Category Archives: Reading List – Books

Furtwangler: The Devil’s Music Master by Shirakawa

It.s Friday evening and I.m cheating. I haven.t actually finished Sam H. Shirakawa.s The Devil’s Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwangler. It.s actually Furtwängler, but the software doesn.t seem to like the umlaut so you.ll just have to pretend it.s there! So I.m cheating. But hey, its. 487 pages and I.m up to the last chapter. And did I say it.s Friday evening? Who is Wilhelm Furtwangler, you ask?–if you know (and no peaking ahead!), well, I.m really impressed! Furtwangler, along with Toscanini and perhaps Stokowski, was one of the most famous conductors of the WWII era that no one knows. How.s that for an oxymoron? Betcha didn.t think I had a sense of humour! For the sheer emotional impact of his 1944 Beethoven 9th, he.s my favourite conductor. Whatever he conducts, he takes it apart in his own peculiar way and when he puts it back together, it has the stamp of Furtwangler written all over it. I think that.s a very important attribute: to put your stamp on a piece. Some may disagree, they say, ‘The conductor should be like a transparent piece of glass through which the music flows’. I don.t believe that at all. The musician must put his identity onto the music. This is what makes the interpretation original. And perhaps great.

Furtwangler.s magic trick has something to do with his tempi, which are, well, leisurely. This was quite opposite to Toscanini, who, I think of more as a general than a conductor!–just listen to his rehearsals and you will know what I.m talking about! But it.s not just his tempi. Furtwangler conducts from the bottom up rather than from the top down. The bass section is extraordinarily lush and full, and in being so, I think gives him interpretive freedom elsewhere because the foundation is just so solid. For any given piece, I may have a disc that I like better than Furtwangler (for example Tintner.s interpretation of Bruckner.s 7th I prefer over Furtwangler), but if I have a Furtwangler interpretation, it consistently ranks number one or two. And that.s saying a lot since I.m a stereo system addict and a lot of those wartime recordings leave a lot to be desired by today.s recording standards. Speaking of stereo system, here.s mine. Magnepan 3.7i speakers driven by a Devialet 120 front end being fed bit perfect files from a MacBook Pro:

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Mama mia, ain.t it beautiful! Notice no hornet.s nest of wires and boxes piled upon boxes with vacuum tubes galore! But all this is a digression, back to the book. Here.s what it looks like:

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Diligent readers will recall that I.ve been thinking about the cover art for my book. So I.m thinking of cover art in general when I look at other books. Now, looking at this edition, I.ve got to wonder whether Shirakawa got any input into the design of the cover. Shirakawa.s had one aim: to exonerate Furtwangler.s legacy. You see, Furtwangler, out of a duty to his art, stayed in Germany during the Second World War. He was never a Nazi (unlike Karajan, for example) but because of various power struggles and post-war paranoia, was persecuted as a Nazi. He was given a clean bill of health after his ‘denazification’ hearings at Nurnberg, but a lot of people, up to this day, do not forgive him for not leaving Germany. This is an interesting ethical question: do citizens have a moral obligation to leave a country when thugs take over or is it better to remain and change things as best as one can from within? But anyways, back to the cover. Now just look at it. Its imperial red for one. Flanking either side of Furtwangler.s photograph are columns with bold swastikas adorning their crowns. Furtwangler himself is depicted making some sort of dark gesture like he.s calling up the devil. Now ask yourself, if you were writing a book to DISTANCE Furtwangler from the Nazis, is this the sort of cover art you would use? To me, if I were Shirakawa and I had spend all this time putting together this book, all the time doing interviews, going through archives, and I saw this cover, I would be absolutely livid! I think the publisher (which is no less than Oxford University Press) deliberately chose something sensational to sell copies. All too often this happens. I remember reading about how absolutely livid Taleb was over the cover art the publisher ‘imposed’ on one of his books. He.s a self styled ‘philosopher of uncertainty’ and he writes about risk and other unpredictable things. Anyway, the publisher put a set of dice on the cover, thinking that they were a visual analogue to risk. But Taleb.s whole thesis was that things like dice and card do not really represent risk because risk in the real world is much much more unpredictable than dice and cards would lead us to believe! He called thinking about risk through dice games the ludic fallacy. It was an error. And then some well meaning publisher (who obviously hadn.t read the book) puts dice on the cover! Moral of the story: a lot of hard work can be ruined if someone puts the wrong cover on your book!

