Albert Cooper

“I am a Norwich Man born and bred who has tried his best.”- A.C.

Throughout its long history the city of Norwich has produced a breed of hard-working, highly skilled and independent artisan craftsmen, the 'old master' artists, John Crome, John Cotman and Joseph Stannard for example. One must add to these illustrious names, the jazz and blues vocalist Albert Cooper, who's been performing in Norwich for sixty years now.

One evening, when visiting Albert at home sharing a bottle of wine, we catch a recently made film portrait about him on Mustard TV recollecting his long life of music making. The short documentary includes Cooper's reminiscing on his first stage appearance aged 12 singing Christmas carols at the long-gone Hippodrome Theatre, his epiphanal moment when first hearing 'Black Anna’ and his memories of singing with her at The Jolly Butchers pub in the 1950's. 

Albert Cooper shares his birthday not only with the great Anglo-American comedian Stan Laurel (1890 -1965) but also International Bloomsday. And in fact he's a great admirer of James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses (1922) ; there’s even a touch of the Leopold Bloom in Albert in Chris Bailey's film as he walks the streets of the city he loves while remembering the pubs, shops and smells of a Norwich long gone. 

Albert Cooper’s two great lamentations are the madness of Norwich City Planners in their wanton vandalism masquerading as ‘development’ throughout the 1960's to the present-day, and the outcome of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. Nevertheless, hailing from one of Norwich's oldest Catholic families, the Roman Catholic faith remains the bedrock foundation of Cooper’s belief. Nurtured since a boy chorister upon the music composed for Mass by Gounod, Schubert and Mozart, he's been a committed Catholic his entire life, regularly attending Mass at the Roman Catholic cathedral of Saint John the Baptist’s at Norwich.

As the wine flows and the evening progresses, Albert, I discover, is an extremely engaging raconteur. Talking on Norwich in the 1950's in the days before TV and video when the Capitol, Odeon, Electric, Regent, Haymarket, Carlton and Noverre cinemas thrived, young Albert would sometimes visit the cinema three or four times in a week. These days he's a bit of a film buff and swiftly names Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, Dr. Zhivago, Sabrina, the Ealing comedies of the 50's and, keeping abreast with modern trends The Lives of Others as favourite viewing. But above all, its David Lean's Brief Encounters (1946) with its soundtrack of the passionate and romantic music of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto which is Albert's all-time favourite film.

Albert Cooper has performed at numerous venues throughout Norwich over the decades. He even co-managed his own music venue The Jacquard during the 60's and 70's where artists of the calibre of Paul Simon, Sandy Denny, George Melly and Ralph McTell, among many others, once performed. 

There’s a certain laid-back vigour to Cooper's own performing these days. His lifelong suffering from 'stage-nerves’ is testimony to his conscientious nature, wanting to give the audience his very best, which as a consummate artist, he invariably does. At present Cooper can be heard on a monthly basis at the Rumsey Wells. Visiting the pub on a night billed as a Blues evening, I catch his excellent interpretation of Bob Dylan’s Stuck in Mobile Blues, which I and others consider he performs as good, if not better than Dylan. I also realise he's older than Dylan himself ! Brilliantly accompanied by a driving Hammond Organ, by Albert's son Chris Cooper who is an accomplished musician and a distinguished, prize-winning Cambridge scholar in Jazz studies Chris's keyboard playing is an integral part of the Albert Cooper sound. Loyal band members bassist Owen Morgan and drummer Robert Masters also make no small contribution to the Cooper sound. 

Albert's high reputation these days is such that when he hears of his lead guitarist Ronnie Dearing's illness (Get well soon Ronnie) his call for a stand-in guitarist is filled within hours. Of all the many songs he performs it is perhaps My Love will never Die which has become his signature song.

I was probably in an highly emotionally charged state when visiting the excellent Rumsey Wells pub on an evening billed as a Jazz night. On this particular evening Albert wears another hat from his diverse persona, that of the romantic crooner. He candidly admits to having a strong romantic and even at times a melancholic and depressive streak. His highly developed ear for a good melody and meaningful lyric results in his continuing to expand his repertoire. This evening he sings for the first time,  I Read a Lot by Nick Lowe. Like healing balm to the soul, one senses that here is a man who sings lyrics with great insight and sensitivity.  Hopefully its a song which will be added to his already extensive repertoire. Other songs Albert sings that night include Lush Life, Sentimental Journey, Stella by Starlight and Jobim's Night of the quiet Stars. 

