A review of "Blue Angel," a novel by Francine Prose, from The Baltimore Online Book Club

This is the sixth edition of the Baltimore Online Book Club.  Every month or so, I post a review of the latest novel we read in our book club.  This edition consists of a review of Francine Prose's Blue Angel.  We generally select novels by well-established contemporary authors.  We will be putting a new reading list together soon and welcome suggestions from the online community.  

Blue Angel
by Francine Prose
HarperCollinsPublishers
New York, NY 2000
314 pages

According to the novel's dust jacket, "Blue Angel does for creative writing programs what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for the meat-packing industry."  True, but it offers much more than a message; it is a well-written tale of a man's fall and possible redemption.  The novel is indeed a carefully constructed page turner which exposes the narrow-minded, even hysterical,  culture wars being waged on campuses today.

In poetry and music, it is important to surprise, at least not bore, the reader or listener.  In music, you must not play a repeat phrase exactly the same way; only bad poetry is predictable.  Prose is different--it's the meaning that is important.  An author needs to write well, of course, but if the emphasis is  on innovative language, the meaning tends to get lost.  (James Joyce and some others are exceptions; they are closer to poetry and to music than to prose.)  In contrast to music and poetry, an author of a novel must surprise or at least strive to assure that the reader doesn't get bored, by constructing a plot that takes interesting detours from the predictable.

Francine Prose has done just that.  Stereotypes are turned on their heads.  This is a story of a vulnerable middle-aged white male  professor who is seduced by a sadistic student.  She knows what she wants and will do anything to get it.  He doesn't know what he wants and "gets it" in the sense that she ruins his life.

His student, Angela Argo, is an ambitious writer and is much more talented than any of  Svenson's student's. (For some reason, he is only one of two characters that are referred to by his last name, a symbol, perhaps, of his depersonalization.)

Svenson is hardly innocent, of course.  He could have stopped himself at an earlier stage of his obsession. Instead, he continued to give Angela private consultations.  He drove her miles to buy a computer.  Finally, he went to her dorm room, where his passion took over.  This is indeed egregious behavior.

Prose's--and the reader's--sympathy must remain with Svenson, however, since the premise of the book, in addition to telling a good story, is to give a striking example of how incorrect political correctness can be.  She does this by carefully, and at considerable length, depicting Svenson's vulnerability.

He was once a very promising novelist.  His first book, Phoenix Time, got excellent reviews.  He has received an advance to write a second, but for years he has been suffering from a severe case of writer's block.  He teaches creative writing at a small liberal arts  college in New England.  The students' short stories are terrible.  They are completely untalented, yet Svenson is very wary of criticizing them, since he's afraid the students would complain and get him into trouble.  He only dares to agree with a student who says blandly what he would like to say forcefully about another student's work. .

He is in love with Sherrie, his wife, but routine has blanched   and etiolated the ruddy complexion of their former love. The school is run by philistines.  He has no friends among the staff with the exception of Meg, who teaches poetry.  He avoids her because he is attracted to her.  They came close to letting passion take its course.  Svenson flees, since he does indeed love his wife and does not wish to do anything to hurt her or put their relationship at risk.  This is a brilliant touch by Prose.  She thus shows us that Svenson remained in control throughout his marriage until he lost control, like a teenager, after being seduced by a woman in her twenties who had the seductive skills of Mata Hari.

This is a very subtle retelling of the early German film classic, The Blue Angel.  The well known plot relates Lola Lola's seduction of a respected, much older teacher. He is obsessed; she isn't.  She humiliates him; the sexy sadist ruins his life.

Svenson discovers that Angela--her name, of course, recalls the title of the movie--has rented The Blue Angel from a video store in town--ancient history!  They no longer exist; the novel was written in the year 2000.) He rents it and watches it again.

Angela seduces him in order to get her novel published.  Svenson leaves his family on Thanksgiving weekend to take a trip to New York to show his publisher her manuscript.  The publisher refuses even to read it. The obsessed Svenson has lost control of himself; a crash is inevitable.

Furious, Angela surreptitiously  records their conversation which gives the impression that Svenson promised to get her novel published if she agrees to have sex.  For the first time she is honest about their relationship: "The only reason I let you fuck me was so you could help me get this novel to someone who could do something--"

She turns him in.  Everyone at the hearing is convinced of his guilt.  Svenson paradoxically is relieved.  At last he will be able to leave the microcosm of back-biting banality which had been ruining his mind, a miserable nest in the middle of nowhere from which he lacked the courage to leave.

He might be relieved, but he's still a masochist.  He says nothing in his own defense.  Amazed at Angela's lies and sadism, he asks her at the end of the hearing, "What the fuck were you trying to do?" He's glad to leave but how will a de facto nolo contendere plea influence future potential employers?  Why didn't he hire a lawyer?

Angela's use of vulgar language and Svenson's are contrasted brilliantly.  Svenson, who tends to say what he thinks, recklessly uses a vulgarism.  (A comic scene at the beginning also serves to reveal that the dean hates such language.)  Angela  has removed her studs and boots and is all shirley-templed up for the hearing  She behaves, well, like an angel.  She is a master manipulator; Svenson who uses the vulgarism in front of the dean--and thereby removes any sympathy the stuffy dean might have had--is too good, too naive, too innocent to a fault  to behave like Angela. 

If we had learned what Svenson did before reading the novel, our sympathies would lie with Angela.  Prose brilliantly upends our expectations in her convincing portrait of a good man with a tragic flaw.

Blue Angel is a brilliant novel.  The plot, however, is perhaps constructed a bit too carefully.  Almost nothing in the novel is extraneous to its subject; the demise of guilty as innocent professor.  An example: early in the novel, Svenson has a broken tooth which he habitually and nervously works over with his tongue.  Even that had significance: it becomes  a symbol of his age.  The tooth cracks while he is making love to Angela, preventing consummation.  No satisfaction for poor Svenson in mind nor in body!

Prose convinces us that left-wing loonies who are in control of many American  campuses these days are just as whacky and as dangerous as the right-wing loonies of American politics.  Much racism and sexism remains on and off campus; this is undeniable.  We wouldn't have culture wars if those who had power had   behaved justly; they obviously didn't.   Sometimes, however, political correctness protects the guilty.  Has it gone too far? Whatever your conclusion, if you enjoy well written novels, this one is for you. It is a gem.

                                                               *


Previous reviews from the Baltimore Online Book Club, all available online.  Simply google the title and my name, Thomas Dorsett



1. The New Life by Orhan Pamuk
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
4. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
5. A Sport and a Pastime by James Salters

The Rise and Fall of Martin Shkreli

You knew it was coming.  After a meteoric rise, Martin Shkreli, riding the comet of his own vanity, finally crashed into a solid core of reality, leaving behind a trail of the enraged.  His crime was in fact not a crime under the current system: he raised the price of the drug, Duraprim, which is used in the treatment of toxoplasmosis, from $13,50 a pill to $750 a pill.  It is an essential drug for HIV patients infected with the toxoplasmosis organism.

