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Infinity: The Story of a Moment
In the course of a single extensive interview, this novel recounts the colorful life of a wealthy, eccentric Italian composer through multiple layers of unreality. As Massimo recalls what his master, Tancredo Pavone, told him about his life, he often repeats Pavone’s outrageous opinions on everything from the current state of the world to the inner life of each musical note. Eventually, it becomes comically clear that not only does Pavone not always distinguish between memory and imagination, but also that Massimo does not always understand what it is he is repeating. A moving portrait of a close bond between two people from utterly different social spheres, this narrative is an insightful look into the world of a composer and the process of artistic creation.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
3 people are currently reading
313 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Josipovici
55 books71 followersGabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1961. From 1963 to 1998 he taught at the University of Sussex. He is the author of seventeen novels, three volumes of short stories, eight critical works, and numerous stage and radio plays, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. His plays have been performed throughout Britain and on radio in Britain, France and Germany, and his work has been translated into the major European languages and Arabic. In 2001 he published A Life, a biographical memoir of his mother, the translator and poet Sacha Rabinovitch (London Magazine editions). His most recent works are Two Novels: 'After' and 'Making Mistakes' (Carcanet), What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale University Press), Heart's Wings (Carcanet, 2010) and Infinity (Carcanet, 2012).
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 10, 2023
This novel.
The experience of reading this novel.
Reading this monologue shaped as an interview, I was reminded of the enthralment rushing through me when attending the play My dinner with André about 20 years ago, sitting on the edge of my seat –immersed in the sheer unstoppable flood of thoughts, ideas, opinions, insights, a smile on the lips during the almost four hours the play took, a smile which also was on my face most of the time I was reading Infinity: The Story of a Moment.
There is now barely a page in my copy that doesn’t carry the marks of this exhilarating reading journey - crosses in the margin, sentences underscored, question marks.
Massimo, a retired manservant/chauffeur, is interviewed about his a famous master, the eccentric and reclusive Sicilian avant-garde composer Tancredo Pavone. Pavone’s stark opinions and tempestuous views on music, art and life are delivered through the prism of his manservant, who acts as his admiring mouthpiece, one that has to be encouraged to continue talking about his memories on Pavone by the questions of the interviewer. Massimo falls silent when the question is not open enough, or when he cannot clarify the significance of statements which he seems having simply repeated from what his master told him, without having really comprehended their meaning.
Sheep, Massimo. Sheep, he said. Sheep without the innocence of sheep. Sheep without the kindly disposition of sheep. When you look back at the history of the world, Massimo, he said to me, what you see is the history of sheep
One would think hearing about Pavone’s life and thoughts through such a warping filter would water down their power or render a shadowy image of Pavone’s life. Conversely this method, mixing philosophical reflections and hyperbolic funny platitudes and nonsense, results in an often hilarious and dynamic text, making it hard to put the book down. Not mitigating the composer’s thoughts at all, Massimo makes his master’s thoughts often sound funnily uncouth and impish, for instance his reflections on music or when stereotyping composers by their nation of descent (whether German, English, American or Italian; some of these irreverent observations made me laugh out loud, reminding me of some conversations I overheard between the musicians in the family).
The portrait of the man appearing through the eyes of the manservant is one of an energetic and eccentric man, living mostly for his art, for creating music and seeking creative liberation in Buddhist thought. Beauty, love, death, language, Rome, the role of art in our lives, the current state of art, the condition of being an artist, loneliness, are themes too, as is aristocracy, and passion. Through Massimo’s musings, the profundity of the long-lasting relationship between Massimo and his employer emerges, as well as the artist’s vulnerability.
Inspired by the life and works of the Italian avant-garde composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), this is the kind of book you can spend far more hours with than by just reading the text. As some sections of the novel are culled almost verbatim from Scelsi’s writing, the novel invites to further explore Scelsi’s own writings (his autobiography, poems and theoretical music essays) and of course to listen to Scelsi’s music, which will also reveal some of the playful winks J inserted in the novel (for instance denominating Scelsi’s Canti del Capricorno his ‘Goat Songs’). For readers who enjoy identifying such clues and winks a great analysis (in French) can be found here.
This year, I intended to read more on music – and looking at the kind of books (and CD’s) that have gathered in the bookcase through the years (biographies of composers, music theory, music philosophy, aesthetics and history of music) I assumed I would be immersed in the life and work of 19th century composers - instead mostly reading novels this year. Intrigued now by the unknown, the music of the 20th century, it seems more likely I’ll try to make a fresh start with a book that isn’t on those dusty shelves, namely The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (by Alex Ross).
When a friend asked me a few years ago if I could recommend any novel on music, I felt inept, tending to agree with those who said writing about music is like dancing about architecture.If asked the same question now, I would answer Infinity: The Story of a Moment. Erudite, witty, brilliant, moving, amusing, exciting, passionate, compulsively readable, Josipovici’s novel to me so far came closest in touching on the essence of music in words, while the novel as a wonderful composition in itself reads like music too.
To be creative, Massimo, he said to me, is to be in a state of constant openness to the world. That does not mean there are not dark moments. It means being like a flower, Massimo, he said, a human flower.
Giacinto Scelsi – like his fictional alter ego Tancredo Pavone also writing poetry in French himself – expressed it perfectly:
Entre le soleil et la terre
J’ai croisé ton regard
Traverse l’archipel nocturne
Vers l’immobile future
La porte est grande ouverte
Aux enfants de l’éternité.
Thanks a ton, Katia and Fionnuala, for drawing my attention to this masterpiece.
The experience of reading this novel.
Reading this monologue shaped as an interview, I was reminded of the enthralment rushing through me when attending the play My dinner with André about 20 years ago, sitting on the edge of my seat –immersed in the sheer unstoppable flood of thoughts, ideas, opinions, insights, a smile on the lips during the almost four hours the play took, a smile which also was on my face most of the time I was reading Infinity: The Story of a Moment.
There is now barely a page in my copy that doesn’t carry the marks of this exhilarating reading journey - crosses in the margin, sentences underscored, question marks.
Massimo, a retired manservant/chauffeur, is interviewed about his a famous master, the eccentric and reclusive Sicilian avant-garde composer Tancredo Pavone. Pavone’s stark opinions and tempestuous views on music, art and life are delivered through the prism of his manservant, who acts as his admiring mouthpiece, one that has to be encouraged to continue talking about his memories on Pavone by the questions of the interviewer. Massimo falls silent when the question is not open enough, or when he cannot clarify the significance of statements which he seems having simply repeated from what his master told him, without having really comprehended their meaning.
Sheep, Massimo. Sheep, he said. Sheep without the innocence of sheep. Sheep without the kindly disposition of sheep. When you look back at the history of the world, Massimo, he said to me, what you see is the history of sheep
One would think hearing about Pavone’s life and thoughts through such a warping filter would water down their power or render a shadowy image of Pavone’s life. Conversely this method, mixing philosophical reflections and hyperbolic funny platitudes and nonsense, results in an often hilarious and dynamic text, making it hard to put the book down. Not mitigating the composer’s thoughts at all, Massimo makes his master’s thoughts often sound funnily uncouth and impish, for instance his reflections on music or when stereotyping composers by their nation of descent (whether German, English, American or Italian; some of these irreverent observations made me laugh out loud, reminding me of some conversations I overheard between the musicians in the family).
The piano is a universe, Massimo, he said, it is not a world, it is not a country, and it is certainly not a drawing room, it is a universe. The piano is not an instrument for young ladies, Massimo, he said, it is an instrument for gorillas. Only a gorilla has the strength to attack a piano as it should be attacked, he said, only a gorilla has the uninhibited energy to challenge the piano as it should be challenged. Liszt was a gorilla of the piano, he said, Scriabin was a gorilla of the piano. Rachmaninov was a gorilla of the piano. But the first and greatest gorilla of the piano was Beethoven.(…) Even when you get a refined musician like Benjamin Britten, he said, he cannot escape the terrible English sentimentality when he composes, though that is blessedly absent when he plays the piano, which he does to very good effect. He is not a gorilla of the piano, but he is, let us say, a gazelle of the piano, and that is no mean thing.
The portrait of the man appearing through the eyes of the manservant is one of an energetic and eccentric man, living mostly for his art, for creating music and seeking creative liberation in Buddhist thought. Beauty, love, death, language, Rome, the role of art in our lives, the current state of art, the condition of being an artist, loneliness, are themes too, as is aristocracy, and passion. Through Massimo’s musings, the profundity of the long-lasting relationship between Massimo and his employer emerges, as well as the artist’s vulnerability.
Inspired by the life and works of the Italian avant-garde composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), this is the kind of book you can spend far more hours with than by just reading the text. As some sections of the novel are culled almost verbatim from Scelsi’s writing, the novel invites to further explore Scelsi’s own writings (his autobiography, poems and theoretical music essays) and of course to listen to Scelsi’s music, which will also reveal some of the playful winks J inserted in the novel (for instance denominating Scelsi’s Canti del Capricorno his ‘Goat Songs’). For readers who enjoy identifying such clues and winks a great analysis (in French) can be found here.
This year, I intended to read more on music – and looking at the kind of books (and CD’s) that have gathered in the bookcase through the years (biographies of composers, music theory, music philosophy, aesthetics and history of music) I assumed I would be immersed in the life and work of 19th century composers - instead mostly reading novels this year. Intrigued now by the unknown, the music of the 20th century, it seems more likely I’ll try to make a fresh start with a book that isn’t on those dusty shelves, namely The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (by Alex Ross).
When a friend asked me a few years ago if I could recommend any novel on music, I felt inept, tending to agree with those who said writing about music is like dancing about architecture.If asked the same question now, I would answer Infinity: The Story of a Moment. Erudite, witty, brilliant, moving, amusing, exciting, passionate, compulsively readable, Josipovici’s novel to me so far came closest in touching on the essence of music in words, while the novel as a wonderful composition in itself reads like music too.
To be creative, Massimo, he said to me, is to be in a state of constant openness to the world. That does not mean there are not dark moments. It means being like a flower, Massimo, he said, a human flower.
Giacinto Scelsi – like his fictional alter ego Tancredo Pavone also writing poetry in French himself – expressed it perfectly:
Entre le soleil et la terre
J’ai croisé ton regard
Traverse l’archipel nocturne
Vers l’immobile future
La porte est grande ouverte
Aux enfants de l’éternité.
Thanks a ton, Katia and Fionnuala, for drawing my attention to this masterpiece.
