Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels and stories:

• Amos Oz, Scenes from Village Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011): “Each of the collection’s eight stories shows someone searching, either literally or metaphorically, and without success, for relief.”
• Mohammed Hanif, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012): “Fresh out of prison and despite formidable odds, Alice Bhatti, a Catholic nurse in present-day Pakistan, has wrangled a job at Karachi’s Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments, a cesspit of gangrene and incompetence.”
• J.M. Coetzee, The Death of Jesus: A Novel (Riverhead, 2020): “J.M. Coetzee’s Jesus Sees the World as Don Quixote Does”.
• Leone Ross, Popisho: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021): “a (magical novel) that transforms humanity’s worn-out suffering into something new and astonishing”.
• Colin Barrett, Homesickness: Stories (Grove Press, 2022): “In Barrett’s stories, homesickness mostly afflicts those who’ve stayed home, but no longer fit. Their lives orbit physical and mental illness, alienation, substance abuse, wounds, suicide and bad luck that exceeds society’s margin for error.”

Poetry

As I ponder'd in silence,  

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,  

A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,  

Terrible in beauty, age, and power,  

The genius of poets of old lands,  

As to me directing like flame its eyes,  

With finger pointing to many immortal songs,  

And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,  

Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?  

And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,  

The making of perfect soldiers.   

 

Be it so, then I answer'd,  

I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,  

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,  

(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,  

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,  

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,  

I above all promote brave soldiers.

[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book I: Inscriptions, “As I Ponder’d in Silence”.] 

 

Other poems:

• Charles Bukowski, “A Smile To Remember” 
• Stevie Smith, “Not Waving but Drowning” 
• Robert Frost, “A Question” 
• Edgar Lee Masters, “Robert Fulton Tanner”

Books of poetry:

• C.M. Burroughs, Master Suffering: Poems (Tupelo Press, 2021) is “transcendent: revealing anguish, vulnerability, and a guttural beauty. The nucleus of this searing treatise on bereavement and belief, is a younger sister’s death.”
• Andrés Cerpa, The Vault (Alice James Books, 2021): “Andrés Cerpa is our Virgil, offering us a path through the dark realm of loss with fragments of unsent letters, indelible imagery, and exquisite language.”
• Diane Seuss, frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press, 2021): “Seuss has created a technically exquisite, beautifully painful book.”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

From the time when addiction and illness began to ravage her person and her voice, Billie Holiday sang with a sharp edge of pathos perhaps unmatched by any other jazz singer. This period was roughly from 1945-1959, when she died. “Born to an unwed 13-year-old mother, Sadie Fagan, in 1915, she was in and out of trouble from an early age. She was incarcerated in reform school for the first time at the age of 9, and she dropped out of school for good when she was 11.” Her iconic song, “Strange Fruit”, appealed to her “not only because she was a Black American but also because the song reminded her of her father, who died at 39 from a fatal lung disorder, after being turned away from a hospital because he was a Black man.” As an adult, she turned to alcohol and illicit drugs. Of her time in a reform school when she was a teenager, she later said: “For years I used to dream about it and wake up hollering and screaming . . . It takes years to get over it.” More likely, she never did. You can see the pain on her face, on the cover of her 1955 album “Lady Sings the Blues” (38’).

Carl Orff called his Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuren) (1936) (approx. 55-65’) a scenic cantata, in which he presents scenes of springtime, on a lawn, in a tavern and the court of love, before returning to the theme of the introduction, which holds that fortune is the "empress of the world." The text is drawn from 24 medieval poems. The insistent percussion in the introduction and the finale cements the main theme. The work incorporates the main elements of suffering: powerlessness, presented as fate (songs 1, 2 and 25); the material world and the human body (songs 6-10); mortality (song 12); and separation/alienation (songs 15-23, on the pathos of amore). Top recorded performances were conducted by Ormandy in 1962, de Burgos in 1966, Jochum in 1967, Ozawa in 1969 ***, Shaw in 1978, Blomstedt in 1990, Thielemann in 1998, Runnicles in 2002, Rattle in 2004, and Kegel in 2012. Following is a brief comment about each song, with their song titles.