Oh, he was so arrogant.  Although of humble origin--he was raised in a Brooklyn apartment by his immigrant working-class family--or perhaps because he was of humble origin and had become, beating the odds, a Master of the Universe--he was quite sure that he was categorically different from the rest of us.

He thought he could boast like Trump, be smug as Cruz, and be as over-the-top as Carson, and get away with it. Yet unlike these, he didn't have the support of millions of furious whites.  He imagined he could soar on his own gas forever.   He was wrong.

When asked whether he had any regrets regarding the 5,000% increase, he responded like a badass teen: his only regret was that he didn't raise it higher.  His  primary responsibility under the  capitalist system, he opined, was to shareholders.

An example of his hubris is his maximum-allowed contribution to the campaign of  Bernie Sanders.  Shkreli knew, of course , that Sanders is opposed to just about everything Shkreli stands for. Had Sanders accepted the donation, Shkreli, now convinced that  any politician would respond like a  dog to his golden whistle, would--is it possible? become even vainer.   (There are, no doubt, a good many dogs who would.)

And then there is his two million dollar purchase of the Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, of which only one copy exists.   (I love the Clan's response when they discovered it might have been bought by dirty money: they intend, they claim, to give a "significant portion" to charity.)

The little meteor crashed.  It had to. It threatened to illuminate the activities of the Big Ones who still bask in the sun.

2.

"They gotta investigate this guy before they investigate us. Regulation is just another word for class warfare."

"By the way, I really appreciate your generous donation.  I know who to call.  Don't worry."

Shkreli's crime was his loud mouth.  He was only doing what other executives, who behave, in public at least, like well-bred,  innocuous gentlemen and ladies. I doubt if he would have been investigated so quickly if he had appeared to be virtuous.

The difference between what Shkreli did and many executives still  do differs only in degree.  Big Pharma has been ripping off the American  public for a long time.  Examples: When Part D, a program that supplies medications to the elderly, the government was forbidden to negotiate any price reduction; they continue to advertise brand names when cheaper generics are available; they often cease producing a drug that is no longer profitable and offer one that is a little different except for an enormous price increase; they delay the licensing of much cheaper generic drugs; they pay millions of dollars to doctors to tout their products, etc. etc.    And it's not only Big Pharma.  The ripping off of the American public by Wall Street, where huge bonuses are given to executives whether they have damaged the economy or not, is outrageous.

It turns out that Shkreli was much more reckless than most hedge fund managers.  He apparently was involved in that classic version of fraud, a Ponzi scheme.  Most hedge fund managers realize such fraud runs the danger of being discovered.  They prefer to be dishonest in "honest" ways.  The Shkrelis and the Madoffs are the exceptions; it is much safer--and more remunerative in the long run--to play by the rules that are fixed in your favor, rather than to flout them in order to flaunt amazing triumphs as an alpha male.  That's exactly what the profitably discrete members of the elite do. 

3.

I agree with Republicans: the government should be small as possible.  The problem is, however, human nature  When greed is excessive, the commonweal demands that the harm it does be limited.  If you want a smaller government, behave.

In our country, where inequality is a major problem, perhaps the major problem, regulation of capitalism is as necessary as tea is to a homesick Brit. The public must be kept ignorant and diverted.  The rantings of a flashy Jack O Lantern might eventually shed light on phantoms who continue to trick us.  Exposure threatens their power; unlike Trump, unlike Shkreli, they prefer to hide and rule. "Regulation" is a word as frightening to them as sunlight is to vampires.Those ghouls aren't fools.

Established greed, the greed of the 1%, does not like publicity. They would much prefer to own the network that broadcasts Entertainment Tonight, rather than appear on it.  That loud-mouthed nouveau-très-très-riche had to go.  For if the American public really understood what is going on, and finally decided to really do something about it, who knows what would happen?  May we all live long enough to find out.

Schubert in Five Songs, Part II

In the first part of this two-part series, we began our analysis of five songs, that give insight into the mind of a great musical genius of the beginning of the nineteenth century. An introduction, followed by discussions of two lieder, namely In der Ferne and der Zwerg, composed the contents of the first part. ( Reading Part 1 is strongly recommended before reading this essay.)  We will now proceed with brief analyses of three additional lieder.

3. Der Doppelgänger, D. 957, Text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Still ist die Nacht, es ruhen die Gassen,
In diesem Hause wohnte mein Schatz;
Sie hat schon längst die Stadt verlassen,
Doch steht noch das Haus auf dem selben Platz.

Da steht ein Mensch und starrt in die Höhe,
Und ringt die Hände, vor Schmerzensgewalt;
Mir graut es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe--
Der Mond zeigt mir meine eigene Gestalt.

Du Doppelgânger!  du bleicher Geselle!
Was äffst du nach mein Liebesleid,
Das mich gequält auf dieser Stelle,
So manche Nacht, in alter Zeit?

Prose translation:

The night is still, the streets are quiet,
My sweetheart lived in this house.
She left this city a long time ago,
But the house is still where it was.

Someone stands before it and looks above,
In the grip of great pain, he wrings his hands;
I'm filled with terror when I see his face:
The moon reveals my own form to me.

You Doppelgänger!  You pale comrade!
Why are you aping the pain I felt
Which tortured me on this spot,
So many a night, in times gone by?

Heinrich Heine, one of the most famous German poets of the nineteenth century, needs little introduction.  "Der Doppelgänger" is the only one of the five poems  discussed in this essay that is remembered not solely because it provided a text for a lied; it is a fine poem in its own right, and is still widely read--that is, by the tiny minority that still reads poetry.  Heine is most famous for his lyric verse; he wrote plays, essays and at least one novel as well.  An ardent liberal, he was very politically active.  The poet spent the last twenty-five years of his life in France, exiled from Germany because of his progressive views. He became an invalid for the last seven years of his life, which he spent on what he called his "mattress grave."  He was still (mostly) in good spirits, however, and wrote much during his years of paralysis. He died in Paris with his uneducated wife by his side; he was 58 years old and succumbed either to syphilis, multiple sclerosis, lead poisoning, or to a combination of all three.

Although some of his work appears to be, at first read, a bit too even, Heine, in fact, had an exquisite ear and knew how to shape content as well.  (Google my translation of "Death is Coming," which gives some idea of his great gift.)  He was also very urbane, witty, ironic and possessed a good sense of humor as well, traits lacking in a good deal of German poetry.  Now let's examine the poem.

The action of the poem might be interpreted as the tale of a man, older now, who visits the city where a former lover had lived.  This poem, like der Zwerg, can be convincingly interpreted as a dream sequence.  The narrator sees someone wringing his hands in great distress in front of his old girlfriend's house.  Under the light of the moon, he recognizes that it is no other than himself--a younger, tyro version of himself.