Read
March 21, 2021…an image of the chalked outline of a body, the kind of image police trace on the ground where a body has lain, flashed across my mind early in this book, prompted, I suspect, by the interrogation-like behavior of the nameless narrator, who, right from the first line, addresses a series of insistent-sounding questions to Massimo, one of two main characters, questions that concern the other main character, who isn't present in the book but who is nevertheless the book's entire focus, and, as I couldn't yet picture this other character or understand why the narrator/interrogator was so interested in him, although, from the first line, I knew his name was Mr Pavone, in my mind he became that chalked outline I'd visualized, and, as Massimo, in the face of the insistent questioning on the part of the nameless narrator, reluctantly offered information about Mr Pavone, the chalk outline became less of an outline and more of a smudge, and the smudge gradually gained form, and soon I could see crumpled clothing, beautiful clothing, it has to be said, since Massimo, who could remember every thought Mr Pavone had ever given breath to, and, when he overcame his reluctance, could repeat each one, word for word, scarcely drawing breath, in a continuous loop of eloquent phrases, only broken by the periodic refrain of the words 'he said', referring to Mr Pavone, claimed that Mr Pavone, a composer of a type of music based on the 'now' of the human breath coupled with the notion of infinity, wore only the finest of suits, yet, regardless of the quality of the clothing, the smudged outline in my mind remained determinedly sprawled on the ground like the figure of eight on its side, so that when later in the book, Massimo tells us that one day he found Mr Pavone lying in a crumpled heap on the living-room floor, I wasn't at all surprised since an image of the chalked outline of a body had flashed across my mind early in this book...
June 13, 2024
With the striking contradiction in the title and subtitle (Infinity, the story of a moment), Josipovici immediately indicates that this is a text that should not be taken literally. And indeed, the insecure servant Massimo's account of the life of his former aristocratic boss Tancredo Pavone constantly misleads you. An unknown interviewer questions Massimo about Pavone, although it is not clear what the interviewer's intention is. And Massimo himself constantly loses the thread, falls silent at every turn, and claims that he barely understands anything about Pavone. It is therefore remarkable that, in the meantime, while answering the interviewer's questions, he reproduces verbatim the very long monologues that Pavone has spoken to him. And with a technique that Josipovici clearly owes to W.G. Sebald – Massimo constantly quotes “he said”, sometimes four or five times on a page – he gives the impression that this is a faithful representation, while it is also clear that Massimo may not be such a reliable narrator. And another contradiction: from Massimo's words we can unintentionally conclude that Pavone was an eccentric, headstrong and very misanthropic person, but the relationship between the subordinate servant and his boss gradually seems more and more like a close bond of friendship, especially towards the end. And the self-righteous Pavona turns out to be a fragile person. And one more: Pavone spouts his bile about the evolution of Western culture, but he is a widely celebrated avant-garde music composer himself. And although Pavone swears by elitist culture and lives an aristocratic lifestyle, he seems particularly struck by the culture of the Ibe tribe in West Africa and the Buddhist monasteries in Nepal. And I could go on like this for a while. By now it will be clear that Josipovici puts the unsuspecting reader to the test with all the metatextual aspects of this slim book. Even though I'm not a fan of so much hocus pocus (hence only 3 stars), I have to admit that this is quite impressive.
November 15, 2020
3 stars. I think a lot of this was over my head. It is loosely based on the life of an eccentric (seems to me) composer, Giacinto Scelso (1905-1988). The main character in this novel is the avant-garde composer, Tancredo Pavone, a Sicilian. We learn of him via Pavone’s manservant, Massimo, who is being interviewed by a nameless interviewer. The whole novel is encapsulated in the interview. At times the book is humorous both in terms of the personality of Pavone, as relayed by his manservant and by the mannerisms of the manservant during the interview. As an example of the latter:
He was silent.
After a while, I said: Go on.
— Yes sir, he said. How would you like me to go on?
— In any way you wish, I said.
— Yes sir, he said, but he did not go on.
— Did he often speak about his wife? I finally asked.
Once the interviewer poses a direct question such as the above Massimo takes off and answers the question often at great length. But then he stops and seems to just sit there. And the interviewer asks him to “Go on” and Massimo says “yes sir” and then sits there like a lump so the interviewer has to ask a direct question to get Massimo rolling again.
An example of what Pavone said which I found funny…again this is Massimo recalling what Pavone told him, and Pavone was in Switzerland and his health was a bit off (during WWII era) and so he checked himself into a sanatorium…
• …these sanatoria are all madhouses, Massimo, he said. Believe me, he said, I tried dozens. All madhouses. The doctors are mad and the nurses are mad and the patients are mad. In one of them I led a revolt of the patients against the management. We were being treated like vermin even though we were paying through the nose, and I decided a stand must be taken. We took the senior doctor hostage, a madman called Schweinsteiger, and we locked him in a dark room until the management acceded to our requests. In another I organized a music festival, he said. I formed a choir and I taught them how to make various animal sounds and we put all those together and a rather interesting piece of music emerged. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and the patients who took part immediately got better, but when we performed it in public for the other patients and the doctors and the nurses they booed us so loudly we had to stop. However, all the performers discharged themselves the next day, their symptoms had entirely disappeared. I stayed on because I preferred to be inside rather than outside, but everybody blamed me for the concert and the management blamed me for persuading the performers they were cured. It was then I realized, Massimo, he said, that there is no such thing as informed listening to music, there is only prejudice and the absence of prejudice. Why are the sounds of twenty-eight animals all barking and braying and mooing and hooting in concert any less beautiful than Bach’s B Minor Mass or the last movement of the Ninth Symphony? Tell me that, Massimo, he said, tell me that and I will give you a doctorate in music.”
Before I give the impression that the whole novel was humorous there were some interesting/serious things that Pavone said about music, and sounds, and Gregorian chants, and all sorts of stuff on life.
One thing that was “weird” to me is that more often than rarely Massimo would be talking so long about what Pavone had said on a certain subject matter that in my mind it was Pavone talking, and then all of a sudden I was thrown off because Massimo entered the picture and was describing something he had observed about Pavone. This happened enough times I am convinced this was intentional on the part of Josipovici. I can’t say it was something I disliked — it was just jarring in a way…I get lulled into listening to Pavone for two or three pages through his mouthpiece Massimo and then Massimo is speaking for himself…boom…so then I have to re-read some sentences to re-orient myself. You understand what I am saying of course, right? You don’t? Oh… 😐
With past novels I have read by this author, some weird and sometimes weird as well as unsettling things happen as a thread throughout the novel and in this case there was something weird regarding a female secretary that had been employed by Pavone, and she had left, and it had something to do with Massimo.
I came across an interview of Josipovici: https://journals.openedition.org/lisa...
Reviews:
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• from a blogsite: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
• I liked this review a lot….you can read this prior to reading the book and get a better view of what the book is about (a synopsis) than I gave: http://this-space.blogspot.com/2012/0...
He was silent.
After a while, I said: Go on.
— Yes sir, he said. How would you like me to go on?
— In any way you wish, I said.
— Yes sir, he said, but he did not go on.
— Did he often speak about his wife? I finally asked.
Once the interviewer poses a direct question such as the above Massimo takes off and answers the question often at great length. But then he stops and seems to just sit there. And the interviewer asks him to “Go on” and Massimo says “yes sir” and then sits there like a lump so the interviewer has to ask a direct question to get Massimo rolling again.
An example of what Pavone said which I found funny…again this is Massimo recalling what Pavone told him, and Pavone was in Switzerland and his health was a bit off (during WWII era) and so he checked himself into a sanatorium…
• …these sanatoria are all madhouses, Massimo, he said. Believe me, he said, I tried dozens. All madhouses. The doctors are mad and the nurses are mad and the patients are mad. In one of them I led a revolt of the patients against the management. We were being treated like vermin even though we were paying through the nose, and I decided a stand must be taken. We took the senior doctor hostage, a madman called Schweinsteiger, and we locked him in a dark room until the management acceded to our requests. In another I organized a music festival, he said. I formed a choir and I taught them how to make various animal sounds and we put all those together and a rather interesting piece of music emerged. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and the patients who took part immediately got better, but when we performed it in public for the other patients and the doctors and the nurses they booed us so loudly we had to stop. However, all the performers discharged themselves the next day, their symptoms had entirely disappeared. I stayed on because I preferred to be inside rather than outside, but everybody blamed me for the concert and the management blamed me for persuading the performers they were cured. It was then I realized, Massimo, he said, that there is no such thing as informed listening to music, there is only prejudice and the absence of prejudice. Why are the sounds of twenty-eight animals all barking and braying and mooing and hooting in concert any less beautiful than Bach’s B Minor Mass or the last movement of the Ninth Symphony? Tell me that, Massimo, he said, tell me that and I will give you a doctorate in music.”
Before I give the impression that the whole novel was humorous there were some interesting/serious things that Pavone said about music, and sounds, and Gregorian chants, and all sorts of stuff on life.
One thing that was “weird” to me is that more often than rarely Massimo would be talking so long about what Pavone had said on a certain subject matter that in my mind it was Pavone talking, and then all of a sudden I was thrown off because Massimo entered the picture and was describing something he had observed about Pavone. This happened enough times I am convinced this was intentional on the part of Josipovici. I can’t say it was something I disliked — it was just jarring in a way…I get lulled into listening to Pavone for two or three pages through his mouthpiece Massimo and then Massimo is speaking for himself…boom…so then I have to re-read some sentences to re-orient myself. You understand what I am saying of course, right? You don’t? Oh… 😐
With past novels I have read by this author, some weird and sometimes weird as well as unsettling things happen as a thread throughout the novel and in this case there was something weird regarding a female secretary that had been employed by Pavone, and she had left, and it had something to do with Massimo.
I came across an interview of Josipovici: https://journals.openedition.org/lisa...
Reviews:
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• from a blogsite: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
• I liked this review a lot….you can read this prior to reading the book and get a better view of what the book is about (a synopsis) than I gave: http://this-space.blogspot.com/2012/0...
September 2, 2020
This is my second experience of reading Josipovici - I enjoyed The Cemetery in Barnes greatly a couple of years ago after it was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. This book has certain similarities, an unreliable narration of a story in which it is never clear where the truth is and what is being omitted. It also reminded my a little of a gentler Thomas Bernhard.
The book takes the form of an interview with Massimo, who worked as a servant/factotum for an eccentric aristocratic Italian composer Tancredo Pavone, who is now dead. Pavone is fictional, but he is loosely based on the real composer Giacinto Scelsi. Massimo seems to have a near perfect memory of conversations with Pavone, and is able to quote them at length, and he is unusually articulate for a man in his position. He recalls Pavone's idiosyncracies and opinions, and much of his life story, and his account occasionally repeats itself with variations. The interviewer occasionally intervenes, but Massimo is firm on what he is prepared to divulge.
Many of the other characters in the story are also real, and are also entertainingly eccentric, and though I looked up a few of them, I suspect I missed much more. The musical content interested me too.
A quick read, but a very interesting one, so a good choice for the discussion this month in 21st Century Literature.
The book takes the form of an interview with Massimo, who worked as a servant/factotum for an eccentric aristocratic Italian composer Tancredo Pavone, who is now dead. Pavone is fictional, but he is loosely based on the real composer Giacinto Scelsi. Massimo seems to have a near perfect memory of conversations with Pavone, and is able to quote them at length, and he is unusually articulate for a man in his position. He recalls Pavone's idiosyncracies and opinions, and much of his life story, and his account occasionally repeats itself with variations. The interviewer occasionally intervenes, but Massimo is firm on what he is prepared to divulge.
Many of the other characters in the story are also real, and are also entertainingly eccentric, and though I looked up a few of them, I suspect I missed much more. The musical content interested me too.
