Quantifying all aspects of music

The sciences are those modes of inquiry which relay on quantification. If it cannot be quantified, it cannot be studied. And music is not an exception. Those who study the psychology of this art have at their disposal a variety of machinery and observational tactics with the purpose of quantifying the data. Here below are some of the most intriguing and thought-provoking quotations from Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis’ The Psychology of Music. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford U Press, 2019, pp. 121). These quotations are accompanied by my own take on the information they contain.

Usually, the quote that initiates talking about music in general is “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” (source unknown). This is on account of the fact that human music is like no other phenomenon of modes of expression, reception, performance, composition. Therefore, the closest to what human can say about music is a simile, for ex., “Music is like language”. In my opinion, this is not really true and it does not give both modes the appropriate due.

p. 10 “Like language, music consists of the complex patterning of individual sound elements. Like language, music varies across human cultures. Like language, music occurs dynamically in time and it is capable of being notated. And arguably, like language, music seems to be unique to humans.” So the psychology of music relies on many of the theories and methods of linguistics. However, it is proving to be difficult to observe the perception and production of music in a natural setting. Much work needs to be done, notwithstanding the large corpora of data and the help of computer technology. One of the similarities discovered between music and language is the observation that people slow down at the end of spoken phrases, and performers also slow down at the end of musical phrases. However, the simile could also have been “Music is like clothing”, because clothing is also complexly patterned, varies across cultures. And this simile would also put forward the idea of homogenizing – both in clothing and in music.

p. 21 “Music is often perceived as expressive in ways that go beyond language. Music can seem deeply meaningful even when it does not denote a concrete object or idea; rather, it seems to traffic in the ambiguous, the multiple interpretable. … p. 22 “the sense of being transported beyond one’s self tends to be a hallmark of musical listening across the world. This powerful kind of experience has variously been referred to as effervescence, a surplus effect, or (in less fanciful terms) a heightened state of arousal. Rather than be listened to and merely received, music tends to sweep people into its vicissitudes, eliciting sympathetic movement (toe tap or head nods) of a tacit sense of participation (mentally singing along, or feeling drawn out of yourself and into the music). This capacity underlies …four primary functions of music: to regulate a mental of psychological state, to mediate between self and other, to function as symbols, and to help coordinate action.”

This is the most fascinating part of music: when you really listen or when you really play, it makes you feel like you are in another universe, in fact, it does away with your own self – the listener and the performer do not have a self. It is fascinating that this feeling of “outside-ness” is highly pleasant, and “waking up” from it is a let-down.

p. 22 the lullaby all over the world has the same features: higher pitch levels, slower pace, warmer vocal tone.

This is an interesting finding, given that musical traditions across the world use different materials to enact the four functions listed above.

p. 23 “Rather than depending on a single dedicated region [of the brain], the ability to hear, understand, and make music calls on networks spread throughout the brain – networks used by many other activities from speech to movement planning. This overlap likely explains some of the benefits musical experience and training can confer on abilities as diverse as learning a language, literacy, executive function, and social and emotional processing. … in other words, what might be special about music is not so much that it is different from everything else, but rather that it draws everything else together.”

This is a fascinating observation, underscoring the complexity of studying music in the brain.

p. 57 (musical grouping) “Because auditory sensory memory does not extend past about five seconds, it is difficult to directly experience rhythmic relationships that extend beyond this timescale. Larger-scale temporal relationships – such as form – tend to be perceived in a less sensory, more cognitive way.”

This is very interesting and it points to the idea that music does not simply touch the emotional phenomena, but involves the cognitive ones as well.

p. 60 (rhythmic patterns and language) “Musical themes from England and France…bear the marks of the linguistic environment in which they were composed: English themes contain more durational variability between successive notes, but durations in French themes are more uniform.”

This is a perfect example of how scientists leave the most interesting facts out of their description. Which music is the author talking about? Folkloric, vocal, classical, instrumental…? How exactly was this measured/quantified?

p. 63-64 “The dimensions available for performers to manipulate include timing…, dynamics…, articulation…, tempo… , intonation…, timbre… .”

All of these are amenable to quantification, so psychology has made big strides in this area.

68 “Understanding expressive performance is more about understanding the dynamic interplay between listener experiences and performer decisions than about understanding how performers relate to a score… .”

This is yet another unclear discovery: does it mean that the more the listeners knows the score, the more they can judge the subtle variations of performers? But then it means that listening in this way is more cognitively, not emotionally-driven.

69 there seems to be a difference between listeners’ enjoyment and interest.

Here, too, the author does not elaborate, especially as regards the definition of enjoyment and interest.

69-70 “Numerous studies show that information in the visual modality-particularly the movements of performers as they play – has powerful effect not just on the overall evaluation of the performance, but also on what listeners actually hear. “

This is called “perceptual illusion” and it was mostly examined by having a video recording of someone saying “ba-ba-ba” superimposed on a video recording of the lip movement for “ga-ga-ga”. People looking at the video tend to hear an in-between syllable such as “da-da-da” which corrects to “ba-ba’ba” as soon as they close their eyes. Apparently, “what the person sees can fundamentally shape what a person hears.” It is difficult to gage this experiment’s design and translate it to music and its visual reception. People were observed to rate dissonant moments in blues performances of B.B. King as more dissonant when accompanied by a video footage of him visually highlighting the tonal conflict. “Perceptions of dissonance contribute essentially to affective responses to music. Scholars have tried to explain them in terms of the structure of the human ear and basic psychoacoustic principles, but research suggests that even something like the raising or lowering of an eyebrow can play a role.” (p. 71)

71 “…musical expressivity can sometimes be more easily decoded from the visual than the auditory domain”.

The observations that give rise to this finding were of a violinist either playing very expressively or in a deadpan manner. However, there is no mention of being just too expressive, which may interefere with the enjoyment of the performance.

72 “People also tend to enjoy individual performances more if told they come from a world-renowned professional pianist rather than a conservatory student.”

This is an example of the power of the peripheral information about a live concert: this information determines already the mind-set of the listeners and predisposes them in a certain way to the experience.

73 “Most studies suggest that performers plan three to four notes into the future as they play. This span increases as people gain experience; the longer someone has studied an instrument, the more anticipatory errors they make. “

This is interesting: I has always been interested in knowing why i play the wrong notes. I have to start observing if the erroneous notes are in fact notes that I anticipated by playing them too early.

As regard practice, p. 75 “No other measure, including intelligence and a general musical aptitude test, was able to predict the success [of learning a piece]. More practice has been shown to lead to faster transitions from key to key in pianists and more consistency in expressive playing.”

In other words, there is no substitute for practice. Moreover, the type of practice is crucial: quality practice involves ” careful self-management, attention, goal-setting, and focus.” p. 75 And, interestingly enough, “some of the findings currently attributed to practice may ultimately prove to have their roots in biology”.

This is a fascinating finding, because it touches especially the inclination to practice, which seems to be inextricably connected to a function of the genetics of musicality. Further questions on musicality involve the variables that account for musical capacity and its acquisition, the level of inborn musicality, and its development. Research focuses on pitch perception (frequency of sound waves), tonality, exposure to different types of music, all possibly having to do with developmental stages, and effects of musical training.

p. 96 [as regards emotional responses to music] “It is important to distinguish between two kinds of experiences. On the one hand, music can evoke emotion. Listening to a song can lead a person to weep in sorrow or to experience great joy. But sometimes, rather than actually experiencing an emotional state, listening to a song might lead a person merely to recognize that the music is expressive of sorrow or joy. Although both of these responses are interesting, the first has received more attention from music psychology because it is so puzzling. emotions are usually inspired by clear events relevant to a person’s goal. For example, sorrow might be elicited by the prospect of abandonment and joy by the hope of reconciliation. Music cannot abandon someone or reconcile with them. It seems to carry no goal-relevant object that would render it capable of triggering an emotional response.”

It seems that we are hard-wired to respond to, for ex., sudden, loud, unpleasant sounds which ready a person to respond even in situations which prove to be innocuous.

p. 99 “Music may also elicit emotions by triggering visual imagery. People generate visual imagery and imagined stories easily in response to music.”

It would be helpful to examine if the composer’s imagery (if in fact there was one) relates closely to the listener’s imagery.

p. 100 “Most of these [associative and visual] mechanisms rely on music’s entanglement with nonmusical entities – the way music can reference particular experiences or objects or social groups. However, one mechanism – musical expectancy – depends more exclusively on the purely sonic aspect. …a theory links between moments of musical surprise with experiences of emotion and expressivity. …even listeners without formal training anticipate particular continuations as the music progresses. By deviating from these expectations – leaping to a far-away note or stepping out of the key – music can generate tension and expressive intensity.”

Researchers observed the duration and frequency of the emotional responses, the intensity of them, the propensity for them.

p. 103 “…studies reinforce the notion that people prefer music that occupies a sweet spot of complexity – music that is neither too simple nor too complex.”

Again, the author does not go into definitions of terms such as complex music or simple music.

p. 105 “The lifetime set of a person’s previous musical experiences and that person’s personality are not wholly independent variables, because personality influences genre preference. People high on openness to new experience tend to prefer genres they view as more complex, such as classical, jazz, and metal. Extroverts tend to prefer conventional genres such as pop, especially when the music is fast and danceable.”

