St. John of The Cross / Dark Night of the Soul

St. John of the Cross, born in Fontiveros (Ávila, near Madrid), in 1542, is perhaps, along with Quevedo, the best Spanish poet of the Golden Age (probably also of all ages), the poet who achieved the most sophisticated and elevated heights in the Spanish verse. St John of the Cross has been considered throughout the centuries the ultimate mystical and religious (catholic) poet, and this has perhaps led some to refrain from reading and enjoying his poetry. One of his most known poems, Dark Night of the Soul, is also among his best. It is a mystical poem telling us about one journey: that of the Soul towards her Beloved (God or Jesus); here the Lover (the Soul) and the Beloved (Jesus, God) consummate their union among the lilies. And that, to the author and his devout 16th century audience, is a burning moment of communion.

But as it has been noted more than once, Dark Night of the Soul could also be read not only in this traditional mystic sense, but also in a new torrid, erotic sense. Physical rather than Mystical. The Lover (not the "Soul" in this case, but, say, a female, any female, a young woman) leaves her home now at rest, to greet her Beloved, waiting for her outside. She will walk the night which guides her, a night more lovely than the dawn, and she will recline her face on him, abandoning herself and leaving her cares forgotten among the lilies. With such a suggestive re-framing, the poem opens up to new sensual dimensions, and a richer reality.

Canadian Celtic singer and composer Loreena McKennit in her 1994 album The Mask and The Mirror, recreated St John of the Cross´s poem and as she herself explained, this erotic retelling was precisely the basis of her version.

Con a dark night, Kindled un love with yearnings

--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed, 
My house being now at rest. 
(...)
Oh, night that guided me, 
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined 
Beloved with lover, 
Lover transformed in the Beloved!
(...)
I remained, lost in oblivion; 
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself, 
Leaving my cares 
forgotten among the lilies."

Borges, drawing the world

"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face."

Yes, we built up our reality, and we do so with all objects, physical or spiritual, we come across and which we personally process. Borges is truly a literature of thoughts, smart speculations with an aesthetic taste and a flavor of truth, unconceivably more than in any other writer. The amount of insights that we can find in any single borgesian page is simply astonishing. He famously stated that 

"Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary."

In a material sense, Borges did not write much, he was not a very "prolific" author. The number of pages he left behind was not huge. He did not manage to write a novel, assuming he ever attempted to. Only short stories and essays (with the line between the two blurred). But if we consider his richness, the complex fascinating ideas with which he constantly filled his texts (to such an extent that full volumes could be forged out of many a single of his ideas!), then Borges is among the most "prolific" authors to ever have existed. A spiritual giant. A vast author, where it is possible to dissolve oneself in a sea of infinitude. 

He also reinvented a language, reverting a literary tradition. The language of Castile which one would have told only valid for an arid realism, was after him turned into a splendid key to a great intellectual universe. And those colorful supernatural realms of contemporary Latin American literature would be unthinkable without Borges. In some way, they all sprang out of him.

Whitman: Full of Life Now

"Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,

Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;

Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)"

Walt Whitman (1859)

A favorite Whitman poem. In  the year of 1859 (83rd of the States) Whitman, then a physical presence, a man in Time, addresses someone still non existent, but who will be, in the course of one century, or two centuries, as living and sentient as he, the poet, is now.

Whitman speaks from a distant past, one century and a half away from the reader. Whitman speaks to a ghost, as if the ghost were with him in the room. And now, in the present, when his word finally reaches us, he is the ghost, talking to a tangible reader, now taking their place in time. That place Whitman left so long ago.

Sometimes a poem can make the perception of reality tremble. Sometimes a poem, a simple poem, can truly make you understand your essential condition: that you, thinking yourself so tangible, are just a dream, a mere image in the fabric of Time. A vague presence in a quick process of vanishing, in the very same way as that voice now talking to you also vanished.

Montaigne: So it is with minds...

"So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation."

