The Tale of Tales

Loosely based upon one of the earliest of all European collections of fairy-tales, Italian film director Matteo Garrone's adaptation of Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales is a triumph of cinematography. Starring Salma Hayek and Toby Jones, Garrone's Tale of Tales (2015) is sumptuous in costume, decor and location and exemplary of magical realism in cinema.

Early in the first of three overlapping stories, the childless King and Queen of Longtrellis consult a ghoulish necromancer who mysteriously declares- 

'the equilibrium of the world must be maintained, every desire and action corresponds to another, every life calls for a life, birth is always stained by death, death in turn is simply one element of birth'.  

These philosophical aphorisms alert one to the fact that the fairy tales collected by the Neapolitan courier and poet Giambattista Basile (1566-1632) The Tale of Tales (Lo cunto de li cunti) are far removed from the sentimental fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) and even further removed from the syrup and saccharine servings of modern-day Disney adaptations. 

Taking the advice that the heart of a sea-dragon must be found and cooked by a virgin in order for the Queen to become pregnant, the King of Longtrellis duly embarks upon an aquatic hunt. This first story although deviating from the original plot, nevertheless, like each one of the three overlapping stories of Garrone's  Tale of Tales remains in essence faithful to the moral of Basile's fairy-tale collection. All three stories focus upon the deceptive world of appearances and the fatal consequences which occur when obtaining false desires.

Besides being well-acted, notably in the roles portrayed by Salma Hayek and Toby Jones, the Neapolitan flavour of Basile's tales is conveyed well in costume, decor and location. The Tale of Tales was filmed entirely in Italy, including  at Naples at the Royal Palace, at the Palace of Capodimonte and its gardens, at Apulia's Castel del Monte, Sicily's Donnafugata Castle, Gole dell'Alcantara in Alcantara, Abruzzo's Castello di Roccascalegna, Tuscany's Moorish castle of Sammezzano  and the towns of Sorano and Sovana. All of which are atmospheric backdrops contributing to the film's stylish narrative.

    

In the second tale of The Tale of Tales, the fatal mistake of misdirected desire is once more focussed upon. The King of Highhills (Toby Jones) is distracted by a flea while listening to his daughter accompanying herself on guitar while singing. He captures the flea and lovingly nurtures it. The pet flea grows to monstrous proportions to become a secret hobby of greater importance to him than the future of his daughter. When the flea dies the King concocts a bizarre challenge for the hand of his daughter in marriage which backfires with fatal consequences when an ogre visits his castle to take up his challenge.   

In the third story featured in The Tale of Tales the dissolute and lustful King of Longtrellis (Vincent Cassell) also hears a woman singing and becomes obsessed with seducing her.  However, unknown to him, the voice he hears belongs to one of two  aged and withered sisters. Unable to see his obsessive love he persuades her to grant him the favour of at least poking a finger through a hole for him to kiss (some quite overt Freudian symbolism going on there). Once obtaining his full desire and disgusted at her true appearance, he orders his guards to commit an act of defenestration upon his rejected lover. Caught mid-flight in the branches of a tree she is suckled by a sorceress and transformed into a beautiful young woman.  

In Basile's fairy stories the staple diet of fairy tales world-wide can be found, seemingly impossible tasks to be performed, humans transformed into animals such as cats, doves, foxes and whales which talk, dramatis personae of dwarves and ogres, cruel step-mothers, magicians and sorceresses, peasants and Kings, true love found and tales of rags to riches. Basile's stories also include moral aphorisms such as, 'Ingratitude is a nail, which, driven into the tree of courtesy, causes it to wither' and, 'One hour in port, the sailor freed from fears, forgets the tempests of a hundred years'. as well as astrological aphorisms one character uttering, 'He is a madman who resists the stars',  another says 'Praised be Sol in Leo !' The pipes of Pan, with their seven reeds one larger than another are also mentioned. 

Such is the sophistication of Basile's tales in their construction that in the 2007 Penguin translation of his tales, the translator observes - 

Each tale is introduced by a rubric that sums up the story and a preamble that includes a summary of the audience's reactions to the previous tale as well as reflections on the teaching of the tale to come (often leading to discussions of favourite Renaissance and Baroque topics such as fortune and virtue, wit, envy), and concludes with a moralizing proverb, often from Basile's Neapolitan wit [1]

'Heaven sends biscuits to him who has no teeth'.

Basile's plots often reverse expectations, his language is described as - 'an unusual stylized Baroque version of the Neapolitan dialect, at times mellifluous, at times coarse and provocative; his critical commentary on his era was so far ahead of his time that it still has a bearing on contemporary society'. [2]   

'Basile's tales are inhabited by supernatural creatures and propelled by forms of magic entirely disassociated from any religious system, at a time when the strict orthodoxy of the Counter- Reformation influenced public and private expression. The Tale of Tales is a work that simultaneously  evokes the humus of seventeenth century Naples- its landmarks, customs and daily rituals, family and professional life - and conjures forth a fantastic world whose originality still holds strong attraction today'. [3]

Giambattista Basile (1575-1632)

Another critic describes Basile's tales as -'bawdy and irreverent but also tender and whimsical; acute in psychological characterization and at the same time encyclopaedic in description; full, ultimately, of irregularities and loose ends that somewhat magically manage to merge into a splendid portrait of creatures engaged in the grave and laborious, gratifying and joyful business of learning to live in the world - and to tell about it. '[4]

Basile's dark and baroque fairy-tales are equal in importance to those of Charles Perrault (1697) or the Brothers Grimm (1810); indeed The Tale of Tales contains the earliest literary versions of many celebrated  fairy tales  - Cinderella, sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel among others. Throughout the past two centuries, in particular, the Brothers Grimm highly influential collection of fairy tales, almost every nation and culture from Russian to Lapp to Aborigine have sought to collate a definitive collection of their own fairy-tales. It was not until the 20th century in Italy that a definitive collection of fairy-tales were collated. Basile was a key influence and source to Italo Calvino's masterly compilation Fiabe Italiane (Italian folktales) of over 200 Italian fairy tales, which  Calvino describes thus-

   