The careful wording suggests that the answers were given by subjects self-reporting on their preferences. It is not clear what type of experiments were carried to come up with these conclusions.

p. 107 [Musical functions and motivation] “…categories of experience music affords or makes possible. Six basic candidates for these categories might include movement, play, communication, social bonding, emotion, and identity.”

Music, it has been repeated often in this book, resides and requires many areas of the brain to activate. And it links all types of external human activities,whether they are social, economic, physical, and individual, such as emotional responses and ability to concentrate. In the concluding paragraph, the author raises an urgent point:

p. 121 “By providing a laboratory for thinking between the sciences and the humanities, music psychology can fuel innovation that transcends its own disciplinary borders, while helping us understand a fundamental human attribute – musicality – that is key to our identity, our eccentricity, and our ability to understand one another.”

This is a heavy burden for one scientific discipline, and a project, if successful, which may actually help people understand not only each other but also, and especially, themselves.

Perfection and Pity: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Human history is full of examples of our desire to be perfect, to create, to enjoy, to exploit what we believe is perfection. In the “Western” arts, this is a well-known leitmotif: from the statues of Greek gods to fictional depictions of beauty, from Bach’s music to Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings. Of course, morality, religion, societal mores, human relations all enter into the discussion of perfection and beauty. Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake (Vintage, 2009, pp. 389) adds to these considerations also feelings, especially the feeling of pity, the pity that pervades the reader for the protagonist, Snowman (Jimmy).

As in most speculative fiction, this novel, too, hinges on the events that precede and follow an apocalyptic event. The life of the characters in the pre-cataclysmic event is already far from perfect: specifically, the protagonist in his youth is basically a lonely boy looking for some kind of affection from his parents whose (pre-)occupations do not include him. Later on, he is enrolls in less prestigious art school for those young people who do not cut it in the sciences. Since he is “good with words”, he finds a job as an advertising copy writer. His friendship with Crake goes back to their youth, when they as little boys watch porn movies, play chess and computer games, and generally shun the rest of the children around them. This friendship brings him a more remunerative job, as Crake is the mind behind a very special project. This project aims to create a different (more perfect) human beings, starting with reorganizing the prepared embryo cells, so parents can choose a being who does not get sick, who has perfect physique, who does not crave sex, who is a vegetarian, etc. The private company already houses a group of the new perfect beings (physically beautiful) who are intellectually not ready to fend for themselves. So they have a teacher, Oryx, a woman who is the image of love for Snowman/Jimmy, but who is also loved by Crake. To prepare the possible embryos, a new sex pill is created which is tested all over the world without approval of any agency (in fact, there is no mention of any government or regulating agency in the book). This pill turns out to be the spark of the apocalypse, as it makes the users bleed to death. In the aftermath of a general almost complete excruciatingly painful human extinction, Jimmy takes over the care of the group of the perfect but ignorant human beings. This is the nutshell of the novel, as usual, it is impossible to do justice in this short paragraph to the complexities of it.

Although there is the usual note saying that the book is a work of fiction, to remind the reader that this may not be completely true, Atwood begins her narration by quoting from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. This quote ends by expressing the idea that “my principal design was to inform you, and not to amuse you”. In other words, by creating a fictional world, Atwood intends to inform us of what exactly is going on around us in this present point of history. My mention of pity at the beginning of this review points to the fact that each element of the novel, each move that Snowman/Jimmy makes, has equivalents in our present. And pity stems from the fact that neither we nor the protagonist can really do anything about the things that we know are done wrong. Jimmy/Snowman cannot fight against the system that separates people into have and have-nots (both economically and intellectually) – does this sound familiar? In the novel, private companies have all the power to do as they please – does this sound familiar? Even individuals act totally unscrupulously in the novel – does this sound familiar? especially as regards children bought from poor families and used in child porn films. What is there for the protagonist to do? How can he act against forces that are so entrenched in his environment but act within the confines of his world and try to survive by himself? The readers can only feel pity for him, as they also feel pity for themselves, for the pitiful world we live in, for all the injustices that are perpetrated by individuals and companies. The world has recently been through the Covid pandemic – what have we learned from it? Now there are wars, military conflicts, hate is compounded on top of hate ad infinitum. Atwood’s novel ends with the possibility that Snowman/Jimmy is not the only “normal” human alive in his world. Should we think of that possibility for us? And what happens when perfection – our version of what it should be – does not pan out to be really perfect? Must perfection and pity coexist?

More than ‘two solitudes’, or Cree (Canadian) and (Italian) Canadian fiction*

What adventures can a protagonist, self-identifying as a Cree, experience in the territory belonging to the Dakehl nation in Northern British Columbia as a school principal in the 2000s? Darrel J. McLeod’s character in A Season in Chezgh’un (Douglas&McIntyre 2013, pp. 320) undergoes a gamut of feelings, and a variety of expected and also unforeseen events. Although a fictional character, James not only gives the reader a really interesting and engaging look at the life stories of one of the First Nations people, but also provides numerous examples of emotions and events that closely resemble those of the characters in immigrant/Italian Canadian fiction.

James’s life story gives us examples of the atrocious history of abuse, maltreatment, neglect, discrimination of all First Nations peoples. Having experienced some of these, having lived without his father and with his alcoholic mother, having been caught in the web of sibling suicides and addiction, and suffering from sexual abuse by his white brother-in-law, James is, however, able to leave his Cree birthplace, study at the university, travel, enjoy varied cuisine, fashion, and music, live with his lover in a Vancouver apartment. All these experiences, however, not only make him insecure, but also extremely unhappy and he never feels that he belongs. He is aware of these negative pressures that his environment as well as himself put on him. And yet he does not give up: he compares himself to the sockeye salmon who leave fresh water to migrate great distances in the sea and then come back to their spawning grounds and die there. (p. 18) As an educator, he applies for, and receives, the position of a principal at a Dakehl school. His expectations (also muffled by his welcoming committee) soon make him realize that if he wants a real school, he has to build it himself. He is not undaunted as he joggles his ideas between the local/provincial school administrators and the elders of the community. He is truly happy when he sits at the shore of the lake and observes the wild life there or when he shares food with the Dakehl community, or when he participates in a ceremony with the tribe in a Mayan village. He is able to hire new, young staff, he promotes the cooperation with and experiential learning for the children and adults in his community. He observes the internal squabbles and the disagreements between and among the different tribes and is able to walk this tightrope with success, without making too strong enemies. His most successful projects are having the youth like the school, attend it and participate in all the activities, as well as having the elders take literacy classes that lead to participation in their political struggles. His feelings of being different in any and all circumstances are heightened because of his belonging to the gay community, with the concomitant fear of an HIV infection. He finds release from stress in sex. When he is offered to come and play the piano at the white neighbours, his answer illustrates not only his complex of inferiority but also his desperate need to be approved by others (p. 69):

“That’s generous, Louise. thank you.” James answered earnestly, although he knew he could never take her up on her offer. In addition to his shyness, his pride wouldn’t allow him to accept what felt like charity – the benevolence of someone in a position of privilege and wealth bestowed upon a lesser being. And then there was the optics of it all, if he were to be seen as being too cozy with the local gentrified white folks, what would the Native people he was working with think of him?

The novel concludes with James accepting another job and going to another post in Salmon Arm. On his way he swerves his car to avoid a beaver who nevertheless is injured; while James muses on the importance of this animal for his people, the animal jumps up and claws his thigh. The fact that beaver is also a national emblem of Canada, and this emblem injures him, is a clear metaphor for the impossibility for James to live in peace with his environment.

There is a metafictional element in A season in Chezgh’un when James reads Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais (the use of the word “season” in Mcleod’s title is interesting). James notices that the novel “recounts a story of poverty and oppression in rural Quebec, and it comes as close as any mainstream piece of literature has to capturing the reality that James, his siblings and cousins grew up in.” (p. 31) Besides mixing reality and fiction, this metafictional detail in McLeod’s writing gives away one of the most troublesome perspectives that Canadian fiction can have for an author that does not deem himself to be a Canadian. The desire to become an author of “mainstream” fiction is great. In Native authors’ case, though, this is a struggle which they wrestle with more than any other “ethnic” Canadian author, since they do not identify with Canadian culture, whereas the “immigrant” authors have to.

Although a comparison between Native-Canadian and ethnic-Canadian writing requires a full treatment, I will concentrate here only on points of convergence between themes and tropes common to the Cree-Canadian and Italian-Canadian prose (the Cree-Canadian is represented by only one novel, though). Therefore there is no discussion of differences in topics such as sexual abuse of young children (in the Natives’ cases but not mentioned in the Italian Canadian case, although rape is present), or the abuse lived through in residential schools suffered by the Natives (Italians in Canadian schools, just like any other “ethic” pupils received other types of discrimination in schools). The following common themes in stand out:

1. grappling with history: protagonists both Cree and Italian struggle to come to terms with the fact that they “lost” or are in fact losing the cultural certainties (language, beliefs, ancestors’ way of life, naming practices, etc.) which their ancestors had held for millennia.
2. impossibility to belong to any group, “mainstream” or indeed to one’s own: blatant and covert discrimination makes this even more profound.
3. intense desire to belong to the mainstream group, to be accepted and included, even though this desire clashes with the innermost feelings of the individual.
4. ancient belief systems shattered, i.e. in the case of the First Nations the perpetrators are the Catholic nuns and priests, in the case of Italians, it is also the Catholic priests who do not allow or do not understand certain pre-Christian beliefs to be practiced.
5. comparison with nature: James compares himself with the sockeye salmon, the trope in the Italian Canadian culture of the immigrant generations was the fig tree: it can survive in Canada, but it has to be bent out of shape and protected, covered in the winter.

