Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy

"Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning." - Ch 35.

At least, this is the closest I can come to summarizing Hardy's philosophy and why it is perhaps worth reading this lesser known novel about astronomy and two very "star-crossed" lovers. We ought to introduce into common usage the simile "As unlucky as a Hardy heroine" to express repeated and extremely inopportunely timed misfortune.

Lady Constantine is (effectively, then literally) a widow in her husband's great estate, which includes an old stone tower that a local young man, Swithin St. Cleeve, has co-opted for use in his astronomical pursuits, and the plot of the book follows the ups and downs (mostly downs) of their romance. There are so many circumstantial set-backs that for a time one can believe all the two lovers need is a break in their run of bad luck until one begins to suspect, closer to the end, that perhaps even if all went well, their internal differences would drive them apart. And this is where, I think, the novel is at its most astute: Lady Constantine is nearly thirty and throughout the book she tends to be more aware of social setting, public opinion, the ramifications of her actions (let us call this the "broad" view), while Swithin, just twenty, is described with his head-in-the-clouds scientific pursuits, but also with what might be called a kind of naive selfishness (let us call this the "narrow" focus). In love, he is more passionate, but also somewhat short-sighted. He tends not to see (or consider) the impact of his actions on others, or foresee future events. This gap between the "broad" and "narrow" seems to me to be a pretty accurate description - at least in my experience - of relationships between women and men, and especially so when there is a difference in age. This is not to say, of course, that this is always the case, just my own general observation, but I think it is the cause of a great deal of unhappiness, particularly in women (or girls) who are young enough not to understand. It should probably be put on high school reading lists, if only for this valuable life lesson.

Lady Constantine is also interesting as she pertains to what I would call the "freedom for" question. Like Madame Bovary, she is another literary case study of the ionized heart. They ostensibly have everything (marriage, some social stature in the community, sufficient means to live without laboring), and yet are curiously incomplete. With such needs met, they have leisure, they have freedom, but for what? They don't seem to know what to do with themselves. Often the description is "bored", but I think the boredom is not a surfeit, but an unaddressed longing. They lack purpose, meaning, a compelling passion. It is like an atom which has lost its complement of electrons and is hence charged and highly reactive. As such, they make exciting subjects, ripe for drama - often of the tragic variety - but the existential question behind it persists, for men and for women: freedom for what? One regrets in Lady Constantine's case that she could not fall in love with astronomy, rather than with the astronomer, although Hardy would find it difficult to imagine a woman fascinated by pure science, but whether we can pick and choose what lights up our brains with meaning, what we give our heart to, is an open question, and not nearly, I think, so easily answered as Sartre would have it. We will see this "freedom for" question again - some other extreme examples include Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" and Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler." It is very easy to answer in the negative - both end with a sense of wasted opportunity; there are far fewer attempts to answer in the positive.  

Why read Hardy:
Given that the plot of "Two on a Tower" starts to sound like a soap-opera with secret marriages, he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not, and characters receiving improbable letters at the last minute from estranged relatives, why read Hardy? His books tend to be dismal, his rustics are not humorous, his protagonists tend to plod through life weighed down into dullness by crushing societal burdens. Hardy goes to extraordinary lengths in "Two on a Tower" to make Swithin, but in particular Lady Constantine, utterly above reproach: they are the most circumspect, cautious, rational people imaginable. Everything is thought out, argued, reasoned, and the circumstances are arranged so as to make each choice appear to be the best possible. Character is unimpeachable.

I think what Hardy is doing is presenting extenuating circumstances in defense of socially unacceptable situations - Lady Constantine finds herself pregnant with an illegitimate child, who is only technically illegitimate because of a mistake in the exact date of when her absent husband died in Africa, and of course, the secret marriage, which has turned out to be bigamous and therefore invalid, and nobody knew about it anyway... When I was younger, I used to glance immediately at a woman's hand when I saw she looked pregnant to see if she was wearing a ring - this is a horribly pompous and judgmental thing and I have no idea why I did it. Later on I realized that pregnant women very well might not wear wedding rings (your fingers swell, weight-gain, etc), and later than that I realized that it really wasn't my business at all. It really is no concern of mine, and it shouldn't change how I act, or even how I look, at a person. Peace be to all - life is challenging enough without judging one another. Hardy is a sort of apologist for Stage 2, and his books have a kind of "oh, she put on extra weight!", of course she was blameless, and would have been obviously blameless, but there were these unfortunate circumstances that can be explained. It's not as desirable in an author as Stage 3, but it beats Stage 1.

Here is my favorite line from the novel, when Mr. Torkingham endeavors to corral his unruly, off-key village choir:

"'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very perceptible to other people." - Ch 2.

The edition of "Two on a Tower" I used is an audiobook from Audible.com for sale on iTunes. It is read by Michael Kitchen.

Parsifal, Wagner

Jonas Kaufmann, Met "Parsifal" 2013, Act II

I absolutely love the Met Live in HD series. This is all the wonderfulness of full-scale opera, but it's close to home and you get to eat Twizzlers and put your sneakers up on the movie theater seat in front of you because there are only five other people in the audience. And you get all the close-ups, and the fact that everybody singing is over 20 feet tall, which seems appropriate to the scale of the music. I find local screen-times at www.fathomevents.com.

