Working

 

I revere Robert Caro, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography titled The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, and the four-volume (soon to be five-volume) biography of Lyndon Johnson, which also won a Pulitzer, as well as many other prizes.  The books read like novels and the depth of his research is astonishing and widely celebrated - "Due to Caro's reputation for exhaustive research and detail, he is sometimes invoked by reviewers of other writers who are called "Caro-esque" for their own extensive research" (Wikipedia).  Master of the Senate, which covers 11 years of Johnson's life, took Caro 12 years to write.  

Caro is now 89.  I used to say that I hoped he would finish the final volume of his Johnson biography before he died, but I now say that I hope he will finish it before I die.

Caro ends the Introduction to Working this way: 

AND, FINALLY, one more question to answer: why am I publishing this book now, why don't I just include this material in the longer, full-length memoir I'm hoping to write? Why am I publishing these random recollections toward a memoir while I'm still working on the last volume of the Johnson biography, when I haven't finished it, while I'm still - at the age of 83 - several years from finishing it?

The answer is, I'm afraid, quite obvious, and if I forget it for a few days, I am frequently reminded of it by journalists who, in the course of writing about me and my hopes of finishing, often express their doubts about that happening in a sarcastic phrase: "Do the math." Well, I can do that math. I am quite aware that I may never get to write the memoir, although I have so many thoughts about writing, so many anecdotes about research, that I would like to preserve for anyone interested enough to read them. I decided that, just in case, I'd put some of them on paper now.

And the book is a profound pleasure.  It recaps some of the main conclusions of the Moses and LBJ books, providing fascinating context and detail about how the research was done. And, as he reluctantly admits, to give the full story, he must sometimes provide insights into his own personality and motivations.  For me, in addition to his incomparable reputation as researcher and writer, this book shows him to be a modest, honorable and admirable person.

 

The Perfect House

First published in 2002, The Perfect House by Witold Rybczynski is pure pleasure.  Rybczynski is now an Emeritus Professor of Urbanism (who knew?) at Penn.  He's a noted author, having written over 300 articles and more than a dozen books, which have received several important awards.

This book is an account of a trip to Italy Rybczynski took to personally visit the many villas in the Veneto designed by Palladio. He describes the history and design of each villa, and some history and thoughts on Palladio's life.  It's all very interesting, but a delightful surprise to me was how wonderful the writing is.  Simple, graceful, effortlessly insightful and witty. For example:

The final step of the makeover involved finding a more impressive name than Andrea di Pietro.  Renaissance architects regularly adopted professional names.  Jacopo Sansovino was born Tatti; Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi, a Roman expatriate practicing in the Venetian Republic, called himself Giulio Romano, or simply Giulio.  The mellifluously named Michele Sanmicheli had adopted the name of his birthplace, San Micheli, a village near Verona.  Andrea di Pietro might have become Andrea Padovano, or Andrea Vicentino.  It is generally assumed that Tissino (his mentor) proposed the name since he later used it in an epic poem.  The Latin palladius means pertaining to sagacity, knowledge, or study, and is derived from Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom.  It is a name to live up to.

Here's another example:

Every evening I walk across the Piazza dei Signori from the trattoria where I regularly eat dinner to my hotel.  The ivory white Basilica shimmers in the moonlight.  Goethe characterized architecture as frozen music, which well describes this extraordinary building.  I don't know what kind of music Goethe heard when he looked at the Basilica, but I hear percussion - the great jazz drummer Philly Joe Jones, my boyhood idol. The tall half-columns are the steady rhythm beat of the bass drum, which Palladio accentuates by breaking the extremely deep cornice and projecting it forward over each capital.  At the attic level, a statue above each column provides a high-pitched cymbal clash.......(and further correlations!) 