A quick read, but a very interesting one, so a good choice for the discussion this month in 21st Century Literature.
September 8, 2020
This is a wonderful little book full of layers of thoughts on life from a perspective of Sicilian aristocrat and composer Tancredo Pavone. Pavone is loosely based on real life composer and poet Giacinto Scelsi, who unlike Pavone is from Liguria in the north west of Italy. The story of Pavone is told through Massimo, Pavone’s factotum, to an unnamed interviewer in an extensive secession. Massimo was by the composer’s side as he divulged some of his inner most thoughts and philosophies. Pavone is an aristocrat’s aristocrat, a perfectionist in his music and a snob when it comes to originality. He is highly opiniated and seems to be always critical towards other composers for their lack of imagination.
But from this elitist and braggadocio image of Pavone at the end sprouts a passionate person given wholly to his craft. For all his professed aristocratic arrogance, his vulnerable side is clear to see when we understand him more. Through his trip to Nepal, India and west Africa we see his search for novelty. Through his friendship with Massimo we see his humanity. Through his description of the Cathedral of Orvieto and Ife head we see his ideal of what art should be. His flood of thoughts often has the effect of nudging us towards deeper inspection of nature, beauty, love, music and the common bond that tie them all together.
I will say this is one of those books that made me think about art and life more. Condensed in it are many thought-provoking philosophies. Furthermore, I would say it is a treatise on pushing for an authentic life. I really loved it.
But from this elitist and braggadocio image of Pavone at the end sprouts a passionate person given wholly to his craft. For all his professed aristocratic arrogance, his vulnerable side is clear to see when we understand him more. Through his trip to Nepal, India and west Africa we see his search for novelty. Through his friendship with Massimo we see his humanity. Through his description of the Cathedral of Orvieto and Ife head we see his ideal of what art should be. His flood of thoughts often has the effect of nudging us towards deeper inspection of nature, beauty, love, music and the common bond that tie them all together.
I will say this is one of those books that made me think about art and life more. Condensed in it are many thought-provoking philosophies. Furthermore, I would say it is a treatise on pushing for an authentic life. I really loved it.
July 30, 2021
A succinct and profound ode to creativity. Josipovici delves into the labyrinth of the artistic unconscious, the chaotic microcosm that seeks an order, a pattern perpetually, and yields a transformation, rather than a transcendence. He juxtaposes the aesthetic and the spiritual and captures the infinitude embedded within the elusive moment.
Perhaps, he said, you are driven to write poetry as well as to compose for a reason you do not understand yourself.
Perhaps, he said, you are driven to write poetry as well as to compose for a reason you do not understand yourself.
December 6, 2018
This is the one of 3 short novels by Josipovici i’v read recently. And this is my favourite one of the three. As usual for me, the more I like the book the harder it becomes to articulate my response to it and make it concise… But I will try, and apologise for the amount of the quotes.
The protagonist of the novel is a grumpy old man, who appeared to be a composer, talking about his long life, the world around him, the nature of creativity, beauty and everything else under the sun. He is opinionated, unashamedly aristocratic, but he is passionate and you cannot, but feel strong sympathy towards him. This is the generation of my grandparents who saw the world being destroyed more than once. They’ve already disappeared from this Earth taking with them their strength, their quiet courage and non-conformity of their views. The memories of them fading. Maybe that is the main reason why i felt so moved by this text.
The literary device is an interview with the servant, Massimo, who spent a long time with this gentleman. The interview is taking place in the apparent aftermath of the composer’s death. So we never hear the actual man talking, we see him reflected in the monologues of his servant as if we are looking through a mirror. We would not know how distorted this mirror is. But I certainly felt that the reflection is authentic. According to Josipovici, the protagonist “is loosely based on the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988).” So there exist a parallel of Massimo talking about his boss and Josipovici talking about the real person.
Having lived through two wars and their aftermath, having loved and being abandoned by his wife, the gentleman does not really have a huge respect for the human race. His worldview is tellingly and marvellously bleak:
“Human race are sheep without the innocence of a sheep. When you look back at the history of the world what you see in the history of sheep. Of madmen leading sheep and sheep following the madmen.”
And the history does not teach us anything, knowledge do not change the human nature much:
“A cesspit. Europe was a cesspit in those years and the stink is not totally disappeared. In Italy at any rate they still long for a strong man to lead them, a man with an iron chin. We have not seen the end of it. When I go to Hungary and Romania to hear my music played I hear about the monstrousness of the gypsies. When I go to Belgrade I hear about the smell left by the Turks and the Bosnians. When I go to Poland I hear about the treachery of Jews. There is no end to it Massimo, not end to it.”
The gentleman presumably talks in the late 80s. The novel is written in 2012. And it is shocking how ominous those words sound today after just a few years. Or maybe it was always like that and it just resurfaced recently.
The education would not change much. Moreover, it “draws you long paths you know are not real paths until you forget that they are not real paths and think they are the only paths.”
However there is a solace for this man. It is music. But not all the music. It is the purity of sound. “Bells and gongs and trumpets of Buddhism take you back to roots. Each sound i heard had taken a lifetime to produce; each sound is a world, an infinite world, Massimo. It is like a huge cavern which take a lifetime to explore and yet which is over in no time at all, it is almost as if you could say that it does not exist in time at all.” It is infinity in a moment.
It is the act of creation. I believe, anyone who was on this edge at least once, would recognise this feeling of impossibility and, at the same time, inevitability of something overwhelmingly bigger than oneself. But not everyone would be able to articulate it so beautifully: “You feel as if at every moment you are going either to be crashed away, but you also feel as if you are in touch with the secret pulse of the universe. It is an extraordinary sensation, a compressing into a moment of everything that has ever been and ever will be.”
Infinity. The Story of a moment. Slim. Stylish. Moving. Angry. Authentic. Highly recommended.
The protagonist of the novel is a grumpy old man, who appeared to be a composer, talking about his long life, the world around him, the nature of creativity, beauty and everything else under the sun. He is opinionated, unashamedly aristocratic, but he is passionate and you cannot, but feel strong sympathy towards him. This is the generation of my grandparents who saw the world being destroyed more than once. They’ve already disappeared from this Earth taking with them their strength, their quiet courage and non-conformity of their views. The memories of them fading. Maybe that is the main reason why i felt so moved by this text.
The literary device is an interview with the servant, Massimo, who spent a long time with this gentleman. The interview is taking place in the apparent aftermath of the composer’s death. So we never hear the actual man talking, we see him reflected in the monologues of his servant as if we are looking through a mirror. We would not know how distorted this mirror is. But I certainly felt that the reflection is authentic. According to Josipovici, the protagonist “is loosely based on the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988).” So there exist a parallel of Massimo talking about his boss and Josipovici talking about the real person.
Having lived through two wars and their aftermath, having loved and being abandoned by his wife, the gentleman does not really have a huge respect for the human race. His worldview is tellingly and marvellously bleak:
“Human race are sheep without the innocence of a sheep. When you look back at the history of the world what you see in the history of sheep. Of madmen leading sheep and sheep following the madmen.”
And the history does not teach us anything, knowledge do not change the human nature much:
“A cesspit. Europe was a cesspit in those years and the stink is not totally disappeared. In Italy at any rate they still long for a strong man to lead them, a man with an iron chin. We have not seen the end of it. When I go to Hungary and Romania to hear my music played I hear about the monstrousness of the gypsies. When I go to Belgrade I hear about the smell left by the Turks and the Bosnians. When I go to Poland I hear about the treachery of Jews. There is no end to it Massimo, not end to it.”
The gentleman presumably talks in the late 80s. The novel is written in 2012. And it is shocking how ominous those words sound today after just a few years. Or maybe it was always like that and it just resurfaced recently.
The education would not change much. Moreover, it “draws you long paths you know are not real paths until you forget that they are not real paths and think they are the only paths.”
However there is a solace for this man. It is music. But not all the music. It is the purity of sound. “Bells and gongs and trumpets of Buddhism take you back to roots. Each sound i heard had taken a lifetime to produce; each sound is a world, an infinite world, Massimo. It is like a huge cavern which take a lifetime to explore and yet which is over in no time at all, it is almost as if you could say that it does not exist in time at all.” It is infinity in a moment.
It is the act of creation. I believe, anyone who was on this edge at least once, would recognise this feeling of impossibility and, at the same time, inevitability of something overwhelmingly bigger than oneself. But not everyone would be able to articulate it so beautifully: “You feel as if at every moment you are going either to be crashed away, but you also feel as if you are in touch with the secret pulse of the universe. It is an extraordinary sensation, a compressing into a moment of everything that has ever been and ever will be.”
Infinity. The Story of a moment. Slim. Stylish. Moving. Angry. Authentic. Highly recommended.
February 12, 2022
'Infinity' features Tancredo Pavone, a fictionalised version of the Sicilian avant-garde composer, Giacinto Scelsi.
Pavone is an eccentric patrician. His words are reported to an interviewer by his former manservant, Massimo, custodian of the composer's vast collection of bespoke suits and shoes (we never find out why he is being interviewed). Massimo would drive the Count out into the country and the latter would tell the former about his life, although apparently talking to himself much of the time. While consciously artifice, it's a highly effective device. At the end of the book's 121 pages, the reader is left with the impression that [s]he has an intimate understanding of the life presented. Much of the humour in the book derives from the manservant's fluency in recounting the composer's views and cadences, only for it to be undermined by his apparent incomprehension of the words he is repeating. Massimo's devotion to Sig. Pavone is touching and also exasperating when one reflects on the manifest inequity of such relationships. As such, it follows in a distinguished line of "valet-lit" (phrase: copyright, PSR 2022), to wit, 'Manservant and Maidservant', 'The Remains of the Day', a good half of Wodehouse, etc.
Pavone/Scelsi/Josipovici has some choice words for England.
The English have not had a major composer since Purcell... They have an indigestible cake, he said, called a lardy cake, and their leading modern composers, so-called, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir Ralph Vaughan Williams, are the musical equivalents of this cake.
...everybody speaks in English, the language of money. English is not a language, Massimo, he said to me, it is a hybrid. It is made up of a bit of Latin and a bit of Celtic and a bit of German and a little bit of Norse and some French and a little bit of Hindi and Arabic and Dutch and much else besides.
Before I had read Bernhard, I would have said that this short novel is Sebaldian. These days, I know otherwise. Alongside 'Moo Pak', this is another work that contributes to the idea of Josipovici as the English Bernhard. The lengthy monologues (shorter here than in TB or the aforementioned novel), the focus on a great artist (see 'The Loser'), the second-hand reporting of the protagonist's words, the protagonist's withering dismissal of this and that... While earlier monologues are interspersed with brief promptings from the interviewer, the last 37 pages are truly Bernhardian, formed from one unbroken paragraph (the last few sentences aside). Pavone is a slightly toned-down version of a Bernhard protagonist. Why, he even rails against Viennese high cultural and intellectual circles, absolving the occasional individual from his patrician indifference. At one point, he articulates - through his conduit Massimo - his views on Viennese composers:
The best of them, like Schoenberg and Berg, used this as a way of harnessing their hysterical emotion. Because they were all hysterics. Jewish hysterics. Even when they were not Jews, like Webern, who was the best of them, they were infected with Jewish hysteria.