Michel de Montaigne

Harold Bloom is his extraordinary The Western Canon (1994), claimed that Freud was our Montaigne, that is, the Montaigne of our chaotic contemporary Time.

True. Freud, once a scientific figure, has become Literature. In the good sense, of course. In the best sense. We now read his texts as great artistic (and of course tremendously clever) pieces. A kind of aesthetic intelligence, which is the highest form of intelligence. A reborn Montaigne, for our (ir)rational Time.

That said, how about reading the original? Montaigne is less structured than Freud, as the Frenchman did not have "scientific" pretensions. But he may well be even bigger, reaching even more distant horizons. Which means that he is some sort of giant, an immense field full of gems. Like this one preceding this note.

Retiring to these deserts...

Retiring to these deserts now in peace,
with few but learned volumes to be read,
I live in conversation with the dead,
and listen with my eyes to those deceased.


Though sometimes impenetrable they seem,
they mend or they enrich all that I own;
and they, in quiet counterpointed tonesawake, address this life which is a dream.

Francisco de Quevedo 

Quevedo, perhaps the greatest poet in the Spanish language, is also the author of a most beautiful praise of literature and books. Those dead ones that you live in conversation with and whom you listen to with the eyes. 

Eleanor Powell (1912-1982)

Eleanor Powell, the queen of tap dancing in Broadway and Hollywood musicals during the 1930s and 1940s was born a hundred years ago today (Nov 21. 1912) . This Jukebox number is from Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), where she's close to outdance Fred Astaire. Or, according to some, she actually does. 

Fred Astaire is said to have felt intimidated only by her. "She put them down like a man. No ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dancer in a class by herself"

Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach

It is the summer of 1962 on Chesil Beach, in the south coast of England. Two young people have just got married and seem to be ready to enjoy their wedding night. They are at a small hotel, just having their special dinner or trying to. Surely it will be a sleepless night. The time of the story, those early 1960s, is a remarkable one in the history of the Western World: The first stage of some most relevant social and cultural changes which would consolidate in the following years and decades and were to define our present age. A "revolution" in human relations. Language itself would acquire new potential, a new capacity for expression: new words will spring, new concepts will find a name. From then on, it will be able to put into words (in a direct and non encapsulated "jamesian" way so to speak) those inner things whose impact in emotions has always been there, but have been kept secret. Or simply they have been hard or embarrassing to express. Sex and its implications in a couple´s life is an immediate example.

1962 is the year chosen by McEwan to represent the turning point in western society as far as intimate relations are concerned.The two protagonists, apparently ready to consummate their marriage in their hotel room are Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting. Edward is a fresh Oxford graduate in history and Florence is a girl of deep artistic and musical sensibility who seems to have an exciting musical career awaiting her. The two young people have different backgrounds: Edward is the son of a schoolmaster and was born in a rural household; Florence comes from a wealthy family, the daughter of a succesful industrialist (her father) and an intellectual Oxford lecturer (her mother), this last one not quite into applauding unreservedly the changing of the times.

Different backgrounds, deeply in love 

They come from different environments, but Edward and Florence seem to fit each other perfectly. They love each other or they are completely convinced that is so. In the years to come, after the conventional "wedding rite", they think, life is going to unfold promisingly to provide them with the most fulfilling experience, with enough intellectual and aesthetic touches, all in a wealthy environment. What is approaching in their horizon seems to be definitely inviting. They are both sensible and educated. Existence for the two seems to be a nice and sophisticated gift, just ready to be unwrapped. After the rite, that is.

The rite. But none of them have any "physical" experience. Well that is not a problem. Or it should not be, at least not for Edward. He has no experience, true, but he really cannot wait to make love to his beloved Florence. Well, the thing is something that every couple has to go through that first night, after all, and they will do fine, won´t they? Aside from the vivid emotions of quality, the sense of sharing and enjoying, that Florence inspires in him, Edward simply desires her. So he is really wishing to carry on with the "rite", and all the rites that delightfully would come after...