The first three stanzas set the stage--it is a very theatrical piece. The narrator returns to a city and relives a painful event from his past. The last stanza gives us a resolution.  With irony and a hint of condescension, the narrator calls his doppelgänger his 'pale comrade'--implying that the current version isn't pale at all.  He gently scolds him, as if to say something like: "Why are you making yourself miserable?  Get on with your life!" Yes, the old love had "tortured" him, but it tortures him no more.  The young, desperate man is no more than a phantom and the narrator will have nothing to do with him.  I imagine him disappearing in a puff as the narrator wakes up. This poem is a good example of Heine's healthy mindset.

We've all had flashbacks in which we see ourselves reliving a past trauma.  "You have to move on," Heine seems to be telling us  The poet is giving us very good advice.  Here we have a poem that not only reads well, but, in an understated and surprising way, teaches us an important lesson in life without a trace of being didactic. This is indeed a fine poem.

It's time to listen to Schubert's version; the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is the performer in this and in all the other lieder discussed in this article.

In postmodernism, the text is all important, not the author.  If a critic convincingly can interpret the text in a new way, all the better--it doesn't really matter what the author meant.  I would argue, therefore--tongue in cheek, of course--that Schubert was the first postmodernist.  He misinterpreted Heine's poem, missing its irony and salutary message entirely.  We can be glad he did, however; this is a masterful lied.

If there is ever a possibility of finding tragedy in a poem, Schubert will find it.  (I can imagine him, pitying the little rodents for being blind,  composing a tragic minor-key  lied to the text of  "Three Blind Mice.") I call the visual, almost cinematic imagery of the poem, namely, the mind's eye view of the city, then the house, then the stranger who turns out to be the narrator, the first horror film ever--again tongue in cheek, but with less lateral movement of the tongue than before.  For Schubert, the moment the narrator discovers his doppelgänger is a moment of almost psychotic terror.  "If that's me, who am I?"  This sudden loss of identity is terrifying. We feel it.

This, like the previous two songs, builds up tension and reaches a climax--the Eb of "stalt" that is, "meine eigene Gestalt," "my own form", is the highest and loudest note of the piece, to which Schubert approaches with astonishing musical invention.  This lied and other lieder proves that he had a great dramatic gift, the dramatic narrative of the text preventing the music from wandering about according to his fertile lyrical imagination, as was often the case--no criticism implied!   If he had lived longer and had the right text, he might have composed a great opera.

Irony thy name isn't Schubert.  Lyrical Intensity, thy first name is Franz.

4. A Lovely Song I Love To Hate: Im Abendroth, D.799,  Text by Karl Gottlieb Lappe

Lappe (1787-1836) was a German poet from Pomerania, and, to my knowledge, never visited Vienna.  Schubert must have read his poems in a literary magazine; he set this poem, and another one by the same author, Der Einsame, in 1824.  Lappe was known as "a patriotic freedom singer" in his native Pomerania.  He loved rural life and eschewed urban areas.   He could be classified as a "Heimatsdichter"--a country, or folk poet.  His poems deal with life in Pomerania; they are simple and, mostly, quite boring.

Im Abendroth

O wie schön ist deine Welt,
Vater, wenn sie golden strahlet;
Wenn sein Glanz herniederfällt
Und den Staub mit Schimmer mahlet;
Wenn das Rot, das in der Wolke blickt,
In mein stilles Frenster sinkt.

Könnt' ich klagen, könn't' ich zagen?
Irre sein an dir und mir?
Nein, ich werd' im Busen tragen
Deinen Himmel schon allhier;
Und dieses Herz eh' es zusammenbricht,
trinkt  noch Glut and sclürft noch Licht.

Prose Translation

The Sunset

O how beautiful is your world,
Father, when it is beaming gold--
When its glow descends
And luminously paints the dust--
When the deep red comes from clouds
And travels through my quiet window.

Could I ever complain or lose courage?
Go astray from you and from myself?
No, I will keep your heaven here,
Deep within my breast,
And this heart, before it collapses,
Will drink fire yet and slurp up light.

Lappe had a very different sensibility from that of Schubert; the latter tended to see the cloud, the former the silver lining.  The theme of the poem, namely, that witnessing the glory of nature is able to knock the nonsense out of one, was undoubtedly a sincerely held belief of Lappe's.  As Wilde said, however, all bad poetry is sincere. The glory of nature is not reflected by the glory of language in this poem.  Lord knows how many schoolgirls, moved by a sunset, wrote poems promising to be good little girls forever after.  The poem isn't truly terrible until the last line, however.  I think this is the worst line of verse Schubert ever set to music, and there are indeed many contenders.  Schürfen means the same as "to slurp"--that is, to drink noisily.  One can tolerate the image of  a heart that intends to keep drinking fire, but the image of imbibing light as noisily as a toddler guzzling down tomato soup is ridiculous.  Poor Lappe wanted to convey that he would continue to take in light with enthusiasm; it is, to put it mildly, not a good idea to finish a poem with a slurp; the effect, at least for me, is the direct opposite of the reverent one that the poet intended.

There is little dramatic movement in the poem, and, Schubert, as we have seen, loved to set poems that tell a story,  He accompanies the opening words with broken chords, which bring to mind the image of  a sweet little angel.  The music remains dangerously close to being sentimentally pious throughout.

Others have found this lied to be beautiful and profound.  It is for me, however, just about the only piece that makes me want to throw a pie in Schubert's face.  Mit Schlag, of course.




5. An Utter Delight:  Die Taubenpost, D. 957, Text by Johann Gabriel Seidl, (1804-1875)

Johann Gabriel Seidl's name is not a household word in anybody's house these days. (I wonder if he is related to Ulrich Seidl, the contemporary Austrian film director.)  He is best known as the author of the Austrian (Imperial) national anthem; the music, by Haydn, later became the melody of Deutschland über Alles.  He was as archaeologist, and wrote a good deal of verse as well.  He was born in Vienna and also died there.

Die Taubenpost

Ich hab' eine Brieftaub' in meinem Sold,
Die ist mir ergeben und treu,
Sie nimmt mir nie das Ziel zu kurz
Und fliegt auch nie vorbei.

Ich sende sie viel tausendmal
Auf Kundschaft täglich hinaus,
Vorbei an manchen lieben Ort,
Bis zu der Liebsten Haus.

Dort schaut sie zu Fenster heimlich hinein,
Belauscht ihren Blick und Schritt,
Gibt meine Grüsse scherzend ab,
Und nimmt die ihren mit.

Kein Briefchen brauch' ich zu schrieben mehr,
Die Träne selbst geb' ich ihr,
Oh, sie verträgt sie sicher nicht,
Gar eifrig dient sie mir.

Bei Tag, bei Nacht, im Wachen, im Traum,
Ihr gilt das alles gleich,
Wenn sie nur wandern, wandern kann,
Dann ist sie überreich!

Sie wird nicht müd, sie wird nicht matt,
Der Weg ist stets ihr neu;
Sie braucht nicht Lockung, braucht nicht Lohn
Die Taub' ist so mir treu!

Drum heg' ich sie auch so treu an der Brust,
Versichert das schönsten Gewinns;
Sie heisst--die Sehnsucht!  Kennt ihr sie?--
Die Botin treuen Sinns.