In conclusion, A season in Chezgh’un underscores the necessity to go beyond the received truths about an individual’s life and their history. This is the lesson also from (Italian) Canadian fiction. And as we are now (2024) at the cusp of an unprecedented general cultural upheaval – the use of AI becoming so much more than simple aid to human life – what can the slash between pre-history and modernity teach us about the division between modernity (humanity, anthropocene) and bio-techno-world? If these processes can indeed be compared, humanity does not have much to rely on for support from the past. The two solitudes, representing Canadians and Natives/immigrants are truly becoming many solitudes.

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*To be consistent, I should have written Molisan Canadian or Calabrian Canadian fiction to make it clear that the authors of Italian origin (or their ancestors) come from different parts of Italy, just like First Nations peoples come form different regions, and therefore have different cultures and languages. The Italian Canadian prose fiction which I base my comments on include Frank Paci’s Black Madonna, Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints, In a Glass House, Where she has gone. Poetry requires another post, but one can start here: https://www.tlnoriginals.com/title-item/invisible-voices/.

Founding a theist religion: Joseph Smith

After having visited Salt Lake City in June 2022, I became interested in the origins of Mormon beliefs. It was suggested that I read Joseph Smith. Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman (Knopf, New York, 2006) and No man knows my history. The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet by Fawn M. Brodie (Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, Knopf, 1971). Bushman admits to being a practicing Mormon, and Brodie was excommunicated from the Mormon church after having published this book. She had identified herself for most of her adult life as a Mormon heretic. Therefore, the two books give us an interesting possibility of comparing biographies of Joseph Smith from two distinct and divergent perspectives. It is to be kept in mind, however, that Fawn Brodie’s biography precedes that of Richard Bushman by 45 years.

Both biographies rest on firm and deeply engaged historical scholarship, using as many primary sources as possible, as well as a wealth of secondary publications on the topic. There are apparent differences in the manner in which the authors treat Joseph Smith. From the outset, the titles suggests two implicit directions in handling Joseph Smith’s life. Even though both titles are taken from Joseph Smith’s own writings, Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling conjures up images of an uncouth, unlearned, unpredictable, self-reliant man who becomes God’s mouthpiece. Brodie’s No man knows my history suggests that as much as we would like to have a clear picture, there are many unanswered questions about Joseph Smith’s life. However, the most obvious difference is the fact that Brodie never underestimates Joseph Smith’s knowledge, talent, and innate abilities, whereas Bushman sustains the Mormon Church’s line. Brodie writes: “Far from being the fruit of an obsession, the Book of Mormon is a useful key to Joseph’s complex and frequently baffling character. For it clearly reveals in him what both orthodox Mormon histories and unfriendly testimony deny him: a measure of learning and a fecund imagination. The Mormon Church has exaggerated the ignorance of its prophet, since the more meager his learning, the more divine must be the book.” (p. 69, the bold lettering is mine)

Notwithstanding Bushman’s ability to cover and describe the pro- and anti-Mormon opinions, for him, Joseph Smith is the Prophet and his revelations are unquestioned as to their provenance and meaning. Brodie, on the other hand, claims that Joseph Smith possessed great “talent that went into the creation of his revelations” (footnote, p. 123), making him a self-made and self-proclaimed prophet and visionary.

The authors agree in principle on the following points, but they treat their causes and consequences for the development of Joseph Smith’s life story differently:

1. The Book of Mormon is a fundamental, crucial publication for the Mormons. However, the authors give it very different role as far as the life of Joseph Smith is concerned. Bushman adheres to the orthodox stance, that is, the Book of Mormon is the Mormon Bible, and never questions its authenticity or content. On the other hand, as much as she is aware of the Book‘s importance to the religion, Brodie adds other layers of meaning to it. According to her, the Book of Mormon is literary fiction (“frontier fiction” p. 67) which reflects Joseph Smith’s struggle with competition he felt with his brothers (lots of fratricide – and patricide – in the Book). Moreover, the Book “provides tantalizing clues to the conflicts raging within Joseph Smith as to the truth or spuriousness of his magic powers and his visionary claims. But it serves only to suggest the intensity of the conflict, not to explain it. Why was this gifted young man compelled to transform his dreams into visions, to insist that his literary fantasies were authentic history engraved upon golden plates, to hold stoutly that the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian papyri he bought from Michael Chandler were actually words of the patriarch Abraham? Why did he feel compelled to resort to such obviously transparent devices as to write into both his Book of Mormon and his corrected version of the Bible prophecies of his own coming?” (p. 417) Brodie also looks at the scientific basis of some of the connections between the Mormon Bible and historical findings regarding the native tribes across America, findings which make questioning of the basis of the whole Book insistent and necessary.

2. Joseph Smith was wholly the product of his time. He absorbed, by osmosis if not by actual participation, the religious ferment, the earnestness of seers, the energy of the revivalist meetings, the pronouncements of visionaries, the spiritual hunger that marked the first decades of the 19th century. He must have also observed the schisms and splits of the Methodists, Baptists as well as the creation of the Shakers and other movements. The Bible (Old and New Testament) were read publicly at meetings, and at home. There is no doubt that Joseph Smith was used to reading and discussing the Bible at home and in public gatherings. But all this ferment must also have created a great perplexity in his mind which he needed to remove.

3. Not only was Joseph Smith steeped in the religious ferment of his time, he also succeeded in fulfilling the expectations of so many to embark on a new road toward salvation. According to Brodie, “The moment was auspicious in American history for the rise of a prophet of real stature. Although the authority and tradition of the Christian religion were decomposing in the New World’s freedom, there was a counter-desire to escape from disorder and chaos. The broken unity of Christianity was laboring at its own reconstruction.” (pp. 90-91)

4. Theistic and religious visions and revelations need to be structured around individuals who sustain them, elaborate on them, and are able and willing to teach and explain them. Whether it was by divine power as a prophet (Bushman) or by skillful manipulation of his knowledge of people and history (Brodie), his ability to sustain his “visions” and bolster them with an organization brought about the birth of a new off-shoot of the Christian church. According to Bushman, “Almost all of his [Joseph’s] major theological innovations involved the creation of institutions – the Church, the City of Zion, the School of the Prophets, the priesthood, the temple. Joseph thought institutionally more than any other visionary of his time, and the survival of his movement can largely be attributed to this gift”. Also, “Mormonism succeeded when other charismatic movements foundered on disputes and irreconcilable ill feelings partly because of the governing mechanisms Joseph put in place early in the church’s history.” (p.251) Brodie, too, gives specific examples of Joseph Smith’s need to organize his followers. For example, “By ordaining every male convert a member of his priesthood he used the popular and democratic sentiment that all who felt the impulse had the right to preach. Any man could proclaim the gospel provided that he subjected himself to the ultimate authority of the prophet.” (p.100)

5. The founder of the church has to rely on his converts’ support and belief that he truly speaks for God. One of the requirements of leadership is charisma: and many accounts of Joseph Smith’s person speak of him as a charismatic, handsome man (Bushman, p. 437). Regarding Joseph’s sense of himself, Bushman claims that “In public and private, he spoke and acted as if guided by God. All the doctrines, plans, programs, and claims were, in his mind, the mandates of heaven. They came to him as requirements, with a kind of irresistible certainty.” (p. 437) Brodie agrees, but instead of God, she gives credit to Joseph’s “intuitive understanding”: “A careful scrutiny of the Book of Mormon and the legendary paraphernalia obscuring its origin discloses not only Joseph’s inventive and eclectic nature but also his magnetic influence over his friends. … His natural talent as a leader included first of all an intuitive understanding of his followers, which led them to believe he was genuinely clairvoyant.”(p. 73) She mentions that everyone notices Joseph Smith’s “magnificent self-assurance” (294) People “build for him, preached for him, and made unbelievable sacrifices to carry out his orders, not only because they were convinced that he was God’s prophet, but also because they loved him as a man.” (p. 294) It helped that he had a sense of destiny (209).

