Odyssey: Coming of Age in World War II

Book Description

A collection of letters written by a young serviceman to his family during World War II describing his exploits in wartime England.

Average customer rating:

Brings fond memories to mind

Great compliment to a great restaurant!

Eating great...New Orleans style!

Learn about Creole and Cajun cuisine...

Creole Class Act

Commander's Kitchen : Take Home the True Taste of New Orleans With More Than 150 Recipes from Commander's Palace Restaurant
Ti Adelaide Martin , and Jamie Shannon
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Cajun & Creole | U.S. Regional | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Commander's Palace New Orleans Cookbook

Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook

Breakfast At Brennan's And Dinner, Too: The original and most recent recipes from New Orleans' world-famous Brennan's Restaurant and a tribute to its founder, Owen Edward Brennan

Leon Galatoire's Cookbook

Galatoire's Cookbook: Recipes and Family History from the Time-Honored New Orleans Restaurant

ASIN: 0767902904
Release Date: 2000-10-31

Amazon.com

Commander's Palace is an American restaurant treasure. For many years, patrons of the beloved New Orleans institution have been urging the Brennan family, its proprietors, to publish the restaurant's recipes. Commander's Kitchen, written by co-owner Ella Brennan's daughter, Ti Adelaide Martin, and Chef Jamie Shannon, realizes that wish, presenting more than 150 accessible recipes for the restaurant's acclaimed Creole dishes. These reflect a mix of French, Spanish, African, Arcadian, and Native American cooking traditions. The book also provides a glimpse of the history, lore, and daily backstage to-and-fro that have made the century-old restaurant a required dining destination.

"We like to push things to the edge," says Shannon of Commander's vibrant cooking, and in chapters that treat drinks through desserts, the book proves his point. Dishes like Shrimp Tasso with Five-Pepper Jelly, Pan-Crusted Sirloin Steak with Cayenne Butter, and Braised Lamb Shank with Merlot Mushroom Sauce are typical of the heady offerings, fare both earthy and sophisticated. Also presented are recipes for many of Commander's famed brunch dishes, the classic creamed-spinach- and artichoke-garnished Eggs Sardou among them; "The Chef's Table," a chapter of "show-off" dishes served at the restaurant's renowned in-the-kitchen table; and a selection of sweets, including Chocolate Molten Soufflé and the Creole sine qua non dessert, Bread Pudding Soufflé. Illustrated with color photos and containing technique tips throughout (readers learn, for example, the difference between sautéing and panéing), the book is an exuberant portrait of a remarkable American restaurant and its unique cuisine. --Arthur Boehm

Book Description

Commander's Palace is one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved restaurants in the country. It was named the outstanding restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation, and is always rated the most popular restaurant in New Orleans by Zagat. It consistently receives awards from magazines such as Food & Wine, Wine Spectator, and Southern Living. A trip to New Orleans just isn't complete without a meal at Commander's Palace.

Now home cooks can bring its unmatched style, hospitality, and great food to their own tables. Reflecting the restaurant's fascinating culinary intersection--a New Orleans landmark combining native ingredients and techniques with exciting and evolving contemporary flavors--Commander's Kitchen takes readers behind the doors of a truly exciting culinary experience.

Featuring 150 recipes from the restaurant's extensive offerings and other Brennan family recipes, Commander's Kitchen describes step-by-step the secrets to Shrimp and Tasso Henican with Five-Pepper Jelly, Eggs Louis Armstrong, Pan-Seared Crusted Sirloin Steak with Cayenne Butter, Braised Lamb Shanks with Merlot Mushroom Sauce, and, the queen of Creole desserts, Bread Pudding Souffle. Of course, four varieties of gumbo are also included, along with dozens of information-packed sidebars, personal anecdotes, tips for throwing a New Orleans--style bash, and juicy tidbits of Commander's Palace lore. Lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs that beautifully capture the lively Commander's Palace spirit, Commander's Kitchen lets the good times, and the exceptional dining, roll.

Customer Reviews:

Brings fond memories to mind.......2004-05-23

If you want to remember your meals at Commander's and perhaps try one or two of the dishes on a slow weekend, you will want this on your shelf. At the same time, it will be the occasional book, not one to reach for time and again.

Great compliment to a great restaurant!.......2004-03-27

This is an excellent compliment to one of the best restaurants. Ilove to cook & eat!! Most restaurant cookbooks have cookbokks which its hard to duplicate their meals. Usually they have recipes so complicated ( require kitchen appliances the average person doesn't have or ingredients impossible to find. Nothing is further than the truth with this book. It has easy to follow recipes, which can be cooked with basic cookware. The dishes come out fantastic. If you love creole food, but can't get to New Orleans regularly-- BUY THIS BOOK. You won't regret it.

