The Prince of Homburg (Kleist)
To me the most
striking thing about this play is not the prominence of an extreme military
code of discipline not irrelevant to the author’s family, for centuries
prominent in the Prussian army. The
Prince wins a great victory, but, due to his love-dreaminess, violates
orders. For this he is condemned to
die. In the end the Elector pardons him
buts finds him (temporarily) too scrupulous to accept this mercy. We may be reminded of a samurai story, though
for Kleist the whole tension is, I suppose, between heart and mind. Among the numerous complications even this
thread of the plot engenders are the questions of whether the Elector had been
sincere (he certainly seemed to be) when threatening the firing squad and what
role the unanimous petition from other soldiers may have had. The most dramatic and radical questions arise
with the final words of the play in which the Prince, who had been subjected to
a mock execution, asks if he is dreaming and Kottwitz replies “Ein Traum,
was sonst," causing the protagonist to fall into unconsciousness
again.
Perhaps the most
emotionally powerful portion of the play is the pathetic passage in which the
noble and courageous warrior is reduced by fear of death to abject
begging.
The play has been
justly compared to Shakespeare’s late romances for its hovering between comedy
and tragedy and its magical resolution.
A Book of Common Prayer (Didion)
In Joan Didion’s
reports from Central America in the New York Review of Books, later the
basis for her 1983 book Salvador, the revolutionary crisis was
unforgettably described. There can be
little doubt that her fierce images and ideological restraint informed the
opinion of at least the American intelligentsia. Before the violence, supported always by a
pernicious US influence, became so widespread, she had depicted a fictional
banana republic in her 1977 novel, set in a Boca Grande that is strikingly
reminiscent of O. Henry’s Anchuria in Cabbages and Kings. The utter and complete corruption, the
domination by wealth and guns, the oligarchy that always governs in spite of
democratic and left-wing charades, are historically accurate and unfortunately
remain the norm in Central America. Even
when revolutionaries came to power they turned into the tyrants their younger
selves had despised.
That society,
though, is purely the setting, establishing the tone of cynical self-absorption
that is normal in Boca Grande, within which the drifting Americans, in
particular the distrait Charlotte Douglas, pass their time. The narrator Grace Strasser-Mendana, who,
like everyone else, has no political values, is practically the only realistic
dependable observer, her accuracy buttressed by her scientific training. Yet in the last line she reflects, “I have
not been the witness I wanted to be.”
Marin comes
across with very little personality, hardly even a true believer, so dulled she
is in defensive insouciance. She seems
purely a reflection of the then-current news of the Symbionese Liberation Army (though
the originals were more touching and true and finally tragic). I would have thought that there might have
been room for a few manifestations of idealism or nobility from the Boca Grande
guerilleros as well. Ah well,
once again, history has vindicated cynicism.
For me the best
passages were those in which the characters tossed aggressive verbal barbs
amongst themselves, getting nowhere at all.
At times they sounded almost like Ronald Firbank characters. Good fun there.
Lost Profiles (Soupault)
The subtitle of
this slim 1963 volume, “Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism,” is better
justified than the title itself. The old
avant-garde has been canonized and what had once been rebellious groupings
apart from the prior artistic power structure have now becomes standard art
history. Which is not to say
boring. Here one may find reminiscences
of Breton, Crevel, and Reverdy from a central figure in Paris Dada and a
co-founder of Surrealism (though he was expelled for refusing to join the
Communist Party). He conveys the
ambience of the early twentieth century counterculture, emphasizing rebellion
and the role of scandal. Those who came of
age in the sixties might find his account of the scenes of his youth particularly
engaging.
He records
portraits of Apollinaire, Henri Rousseau, and some less likely figures such as
Proust and Joyce as well as an appreciative piece on Baudelaire.
This edition was
translated by Alan Bernheimer with a pleasant afterword by Ron Padgett and
published by City Lights.
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