6. Wherever the early Mormons went, they invited hate, suspicion, and antagonism. For example, Bushman states that “[in Nauvoo] anti-Mormons feared the charter, the legion, and the Prophet’s combination of religious and civil authority. …Mormon domination at the polls… Bringing God into the government created an alliance most Americans had rejected after the Revolution.” (pp. 500-501). Non-Mormons believed Mormons were abolitionists (p. 553). To critics, “the Church looked like an authoritarian regime with Joseph as the potentate….His was a religion for and by the people. It was not of the people – electoral democracy was absent – but if democracy means participation in government, no church was more democratic. Joseph was a plain man himself, and he let plain men run the councils and preside over the congregations. … In his theology, unexceptional people could aspire to the highest imaginable glory. In belated recognition of this populist side, Joseph Smith’s Mormonism came to be understood in the twentieth century as an American religion” (p.559). In a meeting it was declared that the Mormons are “a set of fanatics and impostors…a pest to the community at large” (p. 358) Brodie, in her deeper analysis, asks: “Was there something intrinsically alien in Mormonism that continually invited barbarity even in the land of the free? It could not have been the theology, which, however, challenging, was really a potpourri of American religious thinking spiced with the fundamental ideal of inevitable progress. Nor could it have been the economy, which had shifted from communism to free enterprise and then to autarchy. Wherever the Mormons went, the citizens resented their self-righteousness, their unwillingness to mingle with the crowd, their intense consciousness of superior destiny. But these were negligible factors in creating the ferocious antagonisms of Missouri and Illinois. Actually, each migration had risen out of a special set of circumstances. … opportunistic… apostate … slavery and Indian issues …political exploitation of Mormon numbers … [non-Mormons] hated Joseph Smith because thousands followed him blindly and slavishly.” (p. 380) Also, “anti-Mormonism in Illinois was much more dangerous than it had been in Missouri, because it had a rock-bound moral foundation in the American fear of despotism.” (p. 381)

7. Economical concerns were a priority for Joseph Smith, second only to theological considerations. Being always in debt (personally and collectively), and sometimes in exorbitant, tens-of-thousands of dollars debt, must have weighed heavily in Joseph Smith. Bushman mentions that “Joseph practiced capitalism without the spirit of capitalism” (p. 503), which seems to exonerate him from any moral criticism. But Joseph Smith had always looked for wealth, ever since his youth when he searched for gold and treasure with his magic seer-stone. Furthermore, as Brodie explains, “The poverty, sacrifice, and suffering that dogged the Saints resulted largely from clashes with their neighbors over social and economic issues. Though they may have gloried in their adversity, they certainly did not invite it. Wealth and power they considered basic among the blessings both of earth and of heaven, and if they were to be denied them in this life, then they must assuredly enjoy them in the next.” (pp. 187-188)

8. Polygamy. It was inevitable that the injunction to wed multiple wives would create dissent and cause the converts to struggle with the idea of multiple marriage, since it seemed like a breach of the moral law. This revelation was given as a commandment on account of two reasons: polygamy was allowed in the Bible and, according to the new dogma, it was the only path that leads to rising closer to God in eternity, i.e., through wide kinship. Bushman explains that “Joseph did not marry women to form a warm, human companionship, but to create a network of related wives, children, and kinsmen that would endure into the eternities. The revelation on marriage promised Joseph an “hundred fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.” Like Abraham of old, Joseph yearned for familial plentitude. He did not lust for women so much as he lusted for kin.” (p. 440) Clearly, this is the Church’s position, which was later repealed by a law, the only time that general politics encroached on Mormon habits. Bushman never looks at plural marriage from the woman’s perspective. Not surprisingly, Brodie devotes many more pages to the discussion of polygamy, to naming and numbering Joseph Smith’s (48 known) wives and to analyzing the acceptance or denial of this injunction. She describes Joseph Smith as “gregarious, expansive, and genuinely fond of people … his theology …became an ingenuous blend of supernaturalism and materialism, which promised in heaven a continuation of all earthly pleasures – work, wealth, sex, and power.” (pp. 294-295). Inexorably, then, but only after numerous battles and indecision, one of the revelations commands Joseph Smith to make plural marriage a law. Brodie investigates the possible reasons for the acceptance or denial of this injunction by the Mormons. Even though Joseph Smith kept his plural marriages a secret before his congregation until 1842, his wife Emma knew about at least two of them. She was very much against this new custom. Brodie offers some practical justifications for multiple wives: “…the true measure of the magnetism of plural marriage can be seen best in the attitude of the Mormon women. They required very little more persuasion than the men, though the reasons are not so obvious. … Nauvoo was a town full of “church widows,” whose husbands were out proselyting…and who found polyandry to their liking. … Nauvoo was troubled by the old problem of the separated but undivorced female convert. Divorce was usually impossible, and so many women were pouring into the town eager to marry again that it was difficult for the church to maintain the discipline that would have been normal in a settled community. …It was easy, therefore, for many of the penniless and lonely women converts to slip into polygamy.” (p. 304) But there were also many women who did not need to resort to this expedient and who did not agree with this commandment.

To complete the brief summary of certain interesting points, here are a number of (for me) unanswered questions to which neither of the biographers dedicated a deep analysis.

The question of “revelation”. Bushman writes that “To Joseph’s mind, revelation functioned like law. The revelations came as “commandments,” the name he gave to all early revelations. They required obedience.” (p. 442) But no further analysis is devoted to how and when these revelations occur and how did Joseph Smith come to verbalize them. Brodie mentions the fact that Joseph Smith deprived the others “of the privileges he himself enjoyed (i.e. revelations) was the first step toward authoritarianism in his church.” (p. 92) She quotes Joseph Smith’s later description of the spirit of revelation as “pure intelligence” flowing into him. “It may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon.” … what he was describing was imply his own alert, intuitive understanding and creative spirit” (p, 57). About a revelation that had gone awry, Joseph Smith explained: “Some revelations are of God; some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil. … When a man enquires of the Lord concerning a matter, if he is deceived by his own carnal desires, and is in error, he will receive an answer according to his erring heart, but it will not be a revelation from the Lord.” (p. 81) But there is no connection mentioned in either biography about the relationship between revelations, dreams, visions, and thoughts.

Transformations and changes in the theological directions. Bushman outlines the problems of contradictory revelations: “Contradictions in the revelations, and therefore keeping the commandments of God was difficult when God on the one hand commands “Thou shalt not kill” and on the other “Thou shalt utterly destroy.” What was a believer to do with conflicting injunctions? Joseph reached a terrifying answer: “that which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another.” This unnerving principle was the foundation of the government of God”. (p. 442) Brodie notes that the road to godhood was vastly increased by Joseph Smith’s teaching that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.” (p. 300) Brodie adds: “It will be seen that the Mormon heaven was as changing, tumultuous, and infinitely varied as earth itself.” (p. 300) There were numerous additional thoughts and it is likely that Mormon beliefs would have changed even dramatically had not Joseph Smith been killed.

The question of language. The Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith’s translation from golden slates (taken up to heaven, so they are not available for scrutiny) engraved with what he called hieroglyphs of “reformed” Egyptian. This translation was achieved miraculously. Bushman does not dwell on the fact that Joseph Smith did not know Egyptian (in fact, it was only beginning to be deciphered by Champollion at that time). Brodie explains the translations as evidence of Joseph Smith’s imaginative creativity and conscious artifice. However, Bushman raises the question “Does God speak?” and this connects to the revelation problems taken up above, especially since Joseph Smith believed that words are a hindrance while experiencing visions, and that he was living in a world of “prison” in “crooked broken scattered imperfect language”.

There are many other significant topics which these two biographies present for scrutiny, but I shall stop here. Who was then Joseph Smith and how did he achieve such phenomenal success in founding a theist religion? Bushman’s answer conforms strictly to this plain, confident man’s function as a prophet, in his divine revelations and abilities which his followers gladly accepted. Brodie’s view is much more nuanced and empathetic. She writes: “It should not be forgotten…that for Joseph’s vigorous and completely undisciplined imagination the line between truth and fiction was always blurred.” (p.84) He was “not a false but fallen prophet” (p. 370) After Joseph Smith’s untimely and cruel death, “…it was the legend of Joseph Smith, from which all evidences of deception, ambition, and financial and marital excesses were gradually obliterated, that became the great cohesive force within the church.” (p. 397) “Joseph had a ranging fancy, a revolutionary vigor, and a genius for improvisation, and what he could mold with these he made well. With them he created a book and a religion, but he could not create a truly spiritual content for that religion.” (p. 403) Thus, as it often happens in the religious sphere, if the individual is inclined to believe faithfully without worrying about the nitty-gritty worldly facts, to this individual Joseph Smith was divinely appointed to found a religion, and magically endowed with abilities to lead others into this religion. If, on the other hand, the individual is inclined to ask questions, and not to believe on faith, but look for secular explanations, Joseph Smith was an “outrageously confident” troubled man equipped with blasphemous audacity and megalomania, able to lead an uncritical audience. This is a contest between two views that has no winners or losers, and yet either view reaffirms the reader’s expectations, experiences, and intellectual propensities.

NPL 4: J.M. Coetzee

This is the fourth in the series of reviews of books of those authors who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. J.M. Coetzee received the prize in 2003.

I have read 5 books by J.M. Coetzee; two before he received the honor (In the Heart of the Country, Vintage books, 1977 and Waiting for the Barbarians, Vintage Books, 1980) and three after he was awarded the Nobel Prize (The Childhood of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2013, The Schooldays of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2016, and The Death of Jesus, Harvill Secker, 2019).

There is no doubt that J.M. Coetzee is a consummate narrator whose power of expression wins over any hesitation to continue reading. The themes in the novels embrace a vast array of specific topics, some of which are dealt with below. The characters themselves do not exhibit great resolve, but definitely a great strength in searching for the meaning in their lives. This search is expressed in very different ways in the 5 novels.