Taken all together, they offer, in their oft-repeated and constantly varying examinations of human vicissitudes, a general explanation of life preserved in the slow ripening of rustic consciences; folk stories are the catalog of the potential destinies of men and women, especially for that stage in life when destiny is formed i.e. youth, beginning with birth, which itself often foreshadows the future; then the departure from home, and, finally, through the trials of growing up, the attainment of maturity and the proof of one’s humanity. This sketch, although summary, encompasses everything: the arbitrary division of humans, albeit in essence equal, into kings and poor people; the persecution of the innocent and their subsequent vindication, which are the terms  inherent in every life; love unrecognised when first encountered and then no sooner experienced than lost; the common fate of subjection to spells, or having one’s existence predetermined by complex and unknown forces. This complexity pervades one’s entire existence and forces one to struggle to free oneself, to determine one’s own fate; at the same time we can liberate ourselves only if we liberate other people, for this is the sine qua non of one’s own liberation. There must be fidelity to a goal and purity of heart, values fundamental to salvation and triumph. There must also be beauty, a sign of grace that can be masked by the humble, ugly guise of a frog; and above all, there must be present the infinite possibilities of mutation, the unifying element in everything: men, beasts, plants, things. [5]

In contemporary study of the fairy tale, Jack Zipes, the most industrious scholar in the field, has developed a politically committed, cultural materialist perspective which explores the multiple ricochets between historical facts and mentalities (including class and gender values) with fairytale scenarios. His extensive criticism, from Don't Bet on the Prince (1986) to his recent The Irresistible Rise of the Fairy Tale (2007) has simultaneously helped give fairy tales greater stature as literature and led to sharp controversy about their pernicious or liberating influence upon audiences, especially the young.[6] According to Zipes -

'In the fairy tale man is freed from the mystery's obligation of silence by transforming it into enchantment; it is not participation in a cult of knowledge which renders him speechless, but bewitchment. The silence of the mystery is undergone as a rupture, plunging man back into the pure, mute language of nature; but as a spell, silence must eventually be shattered and conquered. This is why, in the fairy tale, man is struck dumb, and animals emerge from the pure language of nature in order to speak'. [7]

Fairy tales have attracted the attention of many great artists, poets, illustrators and composers. Adapted for theatre as the framework for countless Christmas pantomimes and the inspiration for various composers (some of the greatest ballets of all-time are based upon fairy-tales, namely, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty as well as Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird) the literary genre of the fairy or folk tale continues to be a source of inspiration, entertainment and interpretative discourse throughout the world. 

Celebrating the power of the imagination the fairy story is a literary genre which may be considered as exemplary of magical realism. In the modern-era, Cinema with its combination of sound and moving image is another medium through which magical realism can be convincingly experienced.

In the Mexican film-director Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) the worlds of fascist Spain and the dark fantasy world his adopted daughter Ofelia explores are juxtaposed to eventually collide, with tragic, yet redeeming consequences. Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, along with The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff 1979) The City of Lost Children (Caro and Jeunet 1995) Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze 1999) Amélie ( Jeunet 2001) The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (Brothers Quay 2005) The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry 2006) and many of the films by Terry Gilliam are among my personal favourites. There is however nowadays an increasingly amorphous and mushrooming of the term 'magical realism' and an ever-lengthening list of films which critics claim are exemplary of the generic term, thus rendering the label near meaningless.   

The psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung occupied themselves with the inner meaning of fairy tales and folk motifs, and both had disciples who dedicated full-length studies to the analysis of fairy tales. The Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung (1875-1961) wrote two major studies on fairy-stories, 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales' and 'The Spirit  Mercurius' which analyzes the Brothers Grimm's 'The Spirit in the Bottle'. Jung interpreted fairytales, along with alchemy and dreams, as conduits to the unconscious psyche, noting-  

'Fairytales seem to be the myths of childhood and they therefore contain among other things the mythology which children weave for themselves concerning sexual processes. The poetry of the fairytale, whose magic is felt even by the adult, rests not least upon the fact that some of the old theories are still alive in our unconscious. We experience a strange and mysterious feeling whenever a fragment of our remotest youth stirs into life again, not actually reaching consciousness, but merely shedding a reflection of its emotional intensity on the conscious mind'. [8] 

According to Jung, 'As in alchemy, the fairytale describes the unconscious processes that compensate the conscious, Christian situation...the fairytale makes it clear that it is possible for a man to attain totality, to become whole, only with the spirit of darkness, indeed that the latter is actually a causa instrumentalis of redemption and individuation'. [9] 

'Myths and fairytales give expression to unconscious processes, and their retelling causes these processes to come alive again and be recollected, thereby re-establishing the connection between conscious and unconscious'.  [10] 

C.G. Jung believed that - 'It is extremely important to tell children fairy tales and legends, and to inculcate religious ideas into grown-ups, because these things are instrumental symbols with whose help unconscious contents can be canalized into consciousness, interpreted and integrated'. [11] 

The function of the fairy-tale according to Jung is - 'to tell us how to proceed if we want to overcome the power of darkness: we must turn his own weapons against him, which naturally cannot be done if the magical underworld of the hunter remains unconscious'. [12] 

It was however Jung's disciple, Marie-Louis von Franz (1915-1998) who took fairy-tales seriously enough to devote many years of her life exploring their psychological symbolism. von Franz's books remain fruitful reading for those wishing to study fairy-tales from a Jungian perspective in  greater depth. [13]

In conclusion, returning our attention to  Basile's fairy-tales  - In an interview at the Cannes film festival in 2016 the Italian film director Matteo Garrone quoted Calvino's description of Basile as a kind of 'deformed Neapolitan Shakespeare' and described his own film adaptation of Basile's tale as being fantasy with horror. In what must surely have been a labour of love, i.e. to restore a neglected work of Italian literature, Garrone's film is to be applauded for raising the profile of Basile's little-known collection.

Notes

[1] Giambattista  Basile  The Tale of Tales Penguin Books Wayne State University Press 2007
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Italo Calvino  - Italian Folktales  pub. 1956 trans. 1980
[6] Once Upon a Time - A short history of fairy tale - Marina Warner OUP 2014
[7] Ibid.
[8] C.G.Jung Collected Works Vol.  17 para 43

[9]  CW vol. 9 i: 453 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales' (1945/48)

[10]  CW 9 ii: 280
[11] CW 9 ii: 259
[12] CW 9 i: 453 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales' (1945/48)
[13] The Feminine in Fairytales - M.L. von Franz - Spring Publications 1972
The Psychological Meaning of Redemption Myths in Fairytales - M.L. von Franz Inner City books 1980.

Mark Burrell's 'The Homing Ground' - All aboard the British transcendent locomotion.

Mark Burrell’s painting The Homing Ground sees the artist giving full expression to his technical and draughtsmanship skills, at a peak in imagination, and delighting in 'home-grown’ imagery which fairly crackles with cognitive dissonances. 