Now diligent readers will also recall that I.ve been thinking about the copywriting process. You know, the little blurb on the back of the book that gets you to buy the book. Here.s the back blurb from The Devil’s Music Master:

EXCERPT: “When thousands of intellectuals and artists joined the exodus of Jews from Germany after the Nazis seized power, Furtwangler remained behind with the naive but overwhelming conviction that he could save the culture that produced Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and other great composers from annihilation by the Third Reigh. Despite his well-documented and astonishingly successful efforts to keep Jews a part of German cultural life in the early part of the Nazi era and his manifold efforts to assist anyone who asked him for help throughout the Third Reich…he was all but branded a war criminal and nearly framed at his denazification trial at the end of the war. This, even though Furtwangler never joined the Nazi party and openly acted against the regime until its fall. Even today, many remain convinced that Furtwangler at best compromised and at worst simply sold out. For them, Wilhelm Furtwangler will forever be the Devil’s Music Master.”

Hmmm. It.s an excerpt and on the back it even says in big letters ‘EXCERPT’. This doesn.t strike me as being professional. The quote captures the books thesis precisely, but this wouldn.t be the sort of thing I.d want for my book. I.d want something catchier. It also doesn.t tell us too much about the author. On the inside jacket of the hardback, there.s a section:

About the Author: Sam H. Shirakawa is a writer and filmmaker.

Okay, I get from holding the 487 page book that.s he.s a writer. So he does films. Do they have a name? Maybe I.m being too critical, but the description isn.t too helpful. As a reader, I want to know what Shirakawa has invested into Furtwangler. He obviously is devoted to him, as he.s done a ton of research, especially into the artistic power struggles during the Third Reich between artists and politicians. If you.re writing a book and thinking about this as well, remember that your reader is curious about you yourself, not just your book!

As to the book itself, well, you.re just going to have to read all 487 pages yourself! If you.re into seeing a picture of artists’ lives under the Third Reich, this is the book for you. Not just Furtwangler: the book describes his whole coterie of friends, fellow composers (Strauss), rival conductors (Karajan, Toscanini), and soloists (Schwarzkopf, Menuhin) as they find their way around and react to wartime politics. As to Furtwangler.s musicianship, there.s more about his style after the end of the war. This is perhaps the last fifth or quarter of the book. While the Nazis are in power, the focus is less on his musicianship (i.e. the aesthetics) and more on the politics (this person left, he tried to save this person, Hitler enjoyed the concert, he yelled at Goebbels, etc.,). Shirakawa relies on documentary evidence and, where possible, he has travelled to interview Furtwangler.s friends and associates for a more intimate look.

So there you have it, dear reader! I think it.s time for me to kick the feet up, and listen to Furtwangler conducting Wagner.s Tristan und Isolde! Until next time, I.m Edwin Wong and I.m Doing Melpomene.s Work!

The Naked Author by Baverstock

A find at the might Greater Victoria Public Library. It took two renews, after which I had to return it (two is the max; the borrowing period is 3 weeks), and then one more renew to finish this one. What a saga! Close to 3 months, I think. There.s been lots of irons in the fire (blogging, writing, cover art search, and you name it) so I.m just happy to have finished. Alison Baverstock.s The Naked Author is one of those books you can slowly enjoy. Pick it up, read a few pages. Think about what she has to say. Put it down. And then pick it up again. There.s not much to be gained in reading it straight through blitzkrieg style like a tank going through the Ardennes forest. Some books are like that. They.re like pieces of music. You feel their tempi like a heartbeat.

