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[ CRISIS, Sep. 1995 Table of Contents | Next Article | Mail to Editor | Subscribe ]
BOOK NOTES
Howard Jacobson
Claridge Press
22 pages, $6
No one wants to pay 27&CENT a page for a short monograph on the absolute corruption and decadence of modern art's entire curatorial world, but Jacobson's gloriously funny presentation is a vibrant antidote to a ravaging disease that is well worth the medicinal expenditure. Presenting his case in fined-tuned language richly invigorated by a long-lasting love of words, Jacobson demonstrates how modern art has long had little to do with the visual, opting instead to give primacy of place to the non-sensical pretension of its own theory and exposition. Exposing the inherent self-refutation of art that seeks to present itself as commentary, Jacobson at once saves speech from those who would separate it from sense and art from those who would find its meaning outside its medium.
Richard Wagner
Translated by W. Ashton Ellis
University of Nebraska Press
376 pages, $15
Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination
Mark A. Weiner
University of Nebraska Press
439 pages, $40
Not only Wagnerians, but cultural historians of every ilk have many reasons to be thankful for several recent releases from the University of Nebraska. Religion and Art is one of four volumes presently available that soon will compose an entire reprinting of Ashton Ellis's 1897 English translation originally commissioned by the London Wagner Society. This particular volume, taking its title from the 1880 essay of the same name, is a valuable resource for those who wish to uncover the sweeping array of influences working at the base of Wagner's music, at least as he understood them. More specifically, these pages reveal in great detail the extent to which, for Wagner, music alone among the arts can reveal the inmost essence of Christianity.
While Wagner's own musings on the religion and culture of his time can provide great insight for those seeking to identify his cultural legacy today, Mark Weiner's encyclopedic study of Wagner's specific use of certain theatrical devices to communicate a decidely anti-semitic message is sure to provide for sobering reflection. Supported by a vast array of archival material from Wagner's own productions, Weiner demonstrates how-beyond the use of certain musical characterizations-Wagner's operas portrayed the jewish people as a corrupting force in society and more specifically as sexual deviant. Although Wagner's own writings anthologized in the University of Nebraska volume Judaism in Music do not openly voice such a rabid anti-semiticism, and in fact give witness to Wagner's personal respect for Mendelsohn among other jews, Weiner has powerfully constructed a stage to study the moral implications of artistic production, both for good and for ill.
Sharon Kay Penman
Henry Holt and Co.
746 pages, $25
Readers of historical fiction know that assiduous attention to historical fact is not always the surest way to a page-turning novel. This warning aside, do not be distracted by the many guarantees upon its dust jacket that Sharon Kay Penman's most recent novel is meticulously researched: Ms. Penman writes a wonderful story. Set in the early part of the 12th century amid the many genealogical and social confusions that followed the death of Henry I, When Christ and His Saints Slept should be a joy for anyone who pines for a world of adventure ordered by piety and the assurance of God's grace. While at first the local idiom of Henrican ladies and lackeys can wear a bit thin, the tale they come to tell is sumptuously imaginative and, in the end, sweetly complimented by their word choice as well.
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Translated by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
Ignatius Press
129 pages, $12
Handbooks are a good thing. Disbelievers of this claim should attempt a thorough study of Catholic dogma without them. But nowhere is the great good of concise teaching so immediately evident as in this new reprint of von Balthasar's Das Weizenkorn. Divided into six sections covering several main themes of his more systematic work, this collection of short pensees is a gracious if not thorough introduction to the depth and vitality of von Balthasar's thought. Interlaced with quotations from many of his favorite authors, this little book is much more than a handbook of inspirational meditations, but itself a product of much inspiration.