Painted in 1993, when the artist sometimes devoted 3 or 4 months to complete a single canvas, often in painstaking detail, its inspiration was sparked when Burrell, while travelling on a train returning to Lowestoft, read a magazine article on the world’s oldest clock. However, not unlike when Dorothy realizes she's no longer in Kansas City, we're far, far away from Lowestoft when viewing this dream-like landscape.  

Measuring 36 x 25 inches and painted on board in the artist’s favoured medium of alkyd resin oils, The Homing Ground features a landscape in which a bizarre train consisting mostly of a staircase and wall trundles along a railway-track. At the bottom of the staircase an elderly gentleman sits in an arm-chair reading a newspaper. An androgynous-looking youth holding a candelabra sits half-way upstairs. An angel stands at the very top of the staircase. At the helm of this peculiar house or rail-carriage without either windows or roof, there’s a disproportionately large face contoured like a mask. On the left in the background there can be seen a landscape which has a junction, hinting of a landscape networked in rail-track. In the distant background a boy can be seen running towards, not from, a spooky-looking house. 

The background to The Homing Ground is fringed by a dark, wild woods, creating a tension by alluding to hidden, unknown contents. As often in Burrell's art, the sky is wholly alive and dramatically lit. Together sky and background provide a magical backdrop for the viewer to focus upon the main action. Meanwhile the passengers of Burrell's transcendent locomotion chug along oblivious to their oncoming destination, a quite literally, yawning tunnel. 

           

Burrell’s art encourages the viewer to look closely and look again. Its always best to see his paintings in the original and if given half the chance to do so, grab it ! Digital photography cannot be relied upon to faithfully reproduce the richness of an oil-painting in either detail, colouration or dimension. For example, it is only when attentive that one notices the gentleman sitting in an arm-chair reading a newspaper consists only of a head, and is body-less, seemingly sustained by various tubes feeding his skeletal frame.  

Interpretations are numerous, and ought to be always taken in a 'soft and flexible’ manner, without dogmatic insistence. Burrell’s gent who is sustained by tubes and wires could allude to either modern-day's relationship to medical science or prophetic of the close attachment millions now have to the computer network in their everyday lives. 

Another interesting association occurs in the depiction of a stair-case in The Homing-Ground. Like railway tracks, stairs are a construct which assist in transporting people to another space and dimension. One is encouraged in such an interpretation upon seeing at the top of Burrell's 'stairway to heaven' an angel who adds a spiritual mood to the scene. Ethereal and translucent she stands at the helm of Burrell’s transcendent locomotion sprinkling cut roses upon the track. Her presence reminds the viewer that every-day life is not always centred upon the material, or even always visible to the senses, and though often unacknowledged or denied, may include an unknown quantity of spiritual protection.   

The rail-track, along with its more archaic variants, the road and the river, may be viewed as a symbol of  life's journey and of Time, a prominent theme in The Homing-Ground.

One of the most frequently encountered of all artistic 'double symbols' in Renaissance and esoteric art used to symbolize Time occurs in representations of Youth and Aged. Technically known as Puer et Senex they are evident here in the form of a bald, and therefore presumably old man reading a newspaper, and a youthful character sitting on stairs wistfully holding a candelabra. 

Time-wise historically, the steam-engine and railway were important British technological inventions of the 19th century, and key components of the Industrial Revolution. By 1850 there was a network of over 7000 miles of rail-track covering the length and breath of England. The steam locomotion, along with rail-track, transformed every British town, city and village. Indeed, for those living at North Sea coastal towns such as Lowestoft, before the train, it was quicker and often more comfortable to travel via sea to English coastal towns or continental, main-land Europe than to London. The arrival of the railway in the mid-nineteenth century changed livelihoods too. It enabled the produce of fishing-towns to be transported swiftly to London and other urban centres. Fishing-towns such as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft also became accessible destinations for holidays, health tourism and entertainment by a growing urban population with leisure-time.

The British love-affair with trains in the past and today can be seen in the popularity of Hornby model trains and children's animated characters such as Ivor the Engine and Thomas the Tank.

A fine example of Burrell's eye for exquisite detail and colouration can be seen in the tail-light of his transcendent locomotion. This extraordinary detail could almost stand alone and framed as a single work or art, being near Vermeer-like in its realization of light and detail. 

  

In an art-work delighting in cognitive dissonances, that is imagery which provokes unease and ambiguity through conjoined and improbable objects which never the less seemingly exist; the background of The Homing-Ground features a house which has a human face superimposed upon it and whose yawning mouth is also a tunnel. A bath with a sail is perched upon its chimney-top. The image is arresting, humorous and disturbing and also a superb example of the artist’s ability to create highly-original 'home-grown' imagery which induces cognitive dissonance. Such paradoxical and thought-provoking imagery is a hallmark of Burrell’s imaginative art.

As a symbol the tunnel has a number of  meanings. As a portal to the unknown it alludes to humanity’s deepest fear, namely death, but  also to transformation and change, as well as the narrow anatomical passage-way to birth. Tunnels are also a feature of sea-side fun-fairs including the Tunnel of Love and the Ghost-train, as well as the roller-coaster. 

Another example of cognitive dissonance occurs in the form of the home. The home is the one stable point in most lives. Nomadic life-styles apart it is usually a static location, providing stability in our daily comings and goings in the world around us, yet here it is seen, caravan-like, in motion and yet still seemingly in some kind of domestic tranquillity.

Incidentally, I cannot resist mention in a moment of roller-coaster association, of the historical figure of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) who was recently elected as honorary 'Great Grandfather’ of the art-movement known as North Sea Magical Realism, of which Mark Burrell is a leading member..

Thomas Browne not only introduced the words ‘locomotion’ and ‘network’ (as an artificial concept) into the English language, but also believed in the existence of angels [1]. Holding such seemingly contrary beliefs, namely scientific and religious, appears incompatible to modern-day sensibilities, but in Browne’s era it was possible to possess both an imaginative scientific mind which anticipated ‘locomotion’, as well as believing in the existence of angels. And in fact there’s no small similarity in the fantasy imagery of Burrell’s The Homing-Ground to an illustration originating in Sir Thomas Browne’s era. 

