Recently, I found myself digging my small car out of a mammoth-sized, iced-over snowbank in order to slip and slide all the way into a nearby city. Why? What could have driven me out on a freezing, snow-piled, ice-covered evening? (Other than the fact that I live in Canada and if I didn't venture out on freezing, snow-piled, ice-covered days I'd probably get nowhere for about 1/3 of the year?)

Mary Novik had arrived in aforementioned nearby city to read from her 2007 novel Conceit (my thoughts on same can be found here) and I knew I just had to be there. And it was worth the effort. Articulate and generous, though tired, she told us about her inspiration for the opening of the novel (a dream) and talked a bit about her approach to this particular work of historical fiction. She'd tried not to let the historical record fetter her imagination. I think this method works for her, certainly, though it's a different approach than the recently read Landis.

I'm re-reading Conceit (now signed by the very kind author) and enjoying it even more this time than the last. My initial hesitation over the narrative having to do, mostly, with the depiction of John Donne, I've decided another look (without the expectation that I will read a pseudo-bio of the Donne of my imagination) will most likely increase my appreciation.

I've been wasting some time (or not) this morning, surfing around, avoiding my poetry manuscript still in need of some revision (neverending, it seems), and I came across this. Wonderful site! And then that led me to this. And I could have continued, but ran out of time. Alas.

Another excerpt from J.D. Landis's Longing:

As they were packing for the move to Dusseldorf, he [Robert Schumann] wrote a story in his children's Book of Memories.

The fish were bored with being forever in the water. 'Outside,' they said, 'the hot sun is shining, and everything looks beautiful and green. But we are deprived of all that, here in the water.' So they decided to drink the whole pond dry. They drank and drank. The water got lower and lower. Supreme was their joy when they found themselves on dry land with the hot sun shining beautifully down upon them. But their happiness did not last long. They became weaker and more lifeless from moment to moment. There was not a drop of water left in which to live their lives as fish. The sun shone brightly. They died in agony.

"What is the point of this story?" asked Clara.
"That all should keep to their element."
"And what is our element?"
"Wherever we are not."

Landis's Schumann is definitely always out of his element. And he remains elusive (who he really was, why he went 'mad', what drove his passion for music) throughout the narrative and, I imagine, throughout his life.

And another bit, taken from the section during which he boarded with a consumptive friend:

"He had discovered that the more music he wrote, the less inclined he was to speak . . . He sometimes felt that music resented language and did everything possible to annihilate it. Given music's greater precision, beauty, and expressiveness, Robert thought it would be the other way around. But language paid its humble respects to music by struggling valiantly yet futilely to describe it, the equivalent of trying to sing about mathematics. Music, in the meantime, obliterated words, thoughts, meaning itself. It rolled through one's blood and brain with an ecstatic pitilessness."

This war between language and music seems, to me, odd. As a poet, I usually associate language with music. But I found it fascinating to discover some of the interesting obsessions that grew in Schumann's mind.

J.D. Landis knows how to spin an interesting narrative with the threads of historical fact. He uses what is known and doesn't seem daunted by it when it comes to fictionalizing the past. This makes for a dense read, punctuated by moments of apt and dazzling metaphor or wry, erudite humour. I definitely enjoyed Longing, but I found it ultimately (inevitably) tragic. What can one do when the protagonist increasingly loses touch with reality and, even more importantly, the loved ones who inhabit that reality. Such was the case with Robert Schumann.

The narrative follows Schumann, but we see a bit of Clara's perspective as well since Landis employs an omniscient approach. Of course, since Landis intended (or so it seems) to stick to history as much as possible and fictionalize within that framework, that limits the liberties he was able to take. Thus the novel reads rather like a lively bio. But a well-written, lively bio.

For example, this tidbit from the scene between a visiting Chopin and a Clara-less Robert: "Once you have given your love to someone, Robert had discovered, and that love is thwarted, you become lost not only to your beloved but also to yourself. Every gesture, every breath, every written word, every inked-in note of music is an attempt to remain alive in a world from which you have felt yourself begin to disappear. Chopin's presence at his door, before he could possibly have received the letter, was for Robert evidence, however fragile, that he had not wholly lost his power to ruffle the universe."

Listening To: the sound of the computer humming and the keys clicking while I write. It's a quiet evening.

Recently Watched and Enjoyed: Last Chance Harvey starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. My aunt, sister, and I had a girls' night out for my sister's birthday and decided to take in the aforementioned. The plot follows the two older characters as they navigate disappointments related to profession and family. We (and I do mean the audience as a whole) were really pulled into the story through the brilliant characterization (dialogue and performance). Members of the audience began commenting out loud as the action continued, rooting for each character in turn. What we all seemed to thoroughly appreciate was a romantic comedy/drama in which the actor and actress displayed wrinkles and age-appropriate weaknesses while still maintaining witty conversation and projecting appeal. A good time was had by all.

