Ephesian Tale

Xenophon of Ephesus's Ephesian Tale is the shortest of the five ancient Greek "novels" or romances. Possibly because it is an epitome of a longer work, it moves rather quickly in the plot of its two young lovers, Habrocomes and Anthia, who become enamored at first sight in their hometown of Ephesus. Like the other ancient Greek romances, the two vow their allegiance to the the other but are separated and reunited after surviving pirate attacks, oracles, enslavement, banditry, executions, poisoning, being buried alive, lustful men and women interested in both for their beauty and the intervention of the gods (of Greek and Egyptian extraction). Their trials bring them across the Mediterranean and the fringes of the Hellenistic world, including Egypt, "Ethiopia" (Nubia), the Levant, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Italy. 

Despite its short length and the lack of developed characters, the narrative manages to engage the reader with the sense of wonder and adventure. It follows many of the same conventions as the other surviving romances of its era, such as piracy in the Mediterranean, extended backgrounds of each main character as they are introduced, Egyptian bandits of the Nile Delta, and exotic peoples and gods whose intercession shapes the lives of the two protagonists. The god of the Nile himself directly intercedes on the behalf of Habrocomes, saving his life with his waters from a crucifixion and the flames of a pyre. It is at the temple of Isis in Memphis where Anthia is able to prevent her rape by Polyidus, who routs Hippothous's band of robbers. Intriguingly, this "novel" is also the first to be partially set in "Ethiopia," where Hippothous and his bandits have moved to raid traders en route to India and exotic lands. Cosmopolitan Alexandria also makes an appearance, where an Indian ruler named Psammis is visiting and buys Anthia as his lave, hoping to woo her. 

Exotic Indian rulers and allusions to the lucrative trade through the Red Sea from Egypt and the Nile may have been a precedent for the allusions to the wealth of "Ethiopia" in Heliodorus's more successful novel of the 300s. The translator of the edition read for this post, Graham Anderson, questions the geographic knowledge of Xenophon, but it is perfectly plausible that Egypt, Nubia ("Ethiopia") and India intersected through the Red Sea and overland trade routes from the Nile Valley, although the exploits of Hippothous and his bandits in Coptos and Nubia are not fully detailed. Indeed, they later endeavor to leave "Ethiopia" because they missed attacking larger towns and settlements instead of the individual traders and small groups (such as that of Psammis, returning to India) they attacked on the borderlands of Egypt and what must be the kingdom of Meroe. Nonetheless, this partial setting of the story in "Ethiopia" links Nile Valley banditry in southern Egypt with the vast wealth and exoticism of Africa and India, which is clearly a theme of Helodorus's Aethiopika. While there are no "Ethiopian" characters in the novel, the Nile itself and Egyptian settings present an exotic and challenging set of ordeals the two lovers endure to reaffirm their chastity or virtue. 

Leucippe and Clitophon

Leucippe and Clitophon seems to be unique among the extant ancient Greek "novels" for its use of a first-person narrator, who tells his tale to the initial narrator in the beginning of the text. In other respects, it is quite similar to the other Greek romances in that two young people fall in love at first sight but must endure a number of trials before consummating their relationship in proper marriage. The virtue of virginity for maidens and the intervention of the deities (especially Eros, Aphrodite, Artemis and Poseidon) or deus ex machina are, as in Heliodorus's novel, prolific. The author, Achilles Tatius of Alexandria, is believed to have composed the romance in the early 1st century of our era, thus predating Helidorus but drawing on similar precedents from earlier texts and Greek literature and mythology. In addition, Achilles Tatius is a master of vivid prose describing works of art, as well as the wondrous Nile of his Egyptian homeland. 