The diversity of Albert Cooper's music-making can be gleaned from the fact that during the 1970's he inadvertently became the star of the show at Norwich's Maddermarket Theatre in performances of Old-time Music Hall, singing songs which his hairdresser father taught him as a boy. He also contributed his talents to the Keswick Hall Choir and UEA choir over the years and deeply regrets, like myself, the University of East Anglia's closing of its School of Music, a decision based supposedly upon financial considerations.  A golden opportunity lost for the far from impoverished University to contribute and integrate with its host City.  

Cooper's musical likes are numerous, and an inventory of all his eclectic taste in music would be exhausting, however balladeers such as Dick Haymes his all-time favourite, along with Frank Sinatra, as well as the song-writing talents of Ray Davies, Justin Hayward and David Bowie deserve mention. In particular he admires the song-writing skills of Bowie from his earliest song, the mysterious Man who sold the world (1969) to the Thin White Duke's latest song, Where are we now? (2013). Albert's bemused when I quote Bowie's lyrics which serendipitously allude to two of his favourite holiday destinations -

See the mice in their million hordes

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads. 

Working at managerial level in tailoring and carpets until his retirement, in the words of his brother Kenneth, its probably just as well fame and fortune didn’t beckon big-time for Albert as they may have drastically shortened his life-span. In a statement typical of his modesty and self-deprecation, Cooper once declared-

"I am a realist and the grand illusion of greatness is a mirage, unless of course you are great which I am not."

In an world increasing mobile and rootless it can be difficult for some to appreciate the deep love and devotion which a born and bred Norvicensian such as Albert Cooper has for his home City. Few people, however brief their acquaintance with Norwich leave it without admiration for its vibrant cultural and civic life. The world’s loss and Norwich's gain is now being re-balanced with many clips available on Youtube of Albert Cooper performing, some of which reveal him to be a master of small talk banter with his audience.

Once, when asked if he had any unfulfilled ambitions, Albert replied, "Not really". On reflection however, Cooper, who is a great admirer of American popular culture, confessed he would like to visit the home of the blues, Chicago, USA. To his surprise and delight tickets to Chicago were provided for him by a fan. It was while at Chicago, visiting a nightclub owned by brothers Phil and Buddy Guy, that Albert Cooper received what he considers to be the greatest compliment ever given to him. Buddy Guy declared that Cooper’s singing The Thrill has Gone was simply the best of all interpretations. Today whenever the octogenarian jazz and blues vocalist performs B.B.King’s song one senses he has a close identification and poignancy with its sentiment. A plain-speaking and honest man, Cooper may be said to join the ranks of Norwich literary figures who indulged in physiognomical observations, namely Sir Thomas Browne, Amelia Opie and George Borrow, when making the perceptive statement -

“In most cases when you are old and wrinkled and white that’s exactly how you appear, but if Black you have the look and style of a true Bluesman”.

Cooper's deep understanding of the human condition is encapsulated in his saying -

'Who wants to be where they are in truth. Thank God for what you have, no matter how small, and in spite of how others seem to be more successful, more talented, more material goods, but still try, still do your best and reap rewards of being you, a total individual, no one else like you. We are all unique, its amazing!'

That evening when leaving Albert Cooper I notice that the view from his studio flat includes a impressive Cityscape in which both the Norman Castle and the Cathedral can be seen in direct alignment, believed by some to be an ancient lay-line of psychic energy, and that his door-number signifies none other than The Star in the Tarot cards. But even without such dubious and nebulous hints, one rock-solid fact I'm confident of, Albert Cooper is dearly loved far and wide by many today. Rightly named as the Godfather of the Blues in Norwich, his musical talents are quite simply one of the city's greatest treasures. Happy 81st birthday Albert !

Post by Albert Cooper.

Sir Thomas Browne and China

Throughout his life the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) possessed an insatiable curiosity upon numerous subjects. Books upon ancient history, geography, philosophy, anatomy, theology, cartography, embryology, medicine, cosmography, ornithology, mineralogy, zoology, travel, law, mathematics, geometry, literature, both Continental and English, the latest advances in scientific thinking in astronomy and chemistry, as well as books on astrology, alchemy and the kabbalah, are all listed in the 1711 sales auction catalogue of his library. Browne was often attracted to subjects considered exotic, mysterious, or little-known of. It should come as no surprise therefore that the distant land of China would attract the curiosity of the learned doctor.

During Browne’s life-time a slow but gradual increase in trade and import of Chinese goods to Europe occurred. Ceramic earthenware was among the earliest and most popular of all Chinese imports, to such an extent that it's very name became synonymous to the country of its origin. However, the manufacture of Chinese porcelain remained unknown in the West. Browne determined to resolve this mystery in his vanguard work of the English scientific revolution, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646). Though quoting Portuguese travellers to China, Browne's observations upon Chinese porcelain are the earliest extant in English.   