Two things to note here. Firstly, the outrageous views are Pavone's not Josipovici's, and Prof J is himself of Jewish descent. Secondly, this is pure Bernhard (who, like Pavone, was sickened by the anti-semitism he found in Vienna). The protagonist of 'Woodcutters' spends much of his time in an armchair in a corner at a Viennese high society soiree, railing against the Viennese music scene. And who is the only composer to be spared his hilarious scorn? Webern...
As in Bernhard's oeuvre, all manner of composers are on the receiving end of a good lashing from Pavone's judgemental tongue. The work of Shostakovich, for example, is 'populist and pretentious' and 'much beloved of those with a sentimental disposition and tin ears'. So much, then, for the hero of Julian Barnes's 'The Noise of Time'.
Just as the manservant is the conduit for his master's words, so Pavone sees himself as a mere vessel through which sound passes. This can be no coincidence. The composer is entirely consumed by his pursuit of musical truth. One of the central themes of the book arises from this: the cost imposed on an artist's relationships by total dedication to his/her art. It also seems to be about the time an artist must spend before [s]he can be entirely serious about his work. This, I suspect, is a theme close to Josipovici's heart, a writer who has had the time to fully commit himself to his art only later in life. It's a treatise against dilettantism, superficiality and theoretical dogma, what Pavone calls the "Roman road". Pavone resides in the Eternal City but he's no fan of its founders: 'Everything that is wrong with the human race, he said, can be found in the Romans.' Influenced by his travels in Africa and Asia, Pavone is seeking the secret of the relationship between eternity and the moment, to present this phenomenon in his music, a quality which the West has forgotten but which he has divined in the song of the cicada, in the trumpets and bells of Nepalese temples, in the chants of Buddhist monks.
As Massimo's account draws to its conclusion and towards the end of Pavone's life, the mood turns melancholic. Contemplating his funeral, the composer himself isn't sentimental in the least:
When you are alive, Massimo, he said, you are person. When you are dead you are a piece of meat. If it amuses them to make a fuss over a piece of meat, he said, then that is their prerogative.
And this:
I remembered when I had carried him from the car in his blanket to sit at the edge of the forest, on one of our last outings. He weighed hardly anything. I remembered what he said to me many times: The body is nothing, Massimo, the spirit is all. What is music, Massimo, he said, except the triumph of the spirit?
Hmm.
I had the misfortune to be born in the early years of the century, Massimo, he said, so that I can consider myself a child of the century... Has there ever been a worse century, Massimo? he said. One in which more planned and premeditated murder and destruction has ever taken place? ...And yet in the midst of all this carnage, I have lived a charmed life, he said.
I shall certainly be revisiting this deeply humane book at some point in the future.
Pavone is an eccentric patrician. His words are reported to an interviewer by his former manservant, Massimo, custodian of the composer's vast collection of bespoke suits and shoes (we never find out why he is being interviewed). Massimo would drive the Count out into the country and the latter would tell the former about his life, although apparently talking to himself much of the time. While consciously artifice, it's a highly effective device. At the end of the book's 121 pages, the reader is left with the impression that [s]he has an intimate understanding of the life presented. Much of the humour in the book derives from the manservant's fluency in recounting the composer's views and cadences, only for it to be undermined by his apparent incomprehension of the words he is repeating. Massimo's devotion to Sig. Pavone is touching and also exasperating when one reflects on the manifest inequity of such relationships. As such, it follows in a distinguished line of "valet-lit" (phrase: copyright, PSR 2022), to wit, 'Manservant and Maidservant', 'The Remains of the Day', a good half of Wodehouse, etc.
Pavone/Scelsi/Josipovici has some choice words for England.
The English have not had a major composer since Purcell... They have an indigestible cake, he said, called a lardy cake, and their leading modern composers, so-called, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir Ralph Vaughan Williams, are the musical equivalents of this cake.
...everybody speaks in English, the language of money. English is not a language, Massimo, he said to me, it is a hybrid. It is made up of a bit of Latin and a bit of Celtic and a bit of German and a little bit of Norse and some French and a little bit of Hindi and Arabic and Dutch and much else besides.
Before I had read Bernhard, I would have said that this short novel is Sebaldian. These days, I know otherwise. Alongside 'Moo Pak', this is another work that contributes to the idea of Josipovici as the English Bernhard. The lengthy monologues (shorter here than in TB or the aforementioned novel), the focus on a great artist (see 'The Loser'), the second-hand reporting of the protagonist's words, the protagonist's withering dismissal of this and that... While earlier monologues are interspersed with brief promptings from the interviewer, the last 37 pages are truly Bernhardian, formed from one unbroken paragraph (the last few sentences aside). Pavone is a slightly toned-down version of a Bernhard protagonist. Why, he even rails against Viennese high cultural and intellectual circles, absolving the occasional individual from his patrician indifference. At one point, he articulates - through his conduit Massimo - his views on Viennese composers:
The best of them, like Schoenberg and Berg, used this as a way of harnessing their hysterical emotion. Because they were all hysterics. Jewish hysterics. Even when they were not Jews, like Webern, who was the best of them, they were infected with Jewish hysteria.
Two things to note here. Firstly, the outrageous views are Pavone's not Josipovici's, and Prof J is himself of Jewish descent. Secondly, this is pure Bernhard (who, like Pavone, was sickened by the anti-semitism he found in Vienna). The protagonist of 'Woodcutters' spends much of his time in an armchair in a corner at a Viennese high society soiree, railing against the Viennese music scene. And who is the only composer to be spared his hilarious scorn? Webern...
As in Bernhard's oeuvre, all manner of composers are on the receiving end of a good lashing from Pavone's judgemental tongue. The work of Shostakovich, for example, is 'populist and pretentious' and 'much beloved of those with a sentimental disposition and tin ears'. So much, then, for the hero of Julian Barnes's 'The Noise of Time'.
Just as the manservant is the conduit for his master's words, so Pavone sees himself as a mere vessel through which sound passes. This can be no coincidence. The composer is entirely consumed by his pursuit of musical truth. One of the central themes of the book arises from this: the cost imposed on an artist's relationships by total dedication to his/her art. It also seems to be about the time an artist must spend before [s]he can be entirely serious about his work. This, I suspect, is a theme close to Josipovici's heart, a writer who has had the time to fully commit himself to his art only later in life. It's a treatise against dilettantism, superficiality and theoretical dogma, what Pavone calls the "Roman road". Pavone resides in the Eternal City but he's no fan of its founders: 'Everything that is wrong with the human race, he said, can be found in the Romans.' Influenced by his travels in Africa and Asia, Pavone is seeking the secret of the relationship between eternity and the moment, to present this phenomenon in his music, a quality which the West has forgotten but which he has divined in the song of the cicada, in the trumpets and bells of Nepalese temples, in the chants of Buddhist monks.
As Massimo's account draws to its conclusion and towards the end of Pavone's life, the mood turns melancholic. Contemplating his funeral, the composer himself isn't sentimental in the least:
When you are alive, Massimo, he said, you are person. When you are dead you are a piece of meat. If it amuses them to make a fuss over a piece of meat, he said, then that is their prerogative.
And this:
I remembered when I had carried him from the car in his blanket to sit at the edge of the forest, on one of our last outings. He weighed hardly anything. I remembered what he said to me many times: The body is nothing, Massimo, the spirit is all. What is music, Massimo, he said, except the triumph of the spirit?
Hmm.
I had the misfortune to be born in the early years of the century, Massimo, he said, so that I can consider myself a child of the century... Has there ever been a worse century, Massimo? he said. One in which more planned and premeditated murder and destruction has ever taken place? ...And yet in the midst of all this carnage, I have lived a charmed life, he said.
I shall certainly be revisiting this deeply humane book at some point in the future.
September 4, 2020
The main protagonist, an aristocrat and musician Tancredo Pavone, is in many ways a Bernhard-like curmudgeon and eccentric. The novel is plotless and written mostly in the form of his monologue as recounted by his chauffeur and ‘manservant’ Massimo to the nameless interviewer. Since Pavone is “loosely based on the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905–1988)”, I don’t know what details are biographical or fictionalized (the main outlines of Scelsi’s life are fully preserved). In any case, Josipovici’s Pavone/Scelsi is a fascinating character, blending thoughtfulness with pomposity, bleakness with wit, the absurd and the profound. His ruminations about artistic creativity, his music, his life, ex-wife, European aristocracy, other composers, or East/West civilizational differences, are surely never dull. Of course, since we learn about his life and thoughts from his chauffeur Massimo, we don’t know the extent to which they are authentic or filtered through Massimo’s lenses, whose background is quite different from Pavone’s (though only occasionally revealed, as when Nietzsche is “Ni Che”) and yet capable of memorizing all the nuances of what his master confided in him.
A few quotations…
Pavone’s favorite targets were the celebrity artists but also some composers. He skewered some of my favorites - Mahler’s music is nothing more than the music of “a dedicated mountain-goer” and “you see what a disaster for music mountains have been” or Elgar is “the musical equivalent of an indigestible cake” known in England as “a lardy cake” - all the same, I laughed. Stereotypes abound in a light-hearted way but with the sharpest laughing arrow pointing back to the lofty deriding speaker:
4.5
A few quotations…
Pavone’s favorite targets were the celebrity artists but also some composers. He skewered some of my favorites - Mahler’s music is nothing more than the music of “a dedicated mountain-goer” and “you see what a disaster for music mountains have been” or Elgar is “the musical equivalent of an indigestible cake” known in England as “a lardy cake” - all the same, I laughed. Stereotypes abound in a light-hearted way but with the sharpest laughing arrow pointing back to the lofty deriding speaker:
My nose is handsomer and more distinguished than most of theirs, he said. It is a Sicilian nose. An aristocratic nose.Josipovici created a wholly likable misanthrope, not least thanks to these occasional nonsensical or humorous moments. Here’s how he makes a witty allusion to the typically diverse nationalities of chamber ensemble members:
– Tell me about the quartet. […] They spoke Italian?Above all, however, there is the originality of Pavone/Scelsi’s mind as an avant-garde composer and inspiring visionary.
– Yes. They all spoke Italian. Except Mr Halliday. Mr Pavone spoke to them in French. Sometimes Mr Stankevitch and Mr van Buren spoke to each other in German. Or perhaps it was Czech or Dutch. And when they were all together they spoke in English.
Each sound is a sphere, he said. It is a sphere, Massimo, and every sphere has a centre. The centre of the sound is the heart of the sound. One must always strive to reach the heart of the sound, he said. If one can reach that one is a true musician. Otherwise one is an artisan.
When the composer understands that eternity and the moment are one and the same thing he is on his way to becoming a real composer, he said.
The root of the word inspiration is breath, he said, and all music is made of breath.
Wonder, Massimo, he said, without wonder life is nothing. Without wonder we are ants. Everything about us is a cause for wonder, Massimo, he said. A woman. Her elbow. Her wrist. A tree. Its leaves. Its smell. A sound. A memory. And the person who can help us to wonder is the artist. That is why the artist is sacred.
