Allbekant sind jene Blitze
hergebracht vom blauen Dunst.
Wettern sie durch Sommerhitze,
ist’s Natur und keine Kunst.
Aber wenn im Frost erzittert
jeglicher Naturbesitz,
welch ein Wunder, wie’s gewittert!
Und den Winter traf der Blitz.
• The Kraus Project by Jonathan Franzen is published by Harper Collins on 1 October. To pre-order it for £15.19 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.
Ich möcht liegen und schlafen
und schlafen die ewige Ruh
ich wollt’, die Engelein kämen
und drückten die Augen mir zu.
Ich wollt’ ich wollt’ es wär Winter
und Alles in ewigen Schnee,
und Winter, ewiger Winter,
er deckte auch mich und mein Weh.
O Winter, ewiger Winter!
Mir bangt vor der eisigen Ruh
Doch weiss ich, die Engelein kämen
Und drückten die Augen mir zu.
A major and intelligent novelist like Penelope Fitzgerald has happily become the subject of a sensitive and engaging biographer, Hermione Lee. The result is enthralling; a work which is entertaining, informative and profound. In an earlier essay, A Quiet Ghost, Lee mentions interviewing Fitzgerald on the radio in 1997. Two impressions struck the interviewer. First, how her novels always seemed to leave something unsaid. They contained some mysterious, perhaps even transcendental quality to stimulate the reader’s imagination. On the other hand, Fitzgerald thought that the writer ought not to be impartial and indeed should be clear about her own moral position. This viewpoint drew her to write both eloquently and sympathetically, of those who are born to be defeated, the weakness of the strong and the tragedy of…..missed opportunities.
Penelope Fitzgerald came from an earnest and renowned academic family, the Knoxes, which included several prominent clerics; her grandfather was the Bishop of Manchester. A considerable biographer herself, she wrote a book on the Knox brothers, these included two Oxford pastors (one of whom, Ronald Knox, converted to Catholicism, was famous as a biblical translator and whilst chaplain at Trinity College became a mentor to the future prime minister, Harold Macmillan), a top Bletchley cryptographic analyst and Penelope’s own eminent father, ‘Evoe’ who was editor of Punch. Fitzgerald wrote prolifically from childhood and fulfilled some of these high expectations by gaining a brilliant First at Somerville. Graduating in 1938, she was already known for her membership of the smart set, for her student journalism and a reticent, indeed peremptory manner. Women could not actually graduate at Oxford until a statute was passed in 1920. Hence she was amongst Oxford’s early women graduates. Her striking appearance within the smart set earned her the nickname of the blonde bombshell.
Hermione Lee usefully reminds her readers of other contemporary writers throughout her account; that Iris Murdoch was to arrive at Somerville in 1939. A.S.Byatt is referred to somewhat wryly and the influences of Rose Macaulay and Stevie Smith as friends outlined. This is an unashamedly literary biography and wonderfully so. The importance of the Georgian poets and the Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury to Charlotte Mew, whose biography Fitzgerald’s wrote, are entertainingly conveyed. Hermione Lee conveys her subject’s deep capacity for diligent background research and put this across deftly. Her account too shows great depth of feeling for the plight of that generation of women who had to face both the devastation of bombing and the scars of war on men like her husband, Desmond, who had fought bravely in Italy with the Irish Guards. Post traumatic stress was not then fully recognised. Her attempts to cope with his drunkenness and criminality and still look after her three children underline Penelope Fitzgerald’s tenacity and courage.
During the Blitz, Fitzgerald was writing as a recording assistant at the ocean liner of Broadcasting House. The courage shown by the staff, their tasks and relationships, quarrels and difficulties became the material for her novel, Human Voices. This work showed her ear for conversation, propaganda and announcements. Not only was this a war where radio played a historical role in rallying the nation, it broadcast De Gaulle’s speeches to invigorate the Free French. Hermione Lee is magnificently instructive on how the writer’s experiences are turned into a thought-provoking novel.
Hermione Lee
In the early fifties Desmond Fitzgerald, then an Irish lawyer, became the editor of an influential literary review. However, Penelope provided the drive behind the international World Review. This project was successful in publishing a panoply of significant authors including major figures like Bertrand Russell and Walter de La Mare as well as the about to become successful J.D.Salinger. Not only did this publication crumble in this era of austerity but it seemed to herald the most distressing period of her career. Although, she was associated in two great enlightened projects that many will recall; BBC school broadcasting and writing for Marcus Morris who brought out the Eagle, Girl and Swift. Not the least of the pleasures of perusing this book is the facsimile reproductions, little drawings and evocative photographs.