The Dove Post

I have a carrier dove working for me,
She is completely dedicated and faithful;
She never falls short of the target
And never flies beyond it either.

I send her thousands and thousands of times
Every day to make a delivery,
Past many a lovely place
Until she reaches my sweetheart's house.

I don't have to write any more letters,
I send her a tear along with her,
O, she is not able to endure it,
Such is her enthusiastic service.

By day, by night, awake or dreaming--
She doesn't care;
She just wants to wander and wander along,
Then she is more than happy.

She never gets tired, she never gets weary,
The path she takes is always like new:
She doesn't need to take a break, she doesn't need a salary,
This dove is thoroughly dedicated to me!

That's why I remain faithful and keep her close,
Assured as I am of the greatest gain--
Her name is--longing--do you know her?
The messenger of the faithful.

When my mentor in poetry, José Garcia Villa, discovered that Samuel Barber had composed an art song to a poem of his and  subsequently invited Villa to a concert during which it would be premiered, he refused to go.  He maintained that good poetry must have its own which would be drowned out by instruments if set to music.  Villa was a curmudgeon indeed, but he had a point.  Sometimes the content in the best poetry is not clear at first reading as well.  Rilke's Duino Elegies or Hölderlin's Brot und Wein--or anything by Paul Celan, for that matter, with the  possible exception of Todesfuge (Death Fugue), are far too complex to be set to music successfully.  The best poems for lieder are  not always the greatest poems.  German lieder are somewhat an exception, since even great poets, like Goethe or Heine, often wrote stanzaic, rhyming, metered verse, the type of verse Schubert and other composers throughout the nineteenth century favored.  (The First World War gave the coup de grace to this tradition, which was moribund even before the hostilities began.)

My point is this: "Dove Post" is not a great poem, but it is a very effective text for a lied.  It is, in an old-fashioned, biedermeier way, even charming.  I like the idea of the narrator sending out his inner dove, longing, and the fact that it never misses its mark.  (The poet is, after all, relating an internal process--the dove seeks out the image of the beloved within the narrator's brain--unless we believe in mental telepathy!)

This is apparently the last song Schubert ever wrote.   "The Shepherd on the Rock" came a few days later, but it is a concert aria, written to honor a request by a soprano; it is not a lied.

What a way to end his prolific, albeit very short career!  The joy is infectious  Although much of Schubert's music is sad, even melancholic, he was also perfectly capable of composing music that is as profoundly happy as other pieces are profoundly sad --Die Forelle, a lied, is an example of the former, while his quartet, Death and the Maiden, is an example of the latter.

Before we listen to the piece, I would like to discuss a few things about it first.  Listen to the long and lovely introduction.  It is indeed lovely, but long; if Schubert had utilized the same music to introduce each stanza, it would quickly get boring.  Listen to the two subsequent bridges Schubert composed, each as a link between stanzas.  These are brilliant innovations.  Also pay attention to the syncopation found in many of the treble measures of the piano accompaniment.  This gives the music a bouncing quality that increases, at least for me, the joy of the piece.

Something very interesting occurs at the end of the piece, when Schubert repeats, "Kennt ihr sie?', "Do you know her?"  For Seidl this is a rhetorical question; for him the meaning is, "Of course you know her.  You're human just like me.  Isn't longing great?"  Schubert agrees with Seidl the first time the phrase is sung: in this E flat version, the E flat is raised a half tone and becomes a dominant seventh chord which resolves in a descending scale to happy F major.  But when Schubert repeats "Kennt ihr sie?" it is sung more loudly, rises to a D flat which is part of the F minor scale--F major becomes F minor in the next measure.  This being a happy piece, the minor reverts to major quickly.  This is a quintessential Schubertian moment.  Instinctively, Schubert, who was familiar with the night, as it were, can't resist adding a hint of tragedy here.  Schubert knew well that yearning often comes at a terrible cost.  This joyous piece couldn't tolerate more than a hint of sadness--This understatement, possibly unnoticed at first--it passes by so fast--is, I think, one of the loveliest modulations from major to minor in the entire Schubertian canon.  No one could make a simple change from major to minor, (broadly, from happy to sad),  more effectively and more economically  than Schubert.  It's like a flashback to a hurricane; it lasts only a second, after which one realizes the sky is bluer and sunnier than ever. What a genius!

I hope you have enjoyed this two-part article. Nothing I write will ever go viral, but some of my essays have been disseminating like a very slow-growing bacterium.  I would appreciate it if you would  let me know if you have been infected, even in a small, subclinical way, in the comment section below. I also invite you to join and follow my blog.

I Loved Lucy, I Admit It Part 1

1.

We didn't get a TV until 1949.  My grandfather owned the house we lived in, a three story brick dwelling on Congress Street, situated in a working-class neighborhood of Jersey City. My mother, father, my older brother and I lived in the upper two stories which my grandfather, (we called him G.P., an abbreviation of Grand Pa), rented to us. There was no barrier separating the two families; all we needed to do was to walk down the stairs to visit our grandparents.  Everyone had free reign of the house; we lived, more or less, as a joint family.  We didn't know that, however, since that term was not in anyone's vocabulary.

Although in many ways far from typical, we were in some ways a typical working-class family.  My grandparents left school around the seventh grade; they married in 1912.  Their only child, Mabel--oh, how she hated that name!--was born in 1914.  My grandfather owned his own business on 49th Street in New York City.  He fashioned vases, statues and such into lamps; he also turned objects into objets d'art--I guess I can use that term, although, if he had ever heard it, he would would have asked, "What the hell is that?" He was quite good at his craft, and had many wealthy customers.
The only thing I have left from him is a jewelry container--I suppose that's what it is, although there is only room enough for, say, two rings--which he created from a lump of quartz some customer brought to him.  How it came into his possession, I'm not sure.  Maybe it was returned as a payment for other items he had made for a customer. Another possibility is that G.P. had made it as a gift for my grandmother.

I keep it on the bookshelf of my living room. Here are pictures of it:

My grandfather, who rented the upper two floors of his house to us for a nominal fee, brought in the money.  Not a lot, but enough.  My father, who had serious problems--he would eventually commit suicide at the age of 57--never could hold a job for very long, despite his considerable intelligence.  (Until my brother and I went to college--both of us became doctors--Dad had the most education of all family members, having graduated high school in Hoboken, New Jersey, his home town.)  It is only recently that I realized, with some exaggeration perhaps, that we would have 'wound up on the street' without G.P.'s support.  (The concept of homelessness, however, was at the time as unknown to my brother and me as the geology of Ceres, the largest asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, is unknown to me now. G.P. wasn't going anywhere, at least not for a long time--he died in 1972 at the age of 83.)