4.5
November 11, 2015
I find it incumbent upon me to change 3 stars to 5 stars and to write an entirely different review in addition to the flippancy of below.
I cannot help feeling there is a message here for both MJ and me. My post on this last week was not only flippant, but premature.
The rest of this straight review is here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
-----------------
It may be 2075. Rumours about MJ are rife. One has it that he is dead. Another that he has simply tired of the world and sits alone in a castle somewhere writing reviews he shows no one. And yet another that none of this is more than an experimental work in which he has given his characters the illusion of choice. In this one, we are not the future but the present set in a futuristic context of false consciousness. We are no more than a literary trick.
X, a journalist, or somebody who believes he is a journalist, interviews MJ’s old servant. Or not.
– He liked Josipovici?
– Yes, sir, he did.
– The books? He talked of them?
– All the time, sir.
– Give me an example.
– Well, sir. He liked to sit in Peter’s Yard, he could sit for long periods sipping a cup of tea and eating a rock of a scone crumb by crumb. It was cheaper than paying for heating and so forth at home.
– The Scottish mentality then?
– I suppose you could say that, yes.
– He paid for you too?
– I paid for myself. Out of the wages he said he would pay me.
– Give me an example of his talking about Josipovici.
Rest is here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
“Non sminuite il senso di ciò che non comprendete.”
G. Scelsi, Octologo
"Do not belittle the meaning of what you do not understand."
G. Scelsi, Octologo
I cannot help feeling there is a message here for both MJ and me. My post on this last week was not only flippant, but premature.
The rest of this straight review is here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
-----------------
It may be 2075. Rumours about MJ are rife. One has it that he is dead. Another that he has simply tired of the world and sits alone in a castle somewhere writing reviews he shows no one. And yet another that none of this is more than an experimental work in which he has given his characters the illusion of choice. In this one, we are not the future but the present set in a futuristic context of false consciousness. We are no more than a literary trick.
X, a journalist, or somebody who believes he is a journalist, interviews MJ’s old servant. Or not.
– He liked Josipovici?
– Yes, sir, he did.
– The books? He talked of them?
– All the time, sir.
– Give me an example.
– Well, sir. He liked to sit in Peter’s Yard, he could sit for long periods sipping a cup of tea and eating a rock of a scone crumb by crumb. It was cheaper than paying for heating and so forth at home.
– The Scottish mentality then?
– I suppose you could say that, yes.
– He paid for you too?
– I paid for myself. Out of the wages he said he would pay me.
– Give me an example of his talking about Josipovici.
Rest is here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
April 19, 2020
“La musica non può esistere senza il suono. Il suono esiste di per sé senza la musica. È il suono ciò che conta.”
“He who does not penetrate to the interior, to the heart of sound, even though a perfect craftsman, a great technician, will never be a true artist, a true musician” -Giacinto Scelsi
Infinity: The Story of a Moment is another wonderful novel from Gabriel Josipovici, a lesson to many other authors both in the quality of his work, but also how he can achieve such depth in only 129 pages.
The novel centres around the absent figure of the fictitious composer Tancredo Pavone, an influential, if reclusive, figure in 20th century music. Absent because Pavone is dead, and what we are reading is instead a transcript of a conversation between an unnamed interviewer (an academic researcher? a journalist?) and Massimo, Pavone’s faithful manservant.
The figure of Pavone is in turn based, with permission from his estate, on the real-life composer Giacinto Scelsi (see e.g. https://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/1... for a New Yorker article on Scelsi).
Massimo starts with his employment interview and Pavone’s words:
After the end of the Neolithic we have come to the era of the Synthetic. No one will know what a stone is any more, no one will know what a tree is, no one will know what a flower is, no one will know the mathematical symbol for infinity. But why should we care? My task is to write music and your task is to make sure that my shirts and my suits are cleaned and ironed according to the highest standards that still prevail.
I do not say according to the highest standards, he said, but according to the highest standards that still prevail. Do you see the difference, Massimo? he asked me. Because if you do not see the difference there is no point in my employing you.
Massimo is initially, and thereafter periodically, taciturn in the interview, and claims little knowledge of music or art, but when he does open up then relays Pavone’s thoughts in considerable detail
He stopped. I waited for him to go on, but when it became clear that he was not going to, I said: Go on.
–I can’t remember, he said.
–What can’t you remember?
–Anything.
–Anything?
–What else he said about this.
–It doesn’t matter. Talk about something else.
–Yes, sir, he said.
I waited. Finally I said: Well?
–What would you like me to talk about, sir? he asked.
–What did he feel about living here in Rome?
–He said to me one day: Massimo, this is Rome. Rome is the boundary between East and West. South of Rome the East starts, and north of Rome is where the West starts. This borderline runs exactly over the Forum Romanum. This is where my house is, and this explains my life and my music. (this then carries on for several pages)
And Pavone’s opinions are an odd mixture of the bombastic and the erudite, the Bernhardian rant mixed with delight in pure sound. As the author has explained:
For example despite living in Rome, he is (remember these are intended to be Pavone’s words, but relayed by Massimo) no fan of Ancient Rome:
Everything that is wrong with the human race, he said, can be found in the Romans. They were petty. They were pedantic. They were mean. They were bureaucratic. They were vain. They were bloodthirsty. They were cruel. The Roman roads were straight, he said. The Romans prided themselves on their straight roads. But who wants a straight road? The Romans substituted the straight line for the circle and the spiral, he said. For the Celtic circle and the Celtic spiral they substituted the straight line. And because the Roman road brought peace and prosperity, because along the Roman road other peoples could be subjugated and their wealth taken away, all those who followed the Romans tried to ape the Roman ways. They abandoned the circle and the spiral and became obsessed with the straight line. What is the landing on the moon but the Roman road? What is America but the Roman road? What is the dream of living to a hundred but the Roman road? Capitalism is the Roman road, he said. Communism is the Roman road, and Fascism was the Roman road.
One of the joys of travelling in Nepal, he said, and it was one of the joys of travelling in West Africa in my youth, was that there were no Roman roads. The roads led from village to village, and from village to temple. What is the shape of a Buddhist shrine, Massimo? he said. Circular. Darkness is circular, he said. Just as light is circular and each sound is circular. And not circular in two dimensions but in three or four or five, and a circle in four dimensions is a spiral. And what is a spiral but a figure of eight? And what is the sign for infinity but a figure of eight lying on its side.
Rather like the author Laszlo Krasznahorkai, while rejecting much of European culture, he seeks purer inspiration elsewhere, two pivotal trips in his life being to West Africa as a young man in 1927, then to Nepal in 1949, after the horrors of the second world war and his final separation from his wife.
Europe was a cesspit in those years. And the stink has not entirely disappeared. In Italy, at any rate, they still long for a strong man to lead them, a man with an iron chin. We have not seen the end of it, Massimo, he said. When I go to Hungary and Romania to hear my music played I hear about the monstrousness of the gypsies. When I go to Belgrade I hear about the smell left by the Turks and the Bosnians. When I go to Poland I hear about the treachery of the Jews. There’s no end to it, Massimo, he said. No end to it. The best place to be is in your study, he said, making music.
And as for music itself, as with Scelsi, Pavone’s focus is on the sound rather than the composition, and on the composer as merely a conduit:
The composer is not a craftsman, Massimo, he said to me. He is not a genius. He is a conduit, a go-between. A postman. That is what he has been chosen for. It is no reflection on his character that he is chosen, it is simply a fact. I was chosen, Massimo, he said to me, and I had to do what I was chosen for, just as you were chosen to help me in my task. Fortunately everything conspired to make that possible, he said. Everything from my upbringing in the great house in Sicily to my years in Monte Carlo, to my meeting with my wife and our many stormy years together in London and Paris and Switzerland, to her leaving me and my despair and my trip with Tucci to Nepal.
Scelsi’s own breakthrough came when he rejected the rules of the Schönberg school, where he initially went to study. The rise of fascism and the second world war, leading him first to have a seeming mental breakdown, sitting at his piano capable only of playing one single note:
And then things got very bad in Europe. It was impossible to stay in Paris and there was no question of moving back to Rome, so we went to Switzerland, three days before the war broke out. At least in Switzerland you could leave the shouting behind and try to lead a civilised life. But you cannot lead a civilised life when you know what is happening all around you. You can take walks in the mountains and breathe in the good air, but you cannot shut out reality. Had I been able to write music I might have done so, he said. But I could no longer write. I sat at my piano and I played the same note, over and over again, hour after hour, the same note. Arabella begged me to stop but I could not leave the piano alone and I could not play anything except that one note. So in order to spare her I signed myself in to a sanatorium. My health was very bad anyway, and I thought, Europe is a madhouse, so the only way to stay sane is to enter a madhouse.
Only later, post his trip to Nepal, to realise he had found his calling, his breakthrough piece being Six Sixty-Six, with the same note played 666 times (like Scelsi’s own work and history). Massimo tells the interviewer that Pavone told him:
Cage said to me: This is a piece I would like to have written if only I had thought of it. But he was wrong. He could never have written it. I was fond of Cage, he said, he had an inkling of the way of the Buddha, but fatally contaminated by American New Ageism. He never understood my music. If he had written Six Sixty-Six he would have been content with the idea, he would have been indifferent to the sound. Whereas I was not interested in the idea, he said, I was interested in the sound.
Rather as with the author’s The Cemetery in Barnes, there are also some subtle clues that all may not be as described on the surface (although as with The CiB it would be wrong to assume there is one correct explanation):
- Massimo’s anomalous, if apparently relayed, eloquence on topics he claims to not understand;
- repeated references by the interviewer to an early incident with Massimo and a maid in Pavone’s employ, which Massimo neatly avoids (Massimo himself even admits to a conversation with the executor of Pavone’s estate: Despite that early incident concerning Miss Mauss, he always spoke highly of you. I asked him what he meant but he only said, you know what I am talking about, Massimo.)
- the question as to the identity of the interviewer, and quite why Massimo is prepared to talk to him, including about incidents Pavone told him to keep private, particularly given Pavone’s own views on those more interested in a composer’s life than his music;
These people are monsters, Massimo, he said. They must be kept out at all costs. That is why I hired someone like you, he said, someone who has no trouble lifting the rear ends of cars to look underneath them, to inspect their rear parts, so to speak. What a musician needs is peace and time, he said, peace and time, inner peace and inner time. He needs quiet and he needs to be alone.
and his praise for artists who shun the press:
What brings us close to tears, Massimo, he said, is the total selflessness of these artists. They were not interested in showing off their noses, he said, and they were not interested in giving interviews and attending festivals. No, he said, they were interested in reaching down into the heart of the mystery and bringing it out into the light of day, undefiled, still mysterious. And because of that, he said, they survive, because of that they fill us with wonder. Wonder, Massimo, he said, without wonder life is nothing.
Thought provoking, funny, haunting and beautifully written – and again remember in less than 150 pages.