In the Heart of the Country is written in a first person narrative, from a perspective of a “melancholy spinster” (p.3) who lives on a farm far from other farms or indeed towns or cities, among “brown folk” she is the “black widow” in an undisclosed country, although the use of “veld” narrows it to South Africa. The story which this spinster offers us is very limiting, prompting her to ask, almost right at the outset, “Does an elementary life burn people down to elementary states, to pure anger, pure gluttony, pure sloth? Am I unfitted by my upbringing for a life of more complex feelings? Is that why I have never left the farm, foreign to townslife, preferring to immerse myself in a landscape of symbol where simple passions can spin and fume around their own centers, in limited space, in endless time, working out their own forms of damnation? (p. 13) The question of the utmost importance of upbringing for the development of a human being’s life is taken up in the “Jesus” series as well. In any case, the introspective narration of this utterly lonely woman contains at least one murder, lots of desire for human relationships of all kinds, and, above all, the need to understand oneself. Language, therefore, plays a crucial role, and there are a number of musings about especially words that the spinster presents to us. On the one hand, “Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire.” (p. 28), on the other hand, “Perhaps…if I stopped talking I would fall into panic, losing my hold on the world I know best.” (p. 85) She is “the poetess of interiority” (p. 38), and yet she wants to be noticed (yet another leitmotif in these novels). She feels she is like “a great emptiness…filled with a great absence…which is desire to be filled, to be fulfilled” (p. 125). She explains that she is “a sheath, a matrix, a protectrix of vacant space. I move through the world as a hole, … I am a hole crying to be whole.* I know that this is in one sense just a way of speaking, a way of thinking about myself, but if one cannot think of oneself in words, in pictures, then what is there to think of oneself in?” (44-45) But more than anything else, “I need people to talk to, brothers and sisters or fathers and mothers, I need a history and a culture, I need hopes and aspirations, I need a moral sense and a teleology before I will be happy, not to mention food and drink” (13-131). The main point of the novel, therefore, is an answer to the question “What happens to a person when her/his life experiences are lived through a language which is devoid of the connections between language and culture, language and politics, language and history, language and philosophy?” (The Jesus trilogy also brings up this theme.) The answer seems to point to a desperation of the blackest type because it looks like the language we have cannot be separated from other expressions of the human psyche. If this connection does not exist, the person is forever searching for answers that cannot be given and therefore desperation ensues. It seems we need what Lyotard called grand narratives to anchor us in time and space so that we can keep on living. Interestingly, the spinster does not mention religion nor philosophy nor music nor any arts, so clearly her language is disjointed from experiences of a different sort than the one she made for herself: carnal desire.

Waiting for the Barbarians made me remember Dino Buzzati’s Il deserto dei Tartari, since the setting is a military outpost of invaders representing the Empire surrounded by a desolate land. Life in this outpost is relatively calm, until a colonel of the Civil Guard comes in and stirs up the idea that the tribes (the barbarians) are likely to storm the outpost, so the military comes in to embark on an expedition to defeat these barbarians. However, no barbarian invasion happens, it is the military who return from the action, badly beaten, to this outpost whose peaceful existence they themselves destroyed. The story is told in the first person by the Magistrate of the outpost who sees all the injustices perpetrated by the invaders (of whom he is a part), of the physical, psychological, sexual tortures the tribespeople endure, and he himself becomes the victim of the colonel’s wrath. He is very much a man of honor, and he knows when his actions are those of an invader: “I do not want to see a parasite settlement grow up on the fringes of the town populated with beggars and vagrants enslaved to strong drink. It always pained me in the old days to see these people fall victim to the guile of shopkeepers, exchanging their goods for trinkets, lying drunk in the gutter, and confirming thereby the settlers’ litany of prejudice: that barbarians are lazy, immoral, filthy, stupid. Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization: and upon this resolution I based the conduct of my administration. (I say this who now keep a barbarian girl for my bed!)” (p. 41)The Magistrate is not a hero, but “the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy”, as opposed to the Colonel, who is “the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow” (p. 148). The colonizing effects (obviously negative for the tribespeople and for those invaders, like the Magistrate, who are aware of the consequences of substituting the old ways of the tribes with the new ways of the invaders) are powerfully spelled out in this novel.

The “Jesus” trilogy, on the surface, analyzes elements connected to childhood, schooling, and death. We look at the actions through the eyes of an omniscient author who takes the perspective of Simon, a 42-years old migrant. In the first volume, Simon leaves his old life behind and embarks on a new one. The old life comes with a five-year old boy whose mother disappears while many migrants cross the sea to their new land. In this way, Simon becomes the uncle, or godfather, to the boy, David, and it is his responsibility to take care of him until the real mother is found. The new land expects the newcomers to shed everything that was their past. This place, where transportation and public schooling, as well as certain meals are free, may be a spoof on Cuba – the newcomers have to learn Spanish, and criticizing matters is not tolerated. Language is again important: on many an occasion, Simon says he cannot express himself well since he is still learning Spanish, and yet David has no problem to express himself. Simon chooses a mother to David when they see Ines playing tennis in an exclusive residence. Ines agrees to take care of the child. David is an exceptional child and all his desires and wishes command Simon’s and Ines’ life. Since he has learnt to read by himself (using the novel Don Quixote for children), he is disruptive in class, and it is suggested that he attend a reformatory school. His parents disagree with this decision, so the three of them escape to another town where they start a new life. The second volume deals with this new setting. In this town, David is enrolled in a Dance Academy, where he hones his special skills of forming an unusual picture of his life, of the universe, of numbers, of music. There he befriends a strange person who will have an unusual hold over him but who is also a murderer. Since his desires are not met even in the Academy, he escapes to a School for Orphans, as he believes he is an orphan. He claims Simon does not understand him. He wants to be recognized – a recognition similar to the spinter’s in the novel In the Heart of the Country. In the third volume, a long and unpleasant agony of David’s illness is described. He loses the use of his legs, presumably due to a neuropathy. David dies alone, in the hospital, without ever telling Simon a special message that he apparently had for him. Clearly, the book is meant to be read as an allegory on many levels, starting from the name Jesus, which is probably the real name of David used in his old life (the biblical names are not used by chance). David never delivers the special message, however, due to his sense of being different than everyone else and due to his illness. The setting, too, depicts a country in which things function superficially, People are neither happy nor sad, there is no laughter, no music, no real abandon to passions. Simon tries his best to explain to David some intricacies of life, but he does so in a didactic and unimaginative manner. David is put off these explanations, and insists on his own views, especially the one that takes Don Quixote as a model to emulate. David wants to help people but he also wants to be recognized by people. He is recognized as someone special, particularly by Simon and Ines, but this recognition does not satisfy him.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that J.M. Coetzee’s literary output gives readers a lot of satisfaction. The language is rich, the actions interesting, the messages profound. But at the end, the feeling that remains is of our own detachment. This detachment, this lack of crucial understanding of the depth and function of our language, makes for a superficial life. The characters are searching, but searching perhaps in the wrong place. Overall, the female characters’ depiction is disappointing, showing the manner in which women are thought of as beings limited in their purpose for men, not as partners in this trip on which we are together.

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*Until this section, I wasn’t sure whether J.M. Coetzee was a man or a woman. These sentences clearly showed he is a man, because a woman, no matter how much debased, how much maligned, lonely, desperate, would never think of herself in these terms.

NPL 3: Patrick Modiano

This is the third in the series of reviews of books of those authors who received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Patrick Modiano won the 2014 prize.

I have read the following (originally published in French before having received the Nobel prize):

After the circus (originally published in 1992; translation by Mark Polizzotti Yale UP, 2015),

Little Jewel (originally published in 2001, translated by Penny Hueston, Yale UP, 2015),

In the café of lost youth (originally published in 2007, translated by Chris Clarke, The New York Review of Books, 2016),

The Black Notebook (originally published in 2012, translated by Mark Polizzotti, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

Let’s start with general impressions. While I was reading (and this is true for all the books), I was on the edge of my seat to find out and figure out what happens to the characters whose lives contain mysteries to be discovered. Furthermore, the prose is flowing, clear, fast, the narrative is deceivingly simple, and the books themselves are pretty short: I got through  After the Circus in one day. Interestingly, having finished reading, the characters and actions remain in a sort of haze, as if a slight mist enveloped them. If this was Modiano’s purpose, then he succeeded elegantly and marvelously.

Now the specifics. All the books have common elements, and here are only some which strike me as essential:

1. Intradiegetic (first person) narrative

All four books are written from the first person point of view. This person is a protagonist of sorts since he (male in the majority of cases) narrates what he is looking for, which displaces the protagonist role on to the person/event/place he is searching for. The search is done from the perspective of an older person, about 30 years after the facts happened to a youthful self. The narrator often complains about his inability to remember certain crucial details of the past post factum (i.e. when he knows what exactly occurred), as well as being sorry not to have noticed these details while life was going on. As the narrator says in After the Circus, “When you are young, you neglect certain details.” (p. 53) These four books, therefore, point to the fact that as much as we would like to, we really cannot grasp the full characteristics of events and persons, and, above all, of our own self while life is going on. We can only form a fleeting image (hence the fog?) which is forever engraved in a gesture, in a smell, and, above all, for Modiano, in a place. The main thrust of the novels is to attempt “to gather up the scattered pieces of a life” (After the Circus, p. 75).

• The role of topography

These four novels are also tours of Paris, its subway system, its bars and restaurants, its characteristics of right and left bank as well as of arrondissements, its hotels, parks, roads, avenues and dead ends. Not having visited Paris, the meaning of these topographic details is impenetrable to me. And yet, they have significance for they shed light on the characters’ movements, and the position of their living quarters with respect to those of the protagonist. In After the Circus, the narrator explains additional effects: “…topographical details have a strange effect on me: instead of clarifying and sharpening images from the past, they give me a harrowing sensation of emptiness and severed relationships.” (p. 44) . More often than not, the topographic details are either obscured by time or completely disappear on account of demolition, new construction, abandonment. This perhaps ties to the “eternal return” in 4. below.