And another striking description, of Rybczynski's visit to a different Palladio villa, with a powerful conclusion:

The main street of Piombino Dese, a large village east of Vicenza, is Via Roma.  The busy artery is lined with unremarkable apartment buildings and neon-fronted shops.  It's Sunday morning and there's not much traffic.  A parking lot near the church is temporarily occupied by a traveling amusement park whose single attraction resembles a huge lazy Susan.  Children line up to get on, then scream as the ride begins to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster, finally tilting and turning at the same time.  The more daring boys leave their seats to crawl, crablike, across the angled floor. Strobe lights flash, and noisy calliope music is piped over loudspeakers.

Across the street, rising behind a brick wall, the stately portico of the Villa Cornaro overlooks the raucous spectacle.  The juxtaposition of the fun fair and the villa makes me think of a scene in a Fellini film. The villa more than holds it own.

Rybczynski thoughtfully adds a glossary of architectural terms and a chronology of Palladio's designs, with sensible cautions about the relative certainty of the dates of construction of different buildings.

Maybe not to everyone's taste, but a delightful read.

 

 

Sappho

This pleasurable book contains Mary Barnard's translations of 100 of Sappho's poems and fragments, together with a brief and lively introduction by  Dudley Fitts and a brief and an informative afterword by Barnard.

Sappho is wonderful - the breadth of mood from joy, to sadness, to anger is captivating and the spareness of her language distills and strengthens the emotions expressed.  Here are a couple that I really like, followed by a great quote from Mary Barnard:

16.       YOU ARE THE HERDSMAN OF EVENING

Hesperus, you herd

homeward whatever

Dawn’s light dispersed

 

You herd sheep – herd

goats – herd children

home to their mothers

 

91.       IN MEMORY

Of Pelagon, a fisherman,

his father Meniscus placed

here a fishbasket and oar:

tokens of an unlucky life

           

86.       EXPERIENCE SHOWS US

            Wealth unchaperoned

by Virtue is never

an innocuous neighbor

 

Barnard quotes a commentator's observation:

The sense of her poems goes naturally with the meter and seems to fall into it, so that it looks like ordinary speech raised to the highest level of expressiveness.  In her great range of different meters there is not one which doers not move with perfect ease and receive her words as if they were ordained for it.

And responds: 

I should say, rather: as if she had invented it in that moment for that phrase alone.

Gondola

Donna Leon's brief, charming paean to "the sleek, mysterious gondola, the boat whose name and image are inextricably linked with the city". The intertwined histories of Venice and the gondola are illuminated through amusing anecdotes (her recounting of the call and response between a gondoliere and the dachshund Artù is riotous); gorgeous illustrations from Canaletto, Carpaccio and Guardi; and Leon's love of the city, tempered (in both senses!) by her dismay at the assaults of cruise ships, pollution and corruption.  An accompanying CD includes barcarole sung for centuries by gondolieri and here re-created by Il Pomo d'Oro, featuring the exceptionally versatile and talented singer Vincenzo Cappezzuto, with a special guest appearance by Cecilia Bartoli.  It's the next best thing to a trip to Venice.

My Venice and Other Essays

Donna Leon was born in Montclair, New Jersey, but lived in Venice for over 30 years.  She is best known as the author of the Commissario Brunetti mystery series (>32 books and counting) all set in Venice.  The Commissario is calm, decent, humble, smart and immensely likable - and the mysteries are well-crafted and quite revealing of life in Italy.  But Leon also has written many essays and other books. One is a delightful book on Gondolas, which is accompanied by a CD with gondolier songs in the Venetian dialect sung by a lively virtuoso (Leon is a music aficionado who is mad about Handel - as she describes deliciously in one of this book's essays).

Brunetti's wife Paola is very likable, but has strong, forceful views - In real life, Leon seems to be like Paola - only more outspoken and forceful!  These essays can be charming, humorous, or blistering attacks on customs or viewpoints that Leon finds intolerable.  Since I agreed with almost all her views, I found the essays to be very entertaining!  Below is an excerpt from one essay, which she introduces by explaining that she had called her plumber, who finally arrives three hours late, and offers this explanation:

"Giorgio's putting in a new bathroom." The plumber lives in my neighborhood, and both of us buy our fruit and vegetables from Signor Giorgio.