In an frontispiece illustration to a German 1618 manifesto believed to be by the elusive Rosicrucian fraternity, there can be seen another form of improbable transport  inducing a cognitive dissonance upon the viewer. A castle on wheels. Its improbability is heightened by two disproportionately large objects, a sword wielded by a giant arm, and an over-sized trumpet. Both Burrell's art and Theophilus Schweighardt's illustration are the products of deeply original imaginative minds. [2]

Long resident at England’s most easterly town, Lowestoft, there’s something quintessentially British about Burrell’s art, in humour, as well as its Spencer-like draughtsmanship and portraiture. Burrell himself berates those who mistakenly describe his favourite artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) as a parochial, Little Englander figure, (in all probability from a lack of familiarity with one of 20th century Britain's greatest painters) while totally misjudging the artistic stature of one who was ‘an outstanding draughtsman’ in Burrell’s view, amongst other accomplishments of Spencer’s art. [3]

Like Stanley Spencer, Burrell is an artist who does not shy from travelling less-travelled, often darker paths in his artistic observations upon human nature. This uncompromising ability to examine less-pleasant aspects of human nature can initially produce an uncomfortable viewing experience; and it is only when one acknowledges that life is not always sweetness and light, and that there remain taboo aspects of the human psyche that one begins to appreciate Burrell’s artistic integrity as he unflinchingly tackles the subject-matter of his art.

In many ways Burrell’s humorous yet perplexing painting, which is not without a philosophical element, may be considered as having a kinship to imaginative worlds similar to those of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass or those portrayed in the pythonesque animation of Terry Gilliam (b. 1940). Indeed, after seeing the film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasssus’ (2010) Burrell lauded Gilliam’s fantasy as ‘mesmerising’.

In summary, Burrell’s The Homing-Ground has a number of themes, these include Time and the human condition, childhood innocence and the sacred, along with death and the unknown. These are all enhanced and heightened in emotional intensity through the artist’s distinctive mood-inducing tonal palette, most often involving a palette somewhat reminiscent of the dark and vivid tones of a Gothic stained-glass window, but uniquely Burrell's.

Painted over twenty years ago, The Homing-Ground may be viewed as a coming-of-age art-work, marking the artist's early maturity as he explores and successfully develops, a personal artistic language in style, home-grown symbolism and thematic concerns. Burrell continues to develop further. The Homing-Ground remains a significant work in a fascinating and expansive portfolio. 

Notes

[1] Part 1 paragraph 33 of Religio Medici has a whole paragraph discussing Angels. It includes a footnote which states- Thereby is meant our good angel appointed us from our nativity.’

[2] The Rosicrucian Enlightenment  Dame Frances Yates pub. RKP 1972

[3]  Stanley Spencer at Burghclere George Behrend pub. Macdonald and Co. 1965

See Also

Mark Burrell -North Sea Magical Realist artist extraordinaire

Mark Burrelll -Wikipedia entry

Mark Burrell discusses his artistic development in a video. 

Aelita & The Heart of a Dog

"Touch my lips with your lips, the same way they do on Earth" commands Aelita,  Queen of Mars.

The early years of Soviet Russia witnessed bold experimentation in the arts. In particular, Science-fiction was hugely popular during the 1920's in Russia,  especially the novels of H.G.Wells, whose short stories often describe an advanced society shaped by scientific progress. Speculation upon scientific discovery and themes found in H.G Well's novels, inspired Russian novelists such as Mikhail Bulgakov, Aleksei Tolstoy and Alexander Belyaev to discuss the moral implications of scientific discoveries, both real and imaginary to a fast changing Russian society. Science-fiction also found expression in Russia in the newly emerging art form of mass entertainment, the cinema. 

Aelita

First screened in 1924, Aelita was one of the earliest of all science-fiction films. It tells of Los, a engineer living in Moscow who dreams of Aelita, the Queen of Mars. He builds a spaceship to take him to her, and they fall in love. However, Los soon finds himself involved in a proletarian uprising to establish a Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Los's imaginary trip to Mars concludes with the engineer consigning the manuscript of his literary fantasy to the fire, solemnly uttering the Communist Party sentiment, 'We have more serious work to do'.

Intended as ideologically correct mass entertainment which could compete both in Russia and abroad with Hollywood, while also being art-house cinema of a quality equal to German Expressionist films such as Fritz Lang's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the film critic Ben Sonnenberg wrote of Aelita-

"It has interplanetary travel, romance, murder, theft and fraud, a comic detective, thoughts about mankind's future in space (also comic) and political comment. Its scenes here on Earth are, well, earthbound: the acting is naturalistic. Its Mars, by contrast, is out of this world". 

The strength of Aelita as a film rests upon three solid foundations, a well-written script, its overall direction, and the originality of its set, decor and costumes.

Directed by Yakov Protaznov (1881-1945) the ‘King of Russian silent film’ Protaznov had already directed over 80 feature films between 1911 to 1918 when he was persuaded to return to Russia from France and Germany where he was developing a new career. Protaznov's skills as a film director successfully linked Russia's hitherto isolated film-industry with important trends in contemporary world cinema. Aelita's influence can be seen in films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and later in the American Flash Gordon serial (1936).

The most original feature to modern viewers of Aelita are its Martian-style sets and costumes which were coordinated in the distinctive avant-garde style of Russian Constructivism by the Franco-Russian designer, Alexandra Exter (1882-1949).

The producers of Aelita struggled to acquire scarce resources such as 70,000 feet of negative film, aluminium and celluloid to build Mars and one of the most impressive cast and crew ever assembled in the 1920's for a film. The opening night of Aelita was unprecedented in Russian film. The theatre facade was decorated with 'giant figures of Aelita and Tuskub,the princess and King of Mars, surrounded by illuminated columns and geometric shapes approximating to the films 'Martian' decor and illuminated with flashing lights'.

The huge success of Aelita was propelled by factors such as the re-publication of Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's mathematical calculations which proposed that spaceflight was a real possibility. Tsiolkovsky's speculations sparked newspaper stories in 1924, the year of Aelita's release, about rockets and spaceships that would be carrying people into space. 

There was inevitably an ideological backlash to the success of Aelita. Criticized for its excessive budget and attacked for its Western-style escapism, commercialism and ideological compromise; with the emergence of another style and direction to Soviet cinema, notable from Sergei Eisenstein (1989-1948) Aelita was swiftly dropped from distribution and circulation. 

Today Aelita is regarded as a film of international significance. Its not rocket science to realize that its contribution to popular interest in space travel helped to plant the seeds of Russia's early dominance in the space race. The first generation of Soviet space engineers, Sergei Korolev (1907-66) and Valentin Glushko (1908-89) for example, were inspired not only by Tsiolkovsky's mathematical calculations, but also by science-fiction such as Aelita. The rocket engineer Vladimir Chelomei (1914-84) even named his proposed mission to send people to Mars Aelita, after watching the film as a 10 year old boy.

The script of Aelita was based upon a story written by Aleksei Tolstoy (1883-1945) upon his feted return to Russia in 1923. Tolstoy, like several other Russian authors, was inspired in his writing Aelita from reading the science-fiction of H.G.Wells.