Eating great...New Orleans style!.......2003-09-08

When my wife and I recently visited the Commander's Palace restaurant and sat at the Chef's Table (located in the kitchen where you are pampered by the staff), current Executive Chef Tory McPhail wrote "Eating great...New Orleans style!" on a menu he signed as a memento of our visit. Not only was he right about the food we had at Commander's Palace that evening, but he also provides a short and to the point description for this cookbook.

This book is a must for those that "live to eat" (as opposed to those that "eat to live") and truly enjoy the New Orleans and Creole food styles. The recipes we've tried so far have turned out wonderfully (the recipe for the Chocolate Molten Souflee alone is almost worth the price of the book) and, thus far, have been easy to follow. The narratives provided by the authors about both the food and the restaurant itself are a great addition to the great recipes.

I would recommend this book, and the restaurant, to anyone.

Learn about Creole and Cajun cuisine..........2002-03-22

Having spent 4 years of my life in Texas I was introduced to the wonders of Creole and Cajun cuisine. Generally, Creole developed in the city of New Orleans using local produce but influenced by the multicultural nature of the city. Cajun (or Acadian) cooking is food from the country.

I am partial to the simplicity of one-pot cooking offered by Cajun cooking. These are wonderful hearty and spicy meals (gumbo, red beans & rice, etoufee, jambalya) that I often cook to serve large groups of people. In fact, Chef Jamie includes many of these recipes in the "crew" section of the cookbook since he used them for staff meals.

Creole Class Act.......2001-12-28

As a longtime fan of Commander's Palace (and creole and cajun cuisine in general), I found the book as much fun to read as the dishes were to prepare. The beautifully presented recipes and well written preparation tips were made all the better by the inclusion of tidbits of New Orleans and Brennan family history. This book is a must have for both veteran and novice cooks interested in preparing great Louisiana style food.

Every recipe that we have tried from this book has been a hands down home run with our friends and family. The recipes are scaled for truly generous portions. For Christmas Eve dinner we prepared the Venison Stew and the Jalepeno Corn Bread for family in the upper midwest. They liked the meal so much that we left them the recipe book and I have just ordered another for myself!

Average customer rating:

You will want to live on desserts!

Great recipes for desserts.

Sweet Eats

American Desserts: The Greatest Sweets on Earth
Wayne Brachman
Manufacturer: Clarkson Potter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Desserts | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | U.S. Regional | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40S, '50S, 60s and '70s

The All-American Dessert Book

Room For Dessert : 110 Recipes for Cakes, Custards, Souffles, Tarts, Pies, Cobblers, Sorbets, Sherbets, Ice Creams, Cookies, Candies, and Cordials

A Baker's Tour: Nick Malgieri's Favorite Baking Recipes from Around the World

Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations

ASIN: 1400046653
Release Date: 2003-10-28

Book Description

When the urge for something sweet, something fudgy, something meltingly rich or irresistibly decadent hits, nothing satisfies like an American dessert. From chocolaty brownies and chewy cookies to aromatic crumbles and generously frosted cakes, these are the luscious crowd-pleasers that make us groan with satisfaction and sigh with nostalgia.

Now, acclaimed all-American dessert chef and Food Network host Wayne Harley Brachman has assembled the very best of the best in American Desserts: The Greatest Sweets on Earth. With a gift for clarity that makes the results can’t-fail easy, and a talent for jazzing up traditional flavors, Brachman has revitalized our favorite recipes, transforming strawberry shortcake into fresh Peach Shortcake with Wild Berry Whipped Cream, and a simple black bottom pie into the luxurious Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie. His confections are brimming with enticing flavors, remaining true to their American roots: homey, simply presented desserts that are perfect to serve to family and friends alike.

Chapters showcase a wide range of classic desserts, some familiar and others ripe for revival: here are cakes (including Lemon Chiffon and Chocolate Icebox Cake), pies (such as Shoofly, Lemon Meringue and two-crust Classic Apple Pie), cobblers and puddings (like the unforgettable Nectarine-Raspberry Cobbler with Pecan Biscuits) and cookies and bars (with lavish flavors like Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Chocolate Chips and white chocolate Blondies). All-American frozen desserts (such as Vanilla Malt Ice Cream and Cola Sherbet), irresistible fried doughs (including Apple Fritters and Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts) and decadent toppings (like Chocolate Fudge and Brown Sugar Custard Sauce) round out this must-have collection.

Throughout, “Baker’s Notebook” sections give every home cook the benefit of Brachman’s two decades of experience. Filled with lore, trivia and a fresh new spirit, American Desserts is a delightful celebration of “The Greatest Sweets on Earth.”

Customer Reviews:

You will want to live on desserts!.......2005-01-05

The best dessert cookbook ever created. The recipies are uncomplicated, flawless, and the most delicious I have ever tasted. This book is pure pleasure. From the day I got this book, my other dessert books have been demoted to collecting dust. Absolutely brilliant.