We are not thoroughly resolved concerning Porcellane or China dishes, that according to common belief they are made of Earth, which lieth in preparation about an hundred years under ground;.........Gonzales de Mendoza, a man imployed into China from Philip the second King of Spain, upon enquiry and ocular experience......found they were made of a Chalky Earth; which beaten and steeped in water, affordeth a cream or fatness on the top, and a gross subsidence at the bottom; out of the cream of superfluitance, the finest dishes, saith he.....

Later confirmation may be had from Alvarez the Jesuit, who lived long in those parts, in his relations of China.The latest account hereof may be found in the voyage of the Dutch Embassadors sent from Batavia unto the Emperour of China, printed in French 1665 which plainly informeth, that the Earth whereof Porcellane dishes are made, is brought from the Mountains of Hoang, and being formed into square loaves, is brought by water, and marked with the Emperour's Seal: that the Earth itself is very lean, fine, and shining like Sand: and that it is prepared and fashioned after the same manner which the Italians observe in the fine Earthen Vessels of Faventia or Fuenca.. they are so reserved concerning that Artifice, that 'tis only revealed from Father unto Son.  [1]

Elsewhere in Pseudodoxia Epidemica Browne demonstrates his awareness of China’s vast population, stating -

So the City of Rome is magnified by the Latins to be the greatest of the earth; but time and Geography inform us, that Cairo is bigger, and Quinsay in China far exceedeth both. [2]  

Athanasius Kircher (1601-80) a near contemporary and favourite author of Browne's, was a Jesuit priest who had various missionary contacts to China through the Jesuit Order. Like the Norwich doctor, Kircher had an insatiable curiosity and fascination with obscure or esoteric learning, named in the introduction to his Oedipus Aegypticus (1656) as - ‘Egyptian wisdom, Phoenician theology, Hebrew kabbalah, Persian magic, Pythagorean mathematics, Greek theosophy, Mythology, Arabian alchemy, Latin philology’. [3]

When Athanasius Kircher published his China illustrata  in 1667 Browne was finally able to satisfy his curiosity about the distant Eastern civilization. Kircher’s China illustrata [4] was a work of encyclopedic breadth and the most informative book available on China for many years. It included accurate maps as well as mythical creatures, and drew heavily on reports by the Jesuits Michael Boym and Martino Martini who worked in China. Kircher emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined and highlighted the early presence of Nestorian Christians in China. However, he also claimed the Chinese were descended from the sons of Biblical Ham and that Chinese characters originated from Egyptian hieroglyphs! In the above illustration Chinese botany and horticulture, costume and customs, along with architecture, are each faithfully recorded from an eyewitness account of a social gathering, feasting upon the giant 'polomie' jackfruit.

Throughout his life Browne took a keen interest in botany, especially for its medicinal properties. In correspondence to his son Edward, and presuming him to also have access to an edition of Kircher's China illustrata, Browne made one of the earliest recorded references to Ginseng. Widely cultivated in China for centuries, Ginseng is now scientifically recognised for its anticarcinogenic and antioxidant properties.

Deare Sonne, - You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick rarities, especially of the east, the East India trade having encreased, are brought in England, and the profit made thereof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his China illustrata, pag. 178, cap. "De Exoticis China plantis". [5]

Less reliable than his reports on Chinese botany, Kircher’s at times wildly misguided theories in comparative religion are described by Joscelyn Godwin for the illustration below as - ‘A confused memory of Buddhist iconography may have led to this weird image, which Kircher regards as the equivalent of the Great Mother of Western religions. To the Egyptians she is Isis, to the Greeks Cybele. The lotus upon which she is seated represents the ‘Humid principle' which nourishes all things.' [6]

Sir Thomas Browne retained an interest in China until late in his life. His extraordinary, and at times surreal, list of books, pictures and objects rumoured to exist, lost, or imagined, Bibliotheca Abscondita (circa 1675) includes the 'wish-list' entry - The Works of Confucius the famous Philosopher of China, translated into Spanish. [7] 

Inspired by the popularity of the cryptic verse of Nostradamus, first translated into English in the 1670's, Browne’s A Prophecy concerning the future State of Several Nations (circa 1675) predicts the end of the Slave-trade, a full one and a half centuries before its eventual abolition-

When Africa shall no longer sell out its Blacks

to be slaves and Drudges in the American Tracts

Browne continues with the 'prophecy' of  - 

When Batavia the Old shall be contemn’d by the New, 

and a new Drove of Tartars shall China subdue.