H.G.Wells

The English author H.G.Wells (1866-1946) is often credited as being 'the father of science-fiction'. Because his novels are written in a clear, unsophisticated style, with few unproblematic nuances of meaning in translation, (unlike authors contemporary to him, the writings of D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf, for example),  Wells's short stories and the novels The Time Machine (1895)  The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and The War of the Worlds (1898), were hugely popular with Russian readers as exciting adventure stories which involve discussion upon future scientific and technological progress. They subsequently influenced several early Soviet Russian science-fiction writers.  

H.G. Wells's novels became first available in  Russian translation as early as the 1890's and became even more popular after the 1917 Revolution. He visited Russia several times, both before and after the 1917 Revolution and during the era of Stalin. A great admirer of Russian culture, upon his first visit to Moscow in 1914, he attended a performance of Chekhov’s The Seagull with Olga Knipper and Stanislavsky in leading roles, declaring the play to be a revelation to him and that even if he had not known the drama he would have understood everything just by watching the wonderful acting.

Through his friendship with Maxim Gorky, H.G.Wells was introduced to, and discussed political matters with some of the highest-ranking Communist Party officials, including Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Well's high reputation among some Party members was such that Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Soviet People's Commissar of Education, responsible for culture and education, in an introduction to a new six volume edition of H.G. Wells's writings in 1930, declared him to be, 'one of the best psychologists in contemporary literature'. And to this day H.G.Wells novels are listed on the Russian State education reading list.

Mikhail Bulgakov

One of H.G. Wells admirers was Mikhail Bulgakov (1888-1940) who published his novella The Fatal Eggs (Роковые яйца) in 1924. Also known as The Red Ray (Луч жизни) Bulgakov's story tells of an eccentric zoologist who accidentally discovers a ray which accelerates the growth. One influential source behind Bulgakov's short story was H. G. Wells's The Food of the Gods (1904) in which two scientists also discover a way to accelerate growth. Bulgakov's The Fatal Eggs even references The Food of the Gods in a conversation held between the zoologist Persikov and his assistant Ivanov who declares-

Do you understand, Vladir Ipatych,” he continued excitedly, “H.G.Wells’s heroes are nothing compared to you... and I thought that was all make-believe.. Remember his Food for the Gods !”
"Ah, that’s a novel, " Perisov replied.
"Yes, of course, but it’s famous!"
"I've forgotten it, "Persikov said. "I remember reading it, but I've forgotten it".

Bulgakov's short story The Fatal Eggs concludes in the death of a horde of giant snakes from cold weather, not dissimilar to the death of the aliens in Well's The War of the Worlds. One interpretation of Bulgakov's The Fatal Eggs is that, like the 1917 revolution, scientific experiments can set into motion events which become increasingly uncontrollable. In late 1924, Bulgakov wrote in his diary of his short story - 'Is it a satire? Or a provocative gesture? ... I'm afraid that I might be hauled off ... for all these heroic feats.' Bulgakov's fear of being admonished by Soviet officialdom were realized following the ban upon his subsequent novella, The Heart of a Dog (1925).

Inspired from a reading of H.G.Well's, The Island of Doctor Moreau in which Doctor Moreau, an eminent, but discredited scientist, creates human-like beings from animals through vivisection; the novel debates a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature. In a new Russian translation of The Island of Doctor Moreau in 1930, Mikhail Zavadovsky, a biologist and specialist in mental processes enthusiastically exclaimed of H.G. Well's portrayal of the human mind and its capacities-

'The central idea of this novel is that human will and knowledge will achieve this goal when, with a scalpel in his hand, man will be able to change and reorganize living organisms'.

H.G.Wells himself in an essay entitled The Limits of Individual Plasticity (1895), expressed a firm belief that the events depicted in The Island of Doctor Moreau are entirely possible if vivisection experiments were ever tested outside the confines of science fiction.

Heart of a Dog

Ever since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) Science fiction has been closely linked to tales of medical horror. Mikhail Bulgakov, a qualified doctor, in his novella The Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце,1925) tells of the genius Professor Preobrazhensky (preobraz being a word-play upon the Slavic word for transformation) who, one winter's day, entices a stray dog to his home in order to conduct a hideous experiment. Operating upon the dog, Preobrazhensky implants the pituitary gland and testes of an unknown person into the dog Sharik.

Although Professor Preobrazhensky warns his devoted assistant Bormethal against trying to create a genius artificially  .. 'what if the the dog had been given the pituitary gland of a great man, a Spinoza, instead of a criminal, alcoholic itinerant balalaika player?' he asks, nevertheless he proceeds with his experiment, with both grotesque and comic consequences.

There is a claustrophobic feel to Bulgakov's novella. The action rarely leaves the confines of  Preobrazhensky's seven room apartment. His servants obey him without hesitation and he himself represents the old order of Russia, authoritarian and respectful of foreign culture, attending the Bolshoi theatre and forever humming to himself an aria from Verdi's Aida ' On the Banks of the Nile' while conducting his surgical experiments. 

Bulgakov's novella has similarities in its thematic concerns with the European legend of Dr. Faustus, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well as H.G.Wells The Island of Doctor Moreau in its discussion upon the moral integrity of scientific experiments. According to one literary critic the message of The Heart of a Dog is that man must recognize the existence of limits to his powers; that there are realms, divine and natural, where he cannot tread without the danger of creating something blasphemous and unnatural- without carrying out a Satanic act. This idea was antithetical  to Communists, whose entire agenda was based on the notion that God does not exist, that nature was infinitely plastic, and that they could create a new, better man.

Bulgakov's novella displays Gogolian-Chekhovian buffoonery, ridiculing attempts to create a new Soviet superman and Communist party rhetoric such as- 

"Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman."

Because of his sharp, thinly-veiled criticism of Russian communism, Bulgakov's novella was immediately banned by Soviet officials and not officially published until 1987, almost 60 years since it was first penned.

The literary critic James Meek detected in The Heart of a Dog the influence of H.G. Wells, Gogol and Bulgakov's friend and contemporary Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) the author of We (1924). Zamyatin's highly-influential science-fiction novella depicts a future dystopia in which those rebelling against totalitarianism are surgically operated upon in order to make them obedient to the State. Zamyatin's novel predates and in all probability influenced the dystopian themed novels of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1931) and later in 1949 in George Orwell's 1984. 

