Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

• Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris, or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), is a story about “what it means to be an outcast.” The novel also “considers what it means to be a monster. The novel makes Quasimodo’s defining characteristic his physical monstrosity, and his entire identity is constructed around being perceived as a monster. He is described by one of the women of Paris as a 'wicked' ugly man.” Hugo wrote it in an attempt to save the Notre Dame cathedral. However, ethically and spiritually, the monsters are those who demean or disparage others. The statues at the Cathedral, who do not mock or threaten Quasimodo, represent that.
• P.D. James, Death Comes to Pemberly: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011): “A proud, clever girl . . . is pursued, reluctantly, by a dashing, arrogant wealthy man . . . who loves her but considers her beneath him. 'Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?' he rudely asks, grudgingly confessing his love and demanding her hand in marriage. He’s stunned when she refuses him. Eventually, Lizzy teaches him more 'gentlemanlike' manners and they marry in a double wedding . . .”
• Geraldine Brooks, Caleb’s Crossing: A Novel (Viking, 2011): a young woman’s respect for a native American tribe places her at odds within her community.
• Karen Jennings, An Island: A Novel (Hogarth, 2022): “. . . a 70-year-old hermit who’s increasingly paranoid and delusional, Samuel spends the duration of the story contending with the alarming presence of this living newcomer — a man who, unlike so many others, treats him with a trust and even a kindness he can’t perceive or hope to return.”

From the dark side:

In this passage from Les Misérables, Hugo describes the attitude of the Thénardiers’ two daughters toward Cosette.

Éponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty years between them, but they already represented the whole society of man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume II – Cosette; Book Third – Accomplishment of a Promise Made To a Dead Woman, Chapter VIII, “The Unpleasantness of Receiving Into One’s House a Poor Man Who May Be a Rich Man”

"Well, since you must know all, it is so.  I have agreed to sell Tom and Harry both; and I don't know why I am to be rated, as if I were a monster, for doing what every one does every day." [Harriett Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (1852), Volume 1, Chapter 5, “Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Others”.]

As, for example, Mr. Haley: he thought first of Tom’s length, and breadth, and height, and what he would sell for, if he was kept fat and in good case till he got him into market. He thought of how he should make out his gang; he thought of the respective market value of certain supposititious men and women and children who were to compose it, and other kindred topics of the business; then he thought of himself, and how humane he was, that whereas other men chained their “niggers” hand and foot both, he only put fetters on the feet, and left Tom the use of his hands, as long as he behaved well; and he sighed to think how ungrateful human nature was, so that there was even room to doubt whether Tom appreciated his mercies. He had been taken in so by ‘niggers’ whom he had favored; but still he was astonished to consider how good-natured he yet remained! [Harriett Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (1852), Volume 1, Chapter XII, “Select Incident of Lawful Trade”.]

The catching business, we beg to remind them, is rising to the dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession.  If all the broad land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one great market for bodies and souls, and human property retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy. [Harriett Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (1852), Volume 1, Chapter 8, “Eliza’s Escape”.]

Novels and stories from the dark side:

• Sharon Applefeld, Until the Dawn’s Light: A Novel (Schocken Books, 2011): “Despite being Jewish herself, Blanca shares a certain degree of his distaste for Jews, and their marriage represents another departure: from her parents’ house and faith. Not long after their wedding, Adolf begins to beat Blanca, ostensibly to purge her of the last vestiges of her Judaism and to drive Austrian strength into her. His brutal abuse soon reduces her to a state of paralytic fear.”
• Affinity Konar, Mischling: A Novel (Little, Brown & Company, 2016): “This man had a secret torture chamber lined with the eyes of those who had succumbed to his torments. One by one, he took the children to his torture chamber and did terrible things to them. Eventually the children were freed — at least, those who were still alive. But they could never be quite whole again.”
• Teddy Wayne, Loner: A Novel (Simon & Schuster, 2016), is about a stalker at Harvard.
• Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Mercies: A Novel (Little, Brown, 2020): “A reader might guess where a story involving a stern Scottish witch hunter and a divided village of bereaved women might go. The novel delights not with surprise, but by pursuing its course of action with precision and purpose. Hargrave spares the reader no gory details, whether of birth, miscarriage or the scent of a body burning at the stake.”
• Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934), a classic lust-driven novel.
• Frederick Turner, Renegade: Henry Miller and the Making of “Tropic of Cancer” (Yale University Press, 2012): inside Miller’s misogyny and indifference.
• Cara Blue Adams, You Never Get It Back: Stories (University of Iowa Press, 2021): “Through the stories of a young woman named Kate . . . Cara Blue Adams shows the impossibility of innocence in a world that doesn’t recognize your worth.”
• Julia May Jones, Vladimir: A Novel (Avid Reader Press, 2022): “Sex, Lies and Infidelity on a Small College Campus”.
• Daisy Lafarge, Paul: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2022): “A debut novel views a middle-aged organic farmer through the eyes of a 21-year-old woman he preys upon.”
• S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel (Flatiron Books, 2023): “Latrell and Spearman were part of a killing trio. The third murderer is still on the loose. Titus’s job is to find him in a Southern community Cosby describes as 'a no-man’s land between people who believed in him, people who hated him because of his skin color and people who believed he was a traitor to his race.'”
• Rachael Kushner, Creation Lake: A Novel (Scribner, 2024): “Sadie is not, in the manner of a John le Carré character, longing to come in from the cold. She is already one of the coldest customers serious American fiction has seen in recent years. The isolation, the danger and the emotional hardships of her work (including unwelcome sex) roll off her shoulders. She likes what she does. She has a knack for it.”

Poetry

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, / The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, / The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, / The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, / The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, / The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, / The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,  

The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, / The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye, / The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case, / (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bed-room;) / The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, / He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; / The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table, / What is removed drops horribly in a pail; / The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove, / The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass, / The young fellow drives the express-wagon,

(I love him, though I do not know him;) / The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, / The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, / Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; / The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee, / As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, / The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, / The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain, / The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron, / The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale, / The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways, / As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers, / The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots, / The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child, / The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill, / The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold, / The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread, / The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him, / The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions, / The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!)

The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray, / The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling about the odd cent;) / The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,  

The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips, / The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck, / The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other, / (Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)  

The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries, / On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms, / The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold, / The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle, / As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change, / The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof, the masons are calling for mortar, / In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers; / Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!) / Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground; / Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface, / The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe, / Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees, / Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas, / Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,  

Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them, / In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport, / The city sleeps and the country sleeps, / The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, / The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; / And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, / And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, / And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book III: Song of Myself, 15.]

Other poems:

• Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book XV, “A Song for Occupations”
• Theodore Roethke, “Elegy for Jane”

From the dark side:

• Pablo Neruda, “Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks”
• Seamus Heaney, “Docker” (power and dominance)

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea’s music is characterized by his consummate musical intelligence and respect for each voice in the ensemble. “A groundbreaking artist both as a keyboardist (piano, electric piano, synthesizer) and as a composer-arranger, Chick Corea moved fluidly among jazz, fusion, and classical music throughout his long career, winning national and international honors including 23 Grammy Awards.” “. . . he left a legacy of experimentation, preserving and expanding the jazz tradition. Over more than a half-century, he deftly navigated the music’s continually shifting boundaries.” Corea said: “Working with other musicians is what music is to me. If there were not other musicians, it would be some kind of abstractness of loneliness, out sitting on a cloud somewhere.” Corea released dozens of albums, and was the main artist on an impressive set of playlists. Live concerts include:

• 1982 concert (57’)
• Bern Jazz Festival 1986 (76’)
• Live in Hamburg, 1987 (78’)
• Live in Munich 1992 (105’)
• Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile, 1995 (66’)
• San Sebastian, 2008 (45’)
• Return to Forever, 43 Jazzaldia Festival, 2008 (80’)
• Tbilisi Jazz Festival, 2012 (32’)
• Festival de Jazz de Vitoria-Gataez, 2013 (71’)
• “The Ultimate Adventure 2007” album
• Jazz Night in America, 2018 (75’)

Paul Kletzki was a conductor known for respecting composers’ intentions. This was noted in his interpretations of Beethoven’s symphonies. Kletzki fled three totalitarian regimes, and conducted several orchestras, in various locations. Here is a link to his playlists, and a brief clip of his conducting.

The technical difficulty of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53, “Waldstein” (1803) (approx. 24-27’), suggests that he must have had great respect for Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein, for whom he named the work. Top recorded performances are by Artur Schnabel in 1934, Rudolf Serkin in 1952, Lili Kraus in 1953, Jenő Jandó in 1987, Louis Lortie in 1991, Richard Goode in 1993, Alfred Brendel in 1993, Ronald Brautigam in 2004, Paul Lewis in 2006, Jonathan Biss in 2013, and Olga Paschenko in 2021 (begin at 24:45).

Other works:

• David Stock, Oborama (2010) (approx. 20’): we hear from all the oboes in turn: English horn, musette, oboe d’amore, bass oboe and oboe.
• George Antheil, String Quartet No. 2, For Sylvia Beach, with love (1927) (approx. 16-20’)
• Malcolm Arnold’s dances for orchestra pay homage to several regions of the English isles. They include 4 English Dances, Set I, Op. 27 (1950) (approx. 8’); 4 English Dances, Set II, Op. 33 (1951) (approx. 8-9’); 4 Scottish Dances, Op. 59 (1957) (approx. 10’); 4 Cornish Dances, Op. 91 (1966) (approx. 10-13’); 4 Irish Dances, Op. 126 (1986) (approx. 8-9’); and 4 Welsh Dances, Op. 138 (1988) (approx. 10’).
• Alexander Borodin, Piano Quintet in C Minor (1862) (approx. 26’) “has the distinct imprint of folk-tinged melody that was to be one of Borodin’s mainstays”.

Albums:

• Trio da Kali & Kronos String Quartet, “Ladilikan” (2017) (47’) is a collaboration between West African aritsts and a Western string quartet, which “represents a landmark in cultural cross-fertilisation”. The melding of these two traditions produces a sound that suggests a deep respect for each other.
• Diana Baroni & Simon Drappier, “Pan Atlantico” (2022) (38’), presents a fusion of Latin, North American and European styles.
• Sarah Aroeste, “Monastir” (2021) (37’), is titled after an Ottoman city whose Jewish population had a difficult history. This album pays homage to those people.
• Joseph Tawadros with William Barton, “History Has a Heartbeat” (2022) (77’): gracious statements from Tawadros’ oud, coupled with haunting replies from Barton’s trumpet and the album’s title, bring this under the heading of respectfulness. Fittingly, Tawadros says: “The album is about Australia, its diversity and wonderful voices that exist within it. I’ve always been a fan of William Barton and we have known each other and been friends for more than 20 years, I felt it was the right time for us to join forces with this national treasure . . . (the album is about our cultures and traditions and how they are kept alive and still beating today.”
• Ermenegildo del Cinque composed more works for cello than any other composer, including eighteen sonatas for three cellos. Warm and gentle of spirit, they evoke foundations of fellowship and good feeling. Here are is a link to an album by Козодовым, Судзиловским & Шаповаловым in 2004 (58’). 

