It has become rather cliche to describe a woman's plight in a misogynistic world as having to do everything a man does but "backward and in high heelsIt has become rather cliche to describe a woman's plight in a misogynistic world as having to do everything a man does but "backward and in high heels" (as once was said of Ginger Rogers in reference to her dancing with Fred Astaire). But one of the tropes that has come to fascinate me is the woman who has great success in a world in which the odds are stacked so thoroughly against her, and Clara Schumann was the very essence of such a woman.
Schumann was born Clara Wieck to a father who determined from the beginning she was going to be a prodigy. Friedrich was a prominent piano salesman and teacher, and he wanted Clara as his showpiece. Reportedly, even he was surprised at the heights to which she was able to aspire. When she was still quite a young girl, the composer Robert Schumann began to take lessons from her father, and immediately a bond was formed between them. Though this sounds rather sinister, at the beginning this connection was an artistic one, as they began to realize just how sympathetic their sensibilities were when it came to music and the piano in particular.
By all reports, Clara was an incomparable pianist, who from a very young age showed not only technical mastery, but a feel for the subtleties and emotion her instrument could evoke. She was a somewhat sad, melancholy child, though it is impossible to know if this was in her nature, or an outgrowth of what we would now consider to be an unnatural childhood, filled with the demands of practice, instruction, and performing all over the world. This was the golden era of wunderkind, with hundreds of talented (and sometimes merely showy) children being paraded about Europe to gain the thalers they could while still young. Yet even in this crowd, Schumann stood out as a true genius of the keyboard, sought in all of the salons and concert halls of European capitals and the provinces alike. Her touring schedule was brutal by any standards, and today would not be tolerated by any artist, but she seemed to thrive in this environment, and basked in the praise that had come to substitute for the unconditional love she never received from her parents.
From adolescence on, Robert Schumann came to dominate her life, so that she moved from the domination of one man to the neediness of another without pause. Friedrich objected to the relationship and fought to withhold his consent, which was required even for adult children up to a certain age, but Robert and Clara successfully sued in court and eventually married. They had eight children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. But under mysterious circumstances, Robert began to have delusional thoughts and experience deep depressions. Eventually he was placed in a psychiatric hospital which he would never leave alive. (Later speculation is that he may have suffered from late stage syphilis, but there is no way to know for sure).
After Robert's death, Clara thrived. She was most likely driven by her need for money, though she also found her sense of self-worth mostly on the stage. She was driven and somewhat ruthless in her striving for artistic excellence and financial independence. The lessons she learned from her father, a tireless promoter of her early career, served her well in these years, and she continued to concertize for decades playing professionally for a total of 61 years.
All of this Reich lays out in rich detail. The first half of the book is a compulsively readable narrative of the ups and downs of her life, with fascinating glimpses into her inner life (the Schumanns kept a joint diary for their entire marriage, and her father narrated a journal to her that she was required to pen, so there is no shortage of material). Clara possessed a complex character, seemingly both immensely sad and vastly joyful in her youth. She thrived on the concert stage and in society, while also becoming wholly dependent on it for her emotional well-being. In such an atmosphere, any slight, every failure, became a trigger for depression. But she was also the most resilient of women and would come out swinging immediately after. As one might imagine, this made her both formidable and not the easiest person to live with. Indeed, her relationships with her children, while loving, were distant and uninvolved. Though it was common in this era for children to largely be raised by nannies and maids or in boarding schools from quite a young age, Clara Schumann seems to have kept her children at a remove even exceeding what was the norm for the time.
Another fascinating aspect of Clara's life is the astonishing range of composers and performers with whom she was personally familiar, many of whom played in her home and on stage with her, including Brahms, Chopin, Wagner, and Liszt. She herself was a composer of some note, though this was not her forte, and most of her pieces are considered to be second tier. A few are still performed regularly, but she will always be remembered primarily as a performer.
After Robert Schumann dies, Reich makes the rather odd choice to abandon the narrative and begin writing what can only be called an extended coda of individual pieces describing her relationships with each child in turn, then with the musicians of her inner circle, her life as a composer and editor (the latter primarily of her husband's oeuvre), a recitation of her performance life, and finally her role as a student and teacher. I found this a rather odd choice, as the narrative of the early parts of the book were so effective. It was also telling, though one would think unintentional, that the author's narrative interest wanes immediately after the death of the remaining dominant male influence in Clara's life. It is clear she led a rich and varied life after the death of Robert Schumann, so for the author to abandon the narrative in favor of these choppy descriptive passages is strange indeed.