As I've already written, we didn't get a TV until 1949, where it assumed the central place in our grandparent's living room.  An expensive model, designed to be a showpiece, it was several feet long; to the right of the 10 inch screen was a Victrola, a phonograph, accessible after one lifted the lid of burnished oak on top.  (On the inside of the lid was the dog-and-gramophone logo of RCA Victor, familiar to everyone in those days.)  Grandfather must have bought the 78 rpm records along with the TV; I don't remember his ever having listened to them.  I doubt if he had ever purchased another record again.  The old vinyls, mostly of big band music--this was in the days before rock 'n' roll--provided me, the sole member of the house who listened to them, with many hours of listening pleasure.

Being only three years old at the time, I do not recall its arrival.  I must have been fascinated by the new phenomenon of seeing people singing, shouting, selling, and most of all, acting out stories right in the center of our living room; I do indeed recall, however,  prevailing on my parents to purchase one for our living room as well.  There were undoubtedly financial issues, of which I was blissfully unaware; we finally did get a TV of our own four years later, in 1953.

It looked very much like this:

A difference was that ours contained a cabinet shelf at the bottom, in which I eventually stored my collection of Disney comics.  Oh, how mad I was at my mother for having thrown them away years later during a fit of spring cleaning.  The anger, of course, has long since vanished, but a regret remained for over half a century--they would have been quite valuable today.  No matter--for if I had saved them then, they would still be gone today.  Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Unca Scrooge would have lost their cartoon lives as they sank, never to be read by a child again, into the muck of our basement in February, 2015, the month our house was destroyed, while we were in India, by a burst pipe.


2.

I loved Lucy passionately I admit it.

This sitcom, recently voted as "The Best TV Series of All Time," ran from October 1951 to May, 1957.  It soon became immensely popular. The light projected from cathode ray tubes into living rooms across America that had been programmed to form the images of Lucy, Desi and the Mertzes was as important to the history of television as the light released 300,000 years after the big bang was for the history of the universe.  Although somewhat accurate, this assertion is also a ridiculous exaggeration of scale and, therefore, doubly appropriate: from the 1950s on, American English, which had always been more fond of hyperbole than British English, has appropriated a good deal more wows! and absolutelies! to its vocabulary as a result of TV advertising.  (In those days, there was no remote with which one could turn off the volume during commercials.  We escaped, if we escaped at all, by finally answering nature's call.  Jingles were often accompanied by flushes in those days. Our escapes, however,  should have been more thorough; Philip Morris, the cigarette manufacturer, was a long-time sponsor of the show.)

Watching TV was different then--It was a family event, at least in our house.  All of us were newly converted moviegoers; very few had had the habit of going to the movies alone.  Another difference was that there was for a long time only one TV in each apartment or house. In addition, it was on only when a program was being watched, unlike today.  There were few channels; in Northern New Jersey, where I grew up, there were the three main networks, ABC, NBC and ABC, and three local stations which were rarely watched.  

I Love Lucy was quite innovative.  It was the first to be recorded before a live audience; contrary to its contemporaries, the best 35 mm film was used, with an eye toward reruns at a time when there was no such concept. Adapted from the movies, the use of more than one camera gave the program a more intimate "cinematic effect" rather than a "theatre effect," during which the only way to change one's angle of vision is to turn one's head. Canned laughter was used from the very beginning, which often included the very identifiable laugh of Desi Arnaz. 

As I have indicated, the show was immensely popular.  At its peak in 1953, when there were (only?) 20 million TV sets in the United States, over two-thirds were tuned into the weekly Monday night episode of the program.  

In that year, the whole nation was entranced by episodes that dealt with the birth of Little Ricky--Lucille Ball, in her early forties, did give birth to her son, Desi Arnaz Jr. at this time.  No one was permitted to use the word "pregnant" in those days; her sit-com husband referred to her condition in his accented English as "spectin."  (When a scene was shot in the couple's bedroom, the view encompassed twin beds separated by Cotton Mather in the form of a night table)  I would have been seven years old at the time.  I had heard, I'm not sure how, about the banning of this word from TV and asked by grandmother what it meant.  She didn't tell me; she laughed out loud, as if I had innocently said a very dirty word, and left the room.  This gives one an idea of the extent of sex education many working-class children received in those post-war days of inhibition.

I was hooked, but the romance didn't last.  I have only watched a handful of reruns in the over fifty years since the original series came to an end.  But I am still able to recall many episodes.  How primitive, how naive, how stupid, were phrases that came to mind years later as I recalled what seemed to be over-the-top in a bad way to me now, compared to what seemed to be over-the-top in a good way to me then.  For instance, Lucy and Ethel pretending to be Martians on the top of the Empire State Building and convincing others that they were indeed Martians. They were dressed in tacky Flash Gordon get-up that made them look like giant toddlers trick or treating in Newark.  Lucy's baby-talk-improvisation of Martianese was pathetic. Another episode I recalled ended with Lucy attempting to be a TV announcer.  She had broken the television, and, in order to avoid her husband's anger, she removed the screen, crawled into the cabinet from behind, and, hoping Ricky wouldn't notice the difference,  pretended to be, not Lucy, but a TV star.  It was just too silly.

Lucille Ball later said that she lacked talent; her success was due to hard work.  This isn't true.  She certainly had a genius for slapstick and physical comedy.  (Later on, when she tried to recapture the success of the original show with several imitations, the slapstick fell flat.)

As I said, my romance with Lucy didn't last; traces of my obsession, however, have remained.   I remember an episode that I thought was particularly funny.  It is not one of the classic segments, such as the one with Lucy eating the chocolates on the conveyor belt in a vain attempt to keep up with the pace.  

I loved music even then, but I didn't know it; it is not surprising that one of my favorite episodes centered on Lucy's lack of musical talent.  I was surprised--not really, since YouTube seems to have everything--to be able to hear it again, after over a half century.  I was also surprised to discover that it still made me laugh.  I will close this first essay in a series of two with the video of her attempting to sing a duet with her husband.

To be continued

Schubert in Five Songs, Part l

A major composer who lived to be barely more than thirty?  Schubert. The composer who, arguably, had the greatest gift for melody of  all?  Schubert.  Which genius(es) created masterworks in various musical genres?  Many; certainly Schubert as well.  Who was the first composer to favor the minor key, composing works that  fearlessly explore darker emotions?  Again, Schubert. Which composer was able to express both deep joy and deep sorrow in his compositions?  Several; Schubert very much to be counted among them. Who did this with the greatest intensity? A few, among them, which genius was short, stocky, syphilitic, frequently sad  and utterly sensational?  Schubert, Schubert, Schubert!

For me, Schubert's art songs or lieder compose the heart of the great body of works that bear his name. (I think he would have agreed; after all, he wrote over 600 art songs, many of them masterworks.) Five of them will be presented here, with comments which, I hope, will provide some insight into the mind and--especially--into the heart of this master composer. Oh, and don't worry, I won't always be as reverent as this introduction might lead one to believe.  Even Homer nods!