4.5 stars
Some other reviews:
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/sc... by author Vesna Main
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre... - which includes links about Scelsi
http://this-space.blogspot.com/2012/0...
“He who does not penetrate to the interior, to the heart of sound, even though a perfect craftsman, a great technician, will never be a true artist, a true musician” -Giacinto Scelsi
Infinity: The Story of a Moment is another wonderful novel from Gabriel Josipovici, a lesson to many other authors both in the quality of his work, but also how he can achieve such depth in only 129 pages.
The novel centres around the absent figure of the fictitious composer Tancredo Pavone, an influential, if reclusive, figure in 20th century music. Absent because Pavone is dead, and what we are reading is instead a transcript of a conversation between an unnamed interviewer (an academic researcher? a journalist?) and Massimo, Pavone’s faithful manservant.
The figure of Pavone is in turn based, with permission from his estate, on the real-life composer Giacinto Scelsi (see e.g. https://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/1... for a New Yorker article on Scelsi).
Massimo starts with his employment interview and Pavone’s words:
After the end of the Neolithic we have come to the era of the Synthetic. No one will know what a stone is any more, no one will know what a tree is, no one will know what a flower is, no one will know the mathematical symbol for infinity. But why should we care? My task is to write music and your task is to make sure that my shirts and my suits are cleaned and ironed according to the highest standards that still prevail.
I do not say according to the highest standards, he said, but according to the highest standards that still prevail. Do you see the difference, Massimo? he asked me. Because if you do not see the difference there is no point in my employing you.
Massimo is initially, and thereafter periodically, taciturn in the interview, and claims little knowledge of music or art, but when he does open up then relays Pavone’s thoughts in considerable detail
He stopped. I waited for him to go on, but when it became clear that he was not going to, I said: Go on.
–I can’t remember, he said.
–What can’t you remember?
–Anything.
–Anything?
–What else he said about this.
–It doesn’t matter. Talk about something else.
–Yes, sir, he said.
I waited. Finally I said: Well?
–What would you like me to talk about, sir? he asked.
–What did he feel about living here in Rome?
–He said to me one day: Massimo, this is Rome. Rome is the boundary between East and West. South of Rome the East starts, and north of Rome is where the West starts. This borderline runs exactly over the Forum Romanum. This is where my house is, and this explains my life and my music. (this then carries on for several pages)
And Pavone’s opinions are an odd mixture of the bombastic and the erudite, the Bernhardian rant mixed with delight in pure sound. As the author has explained:
Infinity is a novel, and though Tancredo Pavone says many things with which I agree, he also says much I disagree with or find ridiculous. He is based on the wonderful reclusive Italian composer, Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), whose pronouncements about everything from rhythm in music to beautiful women and the future of civilisation are a curious mixture of profundity and bullshit. In fact it was this mixture I found so appealing and tried to mimic.
For example despite living in Rome, he is (remember these are intended to be Pavone’s words, but relayed by Massimo) no fan of Ancient Rome:
Everything that is wrong with the human race, he said, can be found in the Romans. They were petty. They were pedantic. They were mean. They were bureaucratic. They were vain. They were bloodthirsty. They were cruel. The Roman roads were straight, he said. The Romans prided themselves on their straight roads. But who wants a straight road? The Romans substituted the straight line for the circle and the spiral, he said. For the Celtic circle and the Celtic spiral they substituted the straight line. And because the Roman road brought peace and prosperity, because along the Roman road other peoples could be subjugated and their wealth taken away, all those who followed the Romans tried to ape the Roman ways. They abandoned the circle and the spiral and became obsessed with the straight line. What is the landing on the moon but the Roman road? What is America but the Roman road? What is the dream of living to a hundred but the Roman road? Capitalism is the Roman road, he said. Communism is the Roman road, and Fascism was the Roman road.
One of the joys of travelling in Nepal, he said, and it was one of the joys of travelling in West Africa in my youth, was that there were no Roman roads. The roads led from village to village, and from village to temple. What is the shape of a Buddhist shrine, Massimo? he said. Circular. Darkness is circular, he said. Just as light is circular and each sound is circular. And not circular in two dimensions but in three or four or five, and a circle in four dimensions is a spiral. And what is a spiral but a figure of eight? And what is the sign for infinity but a figure of eight lying on its side.
Rather like the author Laszlo Krasznahorkai, while rejecting much of European culture, he seeks purer inspiration elsewhere, two pivotal trips in his life being to West Africa as a young man in 1927, then to Nepal in 1949, after the horrors of the second world war and his final separation from his wife.
Europe was a cesspit in those years. And the stink has not entirely disappeared. In Italy, at any rate, they still long for a strong man to lead them, a man with an iron chin. We have not seen the end of it, Massimo, he said. When I go to Hungary and Romania to hear my music played I hear about the monstrousness of the gypsies. When I go to Belgrade I hear about the smell left by the Turks and the Bosnians. When I go to Poland I hear about the treachery of the Jews. There’s no end to it, Massimo, he said. No end to it. The best place to be is in your study, he said, making music.
And as for music itself, as with Scelsi, Pavone’s focus is on the sound rather than the composition, and on the composer as merely a conduit:
The composer is not a craftsman, Massimo, he said to me. He is not a genius. He is a conduit, a go-between. A postman. That is what he has been chosen for. It is no reflection on his character that he is chosen, it is simply a fact. I was chosen, Massimo, he said to me, and I had to do what I was chosen for, just as you were chosen to help me in my task. Fortunately everything conspired to make that possible, he said. Everything from my upbringing in the great house in Sicily to my years in Monte Carlo, to my meeting with my wife and our many stormy years together in London and Paris and Switzerland, to her leaving me and my despair and my trip with Tucci to Nepal.
Scelsi’s own breakthrough came when he rejected the rules of the Schönberg school, where he initially went to study. The rise of fascism and the second world war, leading him first to have a seeming mental breakdown, sitting at his piano capable only of playing one single note:
And then things got very bad in Europe. It was impossible to stay in Paris and there was no question of moving back to Rome, so we went to Switzerland, three days before the war broke out. At least in Switzerland you could leave the shouting behind and try to lead a civilised life. But you cannot lead a civilised life when you know what is happening all around you. You can take walks in the mountains and breathe in the good air, but you cannot shut out reality. Had I been able to write music I might have done so, he said. But I could no longer write. I sat at my piano and I played the same note, over and over again, hour after hour, the same note. Arabella begged me to stop but I could not leave the piano alone and I could not play anything except that one note. So in order to spare her I signed myself in to a sanatorium. My health was very bad anyway, and I thought, Europe is a madhouse, so the only way to stay sane is to enter a madhouse.
Only later, post his trip to Nepal, to realise he had found his calling, his breakthrough piece being Six Sixty-Six, with the same note played 666 times (like Scelsi’s own work and history). Massimo tells the interviewer that Pavone told him:
Cage said to me: This is a piece I would like to have written if only I had thought of it. But he was wrong. He could never have written it. I was fond of Cage, he said, he had an inkling of the way of the Buddha, but fatally contaminated by American New Ageism. He never understood my music. If he had written Six Sixty-Six he would have been content with the idea, he would have been indifferent to the sound. Whereas I was not interested in the idea, he said, I was interested in the sound.
Rather as with the author’s The Cemetery in Barnes, there are also some subtle clues that all may not be as described on the surface (although as with The CiB it would be wrong to assume there is one correct explanation):
- Massimo’s anomalous, if apparently relayed, eloquence on topics he claims to not understand;
- repeated references by the interviewer to an early incident with Massimo and a maid in Pavone’s employ, which Massimo neatly avoids (Massimo himself even admits to a conversation with the executor of Pavone’s estate: Despite that early incident concerning Miss Mauss, he always spoke highly of you. I asked him what he meant but he only said, you know what I am talking about, Massimo.)
- the question as to the identity of the interviewer, and quite why Massimo is prepared to talk to him, including about incidents Pavone told him to keep private, particularly given Pavone’s own views on those more interested in a composer’s life than his music;
These people are monsters, Massimo, he said. They must be kept out at all costs. That is why I hired someone like you, he said, someone who has no trouble lifting the rear ends of cars to look underneath them, to inspect their rear parts, so to speak. What a musician needs is peace and time, he said, peace and time, inner peace and inner time. He needs quiet and he needs to be alone.
and his praise for artists who shun the press:
What brings us close to tears, Massimo, he said, is the total selflessness of these artists. They were not interested in showing off their noses, he said, and they were not interested in giving interviews and attending festivals. No, he said, they were interested in reaching down into the heart of the mystery and bringing it out into the light of day, undefiled, still mysterious. And because of that, he said, they survive, because of that they fill us with wonder. Wonder, Massimo, he said, without wonder life is nothing.
Thought provoking, funny, haunting and beautifully written – and again remember in less than 150 pages.
4.5 stars
Some other reviews:
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/sc... by author Vesna Main
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre... - which includes links about Scelsi
http://this-space.blogspot.com/2012/0...
July 24, 2015
Though I breezed through this with delight, and was fascinated and inspired and entertained by the story told, I still remain suspicious of books such as this that perhaps rely too much on real-life figures to provide content.
This is the story of Giacinto Scelsi (an actual, though now deceased Italian avant-garde composer) as told by his somewhat clueless manservant during a single-sitting interview with an unnamed person. Scelsi, or Pavone as he is named in the novel, is a Sicilian aristocrat who as far as he is concerned has rediscovered the profound roots of music, or more accurately of sound. His theories as parroted by his manservant can sound egomaniacal and crackpot, and there is a keen edge of comedy in their elucidation by a man who has no idea what they mean, but they are also profound and transformative, at least potentially, and Pavone's monomaniacal dedication to them through decades of obscurity and misunderstanding is nothing short of inspirational.
I went into this with some knowledge of Scelsi and his music, and even harbored a budding fascination with what I knew of his theories, or rather claims, so in many ways I think I might've been the ideal reader of Josipovici's novel. But what of people who are thoroughly familiar with Scelsi? Will this book tell them anything they don't already know? And what of people who have never heard of him? Will they have enough footing to really appreciate it? I don't know, though I'd like to think that reading this book would lead some from the second conjectural group of people to further explore Scelsi the man and his music.
But how does this fare as a stand-alone novel? It's hard to say. It's written with a masterful economy, and the format is interesting as it provides an inherent uncertainty since all the information is provided by the manservant's perhaps faulty memory of ideas he did not understand. But, but, there's the nagging feeling that Scelsi himself provides the meat and the interest rather than the author himself, so I'm left shrugging and pondering the novel's inherent qualities, while my mind's off thinking of Scelsi and his music.
This is the story of Giacinto Scelsi (an actual, though now deceased Italian avant-garde composer) as told by his somewhat clueless manservant during a single-sitting interview with an unnamed person. Scelsi, or Pavone as he is named in the novel, is a Sicilian aristocrat who as far as he is concerned has rediscovered the profound roots of music, or more accurately of sound. His theories as parroted by his manservant can sound egomaniacal and crackpot, and there is a keen edge of comedy in their elucidation by a man who has no idea what they mean, but they are also profound and transformative, at least potentially, and Pavone's monomaniacal dedication to them through decades of obscurity and misunderstanding is nothing short of inspirational.