• Fortune, Empress of the World. 1. O Fortune: The choir begins ominously, then the inexorable march of time begins. Fate is monstrous and empty, a malevolent whirling wheel. 2. I Bemoan the Wounds of Fortune: A male chorus bemoans the falling of good fortune. Jealousy appears.
• I. Spring. 3. The Merry Face of Spring: Flutes announce spring’s arrival, vanquishing winter. Yet joy eludes the people. “Let us rush to compete for love’s prizes.” 4. The Sun Warms Everything: A baritone soloist responds to the Sun’s rays. He sings of rejoicing but concludes with: “Whoever loves this much turns on the wheel.” 5. Behold, the Pleasant Spring: Finally, the choir seems lighthearted, yet again they express jealousy “. . . let us glory and rejoice in being Paris’ equals.”
• On the Green. 6. Dance – a brief, upbeat instrumental dance. 7. The Noble Woods are Burgeoning: The chorus begins happily, freely, but the men and women call out for each other. “The woods are turning green all over, why is my lover away so long?” 8. Shopkeeper, Give Me Color: Young women call for makeup. “Look at me, young men! Let me please you!” 9. Round Dance: A dignified waltz. The women need no men – but then again, they do. 10. If All the World Were Mine: a frivolous revel about the Queen of England.
• II. In the Tavern. 11. Burning Inside: A baritone soloist sings of his dissatisfaction. 12. Once I Lived on Lakes: the lament of a swan on a spit, being roasted. 13. I Am the Abbot: Dissatisfaction again: “. . . what have you done, vilest fate? The joys of my life you have taken all away!” 14. When We Are in the Tavern: The underlying bassoon mocks the contrived busy-ness of gambling, as the men take themselves too seriously, and everyone drinks.
• III. The Court of Love. 15. The Cupid Flees Everywhere: a romantic theme in the flutes, then voices join – the longing of amore. 16. Day, Night, and Everything: “. . . everything is against me . . . As a cure, I would be revived by a kiss.” 17. A Girl Stood – like an object. 18. In My Heart” “. . . my lover does not come . . .” 19. If a Boy with a Girl: The men sing of sexual desire. 20. Come, Come, O Come: The men and women call for each other. 21. In the Balance: “. . . between lascivious love and modesty . . . I yield to the sweet yoke.” 22. This Is the Joyful Time – a song of youth and passion. 23. The Sweetest One: A high soprano voice sings, “I give myself to you totally!”
• Blanchefleur and Helel. 24. Hail, the Most Beautiful One. For a few brief moments, joy and contentment envelop all.
• Fortune, Empress of the World. 25. O Fortune: Fate returns, as the opening song is reprised. It never left.

Pyotr Iylich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, TH 30, “Pathétique” (1893) (approx. 43-55’): Some people say that this is a symphony about death, perhaps because Tchaikovsky died only a few days after its premiere performance. The music speaks to the broader theme of suffering. Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality was an open secret, and “. . . the symphony was often interpreted as a specifically homosexual tragedy within the gay community . . .” Still, other people say that the title “Pathétique” resulted from a mistranslation, and that Tchaikovsky saw the work as being about passion. That may not be amiss: much of the symphony is cheerful and energetic. However, the opening and the finale are dark, like bookends of life.  Top recorded performances are conducted by Koussevitzky in 1930, Furtwängler in 1938, Toscanini in 1941, van Kempen in 1951, Giulini in 1959, Mravinsky in 1960, Kondrashin in 1965, Jansons in 1986, Bernstein in 1986, Pletnev in 1991, Jansons in 2013, and Vasily Petrenko in 2017.

• 1. Adagio - Allegro non troppo. A brooding bassoon opens the symphony, ominously. The strings announce a more rhythmic theme, also quite dark. The brass issue a triple-tongued call, then a romantic theme emerges from the strings. A flute and a bassoon parry the romantic theme, and a dance begins. Then the theme re-appears, more grandly than before. Foreboding is always just under the romantic theme. Then disaster strikes, and all is chaos. Trumpets blare. There are rays of hope and ideals but repeatedly, conflict intrudes and disaster strikes; yet after every conflict or disaster, the romantic theme emerges anew, joined by the voices of conflict. The end of the movement could be characterized as “hope springs eternal”, as the romantic theme ends in resolution, not defeat.
• 2. Allegro con grazia. The movement begins with a cheerful waltz, apropos of the concluding bars of the first movement. The dance continues and develops throughout the movement, which plays out without incident.
• 3. Allegro molto vivace. This movement begins with a flurry of activity. This time, the trumpet calls sound not like war but like the busy-ness of business. The loud cacophony near the end of the movement is an affirmation.
• 4. Finale (Adagio lamentoso - Andante). The finale begins with an Adagio lamentoso, as in the ashes of despair. Nothing prepared us for this, yet here it is. A romantic theme emerges, loaded with pathos. The orchestra cries out, loudly, then sinks again into despair. The strings maintain the main romantic theme but without joy. Increased volume signals growing awareness and resignation. The symphony ends by fading into nothing, like Mahler’s 9th, but without any sense of acceptance. In life, suffering is inevitable, though it may be interspersed with happiness and joy.