Must Quote: from Landis's Longing (a longer post about same is in the works) because this is just such a beautiful way to describe the effect of Clara Schumann's experience as a composer . . . "To write for an orchestra was like throwing stars into an empty sky. And then to write, and play, a solo part was to fly among those stars in danger and delight."

While I have recently finished Landis's Longing and have things to say about it, I'm completely distracted by the celebrations surrounding the inauguration of Obama. I have never been so moved by an inauguration, or felt such hope for the future of politics (because of course this will influence what other nations look for/expect from their own leaders).

Happy Inauguration Day America! :)

Still Reading and Enjoying: Longing by J.D. Landis and The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed.

Listening To: the sound of an ambitious neighbour with a small snow plow.

Recently Watched and Found Interesting: Wanted. It was not what I expected at all (I was expecting a mere glossy action film)and I was intrigued by what was going on with the concept of Fate (think Greek myth and the spinner of threads) and responsibility, as well as what happens when humans play at being God. Enjoyed isn't the word I would use to describe the experience, but it was worth the watch because of the thinking and discussion it generated.

Planning On: revising the poetry manuscript and the languishing novel. But first . . . blogging.

Thinking about art and music, coming across interesting thoughts while reading Landis's Longing.

Landis's Robert Schumann's ideas about music: "The fact was that in the world, all things, like all beings, were alone, discrete; and one thing -- everything -- led to nothing, just as all music led ultimately to the silence out of which it had been born."

While I might think art is born, impels (compels?) itself into the world through the artist, and then descends (exalts?) into silence, I might put a different interpretation on silence than might be suggested by the aforequoted. In the way that space is not empty, so silence is not nothing.

More from Landis's Robert on art in the following exchange between Clara's father and Robert after she's just played some of Robert's music:

"I thought you liked my little Papillons."

Tonight they sounded odd. American. Did you see the response? People shaking their heads. Straining to grasp the changes. They weren't ready for this kind of music."

"Yes, I could tell," said Robert. "But I supposed I was ready to write it. And Clara to play it."

"Art to be art must be comprehended," said Wieck.

"Art to be art must only be realized," responded Robert.

I'm not sure I agree with either. Art is not always comprehended at the time of its appearance and yet we are now told it is art because someone else did, at some time, comprehend it. But does that make it art? Or merely make it part of a cultural heritage? A history of the comprehended, which is separate from art itself? And if art must only be realized to be art, then what role does comprehension play? And can anything really be comprehended? But I digress.

There is an exchange between Chopin and Schumann, et al, about what would happen if music were to transcend the silence of the virtuoso's death. If sound could be set down, retained, like notation, like words, for the future. I found this exchange fun because, of course, it has Chopin anticipating sound recording (and I wondered, did he really?). I also found it interesting because, of course, it changes what lasts. The legendary performers of the past (Paganini's violin playing, Liszt, Clara herself) all lost except through written accounts. No recordings of what it was they brought to the music, as it (the piece, whatever it is) inevitably alters with each performer/each performance, if only slightly.

Landis's Mendelssohn says this about Chopin and captured sound:

"And yet one feels one could listen to him play forever. There is something about his music -- even when you see it written down, and you analyze it, it remains beyond comprehension. You can play it and wonder, even as you play, where this sound is coming from. And what about his idea of capturing sound! Imaginable but inconceivable, he says. I fear he's right. It is one thing to reproduce an image one sees. If a painter can do it, why not a scientist? But sound is invisible. We can represent it only by the ugly little symbols that are the tools of our trade. How could a trumpet call from a piece of paper? How could the voice of a soprano rise out of a closed book on someone's piano in the dead of night? But imagine it, friends! Music in the air and not a musician within smelling distance. Music everywhere and always."

It's so beautiful when, after some freezing rain, the sun comes out and sparkles off the ice-encased branches. January and February are months of dangerous temperatures and driving here, but they are also months of transformation when bare, dormant branches seem to live briefly again in the sun. It's an illusion, and icy conditions breed a kind of wintry claustrophobia for some of us, but I can't deny the beauty nonetheless (and wish I had a better camera to capture it with). It's that combination of beauty and something darker, sadness or fear, that can sometimes make it so memorable or moving.


Ice covered branches in light always reminds me of a gorgeous February 14 night of sparkling ice and strawberry salad. I spent an unforgettable evening with two of my favourite living (published) poets. That was beautiful.

And it reminds me of the winter my father died. That was sadness, and some danger. We had a terrible ice storm and the trees, houses, cars were entombed in it for days. I wrote a poem about it recently (it's in my ever-revising manuscript), but I couldn't come near the claustrophobia my sister touched on years earlier in one of her poems about death and ice. There's something so claustrophobic about grief that matches the metaphor of ice-covered branches.

I'm reminded of a Compton poem that captures what I mean about claustrophobia, loss, grief (though not necessarily ice). I'd been rereading Anne Compton's two collections, Opening the Island and Processional (the latter garnering both the 2006 Atlantic Poetry Prize and the 2005 Governor General's award for poetry) in October and November and I not only enjoyed them just as much as I did during the first read, but I was able to see more clearly things I'd missed that first time around. Influences like John Thompson** became more apparent to me, the fascination with rooms and loss even more so. Complexity and accessibility can sometimes work against each other, but not in this case. While never simple, there's an openness of expression that invites the reader in.

