"Das englische Haus"
by Hermann Muthesius is published in German, 1904-1905.
Sandringham, which the Duke of Edinburgh has recently allowed to be photographed for the first time. Not quite what Muthesius had in mind, but in the ballpark.
The next time someone makes a disparaging remark about 1904 being an arcane and unmarketable exercise (as opposed to blogs about being a working mom or a Japanese school girl which get book and movie deals) with a limited and narrow focus of only marginal interest to a select few, I shall raise my clenched fist with a copy of the London Review of Books rolled up in it, because the current issue [Vol 30 No 10, 22 May 08] contains not one but two articles upon which pivotal date their signficance hinges. First is Impervious to Draughts, Rosemary Hill's entertaining review of the new and full English translation of Hermann Muthesius' seminal work on The English House. As Rosemary points out, it took a German to appreciate what, at the turn of the last century, the English were doing in domestic architecture. Variously described as "Old English" and "Queen Anne," the English houses Muthesius admired "obeyed no strict stylistic rules but drew intelligently on history ... adopting the tile-hanging, red brick and half-timbering, the large chimney stacks and little leaded lights of the past and turning them into something new and comfortable." Although Sandringham is at the high end, so to speak, let us not forget that Edward VII designed the house for a relaxed lifestyle and even had a bowling alley incorporated for Queen Alexandra who enjoyed the game. Talk about comfort. The point is, Muthesius wanted to understand what the English had done "and he was prepared to consider -- as the English themselves, with their dislike of abstraction, were not -- how all the elements connected."
"How all the elements connected." Only connect, as the great novelist writes in Howard's End, "Only connect the prose and the passion." ("Live in fragments no longer. Only connect..." Chapter 22).
And if 1904 does not offer this connection, (as if, hello, that were not the entire enterprise in the proverbial nutshell!), I don't know what does. And if this alone were not sufficient evidence, the very engaging and talented poet and memoirist August Kleinzahler reviews [All There Needs to Be Said] a biography of Louis Zukofsky which begins, "Born on the Lower East Side in 1904 to Russian Jewish parents, Louis Zukofsky spent his entire life in New York City, reading and writing and doing as little else as possible..."
Actually, much more can be said [and will be, in a future post] of Zukofsky's enviable life (who doesn't want to read and write and do as little else as possible?) and work, including his monumental 800-page poem "A" but for the moment, besides encouraging you (again) to run out and pick up Kleinzahler's memoir Cutty, One Rock, (which is not about Zukofsky but about Kleinzahler and also about his gay brother in the Mafia) I think it is now abundantly clear that 1904 is indeed the year everything interesting happened, and therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
Sandringham, which the Duke of Edinburgh has recently allowed to be photographed for the first time. Not quite what Muthesius had in mind, but in the ballpark.
The next time someone makes a disparaging remark about 1904 being an arcane and unmarketable exercise (as opposed to blogs about being a working mom or a Japanese school girl which get book and movie deals) with a limited and narrow focus of only marginal interest to a select few, I shall raise my clenched fist with a copy of the London Review of Books rolled up in it, because the current issue [Vol 30 No 10, 22 May 08] contains not one but two articles upon which pivotal date their signficance hinges. First is Impervious to Draughts, Rosemary Hill's entertaining review of the new and full English translation of Hermann Muthesius' seminal work on The English House. As Rosemary points out, it took a German to appreciate what, at the turn of the last century, the English were doing in domestic architecture. Variously described as "Old English" and "Queen Anne," the English houses Muthesius admired "obeyed no strict stylistic rules but drew intelligently on history ... adopting the tile-hanging, red brick and half-timbering, the large chimney stacks and little leaded lights of the past and turning them into something new and comfortable." Although Sandringham is at the high end, so to speak, let us not forget that Edward VII designed the house for a relaxed lifestyle and even had a bowling alley incorporated for Queen Alexandra who enjoyed the game. Talk about comfort. The point is, Muthesius wanted to understand what the English had done "and he was prepared to consider -- as the English themselves, with their dislike of abstraction, were not -- how all the elements connected."
"How all the elements connected." Only connect, as the great novelist writes in Howard's End, "Only connect the prose and the passion." ("Live in fragments no longer. Only connect..." Chapter 22).
And if 1904 does not offer this connection, (as if, hello, that were not the entire enterprise in the proverbial nutshell!), I don't know what does. And if this alone were not sufficient evidence, the very engaging and talented poet and memoirist August Kleinzahler reviews [All There Needs to Be Said] a biography of Louis Zukofsky which begins, "Born on the Lower East Side in 1904 to Russian Jewish parents, Louis Zukofsky spent his entire life in New York City, reading and writing and doing as little else as possible..."
Actually, much more can be said [and will be, in a future post] of Zukofsky's enviable life (who doesn't want to read and write and do as little else as possible?) and work, including his monumental 800-page poem "A" but for the moment, besides encouraging you (again) to run out and pick up Kleinzahler's memoir Cutty, One Rock, (which is not about Zukofsky but about Kleinzahler and also about his gay brother in the Mafia) I think it is now abundantly clear that 1904 is indeed the year everything interesting happened, and therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
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