Notebooks of Don Rigoberto

Paperback jacket cover of 'The notebooks of Don Rigoberto' Rolla 1878 by Henri Gervex

I recently read the novel 'The notebooks of Don Rigoberto' (Eng. trans 1998) by the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa (b.1936). It's an extremely funny and at times erotic work which is centred upon three principal characters -Don Rigobetro, an insurance executive by day and hedonist and erotomaniac by night, Dona Lucrecia, his estranged lover and the Don's precocious adolescent son Fonchito. The lesser character of the maid to Lucrecia, Justiniana, features as a kind of sane and neutral chorus in her observations upon the antics of the trio throughout the story.


The scant plot set in modern-day Lima, Peru, involves the efforts of the son Fonchito to reconcile his father the Don to Lucrecia by the subterfuge of anonymous letters, which Lucrecia believes to be from the Don. Of equal interest other than the various voyeuristic erotic scenario's which the Don schemes for Lucrecia, are extracts from the Don's notebooks. These feature a diatribe against modern mass-man's fanaticism for sport, various aesthetic observations including an anti-Rotarian rant and an exaltation and defense of phobias.


By far the most interesting character in the novel is the bright, at turns naive and wise to the world of human sexuality, teenage son, Fonchita. Fonchita is near obsessed with the life and paintings of the Viennese decadent artist Egon Schiele. His knowledge of almost every aspect and detail of the painter's short biography and art-works borders upon the pathological. He talks of little else to the extreme concern of Dona Lucrecia, but in fact exhibits the self-same traits of his father who is also a dedicated aesthete and follower of the arts. The following lines, although a little rude, made me burst out laughing at his ambiguous naivete.

After a while she heard him saying, in a different tone of voice, "You too, Stepmama?" "What?" "You're touching my backside too, just like my papa's friends and the priests at school.Golly! Why is everybody so interested in my bottom?"

'The notebooks of Don Rigoberto' has an interesting affinity to the grandfather of all world literature, namely Cervantes 'Don Quixote' (1605) . Just as Don Quixote indulges in idealized love, adoration and worship of Dulcinea, so too Rigoberto adores Lucrecia with absolute devotion, placing her in all kinds of erotic scenario's, real and imagined, often of a voyeuristic nature, only in order to come to her rescue.

Extremely well written by a grand master of South American literature, the aestheticism of Don Rigoberto reminds me of another novel in which the protagonist is at war with the banality of society, absorbed and indulging in his sensuality, namely the character Des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysman's 1884 novel A Rebours. 

Postscript: On October 7th Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature.

The Paston Treasure

As promised, here's an oil painting which I believe Sir Thomas Browne may have viewed.

Among the many "honoured and worthy" Norfolk gentry whom Browne was acquainted with were the wealthy landowning family of the Pastons, Sir William Paston (1610-62) and Sir Robert Paston (1631-83) of Oxnead Hall, Buxton in Norfolk. It's entirely possible that Browne when visiting the Pastons, either socially or professionally as a medical doctor could have viewed the canvas known as The Paston Treasure. Commissioned by Sir Robert circa 1665, the large painting is no longer believed to be the work of the travelling Dutch master, Franciscus Gysbrech. It records the Paston's family treasures as owners of a- "world of curiosities and some very rich ones, as cabinets and juells".

The Paston Treasure depicts a black servant and a blonde girl holding a bloom of roses, a strombus shell, a silver-gilt flagon, a shell-flask and two nautilus cups. The painting also shows many musical instruments including a lute, bass viol and a cornet. The Paston Treasure is a good example of symbolism in Dutch and Flemish still-life painting. The theme of Vanitas and the passing of time are represented in the painting by an hour glass, a watch, a clock, and a guttering candle.The painting features artefacts which represent a microcosm of the known world in the mid-17th century, as hinted by the prominent position of a globe. These include - a packet of tobacco from America, a boy and parrot from Africa and a porcelain dish from Asia. Sculptures and gems, gold, silver and enamel, as well as natural history specimens, along with music instruments including a bass viol, sackbut, violin and a lute can also be seen.

The peaches, grapes and oranges, along with lobster, suggest a luxurious lifestyle. The young African servant boy is also an exotic addition to the picture. He is the earliest known portrait of an African in Norfolk by almost 200 years. The girl, is most likely Robert Paston's daughter Mary, who died of smallpox in 1676. The inclusion of parrot and monkey is suggestive of domesticated creatures possessing faculties imitative to humans, but in contrast, lacking in reason. Both are depicted as disruptive, the monkey as if jumping onto servant's shoulder, and parrot interrupting girl from her reading of song-book music.

The collection was sold shortly after the painting was finished because of the Paston's failing finances. The objects were to spread around the world again.