Six operas, at least, explore respect for human worth from the dark side:

• Giuseppe Verdi, Otello (1853) (approx. 131-143’) (libretto): Otello “loves” his wife Desdemona – until Iago falsely tells him that she has been unfaithful. Relying on the lie and without much investigation, he then murders her. Otello does not respect Desdemona, and Iago does not respect anyone.  Usually seen as a tragedy about jealousy, the deeper lesson is that a lack of respect for worth can bring jealousy to tragedy. Recordings of the opera with video are conducted by Erede in 1949,  and Peskó in 1982. Top audio-recorded performances are conducted by: Toscanini in 1947, Busch in 1948, Erede in 1954, Stiedry in 1955, Cleva in 1958, Serafin in 1960, Karajan in 1971, Levine in 1978, and Chung in 1993 (acts 1 & 2; acts 3 & 4) ***.
• Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto (1851) (approx. 104-130’) (libretto): Loosely based on Victor Hugo’s Novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), this opera tells of a hunchbacked jester, employed by a Duke, whose sarcasm turns against him and his daughter. Rigoletto is not innocent in the story. Recordings of the opera with video are conducted by: Chailly in 1982, and Arkhipov in 2021. Top audio-recorded performances are conducted by Molajoli in 1930, Papi in 1939, Questa in 1954, Serafin in 1955, Molinari-Pradelli in 1959, Gavazeni in 1960 **, Solti in 1963, Bonynge in 1971 **, and Giulini in 1979.
• Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (1859) (approx. 210-257’) (libretto), is a tragic story of medieval chivalry and disregard for human feeling. Clara Schuman described it as “the most disgusting thing I have ever seen or heard in my life! . . . To be forced to see and hear such crazy lovemaking the whole evening, in which every feeling of decency is violated and by which not only the public but even musicians seem to be enchanted – that is the saddest thing I have ever experienced in my artistic life…During the second act the two of them sleep and sing; through the whole last act – for fully 40 minutes – Tristan dies. And that they call dramatic!!!” The opera fascinated Nietzsche; Alma Mahler adored it. Is Love only about passion, or is it also about respect? In a model built on universal worth and dignity, the answer is clear; for many people, including some highly intelligent people, not so much. Recordings with video feature: Meier & Kollo (Barenboim) in 1983; and Meier & Jerusalem (Barenboim) in 1995. Top audio-recorded performances are conducted by Reiner in 1936, Knappertsbusch in 1950, Furtwängler in 1952, Karajan in  1952, Solti in 1960, Böhm in 1966 ***, and Kleiber in 1982.
• Amilcare Ponchielli, La Gioconda (The Joyful One) (1876) (approx. 148-175’) (libretto): a young woman is sought after, to her destruction. Recordings with video feature Gruber (Renzetti); Mazzaria (Renzetti) in 2006; and Voigt (Callegari). Excellent audio-recorded performances are by Milanov (Panizza) in 1939; Cerquetti (Gavazzeni) in 1956; Callas (Votto) in 1959; Farrell (Cleva) in 1962; and Tebaldi (Gardelli) in 1967.
• Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aleko (1892) (approx. 58-67’): “Aleko is a Russian who lives with the gypsies. His girlfriend is Zemfira, but she is two-timing him with one of her own tribe. He eventually kills them both and is banished from the gypsies.” “Aleko contains plot elements of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (an unfaithful wife and a double murder), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana  (also with an unfaithful wife and a killing), some gypsy influences that recall the Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman, and a soulful Russian flavor reminiscent of Mussorgsky.” Recordings with video feature Eisen in 1989, and Vinogradov in 2015. Top audio-recorded performances feature Petrov in 1951, Nesterenko in 1987, Lieferkus in 1996, and Noseno in 1997.
• Arnold Rosner, The Chronicle of Nine: The Tragedy of Queen Jane, Op. 81 (1984) (approx. 131’): a 17-year-old young woman is made queen, over her protests, then after nine days is executed – she was a pawn in other people’s political plans. The highly-regarded premier performance of this work on disc features Pachecano (Rose) in 2021. 