So, as the full title says, this is The Naked Author: A Guide to Self-publishing. There.s a silhouette I guess of a naked author in red on the front with words going across his body. From a novel on Martin and Christmas and the sink, from what I can gather.

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Here.s the back blurb (which I take notice of more and more because this book has informed me that either I will have to write one or ask for some help getting one written!)–

New digital technology, falling production costs and the emergence of a new type of publishing services company have led to self-publishing becoming a viable–and often desirable–option for writers, rather than a poor second to finding a commercial publishing deal.

Written by a publishing consultant and author, with plenty of advice from industry professionals, this book offers an objective analysis of both philosophy and process. It will help you to analyze your objectives and sharpen appreciation of the needs of your audience. There is guidance on how to commission services, grasp the range of design and format options available, plan efficient distribution, sales and marketing.

Crucially you will also find consideration of the responsibilities of the author embarking on self-publishing; both to their audience and themselves. This comprehensive guide will help yo scrutinize investment choices, make better decisions-and produce a product worthy of your name.

You learn something new each day: what I.ve been calling the back blurb is actually called the art of copywriting, otherwise known as a few words of introduction promoting your work and piquing further interest in the reader. It turns out copywriting (as opposed to copyright, another publishing term) is an art unto itself.

Baverstock.s The Naked Author has a British flavour (notice saucy British spelling!) because she.s course leader for MA Publishing at Kingston University. Some of the suggestions (ie Matador Press) are local in nature, but all in all, the book provides a solid description of what the aspiring author is getting into. One of the reasons why I selected this book was that I liked its presentation: choice of font, paper, size, feel, etc., all seemed just right. It.s actually quite distressing: many of the self-publishing books out there on how to self-publish look very self-published themselves! The presentation of The Naked Author was top notch.

If I had wanted a book to tell me how great and wonderful and easy things would be, this sure wasn.t the right book! I learned a lot. For one, I had though editing would be easy: check for spelling and grammar. But actually for a book there.s many stages of editing. There.s structural editing to make sure things are in the right place. There.s copy editing to make sure spaces, lines, paragraphs, and hyphens (i.e. make sure therapist doesn.t turn into the-rapist) are all correct. And then after this, then there.s the spelling and grammar.

I had thought before reading this book that 90% of the work would be writing the book and 10% of the work would be the other stuff such as promotion, editing, cover art, marketing, etc., Well, after reading this book, I think it.s more like 50:50. There.s a section marketing on the end, and it made me laugh to read how the writer can expect to have a lot less time writing since he will be occupied with blogging, marketing, and everything else. You ain.t kidding!

So, if you.re thinking of self-publishing, decide if you believe in what you.re doing. Because you will be working on a thing called faith! Yes, I know it moves mountains. But for it to do that, well, you have to believe in the first place! Well, until next time, I am Edwin Wong and I think after reading this great book I will be doing a whole lot more of Doing Melpomene.s Work than I had initially bargained for!

‘The Cosmic Blueprint’ by Paul Davies and the Second Law

On the one hand, there is the Second Law of thermodynamics. Conceived when the deterministic Newtonian cosmos entered the 18th century with its interest in steam engines, industrial revolutions, and other thermodynamic systems, the Second Law says simply that hot things cool down and this cooling process is the arrow of time which will lead to the heat death of the universe. In this final gasp, all the fuel has been used up. Game over. A lump of coal can be used to power a locomotive; once the lump of coal releases its energy as heat, it is a one way reaction; the heat cannot come back together to form a useful lump of coal. The implications of the Second Law?–order decreases, disorder increases, everything is slowly dying, and so on. On the other hand, however, more complex forms constantly arise: planetary systems, galaxies, and life. What is disturbing is that these things arise in seeming violation of the Second Law, which only presages doom and gloom, not the spontaneous triumph of nature to produce order from chaos, animate life from inorganic compounds, consciousness from inert clay, and so on.