1. Sometimes It's Best Not to Know German
In der Ferne D. 957: text by Ludwig Rellstab

Ludwig Rellstab (1799-1860) was 29 when Schubert composed lieder to several of his poems in 1828,  Rellstab originally presented them to Beethoven, who apparently had no interest in setting them to music. (Goethe, by the way, thought he lacked talent.)  Beethoven's assistant, Anton Schindler, passed them on to Schubert and the rest is musical history. Rellstab became an enormously influential music critic later in his life.  An interesting fact is that he was briefly jailed in 1837 for allegedly libeling Gaspare Spontini, who who then the Generalmudikdirektor of Berlin.


In der Ferne

Wehe dem Fliehenden,
Welt hinaus ziehenden!
Fremde durchmessenden,
Heimat vergessenden,
Mutterhaus hassenden,
Freunde verlassenden
Folget kein Segen, ach!
auf ihren Wegen nach!

Herze, das sehnende,
Auge, das tränende,
Sehnsucht, nie endende,
Heimwärts sich wendende!
Busen, der wallende,
Klage, verhallende,
Abendstern, blinkender,
Hoffnunslos sinkender!

Lüfte, ihr säuselnden,
Wellen sanft kräuselnden,
Sonnenstrahl, eilender,
Nirgens verweilender:
Die mir mit Schmerze, ach!
Dies treue Herze brach--
Grüsst von dem Fliehenden,
Welt hinaus ziehenden!

This is my translation:  (Note: I am only providing prose summaries of the poems in this essay.)

Far Away

Woe to him who is fleeing,
Going  into the wide world.
To those who forget where they came from,
To those who hate their parental home,
To those who leave friends behind:
No blessing comes to them,
Alas! upon their journeys!

Heart full of yearning,
Eyes full of tears,
Never-ending yearning
In the direction of home!
Breast, undulating one,
Reproaches, dying away,
Evening star, twinkling,
Hopelessly sinking!

Breezes, you rustling ones,
Waves, gently rippling ones,
Sun rays, you rushing ones
Who never stay still--
Greet the one who alas!
Broke this true heart,
Send greetings from the fleeing one
Going into the wide world!

This is an awful poem.  When a friend of mine, who doesn't know German, and I listened to a recording of Schubert's last songs, he was mesmerized by the lyric intensity of Schubert's music set to the text of this poem.  He envied me for knowing German.  "Understanding the words as they are sung must increase one's appreciation," he opined.  "In this case,"  I replied, "it is better not to know German."

It's bad enough that the content is a humdrum rendering of a Romantic cliché, namely, the tale of a man, desperate over a failed romance, who subsequently--in this case "with an undulating breast"--takes his stupid Weltschmerz abroad. The worst aspect, however, is the writer's egregious attempt at word play.  This is not evident in the English translation, so I will explain its occurrence in the original version.  In German, the gerund form of a verb can indicate an individual, who thereby becomes part of the verb, by ending the suffix er, or e. Thus gehend, "going." becomes "the one (male) who is going" or "Gehender."  Rellstab uses this device six times in each eight-line stanza, where they come at the end of the line---that is, eighteen times!  The gerunds come in pairs and rhyme.  A cardinal rule of poetry--and of all art--is not to bore the reader.  Variations, including unexpected turns,  of all sorts are essential.

The effect of the overused gerunds is ludicrous.  Listening to the words, I feel like laughing; listening to Schubert's sublime music, however,  other emotions arise.

The poem, with its boring repetitions, easy rhymes, and overblown language, invites parody.  Here is mine:
.

Nase, du fliessende,
Nudelschleim giessende,
Rotzengrün schiessende,
In C dur piepsende!
(Der Du dies Nasenloch
öffnen kannst, hilf' mir doch!)
Wehe  dem niesenden,
Welt hinaus schneuzenden.

(Sorry; I can't translate this one.)

Now let's turn to Schubert's lied.

Schubert created a masterwork, no doubt about it.

The very effective short introduction sets the stage: we are musically informed that the mood of this piece will be a very serious one.  And so it is--a haunting, very sad, very Schubertian melody follows.  We are in a minor key, of course; in this version G# minor.  What I want to stress here is Schubert's exquisite harmonic changes of the melodic line: unlike the tiresome poem, nothing is boring here.  The song is full of surprises, such as the half tone modulation emphasizing the "hate" part of the phrase, "Mutterhaus hassenden."  The song is full of such variations to astonishingly beautiful effect.  The first stanza remains in the lower register with little melodic movement.  The melodic line of the second stanza gradually rises in pitch and with greater intervals between notes.  The intensity is increasing; we are gradually heading toward a climax.  And how lovely and how sad is the long note (two and a half measures) at the end of each of the first two stanzas.  Then, unexpectedly, one of those miraculous Schubertian shifts from minor to major occurs.  One can even anticipate a happy ending, the music is so serene at this point.  But no, Schubert  modulates back to the minor key for the climax of the piece, the final and loudest note the singer has: a molto forte E flat.  It is important to note that the melody ends on the same note as it began, except that it occurs one octave higher.  (D# is the same note as Eb.)  Despite a sunny interval, what a harrowing journey that one octave contains!  Schubert's harmonic and melodic achievements here are nothing short of breathtaking.

How could such a musical genius like Schubert choose such a mediocre text?  We will attempt to answer this in our discussion of the next lied.

2.  It Helps to Know German with This One
Der Zwerg, D. 771, text by Mathäus Casimir von Collin (1779-1824)

Der Zwerg

Im trüben Licht verschwinden schon die Berge,
Es schwebt das Schiff auf glatten Meereswogen,
worauf die Königen mit ihrem Zwerge.

Sie schaut empor zum hochgewölbten Bogen,
Hinauf zur lichtdurchwirkten blauen Ferne,
Die mit der Milch des Himmels blass durchzogen.

"Nie, nie habt ihr mir gelogen noch, ihr Sterne,"
So ruft sie aus, "bald werd' ich nun entschwinden,
Ihr sagt es mir, doch sterb' ich wahrlich gerne."

Da tritt der Zwerg zur Königen, mag binden
Um ihren Hals die Schnur von roter Seide,
Und weint, als wollt' er schnell vor Gram erblinden.

Er spricht: "Du selbst bist schuld an diesem Leide
Weil um den König du mich hast verlassen,
Jetzt weckt dein Sterben einzig mir noch Freude.

"Zwar werd' ich ewig mich selber hassen,
Der dir mit dieser Hand den Tod gegeben,
Doch musst zum frühen Grab du nun erblassen."

Sie legt die Hand aufs Herz voll jungem Leben,
Und aus dem Aug' die schweren Tränen rinnen,
Das sie zum Himmel betend will erheben.

"Mögst du nicht Schmerz durch meinen Tod gewinnen!"
Sie sagt's; da küsst der Zwerg die bleichen Wangen,
D'rauf alsoblad vergehen ihr die Sinnen.

Der Zwerg schaut an die Frau, von Tod befangen,
Er senkt sie tief ins Meer mit eig'nen Hânden,
Ihm brennt nach ihr das Herz so voll verlangen,
An keiner Küste wird er je mehr landen.