Still, this does not take away from the overall quality of this wonderful book. I had for years wondered what exactly made Clara Schumann tick in the world of male dominance that was the 19th century's European music scene, and I could not have asked for a better guide. ...more
Quite simply one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of racial justice, in Begin Again Eddie Glaude, Jr. takes the writings of James BalQuite simply one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of racial justice, in Begin Again Eddie Glaude, Jr. takes the writings of James Baldwin as the impetus for an extended essay on race in America, what it means and why, and what we can do to heal the fundamental rift it creates in this county, a fracture which has, in ways subtle and profound, shaped who we are.
Whether we like it or not, the legacy of racism was formative to the soul of the United States even before the establishment of a robust slave trade and that influence has never waned. Since the first enslaved person came to our shores in 1619 until today, over 400 years later, we have operated in the fog of racist assumptions. One of the most important points Glaude emphasizes is that we are largely unaware of the all-pervasive nature of these beliefs underlying our character. It is the very nature of our immersion in its seductive power that we fail to notice it steers so much of how our society functions and the choices we make as members of that society, much like a fish which is not aware it is in water.
While not exactly hopeful, Glaude is not hopeless, either (W.E.B. Du Bois is quoted here as carrying "a hope not hopeless but unhopeful"). If we have the will to confront our privilege and challenge the assumptions underlying what makes us who we are and our country what it is, we have a change to induce a third Great Awakening (the first being Reconstruction—a lost opportunity, the second the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s which led to what in retrospect can only be called Phyrric victories, or at best extremely limited ones). With the advent of the Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements in this country, we have the rare and precious opportunity to make this country what it imagines itself to be in its best moments. Can we truly become a place where "all men are created equal"? We have not come anywhere close to this ideal thus far, but if we have the will, it is possible. "A moral reckoning is upon us, and we have to decide, once and for all, whether or not we will truly be a multiracial democracy."
The premise of this book is that we have been living a lie for the entire span of American history, namely that white people matter more than everyone else. (One could extend this to say men more than women, cisgendered more than trans, etc). Sadly, it is far more comfortable for those in power to remain complacent. As Baldwin said, "Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy of justice," and in this case the ignorance is entirely willful, cynical, and knowing. "I imagine," said Baldwin, "that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain."
"I go through moments of disappointment when I have to recognize that there aren't enough white persons in our country who are willing to cherish democratic principles over privilege." Thus Baldwin articulated the issue at the center of what we face. While it is not the white person's role to "save" others, it is at the same time an obligation to support and become an ally in the fight, to willingly surrender privilege to help affect the healing of a country which is deeply fractured.
But we are so steeped in the lie that it is difficult to see how we find our way out. So much horror has been normalized that we hear all around us calls to reform a few things here and there—give the pig a new coat of lipstick—and move on, rather than openly confront the rot at the core of American society. This last is deeply uncomfortable and requires us not only to point our fingers at where that rot exists outside of us, but to search out and confront where it exists in ourselves. We must reckon with the fact that "since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, we have witnessed a 500 percent increase in the number of people in America's prisons and jails...67 percent of that population are people of color." We have all witnessed the horrific killing of black men and women at the hands of the police and, though we dodged another four years of a deeply dysfunctional president, we must not lose sight of the fact that over 77 million people did in fact vote for him to continue his reign of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and hate. We have a long way to go and are at a crossroads; if we let this opportunity pass us by, we may not get another in this generation....more
A truly fascinating, extremely well-researched life study of the philosopher Hannah Arendt. I am currently in the middle of reading her Origins of TotA truly fascinating, extremely well-researched life study of the philosopher Hannah Arendt. I am currently in the middle of reading her Origins of Totalitarianism (a word that, according to this graphic biography, she coined), so having some context is welcome. The drawings here are mostly very basic and sketchy, intentionally so; Krimstein's style adds to the emotional heft of what Hannah is going through.
Arendt is a complex, brilliant character in her own right, but those around her were some of the intellectual giants to whom we still refer in may fields, not just philosophy. She was also a Jew who lived through the Nazi incursions in Europe and at one point had to flee for her life.
Reading this side-by-side with Origins, however, makes it clear that Krimstein has rather glossed over some of Arendt's more controversial perspectives, in particular her rather contemptuous attitudes toward her fellow Jews. Still, this is a wonderful work that makes accessible the sometimes arcane work of a brilliant mind....more
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