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That there is this dichotomy between creation and destruction is good news for physicist Paul Davies, who has turned the question into a book: The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability to Order the Universe. He must have lots to say because that.s quite the long title! And whether he is talking about new discoveries depends on your frame of reference: the book came out in 1988 (the cover illustration is from the revised 2004 edition which I have not read). My parents bought it for me around that time. Only now have I got around to reading it. As an aside, I.ve been weeding down my book collection. The happy booksellers Russell.s Books on Fort Street has been taking most of my secondary sources (ie books like this that are commentaries). My collection of primary sources (ie Shakespeare, the Bible, Nietzsche, and the original works that other people like to talk about) has been growing as a result. Perhaps primary sources make up three-quarters of my four bookcases now. I hope to weed things down some more. There.s no need really for me to have so many books since most of them are available at the library (and, if I did not already have it, I would have read the new revised edition)! But primary sources are nice to have because I.m always referring to them. And they are all marked up with notes as well. So, after seventeen years, I.ve finally finished this one! I should reward myself with a beer to celebrate the occcasion, since I.ve been looking at this book thinking I should read it for all this time!

Okay, so back to the book. In this book, Davies pits the destructive side of the cosmos against the creative side. Now it turns out, the creative side doesn.t have a fancy ‘law’ like the ‘Second Law’ (in case you.re wondering, and you should be if you don.t know, the First Law is one of the conservation laws). It doesn.t even have any real physicist approved monikers! Would you believe that? What it does go by are terms frightening to scientists such as Aristotelian teleology (a respectable theory in the Middle Ages), vitalism (respectable to New Age folks), Gaia concept (don.t ask), and other such terms. Davies refers to it with the much more respectable name of the ‘cosmic blueprint’. And the book is filled with examples of higher levels of order arising (consciousness, life, and DNA are big arguments). Even inanimate structures, such as Saturn.s rings, are held together by some force which eludes us. If the physical structure of the rings is put into a computer simulator, the longest they can last is a hundred years. Tops. Then they break apart. But obviously there.s something holding them together. Maybe the hand of God? Perhaps. But it.s surprising they haven.t been able to put it into an equation. Davies’ own view seems to lean towards the opinion that somehow the universe has brought about the conditions necessary for life so that consciousness can evolve. He points out that the conscious observer–which is required to break down quantum states (ie Schrodinger.s Cat)–seems to be a necessary part of the process. So, built into the deep structure or blueprint of the universe is this will to complexity which scorns the Second Law. An interesting question: is consciousness the vanity of the cosmos?

But the Second Law itself is no slouch. Well, first of all, unlike the ‘vital force’, it has a proper name and is associated with cool things like the irreversibility of the arrow of time! On the Second Law, Davies quotes the great Eddington. Sir Arthur Eddington to you:

The law that entropy always increases–the Second Law of Thermodynamics–holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations–then so much worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation–well, the experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you not hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

And what does the Second Law imply for us mere mortals? Here.s what Bertrand Russell has to say:

all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of Man’s achievements must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins–al these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

Wow. No kidding! I wonder if there.s a way to capitalize on this fear? Any entrepreneurs out there? Maybe someone can come up with a ‘Universe Heat Death Survival Kit’!

Now, since I am always labouring away Doing Melpomene.s Work, it occurs to me that perhaps the quarrel between the cosmic blueprint and the Second Law is a scientific analogue to the ancient quarrel between tragedy and comedy. Do you see where I.m going? In tragedy, the best intentions always result in a ‘heat death’. Well, everyone dies in the end. In comedy, however, there is some creative force working in the background of its deep structure so that, no matter how idiotic the characters are, there.s a happy ending, usually a wedding. Comedy is therefore a place where more complex structures (weddings) can occur against all the odds. It.s like life emerging from the primordial soup.

So that.s my thought of the day for you, dear readers. Until next time, I will be Doing Melpomene.s Work.