• Reference point

The above point may have one obvious reason for being so frequent in the books: the narrator is often looking for a “reference point” which most of the time is topographical. This point would help him disentangle the mysteries he encounters in the lives of those characters who he associates with.

• Eternal return

Not only retracing his steps topographically, the narrator tries to return to people and circumstances which he lived through when young.

• Things are not as they are given, especially names

Generally, characters in the four books either do not have names or have given themselves various names or are called by nicknames given them by others.

• Relationship ties unclear

In most cases, the relationship between the narrator-protagonist and his female friend is not stated in an obvious fashion: they sleep, eat, walk, go to see movies together, but there is no attempt to describe the feelings and desires which characters may have for each other. When the female character dies or disappears, there is no drama or trauma expressed by anyone.

In conclusion, the narrators of these four novels give an impression of someone who forever endeavours to understand the relationship that exists between narrating his own life and narrating other people’s lives. Is there a connection between, on the one hand, the manner in which one narrates and, on the other, how one views one’s life? It seems that Modiano vacillates between what Strawson calls Diachronic and Episodic narration and he cannot, for the lack of details, settle on one or the other (see Gallen Strawson, “Against Narration” in
Ratio (new series) XVII 4 December 2004, pp. 428-451 https://filedn.eu/lSmbVOH8OJnh8q06rNwVmqS/public.library/2020-11/against_narrativity.pdf).

This, perhaps, is the greatest strength of Patrick Modiano’s novels.

NPL 2: V. S. Naipaul

This is the second in the ongoing series of reviews of books by authors who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. V. S. Naipaul won the prize in 2001.

I have read three books by this author: one written and published before he received the prize and two published after the event.

A Bend in the River (New York, The Modern Library, 1997, first published in 1979) shows the author’s mastery in weaving together colonialism, race, imagination, religion, slavery, individual psychology, social dilemmas, as well as cultural transformations in migration situations. At the outset, the narrator, Salim, lives on the east coast of Africa, and being a descendant of Indian migrants, lives a particularly troublesome interior life. His loyalty is not certain: he is not wholly “African”, and he is not wholly “Indian”, and yet he is both. The colonial and internecine wars and battles force him to move and set up a shop in the central part of Africa, in a town at a bend of a river: it is a commercial site, where goods from afar travel deep into the bush and are exchanged together with opinions, traditions, biases, food, insecurities and hates. He is alone and he is lonely; the town offers only superficial connections and relationships. Through Salim we meet a number of fascinating characters, such as the marchande Zabeth, the Belgian priest, his ex-servant, and others; but the bond between them and Salim is tenuous. The first person narrative allows Naipaul to delve deep into the soul of a man who is experiencing transformations in all aspects of life around him: the rulers are no longer white, the President is becoming an autocrat, the local tribes use violence to deliver their wants and needs, everyone tries to make the best of a shaky situation. Everything is up for grabs: history, education, new Africa, values, civilization, ambition. Whereas Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart illustrate the dismantling of the local African culture from the point of view of one village dweller, A Bend in the River elaborates on the dismantling adding the cultural and religious layer of Indian Muslims living in Africa. This is a profoundly pessimistic novel, because at the end, it seems that despite the battles, the deaths, the victims and heroes, people are unable to create more positive and joyful lives. In the words of one character (Indar), if you travel back to the same place (in this case the east coast of Africa) often, “You stop grieving the past. You see that the past is something in your mind alone, that it doesn’t exist in real life. You trample on the past, you crush it. In the beginning it is like trampling on a garden. In the end you are just walking on ground. This is the way we have to learn how to live now. The past is here.” (p. 167) Salim’s stance is interesting, objective, but not really useful: “In the beginning, before the arrival of the white men, I had considered myself neutral. I had wanted neither side to win, neither the army nor the rebels. As it turned out, both sides lost.” (118). If it is the case that the past (and therefore all the culture, religion, traditions it carries with it) does not exist, and no new culture, traditions, religions are created, the result is living in a limbo of insubstantial connections to tangible remnants of a past life. The book can therefore be read metaphorically – beyond the troublesome situation of migrants living on a foreign soil – as a warning about humanity’s inability to create new inclusive culture, traditions, religions.

Magic Seeds (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, the illustration above shows part of the jacket) continues the theme of an Indian born in Africa, studying in London. But this time this Indian travels to Germany and then to India to become – cajoled by his sister – a revolutionary fighter for one of the guerrilla groups in India. He abandons his wife in Africa after 20 years of marriage. Although the reasons for Willie’s joining a terrorist group are murky, Naipaul the omniscient narrator throws us crumbs of possible causes for becoming a guerrilla fighter: a cuckolding wife, weakness of mid-life, revenge oneself on the world, seeking a kind of asceticism or sainthood. The theme of slavery appears again, but this time as a historical force which debases people to such an extent that they do not think for themselves, and the void is being filled by guerrilla fighters. “The old lords oppressed and humiliated and injured for centuries. No one touched them. Now they’ve gone away. … They’ve left these wretched people as their monument.” (p. 43) Willie is left to his own devices in the guerrilla group, which, by some unforeseen circumstances, is the enemy of the one he really wanted to join. It is significant that he does not try to cross over to the enlightened group which does not believe in violence to achieve their goal of freeing people from a life of wretchedness. No amount of boredom, starvation, deprivation makes him try to leave; in fact, he thinks “I must give no sign to these people that I am not absolutely with them.” (p. 52). The group he joined makes the villagers kill the richest person of the village. He thinks of one group of village people as “survivors”: “Perhaps this exposure to human nullity will do me good, will make me see more clearly.” (p. 68). After incredible vicissitudes, he is arrested and then freed thanks to a lawyer-acquaintance of his from his life in London. He starts a new life in London, learning to write for an architectural journal. The last quarter of the book deals with the story of marriage infidelities of both the lawyer and his wife (with whom also Willie has sex). This is also a sadly pessimistic novel, and can be described as a metaphor for the individual’s search of the meaning of life. This search is boring, tragically twisted, leads to the individual’s learning about himself, but really to no purpose. The words of the title are inscrutable, since they refer to something received by an egg-seller in a village market “who exchanges everything for a handful of magic seeds” (p. 242). This book was disappointing after the mastery of A Bend in the River.

A Writer’s People (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007) is not, according to Naipaul, literary criticism or biography. “I wish only, and in a personal way, to set out the writing to which I was exposed during my career. I say writing, but I mean specifically vision, a way of seeing and feeling.” (p. 41). It is unclear why a writer would write such a book, unless he wanted to re-affirm for himself certain ways of seeing and feeling. There is no doubt that Naipaul’s “people” are varied, from colonial or post-colonial and other situations, and some well-known. However, the book describes, in an interesting way, the present way of being for a writer. First, an European writer: by 1930, (after Balzac, Tolstoy, Dickens) “little about these great European societies had been left unsaid. The societies themselves had been diminished for various reasons – war, revolution; and the world around these once unchallenged societies had grown steadily larger. A society’s unspoken theme is always itself; it has an idea where it stands in the world. A diminished society couldn’t be written about in the old way, of social comment.” (p. 62) Therefore, writers have to find another perspective, such as fairly-tale or romance. Among the colonial and post-colonial authors (Naipaul’s father plays a prominent role) who caught the eye (and perspective and feeling) of Naipaul are Gandhi and Nehru (autobiographies). A different way of looking is an elaboration on history, to which Naipaul reserves many pages. Specifically, Flaubert’s elaboration of the mercenaries’ war in Carthage after 241 BC, based on Polybius’s account. Naipaul parallels the descriptions of mercenaries given by Polybius with the treatment Flaubert gives them in Salambo.and prefers the ancient Greek historian’s version. It is shorter, “drier, but profounder…more full of true concern” (p. 135). Naipaul touches also upon the difficulties of reading literature. From the perspective of a young man born in Trinidad, living in “the half-world in the privacy of an extended family” (53), clearly, reading about the court of Luis XIV was like reading a fairy-tale. “What was a court? What were the courtiers? What was an aristocrat? I had to make them up in my mind, though for the most part I left them as words. … I lived in a cloud of not-knowing.” (54) “But the writers I couldn’t read were also partly to blame. …[Graham Greene in The Quiet American] hadn’t made his subject clear, He had assumed that his world was the only one that mattered.” (54) Naipaul praises Maupassant because he made his far-off world complete and accessible, even universal (54).

The conclusion? A Bend in the River is truly magnificent, and the part of Magic Seeds which deals with Willie’s life of a terrorist is likewise fascinatingly written. Naipaul’s literary world is, however, peopled by lonely men who take up occupations (trader, guerrilla fighter in these two cases) seemingly without thinking, and who don’t find even a smidgen of joy in any activity they are engaged in.

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NPL 1: Jose’ Saramago

This is a new series, entitled NPL (Nobel Prize for Literature), in which books of those authors who won the Nobel prize in literature are reviewed. An attempt is made not to spoil the reading for those who intend to delve into these books.

