From the story "Carnaval" by Haruki Murakami, in his new short story collection "First Person Singular."
If this post makes you want to listen to "Carnaval," you may be interested to know that there are 2 characters who decide that "Carnaval" is the greatest piece for solo piano. They meticulously study recordings of "Carnaval," and one, the man, decides the very best is Arthur Rubinstein’s RCA recording, which you can listen to here. The other person, the woman, takes the position that the best is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, available here.
My reason for posting this isn't really to push the Schumann piece on you or to get you trying to figure out which is the best interpretation. Of course, I'm more interested in the subject of wearing masks. Masks come up in the story because masks are worn at the pre-Lent festival called Carnival (AKA Carnaval). Notice the "carn" — "Carnival is literally the festival of thankfulness for meat, and a farewell to it, as Lent begins." Is there some connection between masks and the loss of meat? The face is meat?
I'm simply offering this as something to add to your reflection on the subject of mask wearing.
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3 comments:
Mezzrow writes, quoting Harold C. Schonberg in the NYT from 1973:
"Billy Graham would be proud, and the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale would nod approval. Arthur Rubinstein plays on all 88 keys of his literary pianoforte, improvising sweeping cadenzas unmatched in literature save for those artisans who inscribe messages on Hallmark cards. “Can there be a greater miracle,” Rubinstein wonders, “than life itself, than music, than flowers, than love?” Or take the last paragraph in the book: “‘Yes, Ernesto,’ I said, suddenly becoming serious, ‘I am very lucky, but I have a little theory about this. I have noticed that Providence, Nature, God, or what I would call the Power of Creation seems to favor human beings who accept and love life unconditionally. And I am certainly one who does, with all my heart. So I have discovered as a result of what I can only call miracles that whenever my inner self desires something sub consciously, life will somehow grant it to me.’ Thank goodness that Arthur Rubinstein does not play the piano this way."
Tell ‘em what you think, Harold. The book is a screamingly good read, btw. Dude owed money to EVERYBODY, and basically got exactly what is described above all the way through. Rubinstein v Michelangeli is so obviously passion vs neurotic attention to detail, right?
"Rubinstein v Michelangeli is so obviously passion vs neurotic attention to detail, right?"
This is a question best addressed to Haruki Murakami.
Lane writes:
Another perspective on masks, from Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), the son of former slaves who was a prominent poet in the late 19th century.
We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
I know this poem from Volume II of American Poetry: the Nineteenth Century in the Library of America series: it's the poem I keep bookmarked in that volume.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44203/we-wear-the-mask
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