Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.  That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. [Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1906), Chapter I, “I Discover Moses and the Bullrushers”.]

 From the dark side:

Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case, Thénardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized peoples,--hospitality. Besides, he was an admirable poacher, and quoted for his skill in shooting. He had a certain cold and tranquil laugh, which was particularly dangerous.  His theories as a landlord sometimes burst forth in lightning flashes. He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife's mind. "The duty of the inn-keeper," he said to her one day, violently, and in a low voice, "is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner, the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress and the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog eats!" [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume II – Cosette; Book Third – Accomplishment of a Promise Made To a Dead Woman, Chapter II, “Two Complete Portraits”.]

 What happens when one party is sincere and the other is not?

• Henry James, Washington Square (1881): an heiress, whose domineering father has left her at a disadvantage in gaining men’s attentions, is faced with the question whether the young man who proclaims his love for her is sincere.
• Robert Harris, Munich: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018): “Britain’s prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew to the birthplace of the Third Reich to meet Hitler and try to stave off a conflict. Twenty-four hours later, Chamberlain returned to London, where he brandished an agreement permitting Nazi Germany to occupy the territory and pronounced four words that would forever be linked with naïveté and appeasement: 'Peace for our time.'”
• Lucia Berlin, Evening in Paradise: More Stories (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018): stories about women confronted with challenges to their sweetness and sincerity: “One thing that makes Berlin so valuable is her gift for evoking the sweetness and earnestness of young women who fall in love (one thinks that being a good wife is handing her husband his coffee handle first, while she grasps the hot side) and then catching them at that moment when things begin to turn, when the trees of their being are forced to grow bark.”

Novels, from the dark side:

• Catherine Chidgey, Pet: A Novel (Europa Editions, 2023): “Everyone in this novel has a weakness to be exploited, from war trauma of a Polish nun who lives at the convent to Amy’s embarrassment over the “foreign things” in her lunchbox. Mrs. Price’s sinister gift is her ability not only to capitalize on those weaknesses but to show others how to do so as well.”
• Steven King, Holly: A Novel (Scribner, 2023): “An emerita professor of English, Emily will discuss literature with a young Black poet, while privately muttering racial slurs to herself. . . What the professors do to their victims is a stark expression of a society tearing itself apart. Their crimes are queasily believable against the lurid, cartoonish strains of fear and division that surround them.”

Poetry

They went home and told their wives, / that never once in all their lives, / had they known a girl like me, / But... They went home.
They said my house was licking clean, / no word I spoke was ever mean, / I had an air of mystery, / But... They went home.
My praises were on all men's lips, / they liked my smile, my wit, my hips, / they'd spend one night, or two or three. / But...

[Maya Angelou, “They Went Home”]

From the dark side:

• Edgar Lee Masters, “Dora Williams”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

“Blind from birth, Arthur Blake learned guitar as a way of earning a living in a hostile world.” Blind Blake was known at least in death as “King of Ragtime Guitar”. He “. . . seems to have been the primary developer of ‘finger-style’ ragtime on the guitar, the six-string equivalent to playing ragtime on the piano. Blake mastered this form so completely that few, if any, guitarists who have learned to play in this style since Blake have been able to match his quite singular achievements in this realm.” Rev. Gary Davis said “I like Blake because he plays sporty.” His blues licks were intricate, yet raw and unadorned, as demonstrated on his playlists. “Anyone who hears Blind Blake can't help but be astonished by his sincerity, his gentle, off-the-cuff humor and the sheer effortlessness with which he plays some of the most treacherously complex finger-work on the face of creation.” 

Cara Dillon is a popular Irish traditional, folk and ballad singer with a sweet plaintive soprano voice. Drawing on her roots, she exhibits an “irresistibly natural personality and mesmerising ability to relate a great story in song”. True to the Irish song tradition, her “slow songs” are tinged with melancholy. She is still creating her musical legacy.

Dmirty Bortnyansky composed 35 short Sacred Concertos for the Orthodox Church, “which forbids the use of musical instruments . . .” “Also called the Russian Palestrina, he has been credited with cultivating a rich tradition of Russian Orthodox choral music.” Written for a capella choir, these works capture the emotional virtue of unadorned sincerity. Russian State Symphonic Cappella under Valeri Polyansky has recorded all of them, in Volume 1 (1999) (69’), Volume 2 (2000) (62’), Volume 3 (2000) (66’), Volume 4 (2001) (67’), and Volume 5 (2001) (61’); Volume 6 (2002) (74’) consists of 10 Sacred Concertos for double choir. 