The first in this series is the review of Jose’ Saramago’s The Lives of Things (translated by Giovanni Pontiero, London: Verso, 2013) and Death with Interruptions (translated by Margaret Jull Costa, New York: Harcourt, 2008). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Content

Saramago’s strengths are both in content and in style, as both of these are interesting, fresh, and highly entertaining. To be more precise, for example, the story entitled “The chair” describes the form and substance of chairs, but it is specifically about a chair that stopped doing what it ought to, and is collapsing, together with the person sitting on it. Besides dealing with the possible reasons for the chair’s demise, and the consequences of the fall of the person sitting on it as it buckles, this short story is above all a brilliant metaphor for writing: authors have to depict/photograph in words elusive actions and unknown quirky characters in fieri, i.e as these are imagined, and we, the readers, have the chance to follow the linguistic descriptions of these actions and characters and engage with them in our minds. If the depiction is felicitous, then happiness reigns, and this is the case with Saramago’s writing, because reading it brings joy, thoughts, and chuckles. The content of three stories in the collection deals with the reaction of a character (male) to unpredictable (and therefore difficult) circumstances the setting of which is usually some type of bureaucratic state attempting a type of control: “Embargo” (lack of fuel), “Reflux” (moving the human remains from one cemetery to another), “Things” (things acting in strange ways). The last two contain very different contents: the lyrical story “Centaur” imagines the life of a centaur who has lived for millennia and has been attempting to find the place of his origins, and “Revenge” looks at sex from two perspectives.

In the novel Death with Interruptions death is the main character both acting and being acted upon.The author analyzes the consequences of the fact that in one country no one dies. He skillfully, ironically and profoundly narrates the need for death (and therefore the utter dismay when no one dies) on the part of ecclesiastical authorities, funeral homes, and medical profession, as well as some common people. As death returns (with conditions), one person, a musician, does not come under her authority. The novel ends with a lyrical possibility that even death could fall prey to if not love, at least feelings of tenderness. Memorable are the pages that discuss the philosophical musings (by some characters) on death, tackling questions such as “Is there one Death (of the universe) or many deaths (of humans, animals, plants, etc.)?”, or “Is death more powerful than god?”. Although the movement Humanity + has been pursuing the possibility of humans not needing to die, or at least living for a very long time, it bases its futuristic predictions on human biology and the possibility of connection between biology and technology. Saramago’s death is very different. It simply is, and although he describes her at first according to the usual European iconography as a skeleton with a scythe dressed in a long cape, she possesses the ability to transform herself. There are two ironic views which are followed in parallel in the novel: on the one hand, there is the fact that humans live with the thought of death, but not really thinking deeply of the time when death comes to them, and on the other, so much of what humans do is dependent on death. Life without death is really unthinkable, but it is also uncomfortable. We are trapped in this tug-of-war, but it si also what makes us human.

Style

Saramago’s linguistic expression is noteworthy. I would love to be able to read him in the original Portuguese. Especially in the novel, his syntactic constructions can be compared, as a complete opposite, to the style of Ernest Hemingway, but not in the vein of Henry James. Reading his sentences leaves the reader almost breathless, and yet wanting to read on. But reading his sentences is not like reading stream of consciousness, it is more like catching up with the developing asides which lead to other ideas but the thematic centre of the sentence is still discernible. Furthermore, now and then the author shows his self-awareness as writer answering questions that careful readers ask as they read, and his comments are witty. Two quotations precede the beginning of the novel. The first one is from the Book of Predictions: “We will know less and less what it means to be human”. The second one is from Wittgenstein: “If, for example, you were to think more deeply about death, then it would be truly strange if, in so doing, you did not encounter new images, new linguistic fields.” Both obviously refer to language, and Saramago’s writing shows he thought about linguistic expression in depth.

In conclusion, these two books brought me full joy, entertainment, and inspirational ideas which I will treasure for a long time.

Lingua, estetica, soglia

Il quarantunesimo volumetto della collana Superfluo Indispensabile, intitolato Lingua
Estetica della soglia di Valeria Cantoni Mamiani (FEFÈ editore, 2021) fa
esattamente quello che un libro avvincente deve fare: offrire delle idee affinché
ogni lettore possa costruirsi una particolare mappa dell’argomento. La lingua
viene presentata mediante i due significati in italiano: 1) il sistema verbale
di comunicazione e 2) l’organo anatomico. Nell’Introduzione viene spiegato che
la trattazione è composta di spezzoni autobiografici, di letture, di intuizioni, il tutto senza ambizioni scientifiche. L’autrice insiste sull’importanza della meraviglia, “della partecipazione stupita al gioco
del cosmo e della vita”.

Basta elencare qui i titoli dei capitoli perché il lettore possa farsi l’idea della complessità
dell’argomentazione dell’autrice:

I. L’organo ambiguo

2. La lingua che scarta

3. In viaggio con la lingua

4. Lingua e seduzione

5. È tutta questione di gusto.

Lo stile della scrittura va spesso per elenchi i cui particolari sono poi trattati separatamente.
Per es., “Gioia, piacere, dolore, seduzione, articolazione, relazione,
conflitto, comprensione, la lingua è tuttoquesto e molto di più.” (p.18) Inoltre, l’autrice prende in
esame alcuni casi molto specifici di personaggi il cui apporto alle discussioni
approfondite sulla lingua è innegabile: Elias Canetti, Noam Chomsky, Hanna Arendt,
Paul Celan, Primo Levi, Umberto Galimberti, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland
Barthes, Demostene, Cicerone, Platone, Agota Kristoff, e altri.

Valeria Cantoni Mamiani non ha paura di avanzare giudizi che esprimono la sua prospettiva. In
particolare, l’ancora di tutto il trattamento sulla lingua è quella della situazione
europea e italiana, contraria a quella della  “cultura statunitense omologata e omologante”,
soprattutto per quanto riguarda i dialetti. Ma non solo. Secondo l’autrice, il
linguaggio sui social è “uniformato, sincopato, poverissimo, semplicistico”.
Purtroppo, la situazione si presenta in realtà, come sempre, molto più  complessa di quanto non appaia a prima vista (lingua scritta, parlata, trasmessa, ecc.). Si corre il rischio di ripetere le
stesse solite formule. Dire che il dialetto esprime il sentimento e la lingua esprime il concetto (con buona pace di  Camilleri e di Pirandello) è semplicemente continuare a sopprimere le possibilità che il dialetto contiene, come ogni lingua, per esprimere tutte le funzioni comunicative. E dunque si continua a svalutare il dialetto.  

Sebbene le posizioni di una persona come Valeria Cantoni Mamiani la cui formazione è
orientata all’ermeneutica e non alla linguistica (p. 44) siano interessanti, queste sfociano nelle spiegazioni poco approfondite di fenomeni a cui la linguistica offre chiarimenti ormai accettati dagli specialisti e, in questo caso, anche dagli insegnanti delle lingue seconde. La vita creativa di Agota Kristoff che non si è ambientata nella cultura e nella lingua francese e che continua a soffrire
quando non scrive nella sua lingua materna illustra la situazione di moltissime
persone che si trovano a dover a che fare con una lingua che non è la loro. Il suo è un caso spiegabilissimo con l’uso del concetto di “affective filter”, i.e. di una difficoltà di apprendimento di una lingua straniera dovuta a un ostacolo psicologico di non volersi avvicinare alla nuova lingua. Ora, una cosa è non sapere la lingua in un modo che permetta la produzione del lavoro letterario
soddisfacente (per chi lo crea), un’altra cosa è la situazione in cui la
persona continua a voler creare letteratura nella seconda lingua nonostante non
si senta a suo agio in quella lingua. Dire che “La seconda lingua è la lingua
del logos, privo di inconscio, perché non è la lingua dei sogni e neppure dell’immaginario…la
si domina, freddamente, a distanza” (p. 92) vuol dire chiudere la via a altre possibilità
di conoscere la seconda lingua e in effetti, di conoscersi.

L’ argomento più scottante ma anche più difficile da sbrogliare è quello della responsabilità della
classe intellettuale. L’autrice si chiede infatti dove sono oggi gli intellettuali, dove sono finiti i filosofi, i giuristi in grado di difendere i principi fondanti della liberta`? Chi sono i nuovi intellettuali? (p.29) Se, da un lato, esiste una lingua inaridita “in un fraseggio funzionale a essere adatto ai social”, dall’altro, l’autrice chiama “alla responsabilità nell’uso delle parole, per lo meno della nostra
lingua, l’italiano, lingua vivissima, ricchissima, composta da strati di tante culture, proprio come la nostra cucina, lingua aperta ad accogliere nuovi pensieri e nuove parole, a stare nella complessità e a leggerla”. Ma a quale lingua si contrappone la lingua “semplicistica” e “inaridita”? L’autrice da`
una risposta  interessante, ma poco adatta all’appoggio dell’italiano più “complesso”:

“Mi sento responsabile per quello che dico o per quello che gli altri comprendono? Questa domanda porta con se’ la consapevolezza del senso primariamente sociale e relazionale della
lingua. E va assunta, senza menzogne.” (p. 30) Per qualcuno che guarda la situazione linguistica e  culturale italiana dal di fuori, è difficile giudicare “quale” versione della lingua italiana è
quella che risponde alla necessità di complessità. La cultura letteraria rinascimentale e illuministica offre esempi di scrittori italiani che oggi sono letti poco perché “difficili” (Pietro Bembo, che scrive per i posteri; Giambattista Vico che offre una Scienza Nuova). Ma la cultura letteraria
è stata soppiantata dalla cultura multimediale (non solo in Italia) in cui la lingua gioca un ruolo minore, se non minimo. La svalutazione del modo di comunicazione verbale fa sì che altri modi di comunicazione occupino il terreno che prima è stato il campo preferito della lingua. A chi spetta lo sforzo di far riacquistare alla lingua almeno parte di quel terreno? Una risposta punta
sui libri, non troppo difficili, ne’  troppo facili, di argomenti svariatissimi trattati a modo: ma solo se è vero che la gente legge. Allora in quel caso si spera che tantissimi prendano in mano e leggano questo volumetto affascinante. Affascinante, ma arduo da recensire, perché, secondo l’autrice, “Nulla di ortodosso, tassonomico e scientifico in queste pagine per chi si aspettasse un trattato filosofico, letterario, gastronomico, artistico, psicologico. Nulla di tutto questo nello specifico, ma tutto questo preso nel suo insieme.” (p. 5-6)    

Cuore: segno, sentimento, organo

Il quarantesimo volumetto della collana Superfluo indispensabile della casa editrice Fefe’, intitolato Cuore storia, metafore, immagini e palpiti di Claudia Pancino (2020, pp. 209), offre un viaggio sorprendente e significativo attraverso la storia e i vari ambiti temporali, psicologici, fisiologici, metaforici, simbolici in cui si trova la parola “cuore”.