The difficulties which the Fitzgerald family faced in the early Sixties culminated in the sinking of the houseboat on which they were living in Battersea. This and the consequent homelessness are heart-rending to read. However, the resulting novel, Offshore was to win her the Booker Prize in 1979. Her greatest work is considered to be her short enigmatic historical novel, The Blue Flower (1995). It retells the entrancing love story of the German Romantic poet, Novalis. Hermione Lee’s exposition of this short work is a tour de force in itself. To conclude, this is a marvellous biography that shows how Fitzgerald’s remarkable determination finally gained her recognition in her sixties. Author and subject demonstrate the same exuberant curiosity.
The poet Novalis -about whom “The Blue Flower” is concerned
Altes Kaminstück – Old chimney piece – von: / from: Heinrich Heine. (1797 – 1856)
Draußen ziehen weiße Flocken / Outside all white flakes are drawn / durch die Nacht, der Sturm ist laut; / through the night, the storm is loud; / hier im Stübchen ist es trocken, / here in the little room it is dry, / warm und einsam, still vertraut. / warm and lonely quiet familiar.
Sinnend sitz ich auf dem Sessel, / Brooding I am sitting on the armchair, / an dem knisternden Kamin, / close at the crackling fireplace, / kochend summt der Wasserkessel / boiling hums the kettle / längst verklungene Melodien. / long fading melodies.
Und ein Kätzchen sitzt daneben, / And a kitten sitting next to it, / wärmt die Pfötchen an der Glut; / warms their paws on the embers; / und die Flammen schweben, weben, / and the flames are floating, weaving, / wundersam wird mir zu Mut. / wondrous feeling all in me.
Dämmernd kommt heraufgestiegen, / Dawning is ascending, / manche längst vergessene Zeit, / some long forgetting time, / wie mit bunten Maskenzügen / as with colorful masks and tails / und verblichener Herrlichkeit. / and departed glory.
The treaty of Utrecht has been rather ignored in the public sphere. Gibraltar and Britain’s “right” to the slave trade may partially explain why the 300th anniversary has had little attention and yet it was important at the time and provided a temporary peace-
In 2012 I wrote twice about the Peace of Utrecht, the series of treaties which ended the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713). The first post looked in great detail at the textual tradition of the Westphalian Peace of 1648, the Peace of Utrecht and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). The post contains an overview of treaty collections and relevant websites for historical treaties. In my second post I looked at Early Modern peace treaties more generally and I tried to summarize the results of my first post and to bring together some elements for a search strategy. One of my main points was these peace treaties are indeed treaties in the plural. The Peace of Utrecht consists of 22 treaties, counting also the treaties concluded at Baden (1714) and Rastatt (1715). On April 11, 1713 seven separate treaties were concluded. Last week it was exactly 300 years ago that…
In the fifties, there were no flowers in hanging baskets or even in window boxes and the main smell downlong was of fish and tarred nets, On the other hand there were houses built upon greenstone masses where you might well find a profusion of sea pinks in clumps. Heading along Back Road West towards the Digey, there were many village shops, including general grocers like Georgie Wedge’s at the top of Bethesda Hill, where everything from sweets to biscuits were sold out of glass topped tin boxes and placed in small neat paper bags. There was another grocers, Roucefield’s which did a smart trade in St Eia street, where many folk in downlong had celebrated the Coronation, beneath festoons of flags in red , white and blue. The fare on this occasion consisted of saffron buns and bottles of corona served on long trestle tables. There was also a wool shop, at the end of Island Road where women discussed knitting patterns for winter jerseys or Fair Isle jumpers.
At the top of Fish Street the gentle and well spoken, Mrs Laposta ran a busy and popular fruit and vegetable stores just opposite Couch’s works which at this time employed more than 50 workers making parts like buoyancy trimmers for amphibious vehicles for the British Army on the Rhine. Two further venues in Back Road West were particularly intriguing. Further along before the Mariner’s Church, the house where pilchards were marinated in fish spice, vinegar and bay leaves which was accessed at the top of a steep staircase. It cost just a few shillings and a suitably large dish for a dozen had to be left, a few days before. Even more interesting for youngsters on a Saturday morning visit was the Laity Museum. This was crammed with models of tea clippers and Chinese junks, scrimshaw, and intricate furniture and dark sea chests inlaid with mother of pearl. Redolent in atmosphere of the clipper trade with the Far East, from jute to silk, spices and calico, there were contemplative jade Buddhas and several examples of fierce black Japanese armour. Further information, histories of the sea and tales of the Orient were liberally supplied by the ancient mariner who was the proud curator at this period of time.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll play it again, Sam. The mere sight of the Paris rooftops at l’heure bleue has never failed to give me a thrill. Larger than life, I’m transfixed. I tumble flat.
Reaching for Henry Miller: “In Paris, on the asphalt, I have often walked saying: wild, wild, wild. You just say it, and walk, walk, walk. It makes everything rise, swell, burst. Then I am so happy I cannot bear it any more and I begin to sing. It is cause for bliss. You can get drunk on walking.” Oh, Henry!
