http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books?hl=en
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Today's topics:
* REVIEW: Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing by Janine Burke - 1
messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/727ea3f687745f1c?hl=en
* Atwood turns 70 - 3 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/df1e46c35a058a1c?hl=en
* The Seven Basic Plots - 4 messages, 3 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/cbb217ac2d077860?hl=en
* "In Cold Blood" - the Clutter murders, 50 years later - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/bf772fd1e7a9a6aa?hl=en
==============================================================================
TOPIC: REVIEW: Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing by Janine
Burke
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/727ea3f687745f1c?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Tues, Nov 17 2009 6:38 pm
From: ann@skea.com (Ann Skea)
TITLE: Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing
AUTHOR: Janine Burke
PUBLISHER: Allen & Unwin, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest,
NSW 2065, Australia (November 2009)
ISBN: 978 1 74175 9177 PRICE: A$55.00 (hardback) 432 pages
Reviewed by Ann Skea (ann@skea.com).
************************************************
"Creativity is place", says Janine Burke in the introduction to Source. And
that place, she believes, is the beginning and end of every artist's journey.
It is the childhood realm, "the original source of inspiration and identity".
For all but one of the artists and writers in this book, however, it was not
their birthplace but a found location in which they produced their major works.
As the chapter titles in Source indicate, Burke has chosen a wide and disparate
range of artists through which to explore this idea: 'Georgia O'Keeffe and the
Desert', 'Picasso's Provence', 'Karen Blixen's Homelands', 'Jackson Pollock on
Long Island', 'Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell in Sussex', 'Ernest Hemingway in
Key West', 'Monet, Blanche Hochedé and Giverny' and 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye's
Utopia'. She outlines the creative lives of each of these men and women,
discusses their desires and disaffections, their marriages, passions, strengths
and weaknesses, and their work. She also visits the places in which they were
most creative and offers her own vision of what inspired them. Inevitably,
given the very unusual lives of all of her subjects, their stories involve
"mourning and regeneration", and "patterns of illness, alcoholism, syphilis,
breakdowns and suicide". But these are also stories of achievement and rebirth.
Source is an interesting book, not just because of the lives it documents but
also because of the similarities which Burke traces between these creative
lives. Sadly, the book cannot reproduce all the artistic work she discusses,
but there is a good range of full-colour plates which help to illustrate her
themes.
Of particular interest, is her account of the work of Blanche Hochedé, the
daughter of Alice Hochedé who became Monet's lover and, later, his wife.
Blanche was part of Monet's household almost constantly, from the time he first
took her family into his Vétheuil home when they were declared bankrupt, until
his death at Giverny in 1926. As a teenager, Blanche decided to become an
artist and she began to work beside Monet, learning all that she could from
him. He, in turn, encouraged her and also painted her at work. Eventually, she
became his studio-assistant and, as well as exhibiting her own work
professionally, it is very likely that she helped Monet with his when he became
older and less active. There is some debate over whether she actually worked on
any of Monet's canvasses, but Burke makes a good case for her having done so,
and she deplores the fact that Blanche has been given little recognition for
the help and support which she certainly provided for Monet for much of his
creative life.
The last of Burke's subjects, the Australian Aboriginal artist, Emily Kame
Kngwarreye, is the least known to most people. Emily began to create batik art
work when she was sixty-six years old and she did not paint her first picture
until twelve years after that. Her first paintings immediately won critical
acclaim and in 1997 she was a chosen representative of Australia at the Venice
Biennale. Her work now hangs in major art galleries around the world. She died
in 1996.
Emily's painting grew from her kinship with the land of the Central Desert in
the Northern Territories of Australia. She was a tribal elder, guardian of a
particular Aboriginal food plant, and an important senior woman in her tribe.
Her place of inspiration was the desert land on which she lived, and Burke
visited this land as part of her research for Source. Faced with the reality of
Aboriginal life in a remote part of the Central Desert, she struggles to come
to terms with the "schismatic vision" of tribal people who produce "subtle and
sophisticated art", who are intimately connected to the land of which they are
the "spiritual custodians", and yet live in squalor and seemingly have "scant
regard for their environment".
Emily's Utopia (that is the name of the area where she lived and worked) is not
the Utopia we might imagine. Burke's initial impression is that she has
descended into "one of the circles of hell".She is shocked by the snotty-nosed
children, the desecrated houses, the rubbish and the plastic bags festooning
the desert; and she is angered by the unreproved cruelty that a young boy
inflicts on a dog. Yet, from this seeming neglect comes delicate art based on
tribal beliefs and stories. She recognizes her desire to impose her own
cultural standards and she tries to come to terms with her own lack of
understanding.
