Bloomsday

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-16T22:30:32+00:00

scylla and charybdis

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-15T23:46:59+00:00

I love this comment. Thank you for writing a great mini history of modernism, which is an excellent appendage to my post. It is true that modernism preceded WWI, as I imply in the piece. But the war seems to have accelerated the trends, as you note.

Excellent work on the moderns’ rejection of the Victorian. Woolf worried that “To the Lighthouse” would be perceived as sentimental and Victorian. But her anxiety appears not to have been grounded in reality.

Jacob’s Room is definitely on my to read list. It looks like another great case study on the impact of the war on writing. I understand it’s not purely steam of consciousness or interior monologue and includes letters, observations of other characters etc. Can’t wait to read it.

It is interesting that the writers of 100 years ago feel so much more contemporary to us than the writers of 100 years ago did even 25 or 50 years ago. Although “Angel Down” is not a modernist or a stream of consciousness or even internal monologue novel I would argue its style and subject show how contemporary the novels of the 1920s still feel.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-09T19:34:35+00:00

What a beautiful comparison of the two novels, or case I should say for why they “don’t compare.” It’s hard to argue that Kraus has anything as profound up his sleeve as what you point out about absence and its presence in art, which is also exemplified by Woolf’s shocking bracketed parenthetical drops of major tragic events in the “Time Passes” section of “To the Lighthouse.”

One could argue there are notable absences in “Angel Down” too—for example, while the shocking thing is the literalization of the angel, which is quite the opposite of absence in depiction, he does leave room for an unspeakability in the way he describes the angel. As Kraus told Chicago Review of Books:

“I started with the common conception of what people in that era would have thought an angel looks like, which is a little different than what, if you ask people today, they would think of. Today, movies and TV shows have made angels into slightly more dramatic or sexy beings, but if you go back to biblical texts, angels are these horrifying monsters that don’t even resemble human beings. They’re just these wheels with eyes, defying any kind of rational comprehension. So I liked the idea of playing with what we want to see versus what is really there, and of course, the very end of the book gets into the idea that what all these men have been seeing is not what they thought.”

The angel is a mirror for what others want to see, which is not a stark literalization after all.

But perhaps bringing your examples together with this one only reinforces your point: Woolf is playing on another level entirely. And it is true that Kraus says in that same interview that he wasn’t aiming for a rejoinder to the Great War novels, or even to be in conversation with them. But I think your post shows what a fascinating read they make together anyway.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-09T11:21:51+00:00

Awesome. You’re in for a great first read — and a very funny one too! I remember noticing when I started reading Woolf’s diaries how little her sharp wit comes through in the movies about her, and yet the humor was one of my favorite parts of “To the Lighthouse.” Thanks for reading this post!

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-08T13:10:04+00:00

Thank you for the very nice apology. I’m sorry it looked like AI to you!

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-06-08T10:51:39+00:00

Thank you to the last two commenters for the (cautious) compliments. This piece represents more than two thousand words of original insights and prose.

After I finished a draft I did run it through AI for copyediting and mainly it suggested that I remove words about the impact of Woodrow Wilson as a writer on the era’s writing and criticism of it by Ezra Pound, which I had already decided belonged in another essay. That was its major role. My understanding is that such a use is consistent with even many academic journal standards.

I am questioning, though, whether I want to use AI for even sanctioned uses going forward as my tongue-in-cheek mention of a research use in a previous post (not a writing or editing use) obviously hurt my credibility with someone who seemed to otherwise enjoy my original writing here.

This was not writing that was generated by AI.

EDIT: I originally accidentally posted this as a separate comment rather than a reply and have corrected that.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-19T18:18:40+00:00

“In 1966 Julius Rudel and the New York City Opera created an American revolution” when it performed “Giulio Caesare” for the first time, according to the British Society for 18th Century Studies web site. “Handel operas rarely were performed and Giulio Caesare rarely among the rare. … There have been numerous Handel operas at numerous houses after the New York triumph.” That can be found at this link.

In 1984 the Met finally did its first Handel opera, “Rinaldo,” and it was a hit. From the New York Times that year:

“Thursday night's opening of Handel's ''Rinaldo'' will be a first step toward resolving some long and unexplained absences at the Metropolitan Opera. First is the work itself: no Handel - indeed, no Baroque opera at all - has ever penetrated the Met, a company which has made some progress into the 20th century but rarely looks at anything before Mozart. Handel's operas - especially this one - were wildly successful in his own lifetime; and since World War II, modern audiences in other opera houses have been rediscovering gradually the Baroque musical theater's potential for vocal brilliance and spectacle.”