Well, 1962 will be about one of the last years in western history in which it was still "advisable", if you wanted to do the right thing, to wait until the wedding night before "consummation", at least among the upper-middle classes. And Edward, even if he would have been delighted to make love to Florence in "advance", he is determined to do the right thing. After the due rites, happiness will undoubtedly follow, so why forcing anything? Yes, let´s do the right thing. 

The trouble with Florence 

But Florence is a completely different case from Edward´s. She really loves him and is confident that they will be happy together, that she is most fortunate having met him, loving him, sharing the project to live together. But there is a problem, and not a minor one: at the same time, even if all that is true, Florence is disgusted by the perspective of that approaching physical act. She is disgusted by sex, but has kept this problem a secret from Edward, who thinks she is just shy or unexperienced. Something, Edward expects, easily to be sorted with patience or skill. But definitely, the thing proves to be more complicated than that.

1962. Sex is not yet the festive exploratory thing that is just about to become in the following years. So far, sex was something whose initiation was better to be left for the wedding night. But in the case of Edward and Florence, leaving the thing for the wedding night will drag them, to their astonishment, into disaster. Exploration and knowledge of some fundamental things about their natures (mainly in the case of Florence), should have been done first, before any attempt to share their lives. They stuck to the rule, and they will both pay for it a sad and definitive prize.

At some point a society goes through a big cultural change which historians do their best to date, to locate in time with as much precision as possible. Transformation of human relations in the 1960s: here is one such dramatic change. Transition from repression to license, to put it simple. The so called sexual revolution. And an author like Ian McEwan (probably the best one writing in Europe today) can help to our understanding of that change, in a sapiential and aesthetic way, like only great writers can do. McEwan puts a magnifying lens on the tragedy of two people, turned into symbols of a larger reality, on the very instant chosen to represent a new world, enlarging it for us to view it, admire it and understand it; framing it like a little piece of art, a beautiful miniature, also full of meaning. The smart and painful testimony of a time about to vanish.

Burton Lane: 100 years

A hundred years ago today, on February 2, 1912, composer Burton Lane was born in New York. He died in the same city nearly 85 years later, on Jan 5, 1997.

He created lots of songs for Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies. A personal favorite of mine is How About You. The song was specifically composed for the Garland-Rooney movie Babes in Broadway (1941), one of the so called backyard musicals of MGM

(Burton Lane is precisely credited with having discovered in 1935 a tiny 13-year old singer, with a voice of unheard-of quality and power. Her name was Frances Ethel Gumm, who in due time would become, yes, Judy Garland).

The How About You lyrics are uncomplicated yet irresistibly cute, beginning:

I like New York in June, how about you?
I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?
I love a fireside when a storm is due

A little later into the song, the ear is caught by this funny patriotic line added by lyricist Ralph Freed, referring to the then US president and Commander in Chief.

I'm mad about good books, can't get my fill 
And Franklin Roosevelt´s looks give me a thrill

It was 1941, and WWII was beginning for the US. Roosevelt was the true star of the day.

Michel Houellebecq: The Map and the Territory

Another extraordinary novel by Michel Houellebecq: The Map and the Territory, which won him the Goncourt Prize in 2010, not an easy award to get, one which involves no less than the recognition by the French literary establishment of the author´s quality. And Houellebecq has not been the least domesticated, no matter what some may say. The Frenchman has not lost a single bit of his irresistible coldness. Reading him continues to be as gloomy as it is exciting and intense.

The novel moves along chronologically throughout the life of the protagonist: the artist and photographer Jed Martin, since the moment of his birth around 1975, until his death by the middle of the next century. (Although the 2010s is the story´s central time). As it progresses, the narration increasingly takes the shape of a kind of biographical essay by some unknown author, writing in a remote future, perhaps a century away. As an “essay”, the text has a very "humanistic" tone, with highly elaborate ideas and arguments about the impact that the main character (Jed Martin) had on the artistic culture of his time, his legacy and influence. And as it often happens in Michel Houellebecq, there is also the presence along the text of the two great forces of human civilization: science and technology. Without which it is impossible to build any serious intellectual discourse.