No such shock is produced by the creative utopias of Burke's other artists and
writers. She visits their houses with delight and describes them and the
landscape around them glowingly. Perhaps too glowingly at times. It is
interesting to compare her description of Jackson Pollock's studio at Springs
on Long Island with that of art historian Robert Hughes. Burke's visitor
stands, as she has done, in Pollock's paint spattered studio and "feels energy
rushing up from the floor, from the web of painted lines, so fast and intense
it seems she is lifted off the floor". Hughes, in his vast and impressive book
American Visions, describes the "shrine" of "Jack the Dripper" (a title he
borrowed from an early Time magazine feature on Pollock). He sees only the
"Miraculous brushes", the "Sanctified Shoes" and the "surplus drips of the
Master, the sacramental ichor" that went off the edges of his great works.
Nevertheless, Source is an interesting and absorbing book. The illustration are
beautiful, the photographs of her subjects are unusual, and Burke makes a very
pleasant, relaxed and informed companion and guide to the lives and work of her
chosen artists and writers.
==============================================================================
TOPIC: Atwood turns 70
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/df1e46c35a058a1c?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 6:06 am
From: Stratum101
(Yipers.)
Margaret Atwood turns 70 today.
I remember when I thought she was a hottie.
== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 11:07 am
From: Stratum101
On Nov 18, 8:06 am, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
> (Yipers.)
>
> Margaret Atwood turns 70 today.
>
> I remember when I thought she was a hottie.
Here's an interview with her last month concerning
_Year of the Flood_ and the things she's usually
asked:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/10/margaret-atwood.html
Of _The Handmaid's Tale_, she says, "You know you've really
made it when people start dressing up like that on Halloween."
If Atwood's cynical humor isn't to your liking, you can
find an interview with another hottie author conducted
by a colleague of the first interviewer here:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten-palin17-2009nov17,0,4412944.story
--
"At Albuquerque, I asked the train porter
for a newspaper, and the unfortunate man being
hard of hearing brought me the Los Angeles Times."
S. J. Perelman
== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 11:11 am
From: Stratum101
On Nov 18, 1:07 pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
> If Atwood's cynical humor isn't to your liking, you can
> find an interview with another hottie author conducted
> by a colleague of the first interviewer here:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten-palin17-2009no...
Er, big correction. It's a review of her latest release,
not an interview.
==============================================================================
TOPIC: The Seven Basic Plots
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/cbb217ac2d077860?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 4 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 7:44 am
From: "Ed Cryer"
"Immortalist" <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4d0e1d1c-ce3d-4b55-9d7b-98797684c587@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
...[Christopher] Booker believes we tell stories as a mechanism of
passing a model for life from generation to generation; that in
essence, all stories are archetypal family dramas, ).
************************************
I find the great heroic stories morally bracing for my own living life.
They give me strength, hope, support. When audiences gathered round
Homer to listen to tales of brave Achilles, or around an Anglosaxon bard
singing of Beowulf, I suspect they felt the same.
You can add music as well; triumphal symphonies from Beethoven onwards.
And modern super heroes like Spiderman and Batman.
They work on the living, and sum up and endorse the higher aspirations
of the living. As such they are means of self-affirming in the present.
Ed
== 2 of 4 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 8:51 am
From: Stratum101
On Nov 18, 9:44 am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
> "Immortalist" <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:4d0e1d1c-ce3d-4b55-9d7b-98797684c587@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> ...[Christopher] Booker believes we tell stories as a mechanism of
> passing a model for life from generation to generation; that in
> essence, all stories are archetypal family dramas, ).
>
> ************************************
>
> I find the great heroic stories morally bracing for my own living life.
> They give me strength, hope, support. When audiences gathered round
> Homer to listen to tales of brave Achilles, or around an Anglosaxon bard
> singing of Beowulf, I suspect they felt the same.
> You can add music as well; triumphal symphonies from Beethoven onwards.
> And modern super heroes like Spiderman and Batman.
> They work on the living, and sum up and endorse the higher aspirations
> of the living. As such they are means of self-affirming in the present.
>
I find Beowulf part of the Western canon that every bright
school kid should absorb. (No, make that every
*curious* school kid. Prescribed literature is punishment
for some kids.) But long, long after it was the
subject of the skald's tale-telling, it had one brilliant
offshoot. That is John Gardner's 1970s novel
_Grendel_, a retelling of the tale from the ogre's
perspective. It ends with his "disarming" encounter
with Beowulf and his self-pitying run to Mama.
Gardner's Grendel is the tale of a bully. It could
be Hitler's 12-year tale as bully.
In another hundred years no one but the well
read historian will remember Hitler's ally Vidkun
Quisling whose name became an eponym for
"traitor". But they'll remember Hitler and if 24th
century kids are reading Beowulf, I hope
their teachers will know to tell them that
for 20th century readers, Grendel was no
mere abstraction.
Of course between now and then, there
could be some other Hitler or two to add
to the heap.
--
_Grendel_ is one of my Desert Island
books.