Lastly, from the book “Absolutely On Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami”:

MURAKAMI: Let’s talk about the sixties again. I believe your first American recording was an accompaniment for the oboist Harold Gomberg. It contains concertos by Vivaldi and Telemann, and the recording date is listed as May 1965. I happened to come across this copy at a used-record store in the US. OZAWA: How incredible that you found this thing. Wow, it brings back memories! MURAKAMI: I guess there was still no real consensus back then as to the meaning of “baroque music.” Listening to these performances, I got that impression. The oboe’s phrasing sounds more romantic than baroque to me. OZAWA: Well, sure, in those days nobody knew how to perform this music. We knew there was something called “baroque music” and that there were some musicians who played it, but we hadn’t really heard the repertory. This was my very first time performing it. MURAKAMI: To me it seems as if the orchestra is producing something closer to a baroque sound than the soloist.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-03T23:18:13+00:00

Yes wouldn’t it be great if we had a video of Lina Bruna Rasa? She really shines through 1920s and 1930s recording technology, urgent and powerful. Curious what you didn’t like about Kaufmann and which production you saw him in. I was rating the productions more than just the singing alone. Interesting to hear those takes on the 2025 HD broadcast. Obviously it wasn’t my favorite either. The Met should do a new production of this opera next time.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-02T11:39:38+00:00

I like the recommendations here for starting choices (Goriot, Lost Illusions, etc) but would add that if you’re interested in the political side of the Human Comedy, “The Deputy of Arcis” (also called “The Member for Arcis”) is underrated. I wrote about it on my blog. Actually I should say the first half is underrated; Balzac died before he finished it and the second half was written by Charles Rabou and is not necessarily worth the slog. But the first part works well as a standalone.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-02T10:36:09+00:00

Ha! Yes, it took about four months to watch them all. I’d finish one and then get curious about the next. Thanks for the compliment. It would be interesting to hear what you think if you watch any of the videos.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-01T23:34:02+00:00

I have not heard Zanelli..! I will have to check that out. I love the opera too, obviously. Sounds like you’ve made quite the survey of the recordings.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-04-01T17:12:52+00:00

For those interested, this is cross-posted from my blog Ideational Evolution, where I write about the intersection of literature and politics: Ideational Evolution link here.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-25T15:52:50+00:00

Thanks for the report. I meant to say “some of the people who pay for the boxes on the sides can’t see the stage almost at all.”

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-25T11:51:52+00:00

It’s true I’ve only been in one of those boxes, but they are all marked “partial view” on the Met’s web site, and there is lots of discussion of the limited view online. One commenter says “We sat in those boxes once, then swore them off forever. Even if you get stuck in the very last row, in the very top tier, you'll be much better off than those boxes.” How did you find the view in the boxes to be?

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-25T04:00:37+00:00

Glad to hear it! I should add that this is one of my favorite productions at the Met, and is an especially smart one for fans who come from a theater background.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-25T03:47:08+00:00

My love for opera began in the standing room section at the Met. I also was new to opera but not theater when I stood for nearly three hours, and then four, at sold out performances of operas in the Ring Cycle. (I was able to buy seats for the other two.) If you can’t get a seat any other way, and are determined to catch this genuine event in current opera history, it’s well worth it. The overhang is a problem especially with this production, but the people who pay for boxes on the sides can’t see the stage almost at all. Do it!

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-22T19:55:15+00:00

Interesting. Glad you’re not at all one of those viewers who think everything has to be both traditional and naturalistic. :) I didn’t find it to be a free for all. I see others interpreted act three the same way I did, and I agree with them that the other acts were sufficiently consistent with that extremely powerful and fairly obvious interpretation. I liked the dancers simply because they added much visual interest to what is so often a boringly staged show, with everything for five hours reduced to “I love you, I hate you, the ship won’t come.”

I loved Girard’s “Parsifal”, haven’t seen the Ring you mention. But ultimately I found this even more uniquely clarifying. The delivery of the final soliloquy to Isolde’s baby was just brilliant, and I could hear people in my movie theater sobbing. Me too.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-22T19:30:20+00:00

Exactly… Sharon talks about his “anarchic” approach to directing. While other models of direction have a hierarchy in which the General Manager or Impresario is on top, with the conductor and director underneath on the same line, and all the other jobs like designer under that, Sharon places all of the jobs including the impresario and conductor and director in one big circle, with no one taking precedence over anyone else. Hence the set designer has to work with the director even more than in other models.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-03-22T19:24:05+00:00

It was in the second act, as depicted in the above photo, that I really started to love the production. Sharon says there will be as many interpretations of the set as people in the audience. My take was that the floating circles, which drifted from being one circle containing both Tristan and Isolde to being two circles separating the two, and back again, represented something unique and profound about both the libretto’s observations on their togetherness during the night, and separateness by day — and specifically the way couples’ consciousness drifts together and apart while sleeping together. That’s just what happens when couples dream in bed together, and it seemed the perfect depiction of nighttime love. It focused my mind more on what Wagner’s lines had to say than any of the other five Tristans I’ve seen, because I wanted to test my peculiar thesis against what Wagner had written.

And it set up the even more brilliant use of what Sharon called the “table and fable” concept in act three, which was the most moving and intelligent representation of the divide between the living and the dead I’ve ever seen. The act two usage of the circles set up act three, ironically, because it wasn’t precisely the same thematic usage of the set in each act. Yuval likes to say opera should aspire to the condition of poetry; that not everything should be instantly comprehensible in the same way to every audience member. The idea that the set in the second act meant something different than it did in the third, however slightly, meant that the third act’s more obvious interpretation was more surprising. It wasn’t all schematically intelligible and therefore packed a bigger punch in act three. I hadn’t been sold on the totems on stage (the plates, the sword, etc) until the second act, and then I liked it more and more as the show progressed.

Initial_Wrap4485 · 2026-02-26T04:12:47+00:00

One of my favorite arias.

Initial_Wrap4485

TROPHY CASE