Great recipes for desserts........2003-11-26

This is a collection of "standard fare" american desserts -- Cherry pie, apple pie, lemon chiffon pie, key lime pie, chocolate chip cookies, etc.

You are not going to find strange overly complex recipes full of imposible ingredients here -- No fresh papaya juice biscotti, guava-mint-rum granitas or goat milk cheese here.

I am not convinced about some of the combinations in the cookbook -- I somehow cannot bring myself to try adding tomato juice to make devil's food cake.

Other recipes are just pure dessert heaven. The lemon chiffon pie is *wonderful.* The pineapple cake with macadamia nut topping wonderful. Cocoanut pie great.

Mostly, though, the recipes seem pretty good as a first pass at making a tasty dessert you will enjoy eating.

Sweet Eats.......2003-11-03

Wayne Harley Brachman is one of the very few culinary writers, along with Alton Brown, who brings humor to his presentation and makes his literary and TV appearances just a bit more enjoyable than those of his colleagues.
His new book of dessert recipes is based on the rather thin premise that America is the home of the world's greatest desserts. The only real connection between this premise and the rest of the book is that all the recipes, from apple pie on down, are past or present American classics. Many of these recipes have fallen into obscurity such as indian pudding, but all are `red, white, and blue'. I suppose one could be cynical about the tie-in between baking and flag-waving, but Brachman pulls it all off with great good humor and a good story behind every recipe.
The book covers pies and tarts; cobblers, buckles, pan dowdys, etc; cakes; puddings and custards; doughnuts; cookies, brownies, and bars; ice creams; and sauces. True to it's title, it covers no type of baking other than sweets and covers no species of desserts which are clearly associated with another nationality. No Sachertorts here! He may be stretching it a bit when he includes tarts, although I am very glad he did. It is the first time I have read that there is a definite difference between a tart dough and a conventional pie dough. The latter aspires to being light and flaky, since it has no need to support any weight and is typically kept in a pie pan while being cut and served. The former is built so it's vertical wall can stand alone without the support of a pan. While Wayne admits that tarts have a distinctly French accent, all the fillings are purely Yankee Doodle.
In spite of the light tone of the historical commentary, the pastry techniques described herein are rock solid. This book would not be out of place as a textbook for a course on dessert baking. A corollary of this is that there is no attempt to make this a book of easy recipes. Pie and tart doughs are not easy, but Brachman gives you all the steps plus some general techniques the professionals use to `divide and conquer' complicated work. This would also be a great book to start a young baker out on serious techniques with the aim of achieving professional results.
There are a modest number of photographs and all are useful. No fluff here. One may have wished to see just a few more to, for example, demonstrate the French tart method called fraisage. Having a Pennsylvania Dutch background, the only place I detected some lapse in the text was in the discussion of funnel cakes. The batter recipe does not fit my experience and Wayne has the batter dispensed using a piping bag. I'm sure that is how a New Yorker would do it, but in Lancaster County, they use a funnel. Nicht Wahr!.
A very worthy book, especially for the price, for the casual baker and the amateur baker who wishes to learn more basic techniques.

Book Description

The ancient land of Greece is said to be the home of the bree now known as the Great Dane. These tall, elegant dogs, alert and strong with short, smooth coats were powerful allies of their human hunting companions. In Rome, Roman emperors watched Giant Fighting Hounds fight bears and bulls and even tigers. But the breed as we know it today was developed largely in Germany where the breed landed when the Romans established a foothold there. The British also developed the dog from the time of the Roman conquest. In Winchester, then known as the "City of Dogs," the finest specimens were shipped back to the Emperor in Rome. The steady popularity of the breed continued throughout the Middle Ages and by the late 1800's there were major breeders in England, Germany and Russia. To learn more about the Great Dane, if the breed is right for you and where to locate a breeder look in "The Basic Guide to the Great Dane."

Customer Reviews:

A Good Book for potential Great Dane owners.......2000-05-31

I found this book very helpful. If you are thinking about bringing a great dane to your house, I would recomend that you read this book first.

Average customer rating:
Frame It Yourself : Matting & Framing Step-By-Step
The Editors of Creative Publishing international
Manufacturer: Creative Publishing international
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Furniture Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Framing | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Furniture & Carpentry | Woodworking | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Home Book of Picture Framing: Professional Secrets of Mounting Matting, Framing and Displaying Artworks, Photographs, Posters, Fabrics, Collectibles, Carvings and More

Matting and Framing Made Easy

How to Make Your Own Picture Frames

Mat, Mount, and Frame It Yourself (Crafts Highlights)

Creative Matting and Framing: For Photos, Artwork, and Collections (Crafts Highlights)

ASIN: 0865734194

Book Description

-Shows how to achieve professional framing results.