The Dwarf (Prose Translation)

The hills are disappearing in the bleak light,
The ship is floating on the smooth sea,
On which are the queen and her dwarf.

She looks above to the vault of the sky
Up to the blue distance streaked with light,
Which is faintly patterned with starry milk.

"Never, never have you stars lied to me,"
She cries out, "Soon I will depart this life--,
You tell me so, but I am indeed happy to die."

The dwarf then approaches the queen, and
Wraps the cord of red silk around her neck,
And weeps, and weeps, overcome with grief.

He says,"You're to blame for what is happening,
Because you have abandoned me for the king,
Your death is the only thing that can bring me joy now.

"Although I will hate myself forever
Because these hands brought death to you,
Yet you must be sent to an early grave."

Full of youth, she puts her hand on her heart,
From her eyes heavy tears fall,
She lifts up her eyes to heaven.

"I hope my death will never cause you any grief,"
She exclaims; thereupon the dwarf kisses her on her pale cheeks,
And she swiftly falls into unconsciousness.

The dwarf looks at her, overcome by death,
He sinks her body deep into the sea;
His heart is burning, consumed by desire,
He will never land on any shore again.

Matthäus Casimir von Collin was very erudite; at one time he was a professor of Aesthetics and History at the University of Cracow.  He was much admired by Schubert and his friends not only for his conversation but also for his kindliness.  He was also much involved with literature, and edited an important magazine.

Schubert composed music to several of Collin's poems, "Der Zwerg," enjoys a prominent position among them.  It is, of course, a ballad.

In the late eighteenth century and through Schubert's time, ballads, inspired by the great English and Scottish ballads of previous centuries, were very much in fashion. The rage started around the time of the publication of the Ossian epics, the first installation of which appeared in 1760.  They were purportedly translations from the ancient Gaelic, but turned out to be "the most successful literary falsehoods in modern history," (Curley.)  Von Collin, in fact, wrote a libretto to an opera called, "Ossian." The epic helped bring about the Romantic movement.

Most of the derivative ballads written during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are eminently forgettable--which would have been the fate of this one as well, if Schubert hadn't set it to music.  The great exception is Goethe's superb ballad, "der Erlkönig," which also provided the text to one of Schubert's most memorable lieder.

The poem reads well;  knowing German enables one to follow the content, which is of great importance here.  Critical judgement, however, needs to be suspended. It is difficult to fathom how this poem could ever have been taken seriously--Schubert, however, took it very seriously.

Let us examine the conceit of the poem.  The queen has a dwarf; the poem takes place many centuries ago when dwarfs and jesters provided royal entertainment.  Can you imagine a queen being alone on a ship with her dwarf?  Think of the class difference.  Think of the impossibility of a queen ever being left alone in public without attendants.

It gets worse.  The dwarf and the queen have been having an affair!  Duty apparently calls, and the queen decides to return to her husband.  The jealous dwarf strangles her and casts her body into the sea.  The poor girl is willing to die--she apparently still loves him but it is, alas! a love that cannot be--and offers no resistance as she is strangled by the dwarf.  The little fellow, whose heart is breaking, will never be seen nor heard of again. It is ridiculous.

The most egregious lines of all occur in the fifth stanza, which I roughly translate as follows: "You are to blame for this mess, because you have abandoned me for the king."  Can you imagine a Quasimodo reproaching a Guinevere for having dumped him for her King Arthur?  Much credit must be given to all those artists who sing these lines without cracking up.

The music is, however, superb.    Perhaps there a way to save the poem as well.  What if the whole poem is interpreted as a dream of an inadequate man, fantasizing about a beautiful woman?  He views himself as a dwarf.  That the dwarf and the queen could be found alone on a ship is easily accomplished in a dream.  He imagines that they have a relationship and kills her in a fit of jealously.  Every night, he realm of Rapid Eye Movement sets the stage all over the world for imagination to direct scenes such as this one In a dream a queen could be strangled without so much as a squawk.  Although this was certainly not von Collins's intention, the poem does indeed work as a sexual nightmare.

Now let's turn our attention to the recording:

Schubert has, once again, written a superb composition. At this point we can perhaps explain why Schubert often chose texts of poor quality. His desire to please his friends is part of the answer, but only part;  Schubert's willingness to put this and other poems by the poetasters in his circle goes deeper.  Schubert always sought texts to which he could respond with emotional intensity.  The content was what was important for him, not how the content was expressed.  (Yes, even Schubert nods--It would have been better if he had been more discriminating in his choice of texts.  Yet his ability not only to change spring water but even bilge water into fine wine provides further evidence of his extraordinary talent.)  He was especially fond of texts that deal with an unhappy, alienated narrator, who is thrown into a state of passionate despair after being rejected by the girl of his dreams.  (Winterreise is the prime example, but there are many others.)  A poem expressing the resultant misery, however miserably versified, is all that Schubert needed. Once he responded emotionally to a text, even to one lacking literary merit, he was able to set it to music of great subtlety and with the imagination of a master dramatist.

"Der Zwerg" is a prime example of this Schubertian mastery.  The minor-key broken chords of the bass immediately establish the eerie mood of this piece.  As usual, Schubert is able to modulate the harmonies so that the music is never boring and is always effective.  He loves to drive the direction of an art song  to an emotional  high point, which he accomplishes here  with great artistry. Listen to how he repeats, "vor Gram erblinden" a phrase that obviously touched a nerve.  It is an indication of what is to come, a "mini-high point," as it were. The climax is reached with the line, "Ihm brennt nach ihr das Herz so voll Verlangen." The music is at its loudest; the pitch is raised.  Here and only here Schubert repeats not only the entire line but also repeats the last three words, 'so voll Verlangen' for the third time.  Schubert was perhaps the greatest classical master of sexual frustration ever.  (Gretchen am Spinnrade is another fine example.)

The music is so sexually intense and so unfulfilled.  It is an example of what I call the "negative Schubertian orgasm."  It is minor-key sad.  It is masturbatory, since the object of desire is not present.  It is full of incredibly  passionate intensity. It is also rather adolescent, and, arguably, somewhat pathological.  (Other examples of the "negative Schubertian orgasm": when Gretchen swoons and breaks off from spinning the wheel and, in the development section of the Unfinished Symphony, when the orchestra--in a minor key, of course--plays a loud, intense climax and then falls off.)

Schubert was a very versatile composer, and the turmoil in this lied is countered by the major-key exuberance of others.  But emotional turmoil is  a Schubertian specialty.  It is difficult to criticize a genius; praise comes much easier.  Sometimes, however, the gloom of some of his music, for me at least, gets to be a bit too much.  Goethe comes to mind, who stated that classicism is that which is healthy, while Romanticism is that which is pathological.  Not totally true, but I certainly get the point.

This is the end of Part 1; in Part 11, we will discuss the last three songs of this five-song analysis.

Happy Thanksgiving 2015

Looking at a piece of fruit,
or, for that matter, at another
object of beauty as well.

Tasting Malabar fish curry,
or, for that matter, any
savory portion as well.