Alexander Belyaev

The cross-referencing and shared influences between Russian and British science-fiction writers reached a new zenith in the author Alexander Belyaev (1884-1942). Belyaev also catered to Russian hopes and fears for scientific discovery to dramatically transform lives. His first story, Professor Dowell's Head ((Голова Профессора Доуэля, 1925) concerns itself with a head transplant. Subsequent stories feature a man with transplanted shark-gills, Amphibian Man ( (Человек-Амфибия, 1928) The Air Seller (Продавец воздуха, 1929) in which a gigantic air-machine literally hoovers up all military opposition, and KETs Star (Звезда КЭЦ, 1936) a tribute to the recently deceased Russian scientist,  Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935).

Alexander Belyaev first read H.G. Wells when convalescing from tuberculosis as a young man and eventually met his literary hero in Leningrad in 1934. Like many Russian writers Belyaev lived a short, tragic life, dying from starvation in the Soviet town of Pushkin while it was occupied by the Nazis. (Yevgeny Zamyatin died in poverty of a heart attack in 1937 aged 53, Bulgakov died from an inherited kidney disorder aged 48).

In Belyaev's death one of the greatest examples of a love of literature transcending narrow Nationalist interests occurred. A Nazi officer and four soldiers carried Belyaev's starved body from his home and conducted a burial. The officer spoke a short eulogy at his grave, saying that when he was a boy, he had loved reading the writer's books translated into German.

Today, in a continuing reciprocation between Russian and English science-fiction writers, English readers are indebted to the translator Maria K. the pen name of Maria Igorevna Kuroschepova (b. 1975) for introducing Belyaev's works to a wider audience. 

Sources

Wikipedia (Aelita, H.G. Wells, Alexander Belyaev and The Heart of a Dog)


'The Reception of H.G..Wells in Europe', edited by Patrick Parringer and John S. Partington published by Bloomsbury Academic 2013
Chapters 'H.G.Wells in Russian literary Criticism 1890s-1940s' and 'Future Perfect: H.G.Wells and Bolshevik Russia, 1917-32'.

DVD sleeve notes to 1991 Kino International release of Aelita by David Shepard

Images

Top- A still from Aelita
Next - Photograph of H.G. Wells
Next -Photograph of Mikhail Bulgakov circa 1910
Next - A  1988 production in sepia of The Heart of a Dog
Last - A Photograph of Alexander Belyaev

Youth without Youth

'What do we do with time?...time, the supreme ambiguity of the human condition.'

Set in Europe on the brink of World War II, Mircea Eliade's novella Youth without Youth (1976) tells the story of Dominic Matei, an elderly polymath, linguist and expert in comparative religion who, when struck by lightning, not only miraculously recovers, but is rejuvenated and gains extraordinary powers. Youth without Youth also explores the myth of the eternal return, that is, the cyclic repetition of time, as well as the consequences of being granted the wish to fall in love one last time. 

In essence Eliade's novella debates upon the supreme ambiguity of the human condition, that of Time. As the narrator, Professor Matei declares - 'All men want to live long, to exceed, if possible, a hundred years; but in the vast majority of cases, once they reach the age of sixty or sixty-five and retire, i.e.become free to do what they want, they become bored. They discover they have nothing to do with their free time. And on the other hand, the older a man becomes the more the rhythm of interior time accelerates, so that those persons -those very few - who would know what to do with free time, do not succeed in doing much of importance'.

The symbolism of being struck by lightning is discussed in Mircea Eliade's Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1957) in terms of a shamanistic experience thus - 'The man who has survived being struck by lightning acquires a "sensibility" not attainable at the level of ordinary experience; the revelation of the divine "choice" is manifested by the destruction of all the anterior structures: the "elect" becomes "another"; he feels himself to be not only dead and re-born, but born into existence which, while it is lived to all appearances in this world of ours, is framed in other existential dimensions. In terms of traditional shamanistic ideology, this experience is expressed as the combustion of the flesh and the breaking-up of the skeleton.....Now, this modification of the sensibility, acquired spontaneously by the shock of an extraordinary event, is what is laboriously sought for during the apprenticeship of those who are working to obtain the shamanistic gift'. 

Its interesting to note in the medieval Tarrochi divination cards arcana XVI depicts a tower being struck by lightning. It may allude to the destruction of fixed and inflexible thinking, and enlightenment through renewal and regeneration. 

Dominic Matei's new superhuman gifts of memory and comprehension attract the attention not only of journalists and the media, but also the Nazi Party. Obliged to assume a new identity and facial features, Matei begins to exercise his new powers and fulfill his lifelong quest, to understand the origins of human language and speech. He also encounters an alter-ego Doppelganger who conjures two roses from nowhere and asks him the question, 'Where do you want me to place the third rose?' A youthful in appearance Dominic Matei begins an odyssey which takes him from Bucharest to Monte Carlo, Switzerland, India, Malta and Dublin. During his travels he has the wish-fulfillment to fall deeply in love one last time granted to him with devastating consequences.

It's no coincidence that Dominic Matei's story begins at Easter and ends at Christmas, ending where it began, visiting friends at the Café Select in Bucharest, Romania; however, Dominic discovers he is now wearing hospital pajamas and no-one has heard of the historical events he mentions. In desperation he cites the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou's story of the butterfly as an example of his fate. The full tale of Zhuang Zhou's dream within a dream goes as follows-

"Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He did not know that he was Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. He did not now know whether he was Zhou, who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly who had dreamt that he was Zhou. Now, there must be a difference between Zhou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things."

Dominic Matei's story concludes with his body discovered laying frozen in the snow, no longer young but once more aged, clutching a rose.

The Romanian scholar Eliade Mircea (1907-86) emigrated to America in 1956 where he became a professor at Chicago University a year later. His novella Youth without Youth attracted the attention of American film director Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1938) (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) to return to film after a ten year hiatus.

Coppola's adaptation of Youth without Youth (2007) focuses less on Dominic Matei's time spent in convalescence and transformation in hospital and far more time at the locations of Matei's extensive peregrinations. In an interview, Coppola said that he made the film as a meditation on time and consciousness, which he considers a "changing tapestry of illusion" but also admitted that his film may be appreciated as a beautiful love story, or as a mystery. He also stated-

"I was excited to discover in this tale.....the key themes that I most hope to understand better; time, consciousness, and the dream-like basis of reality. for me it is indeed a return to the ambitions I had for my work in cinema as a student".

Coppola's film adaptation of Youth without Youth also features a superb soundtrack by Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1961). Evoking the mysterious and melancholic, including music performed on the cembalon, as well as 1930's tango, it makes a strong contribution to the narrating of Dominic Matei's strange story. The composer Golijov said of his work on the film-

'Collaborating with Francis was an amazing dream. I never lost my sense of wonder. Working with a great hero of mine, of my late father and of my friends in Argentina. On each occasion I spent time with him, I felt it was possible to fulfill every dream in life'.