Life of Jed Martin

Artist Jed Martin, who is destined to become in the future (the "present" in this imaginary essay) a legendary figure in the history of art, shares space and time with some current and recognizable individuals like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or even Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea. This is something that helps the reader to mentally hold onto his or her time (which is ours) and later experience more effectively its progressive dissolution throughout the novel, as our present is gradually transmuted into a distant past. The map and the territory is, from that point of view, an effective (and momentary) antidote to this almost ludicrous presentism that western civilization has suffered for a century or more.

At a key moment in his career, and having made ​​the transition from an objectual avant-garde photographer into a falsely figurative painter, Jed Martin will "immortalize" two key individuals in the economic and technological development of the 2010s: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and he will capture them with the same psychological intensity as Velázquez. In the painting, which bears the title of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs talking about the future of computer technology or The Palo Alto conversation,  Martin shows the two characters while chatting on the porch of Jobs´ s Californian mansion, relaxing before a chess board. And critics and scholars from the future will proclaim, with their usual symbolic penetration, that this work by Martin contains no less than the history of capitalism. 

And capitalism, indeed, and according to Houellebecq, or his narrator in the book, is in its very final moment: by 2016 another devastating global economic crisis will occur, worse than the 2008 one, which practically leads to the imminent liquidation of our current economic system. Although the author does not give us any idea on what could replace it.

Michel Houellebecq, a character in The Map and the Territory

The futuristic novel or imaginary essay exposes biographical details of Martin, the incidents of his life, vital and sexual experiences, and his intellectual and artistic itinerary, which is going to make of him, a century later, apparently an artist the size of a Picasso, Bacon or Kandinsky. Moreover, the narrative never fails to show who its author is. In its pages, we encounter, for example, the usual houellebecquian sadness before the physical decay of the body or the seeming impossibility of ever leaving our unfortunate condition of elementary particles.

And Michel Houellebecq himself will appear as a character in the novel. And he does so in an extremely talented way, transforming himself into a mysterious and at the same time believable literary creature, a sad and helpless one, but also subtle and poignant. Elements of the Michel Houellebecq media cliché co-exist in the character created with intimate and ironic reflections. And in the final stretch, this Houellebecq character is going to become the tragic core of what will become surprisingly a gripping detective story. In much the same way as The Elementary Particles (1998) became, also in its last section, an amazing science fiction narration.

There is truly stuff in the pages of The Map and the Territory: ideas, events, insights, joys and sorrows. Psychologies displayed. Bleak prospects. Creative inquiries. Reflections on the future of France, the necessity for the preservation of its culture and heritage. The Chinese, destined to become Europe´s new masters, will be a different kind of barbarians from what the Americans used to be: far more enlightened, their money will help to preserve the culture and traditions from the past. The novel also speaks at length with irony about the art market and the network of relations established by the representatives of the high culture world. The French writer Frederic Beigbeder also appears as a character in the book and he is presented as a close friend, or the only one, of that elusive Ireland-based writer whose name is Michel Houellebecq. 

But one main impression that the Map and the Territory leaves in the reader is this dissolution of the present into a distant past, of which only its art, ideas and science will remain, as has happened before with any other bygone era, after disappearing into the great river of Time. Our age, which we find so oppressive and overwhelming, so tangible: it too will be converted into text, history, thought, into some sort of borgesian dream. Achieving this effect means you have previously created a solid fabric: Houellebecq undoubtedly has. 

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

Tommy Dorsey / I' m Getting Sentimental Over You 

Dorsey was nicknamed the "sentimental gentleman of swing" Here is his distinctive smooth trombone-playing, in this captivating piece first performed in 1932. 

Fredric Brown: What Mad Universe (1949)

What Mad Universe is a SF classic from 1949 and it is the ultimate pulp story. But one of an outstanding quality. The pulp story to finish all pulp stories. Or rather to discover and enjoy them.