''The Paston Treasure'' functions as a work of art on several levels. Firstly, as a ''schatzkammer'' (cabinet of treasures) or ''Wunderkammer'' displaying the Paston family's wealth and learning. Secondly, as an example of the tradition of Dutch Golden Age Pronkstilleven painting, in which objects refer to the transience and emptiness of wealth and possessions, and the ultimate extinction and emptiness of earthly life. This thematic concern is developed further in a near comprehensive inventory of Vanitas symbols with its allusions to the fragility of life, the passing of time and the inevitability of death, represented here by ephemeral roses and fruit, a clock, hourglass and an extinguished candle.The nautilus shell behind the globe is in the Prinsenhof Museum in Delft and the flask held by the boy is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The silver gilt flagon, with a visible date-mark for 1597-8 is one of a pair in the Untermeyer Collection, New York and the silver nautilus cup with the seated stem figure is now at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

With its crowded inventory and moralistic symbolism, the Paston Treasure would have appealed to Browne's artistic sensibility. Indeed in his spiritual and artistic testament Religio Medici, Browne humorously confessed of his fondness for the visual arts thus-

I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an Horse. (Religio Medici Part 2 paragraph 9)

A much brighter reproduction of the recently cleaned and restored canvas. A vast improvement and testimony to  restoring skills and expertise.

Postscript 2015

In his 2015 book on Sir Thomas Browne Hugh Aldersey-Williams discusses this painting, but does not state how or when he arrived at the idea that Browne possibly viewed it.

'Men are still content to plume themselves with other's feathers', as Browne phrases it.

Cactus

This morning I woke to find that once again my 25 year old cactus has burst into flower. Not that it was totally unexpected because during the past week, two large stalks have rocketed forth from it, ready to bloom into quite enormous flowers, which sadly only last a few days at most. The stems of the flowers are about 20 centimetres and the diameter of the flowers some 10 centimetres, really enormous. Quite how this miracle of nature always flowers at either the new or full moon I don't know. I took these photo's a year or two ago, sometimes there are just two flowers, sometimes as many as five. But in any event a true miracle of nature, reminding us that things are not always what they seem, and that from the apparently mundane something extraordinary can occur beyond human power.

Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich 1906-1975

Last night I attended a concert at Saint Andrew's Hall, Norwich. The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra performed the following - Borodin Polovtsian Dances, Philip Glass violin Concerto and Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 in E minor.

The Borodin Polovtsian Dance's were electric and boded well for the rest of the programme. One catches an aural glimpse in its vibrant savagery of another musical work also set in early Rus, namely Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. As for the Concerto well to be honest, although I've been a keen follower of the music of Philip Glass for over 20 years, i don't consider his violin concerto (1988) to be the best or most representative composition of his unique style. The young violinist Chloe Hanslip did her best, but still felt obliged to add a couple of solo encores to prove her undoubted virtuosity. Nor did one feel that the Russian orchestra felt completely at home or responsive to Glass's composition, but this may be just an erroneous perception of mine.

Onto more solid interpretative ground. The second half on the concert consisted of Shostakovitch's symphony no. 10. A vast and mostly gloomy work composed in 1953 soon after Stalin's death. It's only in the last movement that the composer lets his hair down for some jollity. How many times in varied ways does the motif D-S-C-H occur throughout the score? The composer used this musical motif throughout his artistic career to represent himself, the notes being the first letter of his name and first three of his surname in Russian musical notation. The playing throughout the symphony was committed and impassioned, a real tour-de-force. I'm always amazed at the virtuosity of Russian brass and woodwind playing and how united the string section are.

The 10th symphony remains one of the more accessible of Shostakovich's symphonies with a quite distinctive tonality, perhaps because it is in the remote key of E minor. Gloomy as it is a cathartic redemption is arrived at, otherwise such works would never be performed in the Concert-Hall, the audience leaving more depressed than when they arrived!

In some ways Shostakovich's music has finally arrived on the world-stage now that he can be listened to without any political coloration. I've been acquainted with the 10th symphony since I was 14, partly due to a reactionary passion to listen to 'the enemies' music during the 1970's cold war. A music teacher used to discreetly place records such as Shostakovich Symphony no. 5 on the turn-table while the school chess team played. A captive listening audience if ever there was, Chess enjoying something of a Renaissance among school-boys, it was after all during the great tournament between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. in 1972 between the maverick Bobby Fischer and Spassky! The 5th symphony soon became a firm favourite of mine, but I also remember hearing the World premiere of the 15th symphony albeit on a tinny transistor radio.

Although Shostakovich grew up under the Soviet regime and is easily the most representative composer of the Soviet era, for a hardened atheist there are a remarkable number of mystical or numinous passages to be found in his music. One of the most extraordinary of all his symphonic output is the mysterious percussive scherzo to the 15th Symphony.

Here's a link to read more about Shostakovich

Portrait of Browne

Why o why is this superb oil painting of Sir Thomas Browne hidden away from the gaze of the general public in the vestry of Saint Peter Mancroft? The Gunton portrait of a very red-haired,slightly older Browne is on display in a wing of the church of Saint Peter Mancroft along with other Browne memorabilia, and to be fair, if one requests nicely, it's possible to obtain a viewing of this portrait. But only if one requests so. Why?

But perhaps with the rise of the internet this portrait has the potential to be better known than any volume of visitor's traipsing into the vestry at Saint Peters'.

Browne attended service at Saint Peter's whenever his profession allowed, but it's his miscellaneous tract Repertorium,  an inventory of artefacts in Norwich Cathedral, which displays his knowledge of the history of the Church of England best.

As ever the city of Norwich is v. slow to proclaim its cultural heritage, probably because, in Browne's case, there's no-one able to mak an articulate statement upon him; perhaps, because somehow, in the imagination of the historically naive, he's wrongly assessed as a non-PC fellow.