But on to "Parsifal". I am rather - not freakishly perhaps, but more than is strictly healthy - fond of Wagner's operas. I think the second act of "Lohengrin" is some of the most astounding operatic music written. But "Parsifal" is a stretch for me. First there is the music, which, while there are some gorgeous passages that make your skin tingle, is not, on the whole, catchy. Second there is the story, and I give enormous credit here to director François Girard, but it is tough to get around certain elements, like the misogyny, and the Mel Gibson-style blood-soaked Christianity. Several cast members and Girard himself in the interviews

mention bringing out Buddhist elements in the text, but apart from a reference to Kundry having been reincarnated (so as to continually suffer for her blasphemy), I was knitting my eyebrows. Girard's production had a fabulous image of the knights (black pants, white shirts) sitting in a circle together and bending in and out, like a breathing lotus flower. They also included this intriguing group of motionless, veiled women, who stood in silent witness off to the side, until at the end, with the restoration of the grail, they were integrated again.
These elements helped, but I think they were working against the opera to save it from itself, and the result is sort of a well-intentioned muddle (what was Act II about? what has Parsifal accomplished?), which a more straight-forward "Chastity" storyline makes cleaner (allbeit less attractive).

One of the best things about the production, I think, was the pacing, which might be called "ritualistic" (for example, the "breathing" in and out), that fits the pace of the music. One of the problems, generally, in staging Wagner is that we are used to the actors/singers moving faster than his music allows the plot to progress, and sometimes people deal with this by bringing in extra chorus members to do extra things (Jonas Kaufmann's Munich "Lohengrin" production, for one). There were fabulous - baffling - projections of strange, alien moons, that were beautiful and added to the cosmic sense of the opera, far beyond the forests Wagner originally specified in his stage directions. And there was the unforgettable Act II in the pool of blood with Klingsor and the creepy "flower" maidens. In a opera so much about blood, this was just genius.

A quick word about "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner":

These bookend essays chronicle Nietzsche's initial admiration and subsequent disgust with Wagner and his music. The first essay, written in the most glowing terms, tells you far more about Nietzsche than about his subject - there is a line, in particular, extolling Wagner's "fidelity" which gives rise to incredulity to anyone acquainted with his biography. Nietzsche is especially interested in talking about Art, what he thinks of its dilapidated state in his own time and what he hopes for from it in the future. And his best lines, in my view, touch on this theme which still rings true today, if not more so (Anthony Ludovici translator):

"For these modern creatures wish rather to be hunted down, wounded, and torn to shreds, than to live alone with themselves in solitary calm. Alone with oneself!--this thought terrifies the modern soul; it is his one anxiety, his one ghastly fear."

"Now there is but one kind of seriousness left int he modern mind, and it is limited to the news brought by the newspaper and the telegraph."

"...it even seems as though the small amount of intellect which still remains active to-day, and is not used up by the great mechanism of gain and power, has as its sole task the defending--and excusing of the present. Against what accusers? one asks, surprised. Against its own bad conscience. And at this point we plainly discern the task assigned to modern art--that of stupefying or intoxicating, of lulling to sleep or bewildering... [t]o defend men against themselves, that their inmost heart may be silenced, that they may turn a deaf ear to its voice!"

Substitute "entertainment" for art (let us be more charitable to modern art), and I think you have a pretty fair description of 21st century America's love affair with the iphone.

In the end, Nietzsche rejects Wagner in the most vehement terms. He begins his attack with a critique of Wagner's music, which, I confess, puzzles me. It is hard to understand how somehow could be repulsed by the music style of "Parsifal", but have praised "Tristan & Isolde." I am by no means a musician or professional critic, but I don't hear a great deal of difference between the two operas, versus, for instance, "Parsifal" and "Der Fliegende Holländer" or "Siegfried." "Tristan" is also drenched (I use the word not entirely in an uncomplimentary sense) in liebestod and weltschmerz. The easiest way of accounting for it seems to me to be Wagner's embrace of Christianity in "Parsifal", and it is specifically a Christianity that glories in suffering, victimization, helplessness, and rejection, all of which would have driven Nietzsche bats. I found myself, feet propped up, listening to "Parsifal" crawl past the four and a half hour mark, wishing for

Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen      Joyously, as His suns speed
Durch des Himmels Prächt'gen Plan,  Through Heaven's glorious order,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,          Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.   Exulting as a knight in victory.
    
Freude, Schöner Götterfunken,       Joy, fair spark of the gods,
Tochter aus Elysium,                Daughter of Elysium,
Wir betreten feuer-trunken,         Drunk with fiery rapture, Goddess,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!         We approach thy shrine!
    
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!        Be embraced, Millions!
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!        Take this kiss for all the world!
Brüder über'm Sternenzelt           Brothers, surely a loving Father
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.       Dwells above the canopy of stars.
    
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?       Do you sink before Him, Millions?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?       World, do you sense your Creator?
Such'ihn über'm Sternenzelt!        Seek Him then beyond the stars!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.        He must dwell beyond the stars.