Giacomo Puccini, Tosca (1899) (approx. 110-125’) (libretto): a "romantic love" story in which everything goes wrong. “. . . an opera singer (performed by an opera singer) . . . knifes an over-enthusiastic admirer.” Tosca’s lover Cavaradossi paints a portrait of another woman, making Tosca suspicious and jealous. Baron Scarpia, who is chief of secret police, schemes to bring Tosca under his control, the romantic fool. Lies and deception lead to a suicide and a murder. The story was too overwrought even for Italian critics in Puccini’s time but has consistently been a popular favorite. Top recorded performances were by Melis (Sabajno) in 1929; Caniglia (Fabritiis) in 1938, Callas (de Sabata) in 1953, Frazzoni (Basile) in 1956, Tebaldi (Molinari-Pradelli) in 1959, Price (Karajan) in 1962, Price (Adler) in 1962, Callas (Cillario) in 1964, Milashkina (Ermler) in 1974, Kabaivskana (Bartoletti) in 1976, Vishnevskaya (Rostropovich) in 1976, and Gheorghiu (Pappano) in 2000.

Other compositions:

• Kenneth Fuchs, Falling Canons (2009) (approx. 17’) (seven movements for piano): a cascading realization of a nightmare, the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy “inspired” this work. His Falling Trio uses a piano trio to explore the same idea.
• Ludvig Irgens-Jensen, Symphony in D Minor (1942) (approx. 44’) “expresses the depth of his feelings about the human and natural world during the dark days of World War Two.”
• Lukas Foss, Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrows" (1991) (approx. 32’)
• Lukas Foss, Song of Anguish (1953) (approx. 22’), are songs drawn from the biblical book of Isaiah, which “address the people’s perversion of moral values, their arrogance and self-righteousness, their adherence to false leadership, their dishonesty and self-delusion, and their hypocrisy and outright malevolence.”
• Arthur Foote, Francesca da Rimini, Op. 24 (1890) (approx. 14-16’), “based on the story of the doomed lovers Francesca and Paolo as immortalized in Dante’s Inferno”.
• Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Violin Sonata No. 4, Op. 39 (1947) (approx. 16-18): “The piano's lengthy, dark, solemn utterances eventually usher in the violin. The music takes on an introspective mien.”
• Weinberg, Violin Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 (1953) (approx. 33-34’): “The composer dedicated his Fifth Sonata of 1953 to his older colleague Dmitri Shostakovich. Stalin had just died, and Weinberg had been released from three months incarceration. The work, cast in four movements, gives some inkling of the composer's frame of mind at that particular juncture in his life.”
• Weinberg, Symphony No. 6, Op. 79 (1963) (approx. 43’) is about the condition of the Jewish people in Europe in the mid-20th century. “It is a dark work, with a long first movement filled with tension and emotional turmoil. A flute solo in the latter half is ghostly and very reminiscent of Shostakovich, and the movement ends with the tension unresolved.”
• Charles-Valentin Alkan, Souvenirs: Trois Morceaux dans le genre pathétique, Op. 15 (1837) (approx. 30’), is in three movements, the English titles of which are “Love Me”, “The Wind” and “Dead Woman”.
• Krzysztof Penderecki, Symphony No. 7, “Seven Gates of Jerusalem” (1996) (approx. 58-61’), is about the struggles of the Jewish people throughout the ages.
• Pēteris Vasks, Musica Dolorosa, for string orchestra (1983) (approx. 13’): “Composed following the death of Vasks’s sister it’s also a lament for the Latvian people, pre-independence.”
• Yevgeny Zemtsov, String Quartet (1962, rev. 2004) (approx. 19’), expresses the composer’s regrets following a failed love affair.
• Thomas Larcher, Symphony No. 2, “Keotaph” (2016) (approx. 35-37’): the composer asks, “How can we find tonality that speaks in our time?”
• John Harbison, Diotima (1976) (approx. 20’): the composer explains: “I was then, and am now, very interested in the culture of ancient Greece. I was reading Hölderlin and all the Germans of the Bach era who were also very interested in Greece. In Hölderlin, it’s always about loss.”
• Bent Sørensen, Second Symphony (2019) (approx. 30’) is a captivating work about suffering, decay and decline.
• Thomas Adès, Dante (2019) (approx. 88’) sets Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (1321) to music. Here is the ballet in rehearsal.
• John Pickard, Mass in Troubled Times for 18 Unaccompanied voices (2018) (approx. 26’) (podcast) “takes its title from Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis (Hob, XXII/11), composed in 1798 during the Napoleonic Wars and often known as the Nelson Mass. No direct connection is intended beyond the shared title, but the present work may be seen as a modern response to Haydn’s masterpiece, written against a background of even greater global uncertainty.”
• Louis Vierne, Piano Quintet, Op. 42 (1918) (approx. 32-33’): Vierne wrote, “. . . as my grief is terrible, I shall make something that is powerful, imposing and strong, which will stir in the depths of every father’s breast the deepest feelings of love for a dead son.”