- with the following explanation -

Which is no strange thing if we consult the Histories of China, and successive Inundations made by Tartarian Nations.... And this hath happened from time beyond our Histories: for, according to their account, the famous Wall of China, built against the irruptions of the Tartars, was begun above a hundred years before the Incarnation. 

Browne also speculated upon a quicker trading route to Cathay (China’s ancient name) for European traders via circumnavigating the Arctic Circle -

When Nova Zembla shall be no stay

Unto those who pass to or from Cathay.

- once more accompanied by explanation.

That is, Whenever that often sought for Northeast passage unto China and Japan shall be discovered, the hindrance whereof was imputed to Nova Zembla;  ......the main Sea doth not freeze upon the North of Zembla except near unto Shores; so that if the Moscovites were skilfull Navigatours they might, with less difficulties, discover this passage unto China: but however the English, Dutch and Danes are now like to attempt it again. [8]

Finally, its a neat coincidence that Norwich, the city where Sir Thomas Browne lived for the greater part of his life, has a cultural heritage associated with an archetypal mythic creature of China. Ever since the days of the Medieval Guilds Norwich civic processions have been led in parade by the half playful, half fearsome creature 'Snap’ the Dragon; Browne in his day may have witnessed this civic event and the Dragon, emblematic of China, continues to be celebrated as part of Norwich’s cultural heritage to the present-day.

Part 2

Time hath endless rarities, and shows of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth it self a discovery. -Urn-Burial 

With their highly polarized themes, Browne’s two philosophical discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus of 1658 may be interpreted as mirroring the concept of Yin and Yang from classical Chinese Taoist philosophy. However, in order to apprehend this association, its useful to first consult the foremost scholar of comparative religion and esoteric learning in the 20th century, the seminal psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). 

In 1929 Jung received a copy of the Chinese Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower from the Sinologist and Missionary Richard Wilhelm who discussed the possibility that his translated text - a blend of Buddhism and 'inner elixir' Taoism, may have originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE)  at the beginning of Nestorian Christianity. For Jung, Wilhelm's translated text proved to be revelatory. In his 1931 commentary to The Secret of the Golden Flower Jung reminded his reader that-

Science is the tool of the Western mind...it is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is. The East has taught us another, wider, more profound, and higher understanding, that is understanding through life. [9] 

Writing before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Jung stated -

'Western consciousness is by no means the only kind of consciousness there is; it is historically conditioned and geographically limited, and representative of only one part of mankind. The widening of our consciousness ought not to proceed at the expense of other kinds of consciousness; .... The European invasion of the East was an act of violence on a grand scale, and has left us with the duty - noblesse oblige (privilege entails responsibility) - of understanding the mind of the East. This is perhaps more necessary than we realize at present.'  [10]

The Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower confirmed Jung's hypothesis - that globally the substratum of the human psyche has no fundamental differentiation. Within both Western and Eastern psyche, Jung detected, are deeply embedded symbols drawn from a shared collective unconscious. The patterns drawn by Jung's patients in therapy, he realized, share distinct similarities with Mandala art of both Eastern and Western religions as well as in alchemical symbolism. The concepts of medieval western alchemical art, Jung detected, just like Chinese Taoist philosophy, utilize similar symbols which describe psychological processes entirely independent of cultural references or contact with other sources.

The word Tao itself Jung noted, has no satisfactory translation and is variously translated as ‘The Way’ ‘Meaning’ or even ‘God’. Jung comments-

'The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way  "Tao”, and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one’s destination reached; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things. Personality is Tao.'[11] 

Classical Chinese philosophy in Jung’s view was the natural counterpart to medieval alchemy, stating-

the alchemical mysterium coniunctionis is the Western equivalent of the fundamental principle of classical Chinese philosophy, namely the union of yang and yin in Tao.[12] 

Polarity and the union of the opposites is central to Taoist thought. In Chinese philosophy they are characterized by Yin and its associations of the feminine, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, passive, water, earth, the moon, slowness, and nighttime. Yang, by contrast, is characterized by associations of masculine, solid, focused, hardness hot, dry, aggressive, fire, sky, the sun, and daytime. Jung explains further that-