Not unlike P. D. Ouspensky's novella The Strange life of Ivan Osokin (1915) which also uses fiction as a vehicle to explore the esoteric concept of eternal recurrence, both the novella and film adaptation of Youth without Youth are ultimately flawed, as all attempts to popularize esoteric concepts result either in universal comprehension, in which case they are no longer esoteric but exoteric concepts, or worse, become trivialized. Mircea Eliade's genius as a scholar of comparative religion, like the Russian theosophist P.D. Ouspensky's, is best expressed in his non-fiction writings, complete with academic references and a fuller, developed exploration of esoteric concepts, without resorting to the short-hand restrictions of entertainment values. Nevertheless, both Eliade's novella and Coppola's film adaptation of Youth without Youth stimulates the mental faculty most seriously undernourished in modern society, namely, the imagination.

Wiki-link Mircea Eliade

Recommended reading

Mircea Eliade - The Myth of the Eternal Return (1945)
Mircea Eliade -  Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1957)
Mircea Eliade -  The Sacred and the Profane (1959) 

Merivel: A Man of his Time

Returning some twenty plus years from  Restoration (1989) novelist Rose Tremain continues her tale of Sir Robert Merivel's life with an equally spellbinding sequel,  Merivel: A Man of his Time (2013).

Set primarily in 17th century Norfolk, with excursions to the glamour of the Court of Versailles and the French Alps,  the cares of the world now crowd around both King Charles II and his friend, the courtier and reluctant physician, Sir Robert Merivel, who is once more resident at the Norfolk manor of Bidnold.  Merivel's daughter Margaret, is now a young woman and securing her future is a primary concern of her at turns, frivolous and pleasure-seeking, self-analytical and serious-minded father. When King Charles leaves London and unexpectedly visits the Norfolk manor of Bidnold, consequences develop for both Sir Robert and his daughter Margaret.

Robert Merivel is at times a kind of 17th century Bertie Wooster figure whose primary preoccupations are fine food and wine and pleasure in general. Through the discovery under his mattress of  'the wedge' a long forgotten and crumbling autobiography, Merivel recounts past events in which he lived a life of pleasure before falling from grace with King Charles II. Eventually Merivel restores himself in the eyes of his royal friend through application of his medical skills in service to humanity in the crucible of horrors, the Plague and Great Fire of London.

There's almost an element of Fawlty Towers farce in some of the antics engaged upon by the two longest serving servants of Sir Robert's Bignold Manor, the temperamental and wall-eyed cook, Cattlebury and the doddery but loyal and devoted butler Will Gates, However, the dominant tone throughout Merivel is one of a muted valedictory farewell to life and its pleasures. Prone to melancholy and inexplicable weeping at the beauty of life, Sir Robert now in his maturity, muses upon life’s sadness, not only discovering he enjoys pleasures such as wine, food and sex less, but also reconciling himself to life’s inevitabilities, growing older, illness, and reconciling oneself to seeing those one loves departing from life. Loving life, often directionless, and paying heavily for the consequences of his follies, Robert Merivel is not without a serious and self-analytical side to his complex nature.

'And then I thought how Life itself is the greatest Theft of Time, and how all we can do is to watch as the days and months and years slip away from us and make off into the Darkness'.

Not wanting to post spoilers, suffice to say events in Merivel include Sir Robert's acquiring of a bear named Clarendon who has an influence upon him when later writing a philosophical treatise on whether or not animals possess souls, and Merivel's finding true love for the first time in the unhappily married Frenchwoman Louise, a serious student of the new science of chemistry.

With its medical theme (Merivel possesses a set of surgical instruments, a gift from King Charles II with the words, Merivel, Do not Sleep inscribed upon them) its location of Norfolk, and seventeenth century setting, Rose Tremain, in my humble view, may have let slip an opportunity to join literary figures such as Virginia Woolf, E.M.Forster, Jorge Luis Borges and W.G. Sebald, to express admiration, albeit through a casual nod, to one of the foremost literary figures of seventeenth century England, the Norwich-based physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82).

Several other leading figures of seventeenth century intellectual history are however alluded to in Merivel. Sir Robert fondly recalls his attending lectures by the famous anatomist Fabrius with rowdy German students and his close friend, the austere Quaker John Pearce cherishs a book by William Harvey. Self-analysis, not unlike that of the popular essayist Montaigne runs through Merivel's narrative. Although its regrettable that Sir Robert doesn't allude to either Browne's best-selling Religio Medici or his vanguard promotion of the English scientific revolution, Pseudodoxia Epidemica one likes to imagine these titles were once in the library of Merivel's Norfolk manor.

It has been said that "the single best adjective to describe Western Civilization at the opening of the seventeenth century was the word “Christian.” By the century’s end the single word that rightly characterized the West was “scientific.” Merivel attributes his own loss of religious Faith from the death of his parents through house-fire. Increasingly, as his life progresses, he places greater faith in his surgical instruments than in prayer when facing matters of life and death. The one and only time Merivel does speak with any semblance of religious conviction occurs in Restoration when addressing his Quaker fellow-workers at an asylum for the insane, when he advocates on the healing properties of music upon the minds of its inmates.

Digressing slightly, no small mention of Opium occurs in Merivel. First introduced into western medicine by Paracelsus as a pain-killer and anaesthetic, by the seventeenth century Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) the ‘father of English medicine' declared, "Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium". Throughout the seventeenth century opium became increasingly used in medicine. Sir Robert when performing a surgical operation on a cancer patient resorts to using the drug. In despondent mood, he also attempts to escape his miseries by repeatedly sending his servant to a Norwich apothecary for its purchase.

Opium is invariably associated with Oblivion in the densely-packed symbolism of Browne's Urn-Burial. A succinct and perceptive observation of its psychological effects in a typical fusion of philosophical stoicism, medical imagery and empirical observation can be found in the Discourse -

'There is no antidote against the Opium of Time, which temporally considereth all things'.

Browne’s commonplace notebooks includes observations upon dosage and effects of opium, while a fuller knowledge of the drug and even its recreational usage with sex can be found in Pseudodoxia Epidemica -

 '.....since Poppy hath obtained the Epithet of fruitful, and that fertility was Hieroglyphically described by Venus with an head of Poppy in her hand; the reason hereof was the multitude of seed within it self, and no such multiplying in human generation. And lastly, whereas they may seem to have this quality, since Opium it self is conceived to extimulate unto venery, and for that intent is sometimes used by Turks, Persians, and most oriental Nations; although Winclerus doth seem to favour the conceit, yet Amatus Lustanus, and Rodericus a Castro are against it; Garcias ab Horto refutes it from experiment; and they speak probably who affirm the intent and effect of eating Opium, is not so much to invigorate themselves in coition, as to prolong the Act, and spin out the motions of carnality'.