Other compositions:

• Aleksandr Glazunov, Symphony No. 6 in C minor, Op. 58 (1896) (approx. 36-40’): “In the profoundly sincere music of the Sixth Symphony, there is nothing superficial or borrowed, everything is connected with the need to express its inner being” [from the program notes for this album]. Similarly, his Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 5, "Slavonian Symphony" (Slavyanskaya) (1884) (approx. 32-36’), and Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 33 (1890) (approx. 42-52’).
• Malcolm Arnold, Symphony No. 2, Op. 40 (1953) (approx. 26-27’) (score): “. . . a carefree surface often conceals a dark and dangerous undercurrent, which can rise to conflict with the superficial jollity, or simply ‘blow it away’. Arnold is something of an 'English Shostakovich', as exemplified . . . by the Second Symphony.”
• Arnold Bax, Legend Sonata in F-sharp minor for Violincello and Piano (1943) (approx. 24-26’) “shows Bax in very reflective mood as if looking back longingly over the years to that time in his life when he was most on fire as an artist and had created his most perfect work”.
• Franz Berwald, Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, "Sinfonie Serieuse" (1842) (approx. 30-33’)
• Edwin York Bowen, Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 33 (1913) (approx. 38’) “is in the same key as the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with which it shares a similar weight, clear-cut design and brilliance of execution.”
• Antonín Dvořák, Youth Concerto in A Major for Cello and Orchestra, B. 10 (1865) (approx. 46’)
• John Harbison, Piano Trio No. 2 (2003) (approx. 18’): “In his notes Harbison admits Haydn is the model for the piece, adding that he could ‘entertain, reassure, and frighten, all in one place’.”
• Harbison, The Violist’s Notebooks (2002): Book I (approx. 8-10’); Book II (approx. 8-9’): “. . . Harbison freely admits his inspiration, in this case the viola Caprices by the ‘subversively challenging’ Bartolomeo Campagnoli . . .”
• Carl Reinecke, Flute Sonata, “Undine”, Op. 167 (1882) (approx. 19-22’), plays out on the ambiguous side of sincerity. The story, drawn from Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's novella, is similar to Hans Christian Andersen’s more famous fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”. “The tale depicts Undine, a water spirit, who longs for an immortal soul which can only be obtained through true love with a mortal man.” Is she innocent, or conniving? 

Albums:

• Thibaut Roussel and Les Musiciens du Roi, “Le Coucher du Roi ” (59’), “an informal and intimate concert from the king’s bedchamber”
• Various artists, “Cameroon Garage Funk” (2021) (65’): this a collection of tracks from Cameroon in the 1970’s conveys a feeling of earnestness. “Through the 1970s there was a church in Cameroon where funk bands would go to record music into a single, exquisitely placed microphone.”
• Various artists, “Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohio’s Mucical Legacy” (2021) (53’): they wear it on their shirtsleeves. “'Folk music with overdrive,' Alan Lomax called it. The lyrics and vocal phrasing looked to the quiet mountains and farms, and the driving, steely banjo countered them with the sounds of a new reality.”
• April Verch & Cody Walters, “Passages and Partings” (2023) (44’): “Working on a foundation of old-time tunes culled from a variety of sources, a number of new Verch originals are found . . . Verch and Walters put their spin on tunes ranging from classic country . . . to century-old tunes . . .”

On the dark side:

• George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess (1935) (approx. 130-190’) (libretto), is based on the 1925 novel, Porgy, by Dubose Heyward. “The story begins in summertime on Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina. Disabled beggar Porgy is in love with Bess, who's entangled with violent dock worker, Crown, and plagued by drug dealer and con man, Sportin' Life. It's a community where everyone is trying to get by.” It presents a “traditional image of Porgy, a disabled beggar, and the woman he loves, Bess, who has suffered from abuse and addiction.” They handle their difficulties in opposite ways, at least on the surface. Recordings feature Warfield & Price in 1952, White & Mitchell in 1975, Albert & Dale in 1976, White & Haymon in 1986, and Powell & Lister in 2002.
• André-Ernest Modeste Grétry, Le Magnifique (1773) (approx. 80’) tells the tale of a conniving suitor.

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Sérgio Assad, Clarice Assad & Third Coast Percussion, “The Innocent”
• Dvořák, Waldesruhe (Silent Woods), for Cello and Orchestra, B 182 (1893) [From the Bohemian Forest, B 133, Op. 68, No. 5]
• Sam Smith, “Stay with Me” (lyrics)
• Alicia Keys, “If I Ain’t Got You” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Frida Kahlo, Portrait of Eva Frederick (1931)
• Valentin Serov, Mika Morozov (1901)
• Giovanni Batista Tiepolo, Prudence, Sincerity and Temperance (1743)
• Raphael Sanzio, Portrait of Julius II (c. 1512)
• Hans Memling, Portrait of Anthony of Burgundy (1467)

Film and Stage

• Before Sunrise, a romantic tale about “two nice kids, literate, sensitive, tentative, intoxicated by the fact that their lives stretch out before them, filled with mystery and hope, and maybe love”, who meet, are strongly attracted to each other and spend most of their time talking.
• Faces, this film consisting “almost exclusively of tight, uncomfortable close-ups” exploresan unhappy marriage
• La Chienne(The Bitch), about one character who is sincere and another who is not
• Wilson: though his legacy is ugly with racism, Woodrow Wilson saw himself as a man of high principle.
• Closely Watched Trains(Ostre Sledované Vlaky): a film about innocence, in which a young man performs a heroic act without heroic motives

From the dark side:

• The Heiress, based on Henry James’ novellaWashington Square: is the young man in love with her or merely after her wealth?
• Dark Eyes (Oci Ciornie), illustrating that the grass on someone else’s lawnmay not be as green as it looks from a distance
• Lola, about looking the other way
• Play Misty for Me, about dangerousdeception
• The Servantwas serving himself