'Opposed to the guiding principle of life that strives towards superhuman, shining heights,  the yang principle, is the dark, feminine, earthbound yin, whose emotionality and instinctuality reach back into the depths of time and down into the labyrinth of the physiological continuum. No doubt these are purely intuitive ideas, but one can hardly dispense with them if one is trying to understand the nature of the human psyche. The Chinese could not do without them because, as the history of Chinese philosophy shows, they never strayed so far from the central psychic facts as to lose themselves in a one-sided over-development and over-evaluation of a single psychic function. They never failed to acknowledge the paradoxicality and polarity of all life. The opposites always balanced one another - a sign of high culture'. [13] 

Although little recognised until modern times, Browne’s diptych discourses of 1658 utilize the basic space-time continuum of alchemical mandala art in their respective framework. Urn-Burial thematically concerning itself with Earth and Time, while its counterpart The Garden of Cyrus ranges throughout Space and Heaven for evidence of the Quincunx pattern. Both Discourses are saturated with one of the most common forms of spiritual symbolism, found in Chinese classical literature and western medieval alchemical texts, that of Darkness and Light. Together the synergy of Browne's twin Discourses works on a profound associative level, often unconsciously to their reader, as they engage in the fundamental goal of alchemy, the uniting of the opposites. 

The dark, earthy, sublunary doubts, gloom and uncertain speculations upon the after-life in Urn-Burial  - lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing  and the alchemical Nigredo of the opus - are intrinsically compatible to the Chinese Taoist concept of Yin.  In perfect harmony and equilibrium The Garden of Cyrus concerns itself with Light, includes solar symbolism, the discernment of scientific certainties through occular observation, while its tone is playful, delighting in  the beauty of art and nature. The Garden of Cyrus is saturated with symbolism involving Light, Optics and the heavens and harmoniously represents the Yang half of the literary diptych. Even in terms of the respective music of their prose, the slow, solemn, stately yin rhythms of Urn-Burial are answered by the fast, hasty, Yang prose of Cyrus. Incidentally, it was Browne who coined the very word 'polarity’ into the English language.

Because the psyche at its deepest and most archaic level shares the same symbols which pre-date particular civilizations or cultures, the Chinese Taoist philosophy of Yin and Yang can equally be discerned in the alchemical mandala known as the Layer monument. Located in the church of Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, Norwich, the right-hand pilaster of Christopher Layer's marble monument depicts sub-lunar suffering, the earth and the feminine, corresponding to the principle of Yin while its left-hand pilaster with its depiction of masculine genitals, vigour, playfulness and victoriousness corresponds perfectly to the principle of Yang.  

Richard Wilhelm's translation of The Golden Flower includes an image of a Chinese adept in contemplation of 'inner heaven'. It may well have appealed to Browne's predilection for the number five and its variants (image below). One can't help also wondering that had Browne ever viewed the modern-day national flag of China with its 4+1 symbolism of 5 stars, each of which is five-pointed, he may have included mention of it in his discourse as yet more visible evidence of the archetypal pattern of five. 

Jung simultaneously reminds his reader that Chinese alchemy is structured upon five elements, identifies the alchemical theme of Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus and obliquely links his hermetic phantasmagoria to Chinese alchemy when stating -

'the quinarius or Quinio (in the form of 4 + 1 i.e. Quincunx) does occur as a symbol of wholeness ( in China and occasionally in alchemy) but relatively rarely’.  [14] 

Astoundingly Jung declared of the Quincunx pattern itself- 

This is a symbol of the quinta essentia, which is identical with the Philosopher’s Stone. It is the circle divided into four with the centre, or the divinity expressed in four directions, or the four functions of consciousness with their unitary substrate, the self. [15]  

In modern times Edward W. Said's seminal study Orientalism (1978) explores Western perceptions of the East in the arts. The development of stereotypes and the reinforcing of Western cultural and intellectual prejudices are examined in Said's ground-breaking foundation work of Oriental studies. Crucial to Oriental studies since William Said's publication, is the understanding, for example, that the philosopher Zhuang Zhou (circa 325 BCE), a contemporary of Plato, is not inferior, less profound or  a weaker philosopher than the 'father of Western philosophy'. It is simply that the two philosophers fundamentally differ in their focus, rather than concern himself with metaphysical and cosmological speculations like Plato, Zhuang-Zhou is more concerned with individual ethics and personal morality.

Although Sir Thomas Browne is the very earliest English philosopher to be interested in China, he is only one of many writers, painters and composers who have shaped Western perceptions of the Near and Far East, for good and bad over centuries. Incidentally, another very early Norwich-Chinese cultural connection exists through the figure of the founding father of ballet, the dancing-master Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810) who occasionally resided in Norwich. Recognising the English and French craze for Chinoiserie he choreographed his very first ballet  Les Fetes Chinoise (1754) with music by Rameau, with a Chinese theme.