Though the kissing cousins are of Tyre and Byzantium, it is in Egypt where their most exotic and exciting escapades occur. Menelaus, the Egyptian native and proponent of pederasty (like Clinias, a cousin of Clitophon who loses his lover, Charicles), becomes a guide of sorts, a familiar Other who assists Clitophon, Leucippe, Clinias, and Satyrus for their survival in exotic Egypt. Achilles Tatius has them fend off dark-skinned bandits in the Nile Delta (not as black as Indians, but akin to "half-caste Ethiopians"), witness battles between the Egyptian army and said bandits, experience the lighthouse at Pharos near Alexandria, and hear descriptions of elephants while gazing upon the fauna of the Nile, particularly the crocodile and hippopotamus. In cosmopolitan Alexandria, Clitophon, believing Leucippe dead for the umpteenth time, agrees to marry Melite, a wealthy presumed widow of Ephesus, shifting the story's center away from Egypt for the final denouement and reunion of the the two lovers. 

But let us return to the Egyptian exoticism and African references in the tale. The Nile itself becomes a character, as its waters and the soil of the delta converge and separate, creating the marshes, streams, and lakes of the Delta region. In Tatius's novel, the legendary phoenix, which lives upriver in "Ethiopia," land associated with the Sun, comes to Egypt to die and thus reaffirms the cycle of life from the Nile's origins in the land of the Sun to Egypt. Egypt is a land of wonders (fauna, Alexandria), of horrors (a fake human sacrifice to appease the bandits is organized by Menelaus and Satyrus) and, I would argue, where the debased nature of Thersander of Ephesus is compared to the bestial bandits and conniving characters lusting for Leucippe (Chaereas, Charmides). The Egyptian setting occupies a central middle part of the narrative, after the elopement of Leucippe and Clitophon from Tyre and the subsequent shipwreck, thus, the exotic world(s) of the Nile presents the otherworldly ordeals of the two lovers must persevere against to achieve their union.

Coltrane: The Story of a Sound

Ratliff's Coltrane: The Story of a Sound is somewhat disappointing. It does not fail to deliver in its coverage of the evolution of Coltrane's music from the earliest navy band recordings to his death 1967. However, a full biography would likely have contextualized more effectively some of the conditions in which Coltrane felt a compulsion to constantly evolve and search for deeper meaning in his music. Ratliff, without hagiography and excessive biographical detail, does manage to accomplish some of this through other biographies and interviews with those who knew Coltrane. But for reasons perhaps unbeknownst to me, the text does does not quite capture the sublime quality of Coltrane's music in the manner a proper biography would. Everything seems aloof and unmoored from the context of his work, despite its coverage of the full breadth of Coltrane's career. 

Further, I am not convinced I share the author's opinions on some of Coltrane's creative decisions or personnel, particularly the enriching role of Eric Dolphy as a sideman and arranger for some of Coltrane's most riveting work (Africa/Brass and Olé Coltrane). I've long enjoyed the contrast in styles represented by Dolphy and the Coltrane "classic" quartet, and contrasting nature of Dolphy's own style adds a beautiful clash. His arranging skills and mutual interest in "Eastern" and Indian musical modes and expression surely shaped Coltrane, too, adding another speech-like layer of sound through his alto and bass clarinet solos. I suppose one can always find points of disagreement among fans and aficionados of Coltrane, as his vast legacy has shaped free and mainstream jazz since his untimely death in 1967. 

Panama

Luis Russell, who happened to be Panamian, recorded one of the best renditions of the old standard named for the land of his birth. Composed by William Tyers, the song has dropped its Latin rhythms but Russell added the best of the New Orleans sound in an early swing context. 

The Quest of the Silver Fleece

For a novel steeped in African-American conjure and Southern folk belief, Du Bois's first novel promotes an ambivalence with regards to the conjure tradition. Like his second novel, Dark Princess, it is a romance in which the struggle of black characters against racism is embedded in the trials of the two young lovers. However, without exotic Indian princesses and the theme of the global color line, The Quest of the Silver Fleece focuses on African-American characters and their white counterparts in the struggle against the post-Reconstruction political economy of Alabama, with only a few references to the connections between the oppressed colored masses of the US and colonized peoples elsewhere.

