November Round-Up

Today I offer some quick notes on several things read in late October and in November, just to get the blog caught up.  Now let’s get these stray dogies rounded up and on the trail to KC. Yee-haw!

Volume 9 of the Durants’ history of western civilization is entitled The Age of Voltaire. Needless to say, the pages focus on France. But should they have? Yes, the absolutism of Louis XIV and XV influenced European politics, the writers in the coffee shops influenced European philosophy, and the ladies in the salons influenced European letters and fashion. But, in the words of Peggy Lee, Is that all there is? Fortunately, the Durants were interested in music and did a good job retelling its history in this first part of the eighteenth century, and most of this story took them out of the land of Montesqieu and Madame de Pompadour. Italian opera spread almost everywhere in this period, and even in France some critics questioned whether Italian might not be the superior language for singing. In fact, this France-centered volume devotes a whole section to the great German who learned opera composition in Italy and then made it the hottest thing in London theaters, also incidentally writing Messiah, which the authors declare the greatest musical composition in history. It goes on to tell the story of J. S. Bach quite well also, calling this non-French guy the greatest composer in history. Tell me, does designating the St. Matthew Passion the masterpiece of the greatest composer in history belie at all the Durants' opinion of Messiah as the greatest composition?

At almost the same time, I read Rutherfurd’s Paris and Dumas’s Louise de la Vallière. So these weeks were for me filled with French history, fictionalized and otherwise. Rutherfurd’s book is better than his Princes of Ireland, but not so good as London, Sarum, New York, or Russka. Still, he told some good yarns and made the point well that aristocrats, priests, socialist laborers, merchants, engineers, thieves, and courtesans each provide essential flavors to the soup that is Paris. Dumas’s book, the middle third of the gargantuan final novel about D’Artagnan and his friends, is the first book by that author that I just didn’t like. Things get suddenly way better whenever the musketeers show up (a boon that happens all too infrequently in this one), not just because they’re who I want to read about but also because they’re more interesting characters than the courtiers of Louis XIV. But mostly what made this book so tedious for me was the constant presence of the theme that ties all these books about France together, in fact the quality that seems to define France if these books are any indication: adultery.

The Faerie Queene was every bit as good as I remembered it being. Its stories exemplify and teach virtues, and its poetic presentation promotes eloquence of the highest order. It doesn’t leave the reader with memorable lines like Eliot and his “cruelest month” and “handful of dust,” but its goodness and beauty permeate the soul with lasting comfort and influence.

Similarly, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were every bit as good as I had hoped they would be. We want Lincoln to be perfect, so it’s hard to read his words and see his disgust at the idea of interracial marriage and his lack of hope (or even lack of desire to hope?) for full political equality for blacks. But a man must be judged against his times, and no white person at the time except (and Lincoln would grant the exception) Harriet Beecher Stowe spoke more consistently and efficaciously about the evils of slavery, the humanity of black Americans, and the right of blacks to citizenship, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And set against Douglas with his white supremacy, his white nationalism, and his professed indifference regarding slavery (surely he was the only person in the country who didn’t have an opinion on the ethical value of the institution), Lincoln seems very progressive indeed. My favorite among Lincoln’s tactics was his argument that indifference is the same as support: either slavery is evil or it isn’t, and professing indifference says that it isn’t. Good reading for these times.

I don’t know if 2022 will continue in the manner of the last few months of 2021. If so, I may set aside the blog for a while. But I hope to finish up this year with one more regular post about reading and the annual announcement of awards.