Here's my favourite Compton poem:

We Go Forward

We go forward by grace days. A phalanx of survivors.
On either side, the Inscrutable lays a hand on some friend.
Wrestles him to the ground, stops her dead. This is not an elegy.
Though we sign the air with ceremony, hands and hearts in slow motion,
our feet don't stop: We're already crossing the border into tomorrow.
More of everything is what we want. We're greedy. Glad to be left
standing. When we glance behind in grief, we're afoot in a changed world
and isn't it every day? Altered, larger somehow, and we're allowed.
That's what's amazing. And what's on our minds every morning?
Prevent us, O Lord, not from sin -- we stir the dust of it with every footfall --
but from nonchalance: a look unanswered, a kiss unrequited. Someone else
in our arms. And though words can't compass this tender of days,
let the one word be yes even if every step away concurs, Be it so.
Consider the foot, beloved, the hold it has on here.

Written in fourteen lines (a sonnet), the abstract of loss likened to a phalanx of survivors is perfect for this closed form. And the form is perfect for the subject, providing that slight sense of claustrophobia that a closed form can (or does it just do that to me?)and that loss so often inflicts.

Survivors, soldiers, going forward. I thought of this poem and that particular conceit when I read this post over at Gubbinal yesterday. As in a battle, those to left and right fall while "our feet don't stop." The shift from being the survivors to becoming the "Altered" comes right where it should (in line 8) and the prayer to be prevented "not from sin . . . but from nonchalance" is an apt thought progression from repentance for action (sin) to repentance for lack of intention (nonchalance). And grace as the means of going forward -- it comes in days not months or years -- is interesting to think about. As rich in ideas as it is in imagery and sound. But then, it is an Anne Compton poem.

** Stilt Jack all on its own makes John Thompson one of the best Canadian poets ever. Period. But At the Edge of the Chopping is wonderful,too. In fact, John Thompson just knew how to write great verse. He's worth reading and re-reading, and reading again. If you don't already have it, I'd recommend getting Peter Sanger's John Thompson: Collected Poems and Translations. And White Salt Mountain is also a good place to go for more on Thompson (also by Sanger).

It seems this winter, so far, is all about little illnesses coming and going -- one cold, one bout of flu -- and I've spent the last week reading over/through/around a touch of the latter. But what reading! I've started The Hemingses of Monticello and the introduction alone was enough to get me excited about the book. Straightforward but engaging prose. And the ideas aren't too shabby either!

I've also made it about halfway through Landis's Longing and am completely wrapped up in the world of Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann. Never having been terribly enthralled (read disinterested) in Robert Schumann before, this historical novel opens him up in ways that are fascinating and sometimes disturbing. So far, the obsession with perfection, the longing for love and music (virtually the same longing as one embodies the other), the complex familial relationships (the tragedy of his sister in the opening chapters was rather horrifying), and the interaction with other brilliant figures of the Romantic period (Goethe, Chopin and Mendelssohn, Paganini, etc) are all drawing me on and on to find out more about these two.

I also want to watch Impromptu again and listen to the cut crystal sounds of Chopin.

Never having tried a reading challenge before, I decided to attempt one that coincided with my goal of adding a little more nonfiction to my TBR pile of lovely prose and poetry. Since this challenge requires one to read only 4 books on something to do with political history over the course of the coming year (better set of instructions found here) this sounds an achievable first try at challenges. So off I go with my initial picks:

1. ReCalling Early Canada: Reading the Political in Literary and Cultural Production eds Jennifer Blair, Daniel Coleman, Kate Higginson
CHANGE OF PLANS: I've decided to go with Carolly Erickson's bio of Alexandra: The Last Tsarina as more interesting to me at the present time. (click here for my impressions of the last tsarina)

2. Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot (click here for my review)

3. Joseph Howe & The Battle for Freedom of Speech by John Ralston Saul (click here for the review.)

4. The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed (click here for my impressions of the book.)

Any recommendations?

Note: I'll be crossing off each title as I finish it and adding a link to my review.
Note #2: Yay! Political History Challenge completed!

A new year means a clean slate on which to write book titles! The Inkslinger household, after receiving welcome gift cards to various bookstores for Christmas, is in the midst of acquiring those new book titles. And snow. We've been acquiring lots of snow.

Recently Read and Enjoyed (despite the fact that I usually do not get very excited about the collected this and that of Tolkien): The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Listening To: the sound of a cat purring.

Planning On: reading more of the truly fascinating Millenium by Tom Holland this evening. I'm at the midway point and, while I'm experiencing my usual muddle about names and dates (despite the Honours in History), I'm loving it. Holland doesn't seem to think medieval history texts should be staid, boring affairs. And I agree.