July 8, 2011
As a final homage to the late Peter Falk, here's a sketch he did of himself as Columbo, demonstrating talents that went beyond the acting sphere. Wotta guy.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
July 5, 2011
The bloodless obituary put out by the Eurocrats in Brussels for Otto von Habsburg, who died yesterday at 98, enraged the Daily Mail correspondent, whose ire I share: "So what did the officials at the European Parliament do to mark the death of this living link with historic Europe? They put out a statement announcing 'the death of former MEP Mr Otto Von Hapsburg [sic] on 4 July 2011.' Yes, unfortunately this heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire was rather a pan-European; but as I noted in a post about him last December, he was a citizen of Austria, Hungary, Germany and Croatia, and could have been king of Bohemia, so he was born a bit 'pan.' But the officials at the parliament noted none of that. By their reasoning, the only reason to note the death of 'Mr' von Habsburg was that he had been an MEP [Member of the European Parliament]."
Whereas in actual fact we mourn the disappearance of Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius von Habsburg, the Emperor who might have been (shown above with Emperor Franz Josef I, his great-great-uncle) and the last human link to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to its turbulence and tolerance, its artistic supremacy, its multitude of nations and languages, its long slow waltz with death from Mayerling to Sarajevo. RIP, Your Imperial Majesty.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 19, 2011
For Father's Day, I dug this out of the family archives: a picture, from 1963, of two fathers. Mine is second from the right, looking decidedly uncomfortable in his tux; the holier of the two, the Holy Father himself, Pope John XXIII, is of course the old chap in white robes, third from the left. My dad was for some years an itinerant radio engineer and electrician specializing in bells. On this occasion he was in the Vatican installing electronic carillons with his two colleagues, the other guys in penguin suits; the one to his left is Jim Roche, owner of Roche's Chemists, a chain of chemist's shops, or drugstores, known throughout Ireland. (Jim was the money man of the three.) One day the Pope, much like his predecessor Julius II dropping in to check on Michelangelo's murals, came by to see how the bellmen were getting on. The Vicar of Christ shook hands and proposed a group photograph, distributing blessings and best wishes. My dad said he even made a joke, not surprising, since John XXIII was a humorous man (best-known quip, when asked how many people worked in Vatican City: "About half"), although he spoke rudimentary English and Italian with a strong Bergamese accent. Dad was no churchgoer, but he was impressed by Pope John. Both are long dead, the Pope soon after this picture was taken, my dad in 1980. Happy Father's Day to their memories.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 15, 2011
It seems to be dawning on the intelligentsia what a remarkable man we've lost in Patrick Leigh Fermor (see previous post). Here's Hitchens on the subject. And Jan Morris said," One must not gush, but like Venice, Château d'Yquem or a Rolls-Royce of the 1930s, he really was beyond competition; and since so far as I know everybody liked him, everyone enjoyed his mastery." As I said somewhere else, if I had a second go at life, I'd try to live a life as much like Patrick Leigh Fermor's as possible, for few lives have been better lived and in better balance: worth the effort, in short, and amply rewarded.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 10, 2011
Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, a dashing figure from a more heroic age, died yesterday at the improbable age of 96. The Daily Telegraph, as usual, had the best obituary, highlighting his accomplishments as a war commando and scholar while granting a certain skepticism as to the overall veracity of his superb travel memoirs A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, in which he recounted, many years later, his long walk from Rotterdam to Istanbul in 1934. "Though he at first kept to his aim of travelling 'like a tramp or pilgrim,' sleeping in police cells and beer halls, by the time he reached Central Europe his charm led to his being passed from schloss to schloss by a network of margraves and voivodes. The architecture, ritual and genealogy of each halt were later recalled with a loving eye."
I love that "network of margraves and voivodes." It reminds me of Gregor von Rezzori, another recently vanished survivor of a pre-modern Eastern Europe. They're a pair, von Rezzori and Leigh Fermor, but the latter was more Hellenic, in the mold of Ulysses: clever, learned, wild, and above all a lover of life. If I had another go-around, I'd want it to be like Leigh Fermor's.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 8, 2011
“’Sometimes,’ she said, ‘they threaten you with something – something you can’t stand up to, can’t even think about. And then you say, “Don’t do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so.” And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself, and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.’”
From Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell (Eric Blair), which is 62 years ago today. Still the greatest of all dystopian novels.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 6, 2011
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
June 2, 2011
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul has stirred up the hornets' nest again, this time with some choice and crusty Old World comments about women, women writers in particular. They are inferior to him, he says, because of their "sentimentality" and "narrow view of the world," and cites Jane Austen. Nonsense, of course; one has only to think only of Marguerite Yourcenar, George Eliot, Edna O'Brien, Edith Wharton, Beryl Bainbridge, Anna Akhmatova, et j'en passe. But this is standard Naipaulese. He enjoys the public attention, while pretending not to. At some level he still can't believe his incredible good fortune: there he is, a poor boy from Trinidad, cocking a snook at the mandarins of the literary establishment! This isn't his only foray into the limelight recently. Only a few days ago he was photographed shaking hands with his one-time protege and nemesis, Paul Theroux, another non-event that landed both of them on page one. Well, so what? Sir VN's nearly 80, and doesn't give a flying frig. And, like that other VN, he thoroughly enjoys riling the bien-pensant literati with outrageous and/or politically incorrect comments. He has a way to go to equal his predecessor's panache, however. "That, for instance," opined Nabokov in Strong Opinions, "Mann's asinine Death in Venice or Pasternak's melodramatic and vilely written Zhivago or Faulkner's corncobby chronicles can be considered 'masterpieces,' or at least what journalists call 'great books,' is to me an absurd delusion, as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair." Heresy, in most lit-crit circles. Well, that's the job of the writer, in part, to be a heretic. Both VNs have played that role admirably.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
May 23, 2011
It happens every May and June: I return in my mind to a place I know well and a past I never knew. Specifically, to France in the spring and summer of 1940, and (on June 6th) in the spring of 1944. Around this time 71 years ago the crucial mistakes had been made; the best divisions of the French Army under the able but ill-used Generals Huntizger and Georges were stuck in Belgium, and insufficient defenses manned the Ardennes gap through which von Rundstedt and Guderian would direct their Panzers. Case Red, as the Wehrmacht called it, was being implemented; only three weeks remained of French sovereignty. I'll be returning to that most dreadful and most heroic moment over the coming weeks.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
May 18, 2011
"My time will come," said Gustav Mahler, who died at the too-young age of 50, a century ago today. At the time he was seen as a brash, eccentric conductor who wrote immense and turgid symphonies during his spare time. An apprentice Bruckner, no doubt soon forgotten, sniffed the snobs. Fortunately, he was right about his posthumous future. If anything, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, as it tends to do, reflected, for instance, in the title of an articlewritten by Tim Smith, music critic of the Baltimore Sun: "How Gustav Mahler Saved My Life."
But I'm almost there, too. I first heard Mahler's music on a hoarse and scratchy LP, a Vienna Phil recording of The Song of the Earth, with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf singing. I was overwhelmed. Later, I heard the Fourth Symphony. I was doubly overwhelmed, and have never tired of Mahler's music since. Indeed, every time I hear it I'm thankful the world contains such wonders. RIP, Gustav.
Posted by Roger Boylan.
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