Curious about any bit of neighborhood gossip, I asked, "What's he doing to the bathroom?"

"He's putting in new fixtures and lining the walls with black marble." 

"Black marble?"

"Yes"

"Giorgio?"

"Yes"

"Giorgio il fruttivendolo?"

"Oh, no, that other Giorgio. The nice one from Rome who bought the palazzo around the corner. Giorgio Whats-His-Name? Olmini? Olmoni?"

This couldn't be. "Giorgio Armani?" I asked, voice tentative.

"Yes, that's right. Armani, that's his name. Is he a friend of yours? Do you know him?"

No, I didn't know him, but I wish I did, for I'd love to tell him the story.

 

The Janissary Tree

 This very enjoyable read is the first in a series of mysteries by Jason Goodwin that feature Yashim the Eunuch, a kind of free-lance investigator who is loosely affiliated with the court of the Sultan Mahmud II in 1830's Istanbul. 

The rise of the Ottoman Empire was fueled by the conservative Janissary Corps, which had been founded in the 1300’s.  But over the following 500 years, while Western Europe modernized its military organization and technology, the Janissaries became a reactionary force that resisted all change.  Sultan Mahmud II, whose reign began in 1808, introduced extensive administrative, military, and fiscal reforms and, recognizing that Turkey needed a modern military force, abolished the Janissaries in 1826, executing 6,000 or more, during the so-called Auspicious Incident.  There was substantial opposition to these changes by conservative forces, which underlies the (fictional) events of 1836 described in The Janissary Tree. (My thanks to Wikipedia, which helped this description and my understanding of the setting of The Janissary Tree!)

Yashim is admirable and likable - he is calm but game for action, speaks several languages, and is a good pick-up cook (Goodwin has also written The Yashim Cookbook, which includes recipes for Yashim's intriguing concoctions!)  

    "So it seems," Yashim mused, "that junior attaché Potemkin springs into a coach with four of the brightest New Guard cadets - and they're never seen alive again."  

    Palewski's eyebrows shot up. "Meet a Russian--disappear--it's a common phenomenon. It happens all the time in Poland."

   .......

Fine cities whose contented citizens support an intelligent administration do exist, containing not a single dilapidated public building, a solitary wood-strewn building lot, or even a crumbling palazzo; but a great city must have them all, for decay too, is a sign of life. In the right ear, dereliction whispers of opportunity.  In another ear, of delinquency and corruption.

The Janissary Tree is excellent: enlarging and entertaining!

 

 

My Past and Thoughts, vol I

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812 – 1870) is considered by many to be the "father of Russian socialism".  His influence is illustrated, for example, by the fact that he was the key figure in Tom Stoppard’s trilogy of plays evoking the per-revolutionary period in Russia. 

But Herzen's first,"pre-revolutionary," volume chronicles his childhood, university years, and banishment to northeastern European Russia, a punishment for having been part of left-leaning student groups:

 “His autobiography is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature…..the impressions he left of his father and other relations, of the Moscow idealists, and of the leaders of the European Revolution are unforgettably vivid….the first parts devoted to his life before his exile contain the broadest, truest, and most penetrating view of Russian social and cultural history in the first half of the nineteenth century”. (Wikipedia)

For me, this was a very enjoyable, leisurely read.  Herzen's descriptions of the countryside are lyrical. His family was aristocratic and his father played a key role in negotiations between the Tsar and Napoleon. As a child, Herzen was very isolated and his father was forbidding and cruel - his descriptions of his father were initially sharp and severe, but eventually were tempered with sympathy: a striking contrast.  Herzen relates vivid impressions of the Tsars and his sympathy and passion for freeing the serfs were admirable.  Despite some anecdotes about now obscure Russians, Herzen's memoir is very readable and is interesting for its insights into a time when revolution was in the air.