‘Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy’ by Park Honan

Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine fascinated me sufficiently that I went looking for a book about the life of Christopher Marlowe. There.s always good introductions in Penguin editions, and The Complete Plays with an introduction by J.B. Steane is no exception. It turns out Marlowe was an exact contemporary with Shakespeare (born 1564) and:

…the son of a reasonably wealthy shoemaker. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and received a scholarship to Corpus Christi, Cambridge, where he obtained his B.A. in 1584. He appears to have ben involved in a secret political mission, travelling abroad as a foreign agent. The university authorities suspected him of wishing to enter the English seminary in Rheims as a Catholic convert and it was only through the intervention of the Privy Council that he was awarded his M.A. in 1587.

A spy? A Catholic in Protestant England? Cool. Penguin introductions are more an appetizer than a main course though. They didn.t have From Mankind to Marlowe at the public library (which was the first choice due to the captivating title). In fact they didn.t have very much at all. But there was a newer smart looking title on the shelves Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy by Park Honan.

It came out in 2005 published by none other than the mighty Oxford University Press. I was looking forward to the read. Since there were chapters on The Tamburlaine Phenomenon and Doctor Faustus, there.s where I started. In the chapter on Tamburlaine, Honan speculates that the geographical discrepancies in the campaigns of Tamburlaine and his associates were due to outdated maps at Cambridge. He even identifies a possible map Marlowe may have used. Very impressive. To be honest, it was difficult following the campaign trail in the play. Persia, Fez, Morocco, Argier, Turkey, Damascus, Arabia, Egypt, Natolia, Jerusalem, Trebizon, Soria, Babylon, Africa, and so on. It seemed like he conquered some places twice. And what is the difference exactly between Persian and Natolia and Turkey? It.s good to know the map.s there if I ever look into this some more. The parts on the ranging of powers between Catholics, Protestants, and Ottomans is illuminating as well. It turns out the Protestants and Ottomans had a common enemy in Catholicism at this time.

Now, when I was going to school, what they taught was that it was one of the seven deadly sins of academia to extract biographical details on the author from his works. It was a no-no. My own view of this?–well it always struck me that one should be able to tell something about the author from what he writes; what one writes is part of what he does and the author is, in a way, what he writes. Of course there are limits to how far this can go, but it.s always possible to read a book and at least extrapolate enough biographical details that you could determine whether, if you met the author, he.d be an interesting person to share a beer with.

So, speaking of the seven deadly sins, here.s Honan.s analysis of Faust.s encounter with the seven deadly sins in the play:

After so much insemination, the minx Lechery pictures copulation itself: ‘I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton better than an ell of fried stockfish.’ At that time, ‘raw mutton’ was a term for lust of prostitutes, and ‘stockfish’ (or a dried-up piece of cod) was a slang word of abuse implying sexual deficiency. A modern, rather fastidious editor advises that Lechery says, in effect, that she ‘prefers a small quantity of virility to a large extent of impotence’. There is, however, and explicit allusion to a small, active and sucking penis in Lechery’s fondness for ‘an inch of raw mutton’, and to absolute sexual failure in ‘an ell’ (45 inches) of inadequate copulating. As in his version of Ovid’s Amores, Marlowe comically heightens in this play not virility, but impotence, since this is what is most striking in Lechery’s entire speech. Was Marlowe impotent? The truth of the matter is that he was extremely interested in desire…

‘Was Marlowe impotent?’–are you kidding?!? That.s one question that would not occur to me to think of after reading that episode. Covetousness also talks about gold in that episode. Are we also to infer that Marlowe had a stash of gold hidden away? The encounter with the seven deadly sins seemed to me rather part of the spectacle of the play where Mephistophilis helps Faust kill time before the twenty-four years expires. It is beyond me how Honan extracts the question of Marlowe.s virility from Faustus’ encounter with Lechery.

There.s a bit too much of this type of conjecture in the book for me. While the two chapters on Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus were interesting, I.m returning this volume to the library and still on the lookout for a book on the life of this most extraordinary poet and playwright.