Two Cultures?

Both P.G. Wodehouse, comic novelist supreme, and C.P. Snow, chemist, public man and anything-but-comic novelist, were born on this date - PG in 1881, CP in 1905 (not to mention 1844's birthday boy Friedrich Nietzsche - 'fundamentally unsound' according to Jeeves).
  It hardly needs pointing out that the works of the 'performing flea' of English literature have lasted rather better than those of the 'serious and important' Snow, 'chronicler of our times', etc. But CP originated the useful phrase 'corridors of power' - and he is still remembered for having ignited the Two Cultures debate. Snow deplored the undervaluing of technical/scientific education (which is fair enough) and what he discerned as a breakdown of communication between the 'two cultures' of the sciences and arts. He writes:

'A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had.'

  Hmmm. This argument is fine, I suppose, in terms of 'general knowledge' and the 'well furnished mind' - but is it really fair to equate two such different forms of knowledge? Science (except at a very exalted level) is a matter of facts, information and techniques, whereas knowledge of the arts equates with experience of them - the arts are lived rather than merely known, and are at bottom open to all; they do not in themselves have to be 'learnt', whereas science does. They are enjoyed for their own sake, whereas science is essentially a means to an end.
  The application of scientific knowledge has certainly been dazzlingly effective in the world - it works - but do we all really need to know it, any more than we need to know motor mechanics to enjoy a drive, or TV engineering to watch television? Scientific knowledge is by its very nature contingent and provisional. Homer and Aeschylus still speak to us, but the scientific ideas of their times are of purely historic interest - indeed 'science' as presently understood didn't even exist until long after; it is of historically very recent growth.
  Are we really supposed to believe that the person who can't recite the Second Law of Thermodynamics or define Mass is as deprived or deficient as the person who has never experienced the impact of Shakespeare, Bach or Rembrandt?  Of course, knowing a bit of science can come in handy in a pub quiz - but I don't think that's quite what Snow had in mind...

For Everyone?

I see Julian Fellowes has been getting a spanking for making the obvious - but now heterodox and 'elitist' - point that Shakespeare's language is not immediately accessible to an unprimed modern audience. You might need to know a bit, to have a bit of literary/academic background, to appreciate what is arguably the greatest poetry ever written. It has to be acknowledged that Shakespeare's language, though often crystal clear, is at other times dense and difficult, employing a phenomenally large vocabulary, much of which is no longer in general (or any) use. Shakespeare is indeed 'for everyone' - that is part of his greatness - but to pretend that his language in all its richness can be readily understood at first hearing is just silly. If it was that easy, annotated editions would be a lot thinner, and the academic Shakespeare industry a shadow of its present self. Of course it would help greatly if actors (a) understood what they are saying and (b) followed the rhythms of Shakespeare's lines - but you certainly can't rely on that.

Over on The Dabbler...

... I'm Naming Names. Well, I'm not, but this Tollemache chap - anyway...

A New World

It must have been nearly 40 years since I last visited Ca' Rezzonico, the museum of 18th-century Venetian life, and saw the frescoes by Domenico Tiepolo, teeming with Pulcinella figures, some riotous, some melancholy. Though they might appear at a glance frivolous, these frescoes seem to me now powerful and astonishing works, perhaps the last great Venetian paintings, suffused with the wistful sadness and weary gaiety of a dying world. (Above is Tiepolo's vision of The New World - a fairground puppet show we cannot see, an interested crowd with its back turned, a blank distant ocean). These frescoes are the perfect visual analogue of Browning's A Toccata of Galuppi's -

I

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

II

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.

What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,

Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

III

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by . . . what you call

. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:

I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.

IV

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

V

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—

On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,

O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

VI

Well, and it was graceful of them—they'd break talk off and afford

—She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,

While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

VII

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—"Must we die?"

Those commiserating sevenths—"Life might last! we can but try!

VIII

"Were you happy?" —"Yes."—"And are you still as happy?"—"Yes. And you?"

—"Then, more kisses!"—"Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

IX

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!

"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!

"I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

X

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,

Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,

Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

XI

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,

While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,

In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.

XII

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:

"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.

"The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

XIII

"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,

"Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;

"Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!

XIV

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,

"Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:

"What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

XV

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

You can read more about the frescoes here...

Venice Notes

Dogana
Dusk by the old customs house that stands at the tip of the Dorsoduro, beyond the Salute. To the left, across the waters of St Mark's Basin, the south face of the Doges' Palace and the campanile of San Marco; ahead, Palladio's island church of San Giorgio Maggiore with its own slender campanile; out to the right, across the wide Giudecca Canal, Palladio's other Venetian masterpiece, the church of Il Redentore...
What to say? A gasp will have to do. A gasp followed by long, rapt contemplation.

In Restauro
As ever, a good deal of restoration is under way. Much of the roofline of San Marco itself covered by screens, and most of the western range of the Piazza similarly concealed, and dominated by a gigantic advertising poster (for a luxury watch). In the Frari, Titian's Madonna di Ca' Pesaro is absent - 'In Restauro' (though the Titian Assumption and the Bellini Madonna and Saints are present, as radiantly beautiful as ever).

The People Problem
The shop-lined streets around the Piazza are as hideously congested as ever, and Venice's unceasing efforts to drain visitors of their money as tiresome as ever. Happily, though, it is still easy to escape the tourist throng and enter the quieter Venice in a matter of minutes.
Afternoon in the Campo San Zanipolo and the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. The throng here is of young children, released from school, charging about the open space, chasing each other, kicking footballs, playing games. The air is full of their cries. Venice is a city of human sounds - and silences. This is what city life used to be like, before the motor car remade our towns and our lives.

The Art Problem
A Biennale year, alas, with 'Art' liable to pop up everywhere. The lower room of Tintoretto's Scuola di San Rocco - a supreme work of the human spirit if ever there was one - is disfigured by violent purple-and-black 'paintings' that appear to have been produced by a very angry man cleaning his brush.
And what should appear overnight in front of the stunning facade of San Giorgio Maggiore? A gigantic, pale lilac-coloured inflatable version of Marc Quinn's 'sculpture' Alison Lapper Pregnant, as seen on the empty plinth of Trafalgar Square. Offences against art (as against Art) don't come much more horrific than this (though I suppose it's quite armless...).
On the other hand. Inside San Giorgio (an interior that makes St Paul's look like prentice work), under the cupola, is an extraordinary piece by John Pawson, aptly called Perspectives. A large convex lens on a base of mirrored steel offers breath-taking inverted vistas of arches and vaults (see picture above).

The Cruise Ship Problem
Closely related to the People Problem, but I hadn't realised its scale until one evening when a massive structure appeared beside the Salute - so massive that it reached almost to the top of that mighty dome. It was a cruise ship - or rather a floating hotel - of at least 12 decks. How much longer will Venice be able to cope with the hordes disgorged from these monstrous vessels?
But who can blame them for coming?

Scenes from a Norman Jaunt

Le Bec-Hellouin, in the lush-pastured, well wooded Risle valley, is now a pretty picture-postcard village (above). It's a quiet, sleepy place - so quiet that we weren't able even to get a coffee; the young man in charge of the single cafe was for some reason unable to provide us with any until the arrival of monsieur le patron, whom he awaited... Such is Le Bec-Hellouin now - but in the tenth and 11th centuries, the Abbey here (of which only a fine tower remains) was a major European centre of learning and faith, the Oxford and Cambridge of Normandy, whither the great Lanfranc came to escape his celebrity and spent three years in prayerful meditation before catching the eye of William of Normandy, who in due course appointed him the first Archbishop of Canterbury of Norman England. Lanfranc was succeeded as Abbot of Le Bec-Hellouin by another great churchman, St Anselm, who himself was to become an Archbishop of Canterbury. Le Bec also gave England other Bishops, including Gundulph (no relation to Gandalf), who was not only Bishop of Rochester but architect of Rochester Castle and the Tower of London.
 And now you can't even get a cup of coffee there...

It was while he was besieging the Duke of Burgundy at the nearby Brionne Castle that William spotted Lanfranc. Nothing remains of that castle but the battered keep, high above the town. We toiled up to it - and found the sunny flowery slope below the keep alive with butterflies. Clouded Yellows, Peacocks and Red Admirals galore, bright Small Coppers, a Painted Lady, various Blues too lively to settle and be identified (and an equally lively French brown I couldn't identify) were dancing and basking in the mellow autumn sunshine. A magical finale to the butterfly year.

As the ferry pulled out of Dieppe, nobody on the jetty was paying much attention as the huge boat passed alongside on its way to the open sea. This is usual nowadays - little or no waving. But then, just along the rail from me, a young girl (16 or so?) suddenly came alive, waving wildly with both hands and jumping up and down - she had spotted her family, and they her. Waving back with equal verve, her father sprinted towards the end of the jetty, followed by her mother and sister. All three arrived at the end in time to wave the girl off until she and they could no longer see each other as more than fast-fading specks of colour...
  As the ferry docked at Newhaven, an announcement came telling foot passengers (I was now travelling alone) where to muster. I made my way there and all seemed well, so I went to wash my hands - in the course of which there seemed to be another announcement saying much the same thing as the first. Returning to the mustering point and not getting the call for les pietons, I began to wonder if I was in the right place after all. No doubt you're ahead of me here: it was indeed not the right place. That was at the other end of the ship, my passage to which was now blocked by a mighty throng of motorists. I barged my way through them, then down into the bowels of the ship (seven decks) to find no evidence of a pedestrian exit, then back up the seven flights of stairs, barging my way back through the same appalled throng. Above decks I found a deserted ship - deserted by all but one other bewildered foot passenger. It was the waving girl, now wandering like me in search of a member of staff...
  It ended well enough and we were shown off the boat and into a waiting car, which took us to customs. And so home. And tomorrow I'm off to Venice for a few days.

A Pebble from the Holstorm

Well, apart from that peaceful weekend in Derbyshire, my life seems to have segued from workstorm into homestorm - or holstorm? Anyway much kerfuffle and little chance to get to the keyboard and blog - and tomorrow the Normandy ferry. So let's have another poem...
  Here, in a still, small poem that is itself 'a perfect creature equal to itself', the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert contemplates a pebble. Herbert was fascinated by the reality of concrete things and by the presence of the past. He shunned abstract notions (he'd seen enough in his lifetime of the human damage ideologies could do). Writing, he declared, 'must teach men soberness... to be awake'. As the poet is awake to the pebble.

PEBBLE

The pebble
is a perfect creature

equal to itself
mindful of its limits

filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning

with a scent that does not remind one of anything
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire

its ardour and coldness
are just and full of dignity

I feel a heavy remorse
when I hold it in my hand
and its noble body
is permeated by false warmth

--Pebbles cannot be tamed
to the end they will look at us
with a calm and very clear eye.

(Herbert is a poet who seems to translate into English exceptionally well. This translation is by another great Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz. More Herbert poems here...)