I went into this with some knowledge of Scelsi and his music, and even harbored a budding fascination with what I knew of his theories, or rather claims, so in many ways I think I might've been the ideal reader of Josipovici's novel. But what of people who are thoroughly familiar with Scelsi? Will this book tell them anything they don't already know? And what of people who have never heard of him? Will they have enough footing to really appreciate it? I don't know, though I'd like to think that reading this book would lead some from the second conjectural group of people to further explore Scelsi the man and his music.
But how does this fare as a stand-alone novel? It's hard to say. It's written with a masterful economy, and the format is interesting as it provides an inherent uncertainty since all the information is provided by the manservant's perhaps faulty memory of ideas he did not understand. But, but, there's the nagging feeling that Scelsi himself provides the meat and the interest rather than the author himself, so I'm left shrugging and pondering the novel's inherent qualities, while my mind's off thinking of Scelsi and his music.
December 20, 2022
Sometimes he made me stop and would get out …and stand at the edge of a field to listen to the cicadas. They were singing well before mankind came on the scene, he said, and they will go on singing long after we have all passed away.
I kept wondering what this was all about, this book that made endless references to sounds and music and depth of sound and pointing always to something in a distance that I cannot hear or see while I read it. How do you read a book about music without hearing the sounds? You can’t. So it is not then about music, but an account of someone passing through this world. Though the music is there pointed at by the looping conversation that refers to itself over and over, like a few bars and notes repeating themselves in a musical score.
There is nothing more ridiculous, Massimo, than setting a text to music.
It could all just be an experiment in narrative style, as a compacted narrative of a life. A Sicilian nobleman talking to his employee, a fellow called Massimo, who in turn relates as much as he could remember to a nameless narrator who asked that he "go on" once in a while or a few questions here and there. Massimo, though a simple fellow is the driver, caretaker and valet to this Pavone fellow, and he has a prodigious memory. He can forget and then recount endless streams of the narrative as though he relives it. Like a chant, never forgotten, endless and repeated. At one point, Pavone tells Massimo that chants simply exist in the universe and they are not so much uttered as tapped into. They never pass, they are always there. Nepalese monks simply train to tune into them.
Of course infinity is a loop, symbolised by the figure like an eight on its side, it comes back in on itself, as do recollections.
Existence is perhaps this, too, a moment experienced within the infinite.
It's interesting how this book is voiced. Massimo expresses Pavone's voice. Like an instrument playing the composer's notes. Massimo seems to get the voice right, an arrogant, self-important aristocrat. Some instruments are lyrical, they have a voice, say the clarinet for example.
dropped
November 1, 2013Boring. Same stylistic techniques as in other books, bland Eurofic hobbyism in this one. Josipovici seems to have repeated himself ad nauseam and frankly my good sir I would like the cheque and will not be leaving a tip.
June 16, 2024
I read this years ago and forgot to note down my impressions. I remember liking it much more than Hotel Andromeda by the same author. Admittedly the style is somewhat repetitive and pedantic. However, when I revisited my ebook highlights and bypassed the novelistic padding, I found a clear artistic credo that weaves together many motifs from the past two and a half centuries of cultural history.
"The idea of the wave, he said to me once, as we were driving again, is the idea of life itself. That is what Heraclitus meant, he said, when he said that when I step into a river I do not step into the river and it is not me that steps into it. To write music that is and is not static, that is and is not in motion, that both sounds and is silent, that goes inwards and that goes backwards and that does not go anywhere at all, that is the idea, he said, that is what I have tried to do for the past thirty years. I did not wish to write music that was profound, he said. I did not wish to write music that was beautiful. I did not wish to write music that would make audiences clap and agents come rushing up to me to sign me up to go to this festival or that festival. I wanted to write music that was true. True to our earth. True to our planet. And if it is true it will be frightening. It does not have to be loud to be frightening, he said."
"The idea of the wave, he said to me once, as we were driving again, is the idea of life itself. That is what Heraclitus meant, he said, when he said that when I step into a river I do not step into the river and it is not me that steps into it. To write music that is and is not static, that is and is not in motion, that both sounds and is silent, that goes inwards and that goes backwards and that does not go anywhere at all, that is the idea, he said, that is what I have tried to do for the past thirty years. I did not wish to write music that was profound, he said. I did not wish to write music that was beautiful. I did not wish to write music that would make audiences clap and agents come rushing up to me to sign me up to go to this festival or that festival. I wanted to write music that was true. True to our earth. True to our planet. And if it is true it will be frightening. It does not have to be loud to be frightening, he said."
September 6, 2020
This book is way more cleverer than I am. I have this lurking sense that there is a lot more going on in this book than I know about. I know very little about music or composers. So when I read at the back that the story is loosely based on the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, then I begin to feel that there is lots going on behind the scenes.
120 pages without a break, no chapters, and just some very occasional dialogue of short sentences to break the relentless pattern of full pages of text. The book is conducted as an interview. Massimo, the faithful employee, talks about his employer, the composer Tancredo Pavone, for whom he has worked for many years, cleaning his clothes and driving him around the countryside.
So what we listen to are Massimo’s many recollections of Pavone, the very detailed stories that he tells and his observations on life. Massimo is often reluctant to talk or even tell more when we want extra details. He does not tell tales about people, preferring to say that you will have to ask the person concerned directly. At other times he is impossible to stop talking. Increasingly we wonder about how accurate his stories are.
What emerges over 120 pages is a portrait of a friendship which always remains within the bounds of formality between employer and employee. Pavone has told much about his life and Massimo has stored up that information as far as he is able. Here are a few of my favourite excerpts:
“Every room in this house is soundproofed, Massimo, he said. You could strangle your wife or your lover in your flat downstairs, Massimo, he said and no one would be any the wiser. The Italians do not know what it means to be quiet, Massimo, he said. They are terrified of silence. I am not terrified of silence, he said. I crave silence as others crave drink.”
“He said to me once: When you are young you meet a beautiful woman and want to sleep with her and so you persuade yourself that you are in love with her. But you are not in love with her. You are in love with yourself and your possibilities. And she is in love with herself and her possibilities. The two of you are quite different, Massimo, he said. If my wife had not left me in 1945, he said, I would still be married to her today and I would have done absolutely nothing with my life.”
Chief among the things he has done, are to travel to Niger in West Africa and then to Tibet, having failed to find what he wanted in Monte Carlo, Paris, London or Vienna. This has taught him about chanting and allowed him to spend vast periods of his life simply playing the same musical note over and over again. All of this makes you wonder about the seriousness of his compositions.
There are a number of references to his wife Arabella.
“My wife, Massimo, he would say, was one of the most beautiful women in the world and she was always immaculately dressed. But in her soul she was a slut.”
Having married in Buckingham Palace, because she was a niece of the Queen, he decides to go to live in Vienna without her.
“Arabella wrote me a letter a week, sheet after sheet in her childish hand, telling me about all the balls and race meetings she had been to and sailing of Cows and cricket with lords and shooting in the Highlands on weekends in this grand house and that, with this lover or admirer or that.”
“What I felt was that she was living for both of us so I could take a break from living and concentrate on music.”
And this wisdom:
“I have been fortunate, Massimo, he said to me, that all I have ever really been interested in is women and music. For a while women can hurt you, they also enrich your life. Even my wife enriched my life. I always recognised that, whatever she did to me, and she did terrible damage to me, he said, nevertheless, on balance, enriched my life.”
Finally there were two pieces which are both about walking in the city at night, which I enjoyed for their profound observations:
“…some of my best musical ideas have come at night when walking through the streets of Rome. Cities, he said, should be walked at night, that is when you become aware of the soul of a city, and Rome is the quintessential city. The conversations you have in a city at night, with passing strangers and the people you meet in all night bars far surpass the conversations you have during the day. During the day everyone is busy, everyone is going about his or her business…”
And forty pages later: “There is something about walking in the city in the middle of the night, he said, not in the districts where the bars and nightclubs stay open all night, where the prostitutes walk the streets, but in the residential districts, where every good citizen has gone to sleep, there is something about that, he said, about padding through those quiet residential streets, that I find conducive both to peace of mind and the emergence of compositional ideas.”
Mmm, the two together are add odds, as increasingly are some of the recollections.
120 pages without a break, no chapters, and just some very occasional dialogue of short sentences to break the relentless pattern of full pages of text. The book is conducted as an interview. Massimo, the faithful employee, talks about his employer, the composer Tancredo Pavone, for whom he has worked for many years, cleaning his clothes and driving him around the countryside.
So what we listen to are Massimo’s many recollections of Pavone, the very detailed stories that he tells and his observations on life. Massimo is often reluctant to talk or even tell more when we want extra details. He does not tell tales about people, preferring to say that you will have to ask the person concerned directly. At other times he is impossible to stop talking. Increasingly we wonder about how accurate his stories are.
What emerges over 120 pages is a portrait of a friendship which always remains within the bounds of formality between employer and employee. Pavone has told much about his life and Massimo has stored up that information as far as he is able. Here are a few of my favourite excerpts:
“Every room in this house is soundproofed, Massimo, he said. You could strangle your wife or your lover in your flat downstairs, Massimo, he said and no one would be any the wiser. The Italians do not know what it means to be quiet, Massimo, he said. They are terrified of silence. I am not terrified of silence, he said. I crave silence as others crave drink.”
“He said to me once: When you are young you meet a beautiful woman and want to sleep with her and so you persuade yourself that you are in love with her. But you are not in love with her. You are in love with yourself and your possibilities. And she is in love with herself and her possibilities. The two of you are quite different, Massimo, he said. If my wife had not left me in 1945, he said, I would still be married to her today and I would have done absolutely nothing with my life.”
Chief among the things he has done, are to travel to Niger in West Africa and then to Tibet, having failed to find what he wanted in Monte Carlo, Paris, London or Vienna. This has taught him about chanting and allowed him to spend vast periods of his life simply playing the same musical note over and over again. All of this makes you wonder about the seriousness of his compositions.
There are a number of references to his wife Arabella.
“My wife, Massimo, he would say, was one of the most beautiful women in the world and she was always immaculately dressed. But in her soul she was a slut.”
Having married in Buckingham Palace, because she was a niece of the Queen, he decides to go to live in Vienna without her.
“Arabella wrote me a letter a week, sheet after sheet in her childish hand, telling me about all the balls and race meetings she had been to and sailing of Cows and cricket with lords and shooting in the Highlands on weekends in this grand house and that, with this lover or admirer or that.”
“What I felt was that she was living for both of us so I could take a break from living and concentrate on music.”
And this wisdom:
“I have been fortunate, Massimo, he said to me, that all I have ever really been interested in is women and music. For a while women can hurt you, they also enrich your life. Even my wife enriched my life. I always recognised that, whatever she did to me, and she did terrible damage to me, he said, nevertheless, on balance, enriched my life.”
