In 1831, Robert Schumann published his very first review, in the form of an imaginary conversation about a recent composition by Frรฉdรฉric Chopin. Both Schumann and Chopin were scarcely out of their teens, and neither was yet widely known.
Recognizing the exceptional qualities of Chopinโs music, Schumann had one of his fictitious characters introduce it by walking in the door and uttering the unforgettable words, โHats off, gentlemenโa genius!โ
According to musicologist Peter Schickele,ย the only possible response he could make upon hearing the music of P.D.Q Bach, the โonly forgotten sonโ of Johann Sebastian Bach, was โHats back on, gentlemenโan idiot!โ Reading the lyrics to one of P.D.Q.โs compositions,
MONKโS ARIA FROM HANSELย AND GRETELย AND TED AND ALICE
Et expectoย resurrecreation; Et in unum Dominos and checkers; Qui tollisย peccateย mundi morning.ย
Mea culpa kyrieย elei-Sonny Tufts et Allah in Pompeii; Donna nobis pacem cum what mei
Agnus and her sister Doris Dei; Lord, have mercy on my solo.ย
Et in terra chicken pox romana; Sic transit gloria manana;
Sanctus estesย Kefauviridiana; In flagranteย delicto Svetlana; Lord, have mercy on my solo.ย
Credo in, at most, unum deum; Caveat nabisco mausoleum; Coitus interruptus bonus meum;
Kimoย sabe watchumย what you sayum; Lord, have mercy on my soul so low.
then listening to a couple of minutes of the โPrelude and Fugue in C Majorโ from P.D.Qโs immortal The Short-Tempered Clavier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j6vrcbi470
should be sufficient for you to draw your own critical conclusions.
We all have heard that there is a fine line between genius and insanity; for most of us, it is more relevant that we spend our lives wandering the vast terrain between genius and idiocy. I have had moments of such pure inspiration that I wondered why the MacArthur Foundation and the Nobel Prize committee donโt just give me their respective โgenius grantโ and prize without bothering with the application and paperwork. I have had many more moments when my inner voice, observing what I am up to, yells โYou Fucking Moron! What the hell do you think you are doing?โ Socratesโ inner voice instructed him to do what he knew was right rather than obey the demands of the Athenian authorities. My inner voice usually tells me to stop acting like a fool and embarrassing myself.
I spent part of this past semester studying Albert Camusโ The Plague with a bunch of second semester sophomores. The Plague is one of my top five favorite novels ever, both to teach and just because it is a great novel. Of the many powerful characters in the story, my favorite is Grand (Camusโ characters generally donโt get a first name). Grand is a low-level bureaucrat, a paper pushing clerk acquaintance of Dr. Rieux, the narrator and central character of the novel. Grand is a simple but fundamentally decent man who eventually becomes fully committed to assisting Rieuxย in the impossible task of trying to act humanely and professionally in the face of increasingly inhuman circumstances. As his friendship with Rieux develops, weaving its way through the early outbreak and spread of plague throughout the city, Grand occasionally drops cryptic hints that he is secretly working on a โgrandโ project. One evening as they share a drink in Grandโs humble apartment, Grand reveals his secret: he is writing a novel. He has been working on it in his spare time for years and it seems to be no closer to completion than when he began it. But it consumes his life, and it is clear that Grandโs identity and self-image is tied up with the future success of his work of fiction. In response to Rieuxโs wondering how much more Grand has to go before the novel is finished, Grand says
I donโt know. But thatโs not the point . . . What I really want, Doctor, is this. On the day when the manuscript reaches the publisher, I want him to stand upโafter heโs read it through, of courseโand say to his staff, โGentlemen, hats off!โ
It doesnโt take long to realize that no one will ever be taking their hat off in honor of Grandโs novel. Heโs been stuck on the first sentenceโโOne fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogneโโfor months. We revisit the sentence, with various modifications, throughout The Plague, and it never rises above its original bland mediocrity. But Grandโs dream is shared by most of us, the dream that sometime someone somewhere will recognize our latent genius and honor it appropriately.
Grand is one of the solid anchors of the โsanitary teamsโ organized by Dr. Rieuxย and others, groups of volunteers who do whatever is necessaryโremoving dead bodies, comforting those left behind, struggling with bureaucracyโas the plague runs unchecked for weeks, then months. Then it unaccountably begins to subside, fewer persons die each day. But Rieuxย notices that he has not seen Grand for a day or two. He finds Grand in bed at home with a raging fever and swollen glands, the clear early signs of plague. In yet another absurd twist of fate, a man who has exposed himself freely and willingly to contamination for months with apparent immunity is infected with the plague just when it seemed that it the disease was finished. Rieuxย is crushed but administers to Grand in the same way that he has hundreds of others. In a weak and raspy voice, Grand says โIf I pull through Doctorโhats off!โ
Sometimes mere survival is more worthy of praise and admiration than any other accomplishment. As it turns out, Grand does survive to the end of the novelโa small and rare piece of mercy in Camusโ relentless tale. But in a story both infused with agnosticism and largely lacking in hopeโmuch like the world we live inโGrand strikes me as an embodiment of the prophet Micahโs simple explanation of what the divine expects of us: Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. As I explored last week,
George Eliotโs Dorothea Brooke also embodies such a life, as described in the final lines of Middlemarch:
The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and ย me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Hats off to the Grands, to the Dorotheas, and to all who live lives of justice, mercy, and humility under the radar. As my good friend and colleague Christopher would say, โThatโs genius.โ