Art and Lies

AS A SIDENOTE: I really wish we had spent more time on this, I liked what we read of this novel! I think I would have preferred to do Mary Wollstonecraft in one sitting, and continued here with Art and Lies.

Homework for Friday: Do a close reading of a particular passage from Handel or Picasso. What question does it stimulate you to ask? What does it answer?

This is a passage from Handel's first section, towards the end, as he addresses British society's acknowledgment or lack thereof of the individual. Handel states,

"It's awkward, in a society where the cult of the individual has never been preached with greater force, and where many of our collective ills are a result of that force, to say that is is to the Self to which one must attend. But the Self is not a random collection of stray desires striving to be satisfied, nor is it only by suppressing such desires, as women are encouraged to do, that any social cohesion is possible. Our broken society is not born out of the triumph of the individual, but out of his effacement. He vanishes, she vanishes, ask they who they are and they will offer you a wallet or a child. 'What do you do?' is the party line, where doing is a substitute for being, and where the shame of not doiing wipes away the thin chalk outline that sketches Husband Wife Banker Actor even Thief. It's comforting, my busy life, left alone with my thoughts I might find I have none. And left to my own emotions? Is there much beyond a childing rage a sentimentality that passes for love?" (24).

For me, this passage stimulates a lot of questions. It seems as though the narrator, Handel, is not only questioning himself and his society, but his reader as well. This passage asks each of us to identify who we are in terms of something more than our actions and dreams. "Doing" as he less than tenderly explains, is not a substitute for being, it is an action associated with it, but they are not synonymous. We cannot be defined with the money we make, our by our friends or children or families, or jobs, or wants. In my opinion, and perhaps also in Handel's we are defined by our thoughts and emotions. In what we think and feel. It is THESE things that influence how we act and what we do. It is not the action that counts, but rather the thoughts, motivation, and intellect behind each action and each decision that define who we are and what we value.

Handel, as with the other two narrators in Art and Lies, has a name with an allusion. Our narrator Handel refers to the great George Frideric Handel, a famous English and German composer of the early 18th century. He, like our Handel, was a man who put things together in an uncommon way to make peace and harmony. Our Handel does the same thing in his ability to question us while soothing our minds. We as readers can easily read this passage and hear Handel's criticism of himself and of his society. We can sense his resentment at their shallow existence, none knowing who they are or what they truly mean. We can easily listen to the top most surface harmony of the song, hear only the chorus, and completely ignore the question to the reader. The passage does not give answers, not for himself or for his readers, regarding the path to Self-discovery. He later mocks this "path" in saying he gave a philosophical book to a friend only to have such friend say, "I'll try and fit it in." How shall I live? Is the question he repeats throughout this passage and chapter. As someone defined by their "wallet or child" or as something more.