                                                      *  *  *

It was the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) a sympathetic ambassador of East-West relations, who declared in his secular verse. [17]

                         

East and West

Can no longer be kept apart.  

Its now imperative with China's advance in role upon the world-stage, of a greater understanding between Western and Eastern minds.

Notes

[1]  P.E. Bk. 2 chapter 5: 7
[2]  P.E. Bk. 6 chapter 8
Quinsay now Hang-chou was visited by Marco Polo.
[3]  Oedipus Egypticus Rome 1652-56 Catalogue p. 8 no. 90
[4] China illustrata Amsterdam 1667  Catalogue p.8 no. 92
[5]  Letter dated April 2nd 1679
[6]  Athanasius Kircher - A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge
Joscelyn Godwin  London 1979 Thames and Hudson
[7] Miscellaneous Tract 13

[8]  Miscellaneous Tract 12
[9]  CW 13: 2
[10]  CW 13: 84
[11] CW 17: 232
[12] CW 14: 660
[13] CW 13: 7
[14] CW 18: 1602
[15] CW 10:  737
[16] Matthew 8. v. 11
[17] In Original- Orient und Occident/Sind nicht mehr zu trennen 

See Also

Wikipedia - Library of Sir Thomas Browne

Wikipedia - Athanasius Kircher

Bibliography

* Athanasius Kircher - A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge
Joscelyn Godwin  London 1979 Thames and Hudson

* Athanasius Kircher - The Last Man Who Knew Everything
   ed. Paula Findlen RKP 2004

* Richard Wilhelm/C.G.Jung - The Secret of the Golden Flower RKP 1931

* 1711 Sales Catalogue of Thomas Browne and his son Edward's libraries ed. J.S.Finch pub. E.J.Brill 1986

* E.J. Holmyard - Alchemy  pp. 31-41 Chinese alchemy pub. Penguin 1957

with thanks to Y. for the inspiration.

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) 

C.P.E. Bach - Ambassador of the Enlightenment and Sensitive Music

Centenary anniversaries invite not only celebrations of an artist’s work but also re-assessments of their creativity. There are few 18th century composers more in need of a radical re-assessment than Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). Although often defined as a transitional or bridge figure in classical music, CPE Bach was in fact a composer of unique talents, and an equal to two of the most famous composers of the 18th century, Haydn and Mozart, both of whom were in no small measure indebted to his ground-breaking achievements in music.

There are however several factors which have not helped CPE Bach’s cause, simply having a triple initial forename has not assisted first encounters, while a much-needed re-cataloguing of his works has in some ways added to the confusion when referencing his music. But above all else its the enormous shadow cast over him as the second eldest son of the much venerated, ‘father of western classical music’ J.S.Bach (1685-1750) which has hindered an objective appreciation of CPE Bach’s music in its own right.

The basic facts of CPE Bach’s biography consist of his graduating in Law from Leipzig University in 1731. He subsequently served as a musician at the Court of Frederick the Great of Prussia at Berlin. Following his godfather George Telemann’s death in 1767 he became Director of Music in Hamburg, a position he held for twenty years until his death in 1788.

CPE Bach’s life-time witnessed the dawn of the modern, secular age including the Independence of America in 1776. He himself was in the vanguard of the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment, a cultural movement of intellectuals who emphasized reason, secularism and individualism rather than tradition. He engaged in correspondence with one one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, the French encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713–1784) who felt compelled to stop in Hamburg on his way back to France from St. Petersburg to visit the composer. CPE Bach's music with its aesthetic emphasis upon Empfindsamkeit or 'Sensitivity’, epitomizes the aspirations of the Enlightenment and he himself lived in an era of great social and political upheaval to eventually witness the goals of the Enlightenment realized in the French Revolution of 1788-89.

In 1753 CPE Bach placed himself centre-stage in European music with his treatise, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments) which was swiftly recognised as a definitive work on keyboard technique. In this treatise he declares - ‘’A musician cannot move others if he himself is not moved,'’ and “let the fingers speak from the soul or sentience to transfer that passion onto the audience that the composer intended to stir.” In his advocacy of Empfindsamkeit or 'Sensitive style’ as expressed in his treatise and in his music, CPE Bach represents a fundamental shift in musical consciousness - departing from polite, background social music composed in service of the aristocrat and his Court or sacred music for the church, music which occasionally expresses a ‘cosmic awe’ at the Creation, as in the baroque polyphony of his father J.S.Bach’s music - in favour of the secular, reflecting the artist’s own subjective, inner world involving feeling and emotion.

