"Lady Chatterley's Lover" (1928) by D. H. Lawrence

I was recommended D. H. Lawrence, so I went to a bookshop and picked up "Lady Chatterley's Lover", completely oblivious of its 1) history; 2) content and; 3) reputation. I read on without any expectation and ten pages in, whoa, mamma mia. Let's get this out of the way first - in the days of the Internet and Netflix, none of what caused this book to go through the 1960 obscenity trial is legitimately pornographic. If titillation is your sheer purpose of reading it, look elsewhere and, honestly, get out more. I read the book in two sittings over the stretch of a year and my feelings of the work evolved over time. On first reading, it feels like Lawrence is making a powerful case of modern day feminism, where a woman should be independent, strong and have total control over her body and fate to escape the confines of social class - bear in mind this work was written at the heights of the suffragettes movement - then the discourse overshoots. You know that old saying about women use sex to get love and men use love to get sex? As the adulterous pair develops, the reader discovers that the woman is now obsessed with bodily interaction and the man looks for more soul in the relationship. The woman suddenly becomes so insatiable, bigoted, unreasonable, and needs the (body of) the man so much it completely tips the gender balance over. Considering the biography of the author himself, one cannot help but find the ending farcical and serves nothing but to gratify himself and, by doing so, destroy all the goodwill set up in the preceding three hundred-odd pages when, ultimately, the entire work is just one man demonstrating masculine superiority over another by announcing his victory over one woman's body and soul. The language and the psychological writing are admirable though.

"Never Let Me Go" (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro

It is remarkable, that Kazuo Ishiguro manages to generates torrents of haunting introspection on human existentialism in the reader by using simple architecture and minimal, unadorned, "basic" English that is completely devoid of vocabularies to the point of recycling the same words over and over again (I challenge you to count the number of times he uses the words "complacency" and "anxious" in his novels). "Never Let Me Go" is a particularly painful read if you, like the characters, grew up in an English boarding school. For that reason, most of the first half feel completely uneventful as it describes what is pretty much ordinary, typical slices of life and teenagers coming to terms with themselves. (It feels nostalgic, too, since the department store Woolworths and record tapes make appearances) This unsolicited familiarity makes the extraordinary revelation that follows too close for comfort. I won't spoil the story, but have you ever wondered if your education, your life, your sheer existence are all part of a plan to fulfill the lives of some "higher" beings? Imagine you are the tools of some scheme from which you get no benefits. You live and die for others and that's it. In the limited amount of freedom you have, you can feel all sorts of emotions but nobody cares as you are not meant to have emotions and emotions contribute nothing. You can form bonds with other but that does not matter either since people go separate ways eventually anyway. Such robotic setup is modern life in a nutshell, some argue. This title subtly raises questions on human symbiosis along these lines and, musing retrospectively, underlines the importance of arts and humanities education and learning how to live beyond logic and reason - a gentle and tragic plea, rather than full-blown criticism, that is. Too true, as we do need to re-examine the ways we live as human beings in the modern world, but the rhetoric comes across as being too gentle and too subtle. Moving for some personalities, ineffective for others, and somewhere in between for increasingly cynical and detached old men in the smartphone era like yours truly. Good weekend read.

Péter Eötvös: Multiversum

7th February 2019
Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom

SCHOENBERG Accompaniment to an Imaginary Film Scene
BARTÓK Dance Suite
STRAVINSKY Symphony in Three Movements
PÉTER EÖTVÖS Multiversum

Iveta Apkalna (organ)
László Fassang (Hammond organ)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Péter Eötvös (conductor)



I do not consider myself a fan of Eötvös' music, but for some reason I keep following his new works. By chance, I even bought a CD of his zeroPoints this morning without knowing this concert was on. As I wrote on 2nd October 2016, Eötvös' music, at heart, is just some convoluted ways of messing about with novel sonic clashes, and very often his discussion on the inspiration behind the work is more involved than the music itself, which vary greatly in quality but by and large very accessible and direct. The centerpiece of tonight's programme is the UK premiere of "Multiversum", which I actually heard on YouTube at work a few months ago. To be honest, it is a pointless piece unless heard live because of its spatial aspects, but it is a successful summation of the more admirable qualities of Eötvös' output. It is the latest addition to his series of space exploration works ("Cosmos" and "Seven") and is inspired by the ideas of multi-universe and string theory, so in the piece the orchestra is divided into groups of instruments and are scattered around the stage, constituting the parallel universes, and they have to battle against the beast that is the RFH organ and a Hammond organ, the sound of which is projected by different speakers located at various positions on the ceiling. As James McVinnie pointed out in the pre-concert talk, Eötvös deliberately contrasts the "quantised" acoustic sound of the pipe organ against the more colourful, continuous spectrum of the artificial electric counterpart, something that he also explores in the piano concerto "CAP-KO". The traveling sound from the speakers effectively generates a Doppler effect that represents the expanding universe. With all these conceptual setup, the composition is surprisingly sonically simple which consists mostly of very direct motifs and melodies and bold rhythmic punches. It was very pleasing to be engulfed by these thoughtful sounds that starts with a quote of /the/ Bach organ piece and ends with some "Daphnis et Chloé"-esque lush strings but otherwise they don't really do much. That is OK because the first half was pretty nauseating, due to the sumptuous juxtapositions of musical ideas. Schoenberg's "Accompaniment to an Imaginary Film Scene" is a rarity that I wonder why it is not performed more often. When hyper-romantic atonality meets epic storytelling in some committed playing you get an emotional thrill ride. It was followed immediately by the Bartók "Dance Suite", which would mess up your mind if you so decide to delineate the rhythms at the spot. It was the first time that I found transparency was a liability rather than an asset because frankly the performance was outstandingly functional but not very engaging. Granted, it is terribly difficult to pull off. The playing is so fine and sophisticated (if a bit thin, especially the brass) that it lacks the raw and rustic energy which would make it a life-changing performance. Stravinsky's "Symphony in Three Movements" was a saving grace but placing it after the Bartók was unforgiving to the feet-tapping audience. This mercurial music is where Philharmonia Orchestra's versatility shines most, and they were exceptional throughout from the motoric clarinet to the lyrical harp and piano. I think they will do just fine without Salonen, it's good for a change anyway.