Finally there were two pieces which are both about walking in the city at night, which I enjoyed for their profound observations:
“…some of my best musical ideas have come at night when walking through the streets of Rome. Cities, he said, should be walked at night, that is when you become aware of the soul of a city, and Rome is the quintessential city. The conversations you have in a city at night, with passing strangers and the people you meet in all night bars far surpass the conversations you have during the day. During the day everyone is busy, everyone is going about his or her business…”
And forty pages later: “There is something about walking in the city in the middle of the night, he said, not in the districts where the bars and nightclubs stay open all night, where the prostitutes walk the streets, but in the residential districts, where every good citizen has gone to sleep, there is something about that, he said, about padding through those quiet residential streets, that I find conducive both to peace of mind and the emergence of compositional ideas.”
Mmm, the two together are add odds, as increasingly are some of the recollections.
December 29, 2016
You should get to know mister Pavone. He's worth it.
September 2, 2021
Second book I read by Josipovici (definitely one of the best literary discoveries I’ve made this year) after The Cemetery in Barnes, and just as exquisite.
June 26, 2021
Structured in the form of an interrogative interview of a butler to a 20thC Neapolitan composer who has died, this is a book as strange as the composer it’s based on. The butler has a memory of everything said to him,so the first person interviewer asks the butler in the second person who replies in the second person as if he is the composer talking to the butler. The composer is irreverent except about music, vain and narcissistic which he hates about others, becomes obsessed with Nepal, and talks to his manservant Massimo about everything, which is reproduces/ventriloquised for the interview. Interesting structure and world context for 20thC music.I didn’t like it at first, with the cliched antisocial genius having sexual awakenings with his cousins budding breasts, but I’m glad I kept going.
February 11, 2013
I wanted to enjoy this, and the reviews I had read inspired me to buy it, but I just lost interest about half way through. I enjoyed the humour in the comical way the two characters interact but that's about the only positive thing I have to say which merely shows up flaws in my patience for reading this highly-rated author.
January 4, 2019
It's very good in its own rambling sort of way, the final part is really touching and Pavone/Scelsi is an interesting chap indeed. In fact, its only fault is that Josipovici has done a much better book in exactly the same style, Moo Pak, that's nothing short of a masterpiece.
October 28, 2013
too much Thomas Bernhard going on. I felt like a was reading a weird mix of Der Untergeher and Elizabeth II.
September 24, 2015
A very fine reflection on creativity and musical composition. This book was a most pleasant surprise.
Read
January 31, 2016Never imagined that I would ~Identify~ so much with a pompous aristocratic chauvinist Italian composer of cool modern music.
May 22, 2023
Infinity: The Story of a Moment (2012) by Gabriel Josipovich is a short novel that is loosely based on the life of Italian composer Giacinto Scelso (1905-1988), based in part on and using some actual text from his collected writings.
Music is the heart of the story, but it more broadly addresses the arts, including writing. The very writing that the author creates is quite consistent with the nature and spirit of the musician whose life and ideas he shares. The story is told in the form of a single extended interview with composer Tancredo Pavone’s manservant Massimo that reveals the life, work and philosophy of the artist.
What does the perspective of a manservant--not an artist-- do to the story of Pavone? At least initially, it creates some humorous separation between his ideas and the ideas of everyday people, though over time we understand Massimo appreciates Pavone. It’s in part about the quirks of this artist; for instance, Pavone is orderly, has high standards for dress and for a time sent his shirts to be cleaned and pressed to a place in England, though he primarily works alone in his study.
In the book we learn of his life growing up, his fallout with his wife, his friendships, his ideas about other musicians, his travel, and over time we see the bonds created between the composer and his servant, across very different worlds. But most of all it is about the nature of his commitment to and passion for music.
Pavone came from nobility and wealth but he saw money as a hindrance to artistic commitment His view of composing is work, not fame or wealth. The music is everything. No real ego; all work and commitment and standards. Order, passion. Cleanliness is a habit, meaning order is necessary for a clear head.
Some thoughts on music:
“. . . to compose he needed space for solitude inside himself”. . . Find a space within yourself. . . You have to make your music in that inner space.”
“. . . the work is more spiritual than technical.”
“Eternity and the moment are one.”
“For music you need an inner ear.”
“You have to “listen to silence and the moment.”
Pavone talks of the importance of breathing, the breath. And silence: “I crave silence as others crave drink.”
“Beethoven understood that the first attribute of the composer is deafness. All his life he marched toward deafness as though toward his destiny.” Pavone’s destiny came when he went to Nepal, which he comes back to again and again.
“Each sound is a world, an infinite world.”
“I have tried to make people listen to each beating of the heart of a flea.”
“To be creative is a constant openness to the world.”
“The language of music is not the sonata and it is not the tone row, it is the same kind of language as weeping, sobbing, shrieking and laughing.”
“We must rediscover he bodily origins of music,” which he finds in the music of West Africa.
His goal: “Compressing into the moment everything that has ever been and ever will be.”
“The art of composing is listening, not speaking, it is the art of letting go, not holding on.”
We have to look “Into the heart of mystery.”
“Without wonder we are ants; without wonder life is nothing and the person who can help us wonder is the artist.”
“To chant is to align yourself with the rhythms of the universe.”
“What we are striving for is transformation, not transcendence.”
“A sound is not a step on the way to something else, it is itself a universe in which we would be happy to set up dwelling.”
“The composer is a conduit with the universe.”
“Each note is a world.”
“The Roman roads were straight. But sound is circular in Nepal; there were no straight roads there.”
“I want to write music that is true, true to our earth.
“Many people are lobotomized by their parents, by schooling, by society. Free spirit is necessary to create.”
He speaks of the sound of cicadas, the madness of that sound: Now, it is saying, and eternity; if you can hear the now you can hear eternity.”
But yo can forget that the nameless interviewer is getting the story from Massimo, who loved Pavone, though he was not a musician at all. I didn’t know any of the work of Italian composer Giacinto Scelso, but am going to listen to some of it. He feels inspired by Nepali music, by John Cage on the philosophy of sound but he’s influenced by so many artists he knew. I really like the book so much, and thanks, Ilse.
Music is the heart of the story, but it more broadly addresses the arts, including writing. The very writing that the author creates is quite consistent with the nature and spirit of the musician whose life and ideas he shares. The story is told in the form of a single extended interview with composer Tancredo Pavone’s manservant Massimo that reveals the life, work and philosophy of the artist.
What does the perspective of a manservant--not an artist-- do to the story of Pavone? At least initially, it creates some humorous separation between his ideas and the ideas of everyday people, though over time we understand Massimo appreciates Pavone. It’s in part about the quirks of this artist; for instance, Pavone is orderly, has high standards for dress and for a time sent his shirts to be cleaned and pressed to a place in England, though he primarily works alone in his study.
In the book we learn of his life growing up, his fallout with his wife, his friendships, his ideas about other musicians, his travel, and over time we see the bonds created between the composer and his servant, across very different worlds. But most of all it is about the nature of his commitment to and passion for music.
Pavone came from nobility and wealth but he saw money as a hindrance to artistic commitment His view of composing is work, not fame or wealth. The music is everything. No real ego; all work and commitment and standards. Order, passion. Cleanliness is a habit, meaning order is necessary for a clear head.
Some thoughts on music:
“. . . to compose he needed space for solitude inside himself”. . . Find a space within yourself. . . You have to make your music in that inner space.”
“. . . the work is more spiritual than technical.”
“Eternity and the moment are one.”
“For music you need an inner ear.”
“You have to “listen to silence and the moment.”
Pavone talks of the importance of breathing, the breath. And silence: “I crave silence as others crave drink.”
“Beethoven understood that the first attribute of the composer is deafness. All his life he marched toward deafness as though toward his destiny.” Pavone’s destiny came when he went to Nepal, which he comes back to again and again.
“Each sound is a world, an infinite world.”
“I have tried to make people listen to each beating of the heart of a flea.”
“To be creative is a constant openness to the world.”
“The language of music is not the sonata and it is not the tone row, it is the same kind of language as weeping, sobbing, shrieking and laughing.”
“We must rediscover he bodily origins of music,” which he finds in the music of West Africa.
His goal: “Compressing into the moment everything that has ever been and ever will be.”
“The art of composing is listening, not speaking, it is the art of letting go, not holding on.”
We have to look “Into the heart of mystery.”
“Without wonder we are ants; without wonder life is nothing and the person who can help us wonder is the artist.”
“To chant is to align yourself with the rhythms of the universe.”
“What we are striving for is transformation, not transcendence.”
“A sound is not a step on the way to something else, it is itself a universe in which we would be happy to set up dwelling.”
“The composer is a conduit with the universe.”
“Each note is a world.”
“The Roman roads were straight. But sound is circular in Nepal; there were no straight roads there.”
“I want to write music that is true, true to our earth.
“Many people are lobotomized by their parents, by schooling, by society. Free spirit is necessary to create.”
He speaks of the sound of cicadas, the madness of that sound: Now, it is saying, and eternity; if you can hear the now you can hear eternity.”
But yo can forget that the nameless interviewer is getting the story from Massimo, who loved Pavone, though he was not a musician at all. I didn’t know any of the work of Italian composer Giacinto Scelso, but am going to listen to some of it. He feels inspired by Nepali music, by John Cage on the philosophy of sound but he’s influenced by so many artists he knew. I really like the book so much, and thanks, Ilse.
May 7, 2024
Gabriel Josipovici constructs a compact and intricate novel full of reflections on music and what it means to be an artist. It is also a fun investigation of the biographical form as the author draws direct inspiration from a real person, the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), a character who balances serious contemplations with hilarious bullshit.
Initially, the narrative structure seemed a bit artificial to me: how Massimo, the artist's driver, could recollect so many details about his employer, to the extent of replicating complex thoughts and speeches? However, Josipovic is actually paying hommage to the structure of Scelsi's own autobiography Il sogno 101, in which he empoys three talkative alter egos to transform a typical biography into an endless dialogue with himself.
What a marvelous little gem of a book!
ps:
- I would recommend reading the following review: https://www.fabula.org/colloques/docu...
- thanks to Katia for the recommendation and to Ilse for linking to the French review mentioned above
Initially, the narrative structure seemed a bit artificial to me: how Massimo, the artist's driver, could recollect so many details about his employer, to the extent of replicating complex thoughts and speeches? However, Josipovic is actually paying hommage to the structure of Scelsi's own autobiography Il sogno 101, in which he empoys three talkative alter egos to transform a typical biography into an endless dialogue with himself.
What a marvelous little gem of a book!
ps:
- I would recommend reading the following review: https://www.fabula.org/colloques/docu...
- thanks to Katia for the recommendation and to Ilse for linking to the French review mentioned above
June 26, 2012
My expectations were so high because of Steve Mitchelmore that I was quite disappointed. But it's possible it will yield something more when I reread it, as part of a small plan to reread most of GJ's books. But even if I don't like it very much the second time round, after all, it introduced me to Scelsi's music.
January 18, 2015
This book is a philosophical testimony of a life lived to the fullest. It's full of incredibly moving phrases that reminds us the importance of living with no regrets.
I found the relationship between Massimo and Mr Pavone very moving.A book worth quoting over and over again.
I found the relationship between Massimo and Mr Pavone very moving.A book worth quoting over and over again.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews