially since the writing is going well for now). I have several ideas for stories and novels, not to mention critical articles and books–enough to last me years just to work through the list as it stands right now.
More on Omensetter’s Luck, et al.
I continue to work on annotating Omensetter’s Luck, William H. Gass’s 1966 novel. Images of enclosure continue to stand out for me in the text, especially Jethro Furber’s sense of his own body, especially his skull, being a sort of enclosure from which he would like to escape. The psychological implications, especially when read via trauma theory, are fascinating. Trauma tends to colonize the psyche of the individual and “haunt” the conscious mind, unbidden. In an earlier post, I wrote about Macbeth’s visitation of the witches in their cavern suggesting to me the Scot’s exploration of his own unconscious mind, with the witches representing a traumatic event that has been lodged there. Clearly Shakespeare was interested in, what we would call, the unconscious and its effects on the conscious mind (Macbeth doesn’t know if the bloody dagger that leads him to Duncan is real or a figment of his imagination, as is the case with Banquo’s ghost; and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking and suicide are due to a “mind diseased”).
Meanwhile: The Web is an amazing thing. I’ve had two email inquiries about my dissertation thanks (apparently in both cases) to the Register-Mail article about my completing the Ph.D. that was published online. Due to the second inquiry (from Raymond Osborne of Boston University), I learned that the article was linked to “Nods Online & In Print” at Tunneling: A Resource for Readers of William H. Gass website. When I checked it out (who wouldn’t?), I came across a blog post on Omensetter’s Luck and The Tunnel that is really interesting. In a comment about the blog I learned there’s a band named Omensetters (the commenter’s daughter is in the new band). Also, in a subsequent email from Ray I learned of the blog Raul de Saldanha, for lovers of literature, which has some connections to Gass, etc. It’s amazing, the interconnectedness of the information, but also a little overwhelming to try to take it all in. Nevertheless, I appreciate people troubling to contact me about my dissertation, and it’s exciting to meet (online) others who appreciate Gass as much as I do.
On the creative writing front, I’ve been working steadily on “The Authoress,” my novel in progress, and have more than 180 manuscript pages at this point. I’ve been able to add about three pages a week, by writing for about thirty minutes each morning, Monday through Friday, by hand, then typing up those pages on the weekend. I’m working on a section now that I’ve been writing without editing/revising as I go, which is unusual for me. Normally I begin each day’s writing by reading/revising the previous day’s output. I think I’ll wait until the entire section is drafted before revising the whole thing at once, so to speak (revision is always on-going of course)–I’m curious how that approach may affect the revision process. So far I’m pleased with what I’ve written, but the earliest chapters were begun three years ago. I fear that the tone and style of those pages are distinctly different from what I’m producing now–reconciling these issues will be one of my chief goals as I revise, revise, revise.
I want to work on my Gass paper this afternoon (but the US does play Canada at 2 for Olympic gold . . . decisions, decisions).
Notes from the Louisville Conference 2010
I’ve just returned from the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900 (LCLC)–ungainly title but terrific conference–and I wanted to share some of my finds and observations. For any literature folks who haven’t been, it’s a top-flight international conference and well worth the effort. It’s normally the last weekend in February and will be again in 2011. I didn’t hear any concrete numbers, but it seemed attendance was down a bit (as universities are being hit by the economic crisis as well, and departments are having to pare back their travel allowances–in times of economic downturn, humanities and the fine arts tend to find themselves on the bureaucratic chopping block); nevertheless, the panels that I attended and participated in were up to their usual standards. I chaired a panel on Joyce’s Ulysses on Thursday. Even though it was not a prearranged panel, all three papers dealt with Molly Bloom, offering new assessments of her character in the novel. Throughout the twentieth century, commentators tended to characterize her as a wanton woman, even a whore–but these papers were much more open-minded about her roles as wife, mother, woman. I was especially intrigued by Elizabeth Kate Switaj‘s paper on “Ulysses as Lesbian Text” as the writer, a doctoral student at Queen’s University, Belfast, dealt with an approach to reading that identifies “space” for interpretation in a text that may not, at the surface level, seem to support such a reading. One of the reasons I found this approach so attractively provocative is that my own pedagogical hobbyhorse in recent months has been to get my students to embrace ambiguity in their analyses of literature. It seems that in the last couple of years especially my brightest students are “mathy” and “sciencey” types who want to reduce every work of literature to some sort of calculus equation that can be definitively “solved.” I tell them that the humanities aren’t about simplifying everything down to its “correct” answer. Humans are complex, and therefore ambiguous, creatures who often don’t understand their own behaviors and attitudes, leave be the behaviors and attitudes of others. A sophisticated textual analysis doesn’t shy away from conflicting and conflicted conclusions–these sorts of conclusions are meaningful in their own right as long as they’re grounded in textual evidence.
I was also treated to some of Switaj’s poetry. Speaking of creative panels, I especially liked the work of a young poet named Jeremy Allan Hawkins, who read from the thesis manuscript he’d submitted the previous day for his MFA from the University of Alabama. I enjoyed the short story “Blue Sky White” by Tessa Mellas, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati. Deborah Adelman’s (College of DuPage) cross-genre piece “Fleshing out the Bones” was very engaging, being part memoir, part fiction; as was Greenfield Jones’s (Louisville, Ky.) novel excerpt from Rêve Américain; and Adam Prince’s (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) “Ugly around Him” from his book-length manuscript.
I attended several thought-provoking critical panels, including one on the graphic novel–an area of literature that seems to share a lot with postmodernism, especially postmodern texts as trauma texts. Graphic novels tend to be nonlinear and elliptical, thus putting the reader in the position of having to piece the narrative together in order for it to make sense. Victims of trauma, by the same token, tend to communicate the source event in nonlinear, elliptical “texts” that must be reconstructed by a listener/reader. Another paper (by April D. Fallon, Kentucky State University) has made me interested in e. e. cummings’s poetry in a way I hadn’t been previously.
My own presentations were well enough received. I read my story “Communion with the Dead,” which was published in the fall 2008 issue of The Chariton Review. I also presented it at the College English Association Conference in March 2008. I enjoy reading it aloud, but it’s a bit tricky. For one thing, at a couple of key places in the story I switch to unpunctuated stream of consciousness, and minus any visual cues for the audience, it may not make perfect sense (not to overuse the word, but it’s meant to be elliptical even when being read, as opposed to listened to); also, there are several Italian names that look interesting (and a bit exotic, I believe) on the page, but they can be challenging to read aloud fluidly. I also presented my critical paper “In the Heart of the Heart of the Cold War: Cultural Trauma and the Fiction of William H. Gass.” It, too, was well enough received. I am attempting to turn it into a 30-page article for a European journal, and now that the Louisville Conference is over, I’ll be getting back to that project. My physical working on “The Authoress” also came to a halt this week because of my traveling–physical working, I say, because I think about the novel all the time and I have some ideas about how it should end, though the ending is still a long way off. Right now I’m working on a long central (I think) section that has been inspired, structurally at least, by Ulysses. I hope to complete a draft of the novel this summer. Meanwhile, an editor is interested in looking at my earlier written novella Weeping with an Ancient God for possible serial publication in her journal–which would be terrific, since trying to get a novella published is even more difficult than a first novel.
This morning I continued annotating Omensetter’s Luck.
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