This novel by Fredric Brown came out in what was going to be known in later years as the Golden Age of SF, which took place approximately from mid 1930s to mid 1950s (according to most critics), an era marked in scientific fiction by those lovable pulp magazines. What Mad Universe, aside from its position within "pulp history", is a delightful all-absorbing narration on its own account, with a smart page-turning plot, lively characters and an unmistakable 1940s flavor...1954 is the future in this novel, and that is the year that mankind tries its first travel to the moon!

Keith Winton is the director of a successful scientific fiction pulp magazine of the time. One with the usual covers portraying awful bug-eyed- monsters (BEMs) and beautiful curvy women. Young and proactive, Keith Winton is some sort of "yuppie" avant la lettre in the New York of 1954. He plays tennis and has an interesting social life. He is invited by Mr. Borden, his tycoon-boss, to his magnificent country house. Keith meets Betty Hadley there, who is the director of a female magazine, a new acquisition of Borden's  publishing house. She is blond and slender, beautiful and elegant, and plays tennis very well. Keith falls in love straight away. Later that day, when he is not thinking of his editorial work, he finds himself thinking of her.

It is early in the evening at the Borden House and supper is coming, to Winton's delight. While he is waiting to be called in, he is lying down out in the garden on a chaise longue, thinking about his work, the magazine´s readers and their suggestions, the artistic quality (or lack of it) of the covers...and of course he thinks, and a lot, about his adorable Betty. And then something unexpected and devastating happens. A rocket falls nearby, only a few yards away from where Keith is lying, and some sort of dislocation of Space-time occurs. He is discreetly catapulted into another universe. He simply loses conscience for a few seconds and suddenly, he is over there.

Of course he is not immediately aware of the change. At first he simply thinks that everything is Ok. But at some point he starts to notice that all is not exactly the same. For one thing, the place where he is lying on now is not the one it used to be a few minutes ago. He is down on the grass now, and Borden´s house has vanished . Anyway he still seems to be in the New York outskirts, near Greenville, but...

That universe which at first sight is roughly the same will not take long to show minor differences, that will get bigger in the hours and days to come and increasingly scary. There is another Keith Winton there. And another Betty Hadley. Keith will soon understand the mess he is in and will have to make his way in this increasingly sinister parallel universe, and try to go back to his own,  if he could.

What Mad Universe is full of fascinating situations and characters. This New York city that transforms itself at dusk into a black horrible hell where you cannot see a single thing, as if you had become blind amidst unspeakable dangers. Like those frightening night beings who go about hunting in the city streets for victims. An I am Legend kind of thing. And what about the weird reddish beasts from the Moon that you encounter outdoors in broad daylight and that nobody seems to pay attention to? Ordinary interplanetary travel in this parallel 1954, for just a few hundreds of dollars. And an exhausting war with Arcturus and its hideous creatures (this is a pulp after all!). With some hints of the narration reminding us that Brown was also an accomplished noir writer, author of such masterpieces of crime fiction like The Screaming Mimi.

What Mad Universe has also some touches of humour. Like those knitting machines that open the way for the discovery of an efficient space travel technology! And which marked the real point of divergence in the year 1903 of this parallel universe. This humouristic side will be further developed by Brown in novels like Martian go Home.

In short, What Mad Universe is a must for fans of pulp literary culture and the history of science fiction. Or simply those who want to enjoy an irresistible vintage SF read.

Brian Aldiss: Frankenstein Unbound

This is a very interesting retelling of Mary Shelley's famous teenage work. Mary's achievement was to create not only a superb novel of smart gothic horror with moments of brilliant poetry, but also an immortal myth on the impact of natural science on human culture. Science is here symbolized by Victor Frankenstein's cold approach to knowledge, and his creation of a hideous monster as a result of it. Or as one critic once put it: the monster is himself a symbol for the Science-oriented 20th century as a whole, with its huge potential that ended up, to a great extent, in tragedy.