Its even been proposed that one reason why Browne’s prose reads unlike any other may have been due to an empirical familiarity with opium. During the decade of the Protectorate of Cromwell and the highly uncertain days which engendered an Endzeit Psychosis upon much of English society, it may have been tempting for Royalist supporters such as Browne to reach into the medicine cabinet.  Its also a curious coincidence that two of the leading figures of English Romanticism, the essayist De Quincey and the poet Coleridge, both of whom were great admirers of Browne’s baroque and labyrinthine literary style were also notorious for their recreational usage of opium.

Sir Thomas Browne’s literary diptych Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus - each of which consists of five chapters, are respectively- a philosophical meditation upon a descending into darkness and death and a coming into light and life. They are intriguingly echoed in theme to the opening chapter of Restoration in which Merivel considers five differing ways his story can be said to begin, while the opening of Merivel-A Man of his Time has Sir Robert meditating upon five differing possibilities of how his life may leave the world.

Like Restoration, the first-person narrative throughout Merivel is fluid and utterly engaging. Rose Tremain has created a character who will be well-loved with a familiarity of his life and times. I won't be alone in discovering myself to identify with Sir Robert's all-too-human faults or having an empathy with him, reinforced in my case by Merivel's birthday falling on the 27th of January, mine also. Merivel muses upon the Zodiac sign of Aquarius thus -

'I was born under the constellation of Aquarius, the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, the sign of the water-butler, that humble but indispensable slave who fetches from wells and rivers the elements so vital to the human tissue. I imagine this Aquarius as an old, stooped man, his spine warped by the weight of a wooden yoke from which hang a pair of briming pails. On he staggers, day after day, year after year, with his precious burden, but as his strength is waning, he totters and stumbles and, as he moves through time, more and more water is spilled, thereby engendering in the bellies of the ancient gods an irritation stronger than thirst'.

I cannot recommend this novel enough, but to get the most out of Merivel its best to read the early life of Sir Robert Merivel in Rose Tremain’s Restoration first.

The novel Restoration was made into a film in 1995 with the one-time Hollywood bad-boy Robert Downey Jr. acting to the Manor born the role of Sir Robert Merivel (top and bottom photo). Rose Tremain however said of the film that while it had a beautiful texture to it she was disappointed with the film's storytelling. She also said that the film had no logic and so fails to move the audience. Her disappointment led her to take up scriptwriting. One can’t help thinking a more sensitive filming of the novel could have been made by a British direction and production, perhaps of the calibre of Merchant and Ivory. Rose Tremain herself has recently been appointed Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. She was among the University's earliest students in the 60's, reading English literature.

Finally, and I may be among the first to notice this - Sir Robert Merivel resides at the fictitiously named Bidnold Manor, he occasionally romps in the bed of a Lady Bathurst and has a bear named Clarendon. Those familiar with the geography of the so-called ‘golden Triangle' area of Norwich will know that near to Bignold school and adjacent to each other there is a Clarendon and a Bathurst road.

See Also

Rose Tremain

Restoration (novel)

Restoration (1995 film)

A mighty Stone falling from the Clouds

Two major astronomical events occurred on Friday 15th February, 2013. First a sizeable meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Oblast in the Southern Urals, then, 15 hours later, a 50 metre asteroid skimmed a mere 17,000 miles past Earth. The meteorite and asteroid were almost 500,000 kilometres apart and travelling in completely different directions. The Chelyabinsk meteor known as 2012 DA14 is the largest object known to have entered the Earth's atmosphere since the days of the Siberian meteorite of Tungaska in 1908.

Meteorites have long been of interest to scientists. Included among the many curious, rare and imaginary books, paintings and objects conjured from Sir Thomas Browne's fertile imagination and summarily listed in his late miscellaneous tract Museum Clausum (circa 1676) there can be found-

14. Another describing the mighty Stone falling from the Clouds into Aegospotamos or the Goats River in Greece, which Antiquity could believe that Anaxagoras was able to foretell half a year before.

The ancient Greek Anaxagoras (c. 510–428 BCE) was one of the first scientific thinkers to speculate upon phenomena such as eclipses, meteors, rainbows and the sun. The protagonist in American author Gore Vidal's 1981 novel Creation reminds us of the Greek scientist's claim to fame-

'According to Anaxagoras one of the largest things is a hot stone that we call the sun. When Anaxagoras was very young, he predicted that sooner or later a piece of the sun would break off and fall to earth.... The whole world saw a fragment of the sun fall in a fiery arc through the sky, landing near Aegospotami in Thrace. When the fiery fragment cooled, it proved to be nothing more than a chunk of brown rock. Overnight Anaxagoras was famous'.

Sir Thomas Browne's study and reading of early Greek science was exceptional amongst pioneers of the 17th century scientific revolution. The philosophical and scientific thought of Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastus are well-represented in his library, as are books by Archimedes and Euclid. In all probability Browne encountered Anaxagoras's scientific observations when reading either Pliny, Simplicus of Cilicia (c.490-560 CE) or Aristotle's criticisms of the pre-Socratic philosopher. Browne's own scientific speculations  include the observations-

'The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.' - from Christian Morals Part III, Section XXIX

To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (i.e. God) need but put out the Sun. - from A letter to a Friend

At present, modern-day science can only predict such events within approximately two weeks of their occurring. The Chelyabinsk meteor was totally beyond prediction or detection until entering the earth's atmosphere and exploding, causing wide-spread damage and shock, injuring over 1,000 people.

The Danish film director Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) analyzes in depth the psychological effects experienced by two sisters when faced with an impending cosmological disaster.

Notes

Greek science books listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's Library include-

Archimedes Opera Gk. and Latin. Commentary David Rivalti 1615 p. 28 no. 2

Aristotle  - Over 15 various titles listed.

Plato - Theologia Platonica de Immortalitate Paris 1559 p. 15 no. 95

Plato - Chalcidii Timaeus de Platonis - Notes J. Mersius 1617 p. 11 no. 106

Simplicus - Commentary in Enchiridion  Epistles Gk.  and Latin  pub. L.B. 1640 p. 10 no. 43

Links

Wiki-link to article on the  2013 Russian Meteorite event

Browne's  miscellaneous tract 13  Museum Clausum