The kingdom of cotton is thoroughly analyzed here, demonstrating precisely how "slavery by another name" persisted after the Civil War in places like the fictional Tooms County, Alabama. The combination of the Southern planter aristocracy and Northern capitalists combining their forces to consolidate the exploitation of black sharecroppers, the denial of education for black children, and the violation of black womanhood due to their rape and sexual exploitation by white men are constants here. Part of the story is set in the nation's capital, where the alliance of Northern capital and the Southern aristocracy asserts itself in the Republican party's opportunistic and limited support of black civil rights. Again, like Dark Princess, Bles Alwyn, akin to Matthew in the later novel, is paired with a light-skinned and cynical black woman, but cannot abandon his ideals too long and eventually returns to the South. 

As a romance novel with some of the socialist themes one can expect from Du Bois (hopes for eventual collaboration of blacks and poor whites against their capitalist exploiters, critiques of industry and monopoly capitalism), Bles and the other protagonist, Zora, build their own kingdom after clearing the swamp in which Zora's mother, Elspeth, resided. They clear the swamp with the help of black tenants, splitting the profits with them to fund the school started by Miss Smith and expand services and settlement-work. Thus, a combination of sorts of black nationalist assertions of self-rule, communal land ownership, and utopian romance come together through the union of a "wild child" of the swamp and Bles, who represents the larger world of knowledge and higher ideals.

This is where the ambivalence with regards to the "half-forgotten heathen cult" comes in. It is through a magic cotton seed of Elspeth that the swamp first produces the "Silver Fleece," a metaphor for black authority and independence in the midst of the planter domination of the Cresswells and other former slaveholders. Zora, although not completely aware of her heritage, hears Elspeth claim descent from an African king, and she witnesses the bizarre world of the swamp, its charm, and the "dreams." As a former child of the swamp, removed from social norms, her quest of knowledge, largely initiated by Bles, culminates in her central leadership of the plan to save the Smith school for black children and clear the swamp for an egalitarian farm. In the course of doing this, she nearly fails and is rejected by the local preacher, Jones, as a child of a "voodoo woman." 

Nonetheless, she believes "the Way" consists of one's actions, not in one's faith, so she takes the initiative and eventually triumphs. She places her faith in human actions and solidarity among the great black masses, not in any Christian God or half-remembered African spirits. In this regard, she brings to mind the eponymous heroine of Scott Joplin's opera, Treemonisha. Like Zora, Treemonisha embodies knowledge and becomes a messianic figure, a black Athena to guide the lost masses ever onward in education, progress, and the realization of their own potential. However, in Joplin's "ragtime opera," conjure and hoodoo are represented as negative influences preying on the superstition and ignorance of the emancipated black masses. Further, whites are nearly absent in Joplin's opera, whereas Du Bois's novel features multiple white characters and the political economy of Jim Crow to show the tremendous obstacles to the agency of African-Americans. 

I would conclude that, for Du Bois, who novel reflects a Greek myth and African-American conjure, the "pagan" past can lay the seeds for a future, but only if they don't lead to a fatalism among the oppressed. One thinks of Jacques Roumain and The Masters of the Dew here, although Du Bois never comes close to celebrating "voodoo" in the manner of Haitian indigénisme. Perhaps The Quest of the Silver Fleece can be construed as a transitional work in which African-derived spirituality was portrayed ambivalently but not denounced, as would be expected within the civilizationist discourse of black nationalist thought prior to the "primitivism" of the interwar years. 

Moon Dreams

Rest in peace, Lee Konitz. The last surviving member of the Birth of the Cool recordings has left us. "Moon Dreams" has long been a personal favorite from those historic recording sessions, ineffably light, soothing, and dreamy. 

Pa Coute Conseil

One can listen to this song on repeat for hours. "Pa Coute Conseil" demonstrates those Cuban and Latin influences Haitian music has absorbed for a long time, particularly in the guitar, rhythms, and, if you will, carefree abandon suggested by the song's title and lyrics. "Anna" is also highly recommended for fans of Charmeurs du Cap's other songs.