Dmitri Shostakovich, Violin Concerto No 1 in A Minor, Op, 99 (1948) (approx. 36-40’), sounds like a lament about life in the Soviet Union, under Stalin. “Though not Jewish himself, Shostakovich noted that 'My parents considered anti-Semitism a shameful superstition, and in that sense particularly I was given a very good upbringing.' Unfortunately, not all Soviets were so enlightened. Becoming increasingly paranoid, Stalin had begun an anti-Semitic campaign during WWII which intensified in 1948. Regarding the persecution, Shostakovich remarked '…how "this" had started with the Jews but would end up with the entire intelligentsia.'” The work “lay hidden in a desk drawer until its premier October 29, 1955, with the Leningrad Philharmonic and the dedicatee as soloist. It was not safe to bring it out until two years after Stalin’s death.” Great performances are by Oistrakh (Mitropoulos) in 1956, Kogan (Kondrashin) in 1962, Vengerov (Rostropovich) in 1994 *** , Repin (Nagano) in 1995, Hahn (Janowski) in 2002, Khachatryan (Masur) in 2006, Batiashvili (Salonen) in 2010, and Ibragimova (Jurowski) in 2020. 

Albums from the dark side:

• Beholder, “Claim No Native Land” (2017) (40’)
• Payadora Tango Ensemble, “Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango” (2023) (40’): “Through music, the project tells stories of Holocaust survivors in Canada.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Paul Simon, “Under African Skies” (lyrics)
• Nawang Khechog, “Nomads of the Tibetan High Plateau”
• Andra Day, “Rise Up” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Mlle. Irène Cahen d’Anvers (1880)
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Artist's Mother (1860)
• Paolo Veronese, Respect (c. 1575), from his Four Allegories of Love

Film and Stage

• Driving Miss Daisy, in which a Southern matron learns to respect her black chauffeur
• Moolaadé: six young women in a Senegalese village challenge the “purification” ritual of female genital mutilation, and villagers face the inevitable conflicts between tradition and group-pressure on the one hand and respect for human worth on the other.

Fundamental values like respecting the worth of others often are presented from the dark side, as in these films:

• Welcome to the Dollhouse, on the horrors of being unfashionable and not cool in “the hell of junior high school”
• Sansho the Bailiff, a tale from eleventh-century Japan on the shadow side of respect
• The Wild Child (L’Enfant Suavage), a story that examines the dividing line between helping another and glorifying or gratifying oneself.
• That Obscure Object of Desire, Buñuel’s final film, in which he took “satiric aim at a decadent, decaying society riddled by political unrest and moral bankruptcy” through a “game of sexual cat-and-mouse”
• A Clockwork Orange, in which people are molded to suit society’s desires
• Black Robe, about the arrogant disrespectfulness of a zealous missionary
• Coming Home, examining the treatment of returning soldiers
• Contempt (Le Mépris), about the dissolution of a marriage
• The Girl Can’t Help It, a film that “lampoon(s) the American male's fixation on female bosoms and bottoms”
• The Last Emperor: about how the last Manchu emperor of China was like a pawn caught first in privileges and then in political turmoil
• The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), about people using each other “at the passing of an age”
• The Madness of King George: the king as pawn
• Sex, Lies, and Videotape: about how people use each other in “intimate” relationships
• Sid & Nancy, about an unhealthy relationshipbased on dependence and attachment
• The Wages of Fear, about men desperate for moneywho accept low-paying, life-endangering work to survive
• Alfie: a contemporary Don Juan without much of a conscience
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang: a film that exposed abuses in the chain-gang systemin the United States, leading to their abolition 
• The Magdalene Sisters: a dramatization of true stories about women who were placed in convent-like asylums to atone for supposed “sins”
• I, Daniel Blake: Unable to work due to a recent heart attack, a man navigates through the absurdities of an uncaring bureaucracy.
• Malcolm X: The criminal disrespect shown to Malcolm’s family as a child shaped his career as a civil rights advocate.