C.P.E. Bach's music was first catalogued by Alfred Wotquenne in 1906 using "WQ" numbers, however in recent times his music has also been referenced by "H" numbers from a catalogue compiled by Eugene Helm (1989) which arranges the composer’s music not in chronological order, but according to genre. The advantage of the new catalogue is that immediately one gains an idea of the sheer volume of music  CPE Bach composed, and also how much in each specific genre. Helm’s catalogue which is numbered from H1-H845 reveals that compositions for solo keyboard comprise almost half of CPE Bach's entire oeuvre, works for either harpsichord or fortepiano are listed from H1 -H420. The "H" catalogue also lists over 50 concertos composed for various instruments and 19 symphonies. It is in his works for solo keyboard, symphonies, concertos for various instruments that CPE Bach’s greatest legacy survives.

Dating from the year of Mozart's birth 1756, CPE Bach’s E minor symphony (Wq. 178 or H. 653) ) is in all probability, the first ever Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) symphony composed. Perhaps inspired from frustration serving in the music-loving, but conservative-minded Court of Frederick the Great, the E minor symphony is wild and unpredictable,  its whole intent seems to be to disorientate and surprise the listener. It as suddenly turns calm in its middle movement before concluding in a lopsided and asymmetrical melody.



Joseph Haydn studied in depth the work of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and he later acknowledged him as an important influence upon his own music. It’s extremely interesting to compare this CPE Bach E minor symphony with Haydn’s own E minor Trauermusicke symphony (No. 44) dating from 1768. If Haydn can be said to be 'the father of the symphony’, then C.P.E.Bach is surely the grandfather of the symphony. Although only nineteen in number, each of CPE Bach’s symphonies holds a special place in musical history, in particular the set of six for string orchestra, which includes no. 5 in B minor (H 661) with characteristic abruptness and complex emotions, and the set of four symphonies scored for full orchestra (WQ 183) written during CPE Bach’s Hamburg years, of which the musicologist Adelaide de Place writes-

’The continuous flow of striking ideas, harmonic coups, wide dynamic range and sudden pauses to engineer distant key changes, create the impression of orchestral fantasias, yet there is an underlying unity within these symphonies that make them both challenging and satisfying.

The development of the symphony was considerably advanced in 1788, the year of CPE Bach's death with Mozart's highly-original triptych of symphonies  in E flat major, g minor and C major (nos. 39-41) but its debatable whether these symphonies were ever performed, even less likely, known of  by CPE Bach.  A closer affinity can be discerned between CPE Bach’s Fantasia in C major (Wq 61.6 or H. 291) for fortepiano dating from 1786 to that of Mozart’s own fantasias for piano ( K. 396 in c minor, K. 397 in d minor and K. 475 in c minor).  A casual hearing and juxtaposition between CPE Bach's fantasias and those of Mozart's swiftly reveals that there's little difference in either sophistication or improvisation skills between the two composers. Mozart’s high opinion of CPE Bach is reflected in his declaration, ‘He’s the father, we’re the boys. Everybody who has accomplished something has learned from him.’.

CPE Bach’s influence upon Mozart can most clearly be discerned in his concertos. In the set of six Hamburg concerto’s (WQ 43 ) for harpsichord there’s one which has been favoured in performance upon the piano. The pianist Helen Schnabel first recorded the D major (H. 472) concerto as early as 1952.  In its fluid lyricism and dynamic interplay between soloist and orchestral forces, a clear anticipation of the full range of emotional expression as achieved by Mozart in his piano concertos can clearly be heard. More recently this Concerto has also been recorded by Anastasia Injushina and the Hamburger Camerata (2013) to great effect.



In 1772 the English music historian Charles Burney (1726 –1814) visited C.P.E. Bach in Hamburg, publishing his The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces in the following year. Burney observed, "Hamburg is not, at present, possessed of any musical professor of great eminence, except M. Carl Philip Emanuel Bach; but he is a legion!" Charles Burney cautioned that the works of CPE Bach were ‘so uncommon, that a little habit is necessary for the enjoyment of [them]’. Burney also noted that many critics faulted CPE Bach for writing works that were ‘fantastical’ and ‘far-fetched’.

CPE Bach's genius was for Burney most evident in - "his productions for his own instruments, the clavichord, and piano forte, in which he stands unrivalled". Visiting Bach at his home, Burney noted,

 “The instant I entered [his house], M. Bach conducted me up stairs, into a large and elegant music room, furnished with pictures, drawings, and prints of more than a hundred and fifty eminent musicians: among whom, there are many Englishmen, and original portraits, in oil, of his father and grandfather".