Music!

Smelling a Madagascar jasmine,
or, for that matter, anything
pleasant as well.

Touching a lover's left hand,
or, for that matter, 
the beloved right one as well.

What makes one happy?
Love:

being oneself to such a degree
that only the whole world is left.

White Flight

No, I'm not referring to the exodus of whites from inner cities to suburbia which occurred during the sixties.  I'm referring to white flight from life...to an early grave.  The death rate for white middle-aged Americans aged 45-54 has been increasing since 2000 in a truly alarming fashion.  The increase is found solely among working-class whites, that is, those whose highest level of education is high school or less. (Wealthy white professionals are doing just fine.)

This surprising statistic was brought to light by the research of a husband and wife team, Angus Deaton, who was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics, and Dr. Ann Case.  The death rate shown below is for all U.S. whites; the death rate for working class whites in this age group must be even worse. (The death rate for non-working class whites continues to decrease.)

The results are astounding.  Although not shown in this chart, the death rates for blacks and Hispanics in this age group continue to decline.  The death rate for blacks, while higher than those for whites in this group, indicates that the gap in life expectancy is rapidly closing.  In addition, the rates for whites continue to decline in every industrialized country with the exception of the United States.

Three causes of mortality are (very) largely responsible for the increase: suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse.  If this trend continues for just a little longer, working-class whites will be the most vulnerable ethnic group prior to old age in the country.  (White males are especially affected.)  This is truly astounding, given the fact that blacks continue to suffer from widespread discrimination.

What's going on here?  The researchers are flummoxed.  The conservative commentator Ross Douthat believes ("The Dying of the Whites," New York Times, November 8, 2015) that the increase is largely due to decreasing religious affiliation in this group, and to government coddling--he mentions the provision of disability benefits in some cases as an example.  This is beneath comment.  David Frum, my favorite conservative, mentioned (Real Time with Bill Maher, November 6, 2015),  that increased feelings of alienation, loneliness and despair are the culprits.  I agree, but for different reasons.  He cites the fact that the marriage rate has decreased in this group as well as the decline in church attendance.  He is a compassionate conservative, but he still blames the victim.  Does he really think that all we need to do is to get these people spouses and convince them that a life without God is a life without meaning?  A highly dubious assertion!  Church attendance has fallen off more markedly in Europe, while death rates among whites in this age group continue to decline.  The majority of births occur out of wedlock in Sweden; Swedish death rates continue to decline as well.  Government programs for the poor and working class are much more generous in most European countries, yet the social mobility of the poor is greater. (America's is the lowest among industrialized nations.) The reasoning of Frum and Douthat in this regard is bogus.

I think I have a finger on the pulse of why so many whites are becoming, well, pulseless.  Racism obviously isn't a factor: if these whites had a better education and achieved marketable skills, they would indeed be sitting pretty.

A clue was provided by a survey conducted in 2014.  The first statement of the survey was, "America will be a land of opportunity in ten years." 45% of blacks agreed; 47% of Hispanics agreed--but only 29% of whites.  The second statement of the survey was, "(One is) More Likely to Get Ahead with Hard Work Playing by Rules in 10 years."  44% of blacks agreed; 49% of Hispanics agreed--but only 24% of whites agreed.  Mind you the respondents were not classified according to age and education--one would expect an even more dismal pessimism among working-class whites.

Why are Dick and Jane, Tom, Dick and Harry convinced that their glass is a good deal less than half full?  Aren't the incomes of working-class whites higher than those of blacks.? They are--but there is a difference.  Many of these whites come from families that were stable and doing quite well only a generation or so ago.  You didn't need a high school education to work in a steel mill.  Once upon a time, working-class whites willing to work hard could afford a house and an education for their children.  Those days are long gone  Blacks, in contrast, tend to come from families who had it even harder than contemporary black families due to the unspeakable racism of previous generations.  In short, working-class whites feel that their world is coming apart while blacks are much more likely to believe that things are getting better

The road to despair can be as short as the distance one takes  to fall flat on one's face.  Do we really have to study the relationship between despair and suicide, drugs and alcohol?  Yes, but undoubtedly only to determine the degree to which they apply in specific cases.  The iceberg tip of suicide always caps tons of frozen despair.  (For every suicide, how many are getting by with great difficulty, plagued by despair?  I'm not sure, but it's surely a lot.).

Causes and Solutions

To me the reason why working-class whites are increasingly pessimistic is abundantly clear;  it is due to the egregious degree of income inequality in this country, which is getting even worse.  I am, of course, not advocating affirmative action for working-class whites alone; I am, however, advocating for massive intervention to change the nightmares of poor and working-class Americans of all races into tolerable dreams.

The grim statistics prove that racism per se is not the only thing harmful to the welfare not only to blacks, but to all.  Poor and working-class blacks suffer a double whammy.  Notice that the vast majority of black victims of police brutality occurs among the poor.  Rich blacks in Gucci suits are hardly likely to be arrested and abused for jaywalking. Class matters.

The members of the white working class are the canaries trapped in the poisonous mine of unregulated capitalism.  A form of capitalism is arguably the most efficient governmental model; human nature, which is no stranger to untrammeled greed, demands that there be checks and balances, if democracy is to thrive.  Otherwise we're heading for a society in which oligarchs live in mansions inside gated communities and the rest live in hovels on the fences' wrong side.

At present the richest 1% of Americans own 40% of the wealth; the richest ten percent own 80% of the wealth, while the bottom 80% own only 7% of the wealth.  We have reached a very dangerous level of inequality; our democracy is very much under duress as a result.  Social mobility, one of the greatest guarantors of democracy,  is lower in America than it is in Canada and Europe.

We need to make education affordable for everyone.  We need to assure that everyone who works receives a living wage.  We need massive investments in our crumbling infrastructure; we need a New Deal-type program to provide the workers...

We really need a lot of things but are we going to get them?

One of the hindrances is the Democratic party itself.  It has increasingly practiced so-called identity politics, reaching out to women and minorities, while writing off working-class whites.  (What is the matter with Kansas?  Plenty; I'm not sure why, but its malignancy is unmerrily metastasizing throughout all fifty states.)  Angry and ignorant whites are the bread and butter of the Republican party.  Without their support, there are not enough oligarchs to elect a dog catcher.  If the Democrats ever convinced working-class whites to vote for their own interests, things would change for the better overnight.  I'm not sure how this can be done, it's not easy to reason with the alienated and marginalized, exposed to so much propaganda from the right, who tend to vote for those that look like them yet do not care about them at all. True, reaching out to those who bite the hands that need them is a daunting task; it is however an essential one.

If you believe as I do that income inequality is one of the most pressing of contemporary American problems, ask yourself this: which party would tend to decrease this pernicious trend?  The answer is obvious.

Progressives must understand that the mortality rate among working-class whites is a convincing indication that all victims of the current oligarchy need immediate relief.  If income inequality continues to increase at the current rate, our democracy, already injured, will not survive.

White flight to light--That would be a healthful turn indeed.