Albums:

• Hila Plitman and Robert Thies, “Poème: Songs of Life, Love and Loss” (2020) (59’) – songs of Danaë Xanthe Vlasse
• Antoni O’Breskey, “Blessed Sadness” (2021) (43’), was “(c)onceived at the beginning of the first lockdown and recorded under COVID-19 restrictions . . .”
• Magnificat, “Scattered Ashes: Josquin’s Miserere and the Savorarolon Legacy” (2016) (84’), presents choral works from Renaissance composers based on the execution of a Dominican friar for heresy in 1498, and the turmoil in and around Italy during the 16th century.
• Arooj Aftab, “Vulture Prince” (2021) (52’): “At the center of it all is Aftab’s powerful voice, suffused in a sorrow so deep that it seeps into your bones. . . Aftab sings of love unfulfilled, a melancholy captured in its opening imagery of empty swings swinging in a garden breeze.”
• Eva Zaïcik, David Haroutunian & Xénia Maliarevitch, “Mayrig: To Armenian Mothers” (2023) (69’): “‘Komitas is the voice of the land of Armenia, of its churches and stones, which for thousands of years have remained silent’, writes Haroutunian in the booklet note. Their album pays tribute to Komitas, along with his heir, the French-Armenian composer Garbis Aprikian . . . Aprikian’s Petite suite nuptiale, composed for his son’s wedding, makes use of melodies his emigrant father sang to him when he was a child in Alexandria. . . . the album has a haunting, nostalgic quality, the songs mainly lullabies (three are titled as such) or folk melodies, many in arrangements for the chamber forces here.”
• Balimaya Project, “When the Dust Settles” (2023) (47’): “Ten tracks. Ten big pieces. Death. Grief. Truth. Anger. Pride.”
• Lankum, “False Lankum” (2023) (70’) “uncovers eerie new depths in centuries-old forms.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

Stephen Foster, “Hard Times, Come Again No More” (lyrics), performed by:

• Emmylou Harris;
• James Taylor;
• Thomas Hampson;
• Arlo Guthrie;
• from “Civilization 6” soundtrack;
• The Chieftains;
• Kristin Chenowith;
• Jennifer Warnes;
• Mavis Staples;
• The Longest Johns. 

Other songs:

• Paul Simon, “Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy” (lyrics)
• Agave & Nico Cranxx, “Resignation”
• John Francis Flynn, “Shallow Brown” (lyrics), a song and video about spiritual pain, and how we try to cope with it
• Hugo Wolf, “Schmerzliche Wonnen und wonnige Schmerzen” (Painful Bliss and Blissful Pain) (lyrics), from Spanisches Liederbruch (No. 28), Weltliche Lieder (No. 18) (1890)

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

• Aruitemo, Aruitemo (Still Walking): about a family bound together by “resentment and sorrow” after the heroic death of a young family fifteen years earlier
• Kagemusha: a battle of three Japanese warlords presents suffering as “impersonal, distant, and ghostly”
• Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch), about three people thrown together by chance
• They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?: a dance marathon as a metaphor for life as suffering
• Boys Don’t Cry, about Brandon Teena, a/k/a Teena Brandon, whose gender ambiguity haunted his life and led to his death
• I Want to Live!: about a woman on death row
• The War Game, speculating on what life might be like after nuclear warfare
• The Human Condition, a six-part “trilogy” of films, presented through one man’s eyes but exploring the miseries we inflict on each other: 1. No Greater Love; 2. The Road to Eternity); 3. A Soldier’s Prayer)
• Leviathan, about suffering as only Russians can do it these days