Das ist der Herbst; die Blätter fliegen,
Durch nackte Zweige fährt der Wind;
Es schwankt das Schiff, die Segel schwellen –
Leb wohl, du reizend Schifferkind! —
Sie schaute mit den klaren Augen
Vom Bord des Schiffes unverwandt,
Und Grüße einer fremden Sprache
Schickte sie wieder und wieder ans Land.
Am Ufer standen wir und hielten
Den Segler mit den Augen fest –
Das ist der Herbst! wo alles Leben
Und alle Schönheit uns verläßt.
Thinking back to the early 1960s, Bertrand Russell, the subject of another prize winning biography by Ray Monk, was frequently seen on black and white television declaring his concerns over Nuclear Weapons. He stated, Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. For nearly seventy years, mankind has wondered in the words of Sting, How can I save my boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy? As concerns about nuclear proliferation in relation to Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea escalate it is salutary to return to a thorough biography of the man, known as the father of the bomb, that felt a deep and urgent need to be at the centre and to belong, J Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer’s father, Julius, a wealthy cloth merchant came from Hesse and was among the many German Jews to arrive in America in 1888. Oppenheimer visited his Grandfather’s home at the age of four and thought it a medieval village. A strength of Monk’s biography is his facility in evoking locations. In adolescence Oppenheimer was attracted to New Mexico where he had been taken by his English teacher, Herbert Winslow Smith, and fell in love with horse riding and the landscape. At Cambridge, however, he was particularly miserable and suffered a nervous breakdown following his attempt to poison his elegant supervisor, P M S Blackett. His recovery on Corsica was due apparently to a passage from Proust, providing much needed stoic calm before his exciting time at the beautiful university and centre of theoretical physics in Göttingen.
The portrait emerging from letters and documents that Prof Monk has so carefully sifted, is of a highly intelligent man who assumes a debonair persona, motivating others, well-read and proficient in several languages from classical Greek to Sanskrit. His interest in physics covered the chemical bond to astrophysics, from quantum electrodynamics to cosmic rays. In all these fields he made major contributions. He even discovered the possibility of black holes. Here is a man that bullies and inspires his research students and whose lectures are displays of his own facility spiced with a high degree of arrogance and hauteur at the cost of clarity to his audience. Impatient and incompetent with arithmetical calculations, he was ham fisted with experiments. Oppenheimer, a tragic figure with a highly developed knowledge of classical tragedy lacked a real sense of self.
Oppie, Pauli and Rabi on Lake Geneva
Monk’s biography is particularly good at clearly explaining basic physics. Especially the confusions between different formations of quantum mechanics, the difference between the absorption of neutrons in various isotopes of Uranium and the confusion between weak and strong nuclear forces in cosmic ray showers. This was an extremely exciting time in physics and the eloquence of this multi-layered biography lies in painting in both the political background and the personalities of Oppenheimer’s associates, friends, family and lovers.
This variety keeps the reader engaged throughout, iIn particular with the insight which Inside the Centre affords into American values and attitudes. Racism and anti-Semitism was deeply ingrained both in social and academic circles, notably at Harvard where he had been a student. Oppenheimer’s great contribution was the establishment of Berkley in California as a vital international centre for theoretical physics. Becoming a worthy American citizen was always a central concern to him. Seeing a fairer society was important to Oppenheimer who had actively supported a docker’s strike. This would land him in deep trouble with the FBI and later with the McCarthy inquisition and despite his endeavours at Los Alamos, his security clearance was withdrawn.
Inside the Centre by Prof Ray Monk
There is a sense of drama in this book which keeps the reader involved. This is due to the historically momentous events involved but enlivened by the personalities Oppenheimer encountered. His radical brother Frank was an able experimenter. There is the bulky, garrulous and memorable figure of the Swiss, Wolfgang Pauli, depicted among the thirty photographs with Oppenheimer in a boat on Lake Zurich and Ernest Lawrence obsessed with building larger and larger cyclotrons, using ersatz equipment like an 80 ton magnet rusting after WW1 in a junkyard. The contribution of one woman, a pacifist, Lisa Meitner, exiled in Sweden, together with that of Otto Hahn on Christmas Eve 1938 explaining nuclear fission and the devastating amount of energy released clarified the possibility of the construction of a weapon.
In conversation with Einstein at Princeton
Monk’s technique when detailing a particular event or person, allows that the reader may see it differently. The detailed footnotes and comprehensive biography makes it possible to follow up alternative explanations. This is particularly useful in relation to a conflicted individual such as Oppenheimer who felt ambivalent about many issues, some of which he must have kept very close to his chest. There is a certain liberal generosity about Monk’s technique. This is a very fine intellectual biography.
penwithlit 