== 3 of 4 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 9:28 am
From: "Ed Cryer"
"Stratum101" <j.collier@cross-comp.com> wrote in message
news:99c54da4-c22a-4480-81e8-a3bb1f7a74cf@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
On Nov 18, 9:44 am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
> "Immortalist" <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:4d0e1d1c-ce3d-4b55-9d7b-98797684c587@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> ...[Christopher] Booker believes we tell stories as a mechanism of
> passing a model for life from generation to generation; that in
> essence, all stories are archetypal family dramas, ).
>
> ************************************
>
> I find the great heroic stories morally bracing for my own living
> life.
> They give me strength, hope, support. When audiences gathered round
> Homer to listen to tales of brave Achilles, or around an Anglosaxon
> bard
> singing of Beowulf, I suspect they felt the same.
> You can add music as well; triumphal symphonies from Beethoven
> onwards.
> And modern super heroes like Spiderman and Batman.
> They work on the living, and sum up and endorse the higher aspirations
> of the living. As such they are means of self-affirming in the
> present.
>
I find Beowulf part of the Western canon that every bright
school kid should absorb. (No, make that every
*curious* school kid. Prescribed literature is punishment
for some kids.) But long, long after it was the
subject of the skald's tale-telling, it had one brilliant
offshoot. That is John Gardner's 1970s novel
_Grendel_, a retelling of the tale from the ogre's
perspective. It ends with his "disarming" encounter
with Beowulf and his self-pitying run to Mama.
Gardner's Grendel is the tale of a bully. It could
be Hitler's 12-year tale as bully.
In another hundred years no one but the well
read historian will remember Hitler's ally Vidkun
Quisling whose name became an eponym for
"traitor". But they'll remember Hitler and if 24th
century kids are reading Beowulf, I hope
their teachers will know to tell them that
for 20th century readers, Grendel was no
mere abstraction.
Of course between now and then, there
could be some other Hitler or two to add
to the heap.
--
_Grendel_ is one of my Desert Island
books.
**************
I learned recently that Beowulf survives from one manuscript only. Which
puts me in mind of ancient Greek tragedy, so little of which survives.
Aeschylus - 7 from maybe 90.
Sophocles - 7 from a known 123 written.
Euripides - 18 from 90+
I notice that no Greek tragedy is mentioned in Immortalist's lists. Now,
that's something that needs explaining because they were very, very
widely staged in the ancient world, and stayed in fashion for centuries.
And they are prototypical retellings of myths, but not many happy
endings!
He includes mention of ancient comedy. Why not tragedy? Aristotle, for
example, held Sophocles' King Oedipus as the greatest and quotes from it
more than any other in his Poetics book.
Ed
== 4 of 4 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 2:33 pm
From: Jack Tingle
Immortalist wrote:
> ...[Christopher] Booker believes we tell stories as a mechanism of
> passing a model for life from generation to generation; that in
> essence, all stories are archetypal family dramas, and that their core
> message is that we must resist selfish evil (Booker doesn't use this
> term, preferring 'ego-centred', according to his Jungian framework).
[snip fallacious lunacy]
> The Seven Basic Plots is published by Continuum, ISBN-0-8264-5209-4.
> http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2005/10/the_seven_basic.html
> http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Basic-Plots-Tell-Stories/dp/0826480373
BAH! Ignorant Peasant! Don't you know there are 36 basic plots?
http://www.rpglibrary.org/articles/storytelling/36plots.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Polti
The French have declared it!
Regards,
Jack Tingle
==============================================================================
TOPIC: "In Cold Blood" - the Clutter murders, 50 years later
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/bf772fd1e7a9a6aa?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Wed, Nov 18 2009 8:44 pm
From: "Joan in GB-W"
"Kris Baker" <parallelcooler@ggmail.com> wrote in message
news:7mg2bcF3e29sqU1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Francis A. Miniter" <faminiter@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:hduji2$hcu$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> "the better Slobodan" wrote:
>>> On Nov 16, 10:26�am, atc <remai...@reece.net.au> wrote:
>>>> (Guardian.co.uk) - Fifty years ago, Holcomb, Kansas was
>>>> devastated by the slaughter of a local family. And then
>>>> Truman Capote arrived in town . . .
>>>>
>>>> Continued:http://tr.im/InColdBlood
>>>
>>> +
>>> If it makes you feel better, Capote never wrote again after COLD
>>> BLOOD.
>
> Correction: he never wrote a major novel again.
>
> "Answered Prayers", planned before the Clutter murders BUT obviously
> written after "In Cold Blood" was unfinished, and published in chapters.
>
> Kris
I read "Answered Prayers" a month or so ago and did not like it. It is
three chapters long and not all that coherent . . . to my way of thinking.
Capote used some actual names for characters and made-up names for others.
The last section dealt with the famous Ann Woodward case. Dominick Dunn's
"The Two Mrs. Grenville's" also deals with the Woodward case and that was a
book I liked better. Unfortunately for Truman, by writing "Answered
Prayers," he immediately became persona non grata with the very people he
was writing about and the crowd he most admired and craved acceptance from..
The title refers to a quotation from St. Teresa . . . answered prayers cause
more tears than those that remain unanswered.
Joan
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