Science is a strong force in human culture, an unbelievable tool able to reach the most distant goals. But if not properly managed or not properly integrated in the fabric of our civilization, if this huge intellectual force is in the wrong hands or serving misguided interests, then Science might become something rather evil. The scientific enterprise always starts as something theoretically neutral, but it could easily be put at the service of alienation and slavery. Rather than freedom and human growth, as the Enlightenment dreamed. 

This idea can be richly traced in Mary Shelley's book, along with its nice poetry in the frame of a magnetic story. Among the Swiss mountains and lakes, and in the company of Byron, Shelley, Claire and Polidori, one night Mary was to have a most vivid nightmare which would give birth to an unforgettable literary creation. And that nightmare would have the strongest influence in the history of our modern literary culture. Dreams recalled by Freud aside.

English author Brian Aldiss is in love with Mary Shelley. Quite obvious, when reading the novel and his alter ego's impressions, that he would have liked to meet her. And make love to her, like Unbound's main character Joe Bodenland manages to do. In Aldiss's book, we will encounter nearly in flesh and bone some of the characters that marked early nineteenth century English literature: Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (Shelley). Along with William Polidori and Clare Clairmont, in their Geneva exiled household. The story of Mary's creation of the monster was as "literary" as the novel itself, as we all know. And in Aldiss's narration, all is mixed up. Literary and historical beings share the same stage. Along with Shelley, Byron and Mary we have Victor, the monster and the hideous bride that the first is obliged to create for the "demon".  

Frankenstein Unbound is a great read for lovers of the history of literature. But it is also unmistakably a SF novel. Science is here, and its powerful myth. Joe Bodenland, the novel's narrator, lives in 2020 America. Nuclear war technology has not yet destroyed Earth, but it has caused serious "dislocations" in the fabric of Space-Time. The result of which are strange, impossible to foresee, time slips. Just to give an example: at some point, in front of your 21st century home, you may encounter a village (with its people) from the Middle Ages or a piece of 1860s American Civil War. The other side of the river could suddenly appear inhabited (after a Time slide) by a a few square miles of Viking England. Space and Time are definitely out of joint. 

So what is in front of Joe's home at one point? Well it is 1816 Geneva that he encounters before his very windows. Eventually he enters the place at the wheel of his highly techno 2020 car and gets lost in that world. His original home and time being lost after another time slip. And in this strange 1816 he steps into, history and literary creations will share a single reality. Mary Shelley and Victor Frankenstein, reality and myth are there together in the same Space and the same Time. Yes, blame the Space-Time dislocation caused by nuclear technology in 2020. 

There are some brilliant moments in Frankenstein Unbound. One of the most remarkable ones being the scene of the courtship between Frankenstein's original monster and his just manufactured awful bride. That female monster was created by Victor after the pressure put on him by his nemesis. She comes through the front door out of the house after being reanimated. The monster follows her in lust. They dance, they play. A fascinating and powerful scene is narrated afterwards. 

Some may say that Frankenstein Unbound is not the best novel by the great SF master Brian Aldiss. But it is well worth the reading in any case. Also it deserved a movie version in 1989 by Roger Corman. The narration is told by a single individual, Joe Bodenland, and the rest of the characters are mostly little more than outlined. Even if Aldiss undoubtedly manages to blow some life into Byron, Shelley and Mary, "awakening them from their clay". The novel is another turn of the screw in the myth of the impact of science in our civilization. "Intellect has made our world unsafe for the intellect" is an outstanding idea in these pages. The myth that Mary Shelley first modeled in the realm of literature. 

Throughout the pages of the novel, Bodenland, an intellectual individual and 21st century scientist (a 2020 imagined from 1973 by the way), reflects constantly on the problem. Science and Technology, their fundamental part in the tormented human affairs, their potential and their dangers. The kind of cold cultural approach to Reality that Science demands.  In her novel, Mary Shelley managed to create a myth that has not been exhausted and probably never will.  Frankenstein Unbound has not got its excellence, but it is a clever imaginative narration that follows an old path of fear and concern, one we will never be able to neglect.