Il libro, corredato di numerose illustrazioni di cuore, è diviso in 3 capitoli e chiude con “Testimonianze e documenti” (cioè, con degli esempi concreti di descrizioni tratte da pubblicazioni che includono gli ambiti presi in esame nel libro).

Nella Premessa, l’autrice si sofferma sul fatto che il significato del “cuore” è stato prima quello ideale legato all'amore, anche se si sapeva già nell’antichità che il cuore è il fonte della vita. Dunque, l’espressione “essere senza cuore” non significa essere morto, ma non poter amare. La premessa introduce le 3 domande a cui il libro vuole dare delle riposte concrete:

1. Cosa unisce le diverse rappresentazioni contemporanee del cuore?
2. Qual è la loro storia?
3. Cosa le unisce all’organo pompante?

Capitolo I, intitolato “Cuore: parola, organo, simbolo”, presenta la visione del cuore sia come l’immagine (un simbolo) che come l’organo stesso. Le rappresentazioni visive di tutt’e due questi significati hanno una storia complessa. Per esempio, le testimonianze grafiche antiche sono ambigue o non esistenti fino al XIII secolo, ma abbiamo una data precisa da cui parte il significato del simbolo “cuoricino” (oggi universale) come “I love”, cioè il 1977. Per quanto riguarda la rappresentazione visiva dell’organo, si parte dal mondo vegetale (Giovan Battista della Porta che trova strette relazioni tra la pianta somigliante al cuore e le proprietà terapeutiche di questa pianta). Poi, le testimonianze visive accettate come possibilmente cuoriformi passano dall’elefante di Pindal, agli arazzi, alle illuminazioni nei manoscritti, alla Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto (dove la Carità offre a Dio un cuore con la punta rivolta all’insù che riprende la descrizione del cuore fatta da Galeno), ecc. Tutte queste rappresentazioni hanno un legame con l’organo pulsante che però indica sentimenti, anche se non è chiaro quali sono i sentimenti che si trovano in questa sede, anche perché la simbologia non sembra essere universale. Per i Sumeri, il cuore significa compassione anche vulnerabile (il fegato è la sede dei sentimenti), per gli antichi Egizi il cuore è il centro delle attività intellettuali, per gli antichi Greci il fegato e i polmoni sono dotati di spiritualità superiore. Nella Bibbia, il cuore abbraccia sia le forme della vita intellettiva che quella delle emozioni, e nel Nuovo testamento il cuore diventa la radice dell’atteggiamento religioso e morale, cioè la natura interiore dell’uomo. Gli Aztechi offrivano il cuore del nemico agli dei (cannibalismo cardiaco azteco). I cuori mangiati sono presenti in letteratura (per es., nelle fiabe e nei racconti folclorici, Boccaccio, Calvino).

La storia ideologica del cuore sottolinea l’incessante ricerca di paragoni tra il cuore (nel duplice significato di sentimenti e di organo) e oggetti materiali o meccanismi, specificamente,  il cuore come un orologio, o il fatto che  i musicisti legano la velocità/la lentezza delle pulsazioni alle cadenze musicali. Solo con l’invenzione dello stetoscopio (19mo secolo) si riesce a sentire il vero rumore del cuore, sebbene il ticchettio cardiaco di tipo meccanico continui a sentirsi nelle canzoni. Il cuore umano nel pensiero medico presenta 3 fasi di conoscenze: 1. Dalle origini remote al Rinascimento, 2. Dal Rinascimento al 1967 (il primo trapianto del cuore), 3. Dal 1967 ad oggi.

Nel Capitolo II (“Cuori trafitti e cuori scambiati”) viene illustrata la storia del ruolo del cuore nelle estasi cardiache, nel misticismo cattolico, nelle devozioni al Sacro Cuore di Gesù, negli ex-voto, e nel desiderio/nella necessità di seppellire il cuore dopo la more in un luogo diverso da quello del resto del corpo. Il cuore, come oggetto di intensa devozione cattolica al Sacro Cuore di Gesù, ottiene anche una funzione politica, unendo la pietà religiosa a uffici militari, politici, sociali sia in Francia che in Italia, in Germania, in Austria.

Il Capitolo III (“Storia del cuore nelle immagini”) ripercorre l’immagine del cuore sia come simbolo di sentimenti che come l’organo nelle rappresentazioni visive. Ci sono i cuori cortesi, i cuori anatomici non medici, i cuori amorosi e i cuoricini. Ci sono anche i cuori infranti e cardiopatie. La più antica immagine del cuore amoroso è del 1275 (nel manoscritto del Roman de la Poire, in cui la dama dona il suo cuore a Dolcesguardo, ma il cuore qui è ancora capovolto). L’autrice si sofferma sul fatto che il cuore non è rappresentato prima del XIII secolo; le ipotesi di questa nascita tardiva puntano sulla sacralità o sulla bruttezza dell’oggetto. Nel medioevo la rappresentazione simbolica include foglie (lilla`, edera, da cui il cuoricino) pigne (a volte rovesciate). Le illustrazioni “sentimentali” sono diverse da quelle mediche, ma spesso tra di loro esiste il corto circuito. In particolare, negli anni 2000 il cuore anatomico esce dal contesto medico/religioso per diventare un simbolo (su T-shirt, nelle sculture, ecc.). In altre parole, c’è una tensione tra il cuoricino e il cuore anatomico per quanto riguarda l’espressione visiva che da metaforica (vaga) vuol diventare realistica (essenza delle cose). La rivoluzione “emotica” riguarda l’uso del cuoricino in rete che fa parte del mutamento della comunicazione che privilegia i pittogrammi in moltissime funzioni comunicative mediate dalla rete. L’autrice nota che non è possibile sapere come saranno comunicati gli affetti: “in quali modi la generazione digitale sarà capace di comunicare senza l’ausilio della rete?” (p. 117).   Inoltre, il cuore come sentimento e come organo si stanno avvicinando nel pensiero medico: sono venute a gala le corrispondenze tra il cuore metaforico/emotivo e il cuore pompante perché il cuore biologico è sensibile al sistema emotivo. In questo capitolo vengono menzionati anche i cuori letterari, soprattutto di Conrad e di Bulgakov.

Nella sezione “Testimonianze e documenti” vengono pubblicati brevi brani dei seguenti autori: Giovan Battista della Porta, Andrea Vesalio, Renato G. Mazzolini, William Harvey, Johann Jacob Scheuchzer, Noel Chomel, Denis Diderot, Michael Bulgakov, Mathias Malzieu, Vittorio Zucconi, Christian Barnard, Katy Couprie, Marco Politi, Gianfranco Ravasi, Savvas Savvopoulos, Sandeep Jauhar, e un articolo senza autore del National Geographic.

Cosa si può dire di un trattato sul cuore che presenta questo argomento con sapiente emozione? L’autrice ha risposto a tutt’e tre i quesiti che si era posta in un modo esaustivo, intelligente e soprattutto pieno di spunti per una riflessione che spesso manca quando si parla del cuore. Da un lato, il libro sottolinea la dicotomia cuore-mente (ricordare e rammentare), da cui partono i concetti che separano, invece di unire, questi due aspetti dell’essere umano. La tensione tra la scienza e l’immaginario è partita lasciandoli divisi, ma sembra che la scienza cominci ad avvicinarsi al cuore nel suo valore sentimentale perché gli affetti hanno un effetto sul corpo fisico e vice versa. E` istruttivo sapere che se San Valentino viene festeggiato ormai ovunque, la giornata dedicata al cuore (World Heart Day) non ha questa risonanza; ma forse il futuro avvicinerà questi due significati del cuore anche nell’immaginario popolare. Dall’altro lato, prendere in esame il cuore come uno dei simboli più ovvi del nuovo modo di comunicare per immagini faciliterà la risposta a molte incognite per quanto riguarda l’evolversi dei modi di comunicazione in rete. La questione della superiorità dell’arte figurativa su quella verbale (sostenuta anche da Leonardo da Vinci) deve ancora essere approfondita.

In conclusione, come sempre, è molto difficile in una recensione dare un’idea soddisfacente di tutti gli aspetti di un libro, soprattutto quando questo è pieno di informazioni fertili per allargare l’orizzonte dei lettori.