C.P.E. Bach's collection was the first of its kind in Germany and included almost 400 portraits.  It included images of the Bach family and contemporary composers and singers, as well as scientists, poets, historical musicians, mythological figures and philosophers, including a portrait of Sir Thomas Browne.

Burney continues - “After I had looked at these, M. Bach was so obliging as to sit down to his Silbermann clavichord, and favourite instrument, upon which he played three or four of his choicest and most difficult compositions, with the delicacy, precision, and spirit, for which he is so justly celebrated among his countrymen.......Bach played, with little intermission, till near eleven o'clock at night. During this time, he grew so animated and possessed, that he not only played, but looked like one inspired, His eyes were fixed, his under lip fell, and drops of effervescence distilled from his countenance. He said, if he were to be set to work frequently, in this manner, he should grow young again."

"In the pathetic and slow movements, whenever he had a long note to express, he absolutely contrived to produce, from his instrument, a cry of sorrow and complaint, such as can only be effected upon the clavichord, and perhaps by himself". The experience for Burney - confirmed that Bach was, "one of the greatest composers that ever existed, for keyed instruments".

Today it is repeatedly asked - How did we, in the 20th century, lose CPE Bach as the link between the Baroque and the Romantic musical mind ?  Charles Burney was among the earliest music critics to recognise CPE Bach's genius declaring-

‘His flights are not the wild ravings of ignorance or madness, but the effusions of cultivated genius. His pieces … will be found, upon a close examination, to be so rich in invention, taste, and learning, that … each line of them, if wire-drawn, would furnish more new ideas than can be discovered in a whole page of many other compositions.

It was not however until the 1980's that serious attention, performance and recording of CPE Bach's music occurred. With a revival of interest in authentic music-making on instruments of the period, CPE Bach's music has gathered a growing interest and in the best of his music, often in a minor key, there is a turbulence and joy, a veritas true to life itself with its fusion of some uncertainty but also with some structure. According to the musicologist Leta Miler writing in 2010-

‘CPE Bach’s approach to musical expressiveness found voice in frequent mood changes, wide melodic leaps, abundant rests and ‘sighing’ motifs, irregular phrase structures, the juxtaposition of contrasting rhythmic figures, deceptive cadences, and dramatic, rhetorical harmonic interjections. Bach became particularly renowned for his ability to improvise fantasias—seemingly free-form, stream-of-consciousness flights of fancy characterized by unmeasured rhythm and distant harmonic excursions.... His compositions mark one of the first—and among the most inspired—repudiations of the Baroque aesthetic, in which a single unified mood dominates each movement’.

Far more than a mere transitional of bridge figure in the history of music, CPE Bach was a gifted and highly original composer in his own right. Without his pioneering aesthetic, in particular in the genres of the symphony and the concerto, neither Haydn’s development of the symphony, nor the fluid lyricism and passion of Mozart’s piano concertos would have been achievable. Hopefully in 2014, the tercentenary of CPE Bach’s birth, a greater awareness and appreciation of this much neglected composer's music will grow and blossom.

Discography

* C.P.E. Bach Edition - Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (10 Disc Box-set) (Jan 27 2014)
* C.P.E. Bach - String Symphonies Wq.182 - English Consort/Pinnock -Archive 1980
* 4 Symphonies Wq.183 + 3 Cello concertos (2 Discs)  Age of Enlightenment/Leonhardt-Virgin 1990
* Symphonies & Concertos -Akademie for Alte Musik Berlin -Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 2001
* Bach family Piano concertos Anastasia Injushina/ Hamburger Camerata - Virgin 2013
* Piano concerto D minor Wq.22  Michael Rische Rainer Maria Klass  Leipzig Chamber Orchestra 2011
* C. P. E. Bach: The Keyboard Concertos (2 discs) Andreas Staier, Freiburger Barockorchester / Müllejans  Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 2011
* C.P.E. Bach - Harpsichord Concertos  (2 Discs)  Asperen/Melante Amsterdam - EMI 1983
* C.P.E. Bach -Keyboard sonatas Francois Chaplin Pf. Naxos 1996
* C.P.E.Bach - Orgel Konzert - Kammerorchester CPE Bach Roland Munch -Capriccio 1987
* C.P.E.Bach - Die Orgel Sonaten -Roland Munch - Christophorus 1983
* C.P.E. Bach Cantatas -Rheinische Kantorei/Max   Brilliant (Jan 27 2014)

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)