Average customer rating:
Fuchsia Lexicon
Ron Ewart
Manufacturer: Cassell Illustrated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Shrubs | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0713717815

Average customer rating:
FUCHSIA LEXICON.

Manufacturer: Blandford
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0713710780

Customer Reviews:

A must read for ALL children........2007-07-08

This is by far and away the best (and most respectful) book I've seen about Foster Care. Beautifully illustrated, it presents the need for Foster Care with sensitivity and gentleness, continually reiterating "Kids are important, kids need to be safe". It doesn't sugar coat the hard feelings, nor does it make the child's original family into demons. I've read this to children both in and out of foster care - and all of them have been touched and moved.
Bravo!!

Offering children informed and informative guidance through the process of foster care.......2006-07-12

Kids Need To Be Safe by Julie Nelson is nicely illustrated with pictures by Mary Gallagher and offers children insightful, informative and quite helpful guidance through the hardships and difficulties of childhood when in the care of other different parents, guardians, and foster parents. Providing young readers ages 4 to 10 with an age appropriate understanding of what happens with parents who cannot maintain a healthy relationship together, or do not have place to live for their children, or for other reasons lose custody of the child, Kids Need To Be Safe favorably explains the basics of foster care. An important addition to school, community library, and family counseling center library collections, Kids Need To Be Safe is very highly recommended for all parents, foster parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and social workers offering children informed and informative guidance through the process of foster care.

Average customer rating:

Worth the wait

Wagner helped by writing to produce creative tension

The Schopenhauer Chord

The best analysis of Wagner's music in the last century

Read Magee for a clear understanding of Wagner

The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy
Bryan Magee
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Composers & Musicians | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Aspects of Wagner (Oxford Paperbacks)

Wagner Wagner

Ring of the Nibelung

The Nibelungenlied: Prose Translation (Penguin Classics)

Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Round

ASIN: 080507189X

Book Description

Richard Wagners devotees have ranged from the subtlest minds (Proust) to the most brutal (Hitler). The enduring fascination with his works arises not only from his singular fusion of musical innovation and theatrical daring, but also from his largely overlooked engagement with the boldest investigations of modern philosophy. In this radically clarifying book, Bryan Magee traces Wagners intellectual quests, from his youthful embrace of revolutionary socialism to the near-Buddhist resignation of his final years. Magee shows how abstract thought can permeate music and stimulate creations of great power and beauty. And he unflinchingly confronts the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity, and anti-Semitism are as repugnant as his achievements are glorious.At once a biography of the composer, an overview of his times, and an exploration of the intellectual and technical aspects of music, Magees lucid study offers the best explanation of W. H. Audens judgment that Wagner, for all his notoriety, was perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived.

Customer Reviews:

Worth the wait.......2007-07-30

This is THE book on Wagner that I hoped would one day be written and which I knew could be written. The author has no use for post-Holocaust axe-grinding or ideological regard, and neither does he indulge in any of the by now ubiquitous but superficial kulturgeschichtliche approaches in which Wagner is one more symbol-player to be pigeon-holed and arranged (much like the props in Hans-Juergen Syberberg's "Parsifal" film), nor does he dish up Wagner with a sideorder of Marxist criticism. Instead you get Wagner as a living, breathing, thinking, and creating human being, a real man (no cultural forces here) who encountered ideas and reacted to them in the completely unique way that he did.

In a way one can only appreciate this book if he has already spent time ploughing through even a fraction of the tendentious trash in print that attempts to deal with this man (e.g. Gutman, Millington, even M. Owen Lee). If you have done that, then you will really be in a position to enjoy what Bryan Magee has done, how he has done it, and what a tremendous debt we owe to him for presenting to us Wagner the man in all of his outrageous but fascinating complexity. This is a book for people who are interested in learning more closely what kind of man Wagner actually was (that, for example, he was a 'commanding' personality and that, in itself, should not be held against him)and who are equally interested in distinctions being made along the way that really do amount to something and are not just so much critical hot air.

After you read this book, and if you have not already done it, read Michael Tanner's "Wagner" and enjoy hearing from someone who knows what he is talking about instead of listening to the clowns who parrot the prejudices they've picked up from "The New York Times Review of Books".

Wagner helped by writing to produce creative tension.......2007-02-21

People who have learned how to write properly organized essays in school might find the kind of writing that Wagner did rather loose, to say the least. I'm far more interested in rock 'n' roll as an artform that appeals to the contemporaries of those who are moderately talented than in the fine art of Mozart, but favorite songs can be done well no matter where they came from. Not half bad is more likely to be my judgment on anything I would like to hear. I have enough CDs to remind myself of music in many forms, but the creative tension involved in trying to write a review of a book like THE TRISTAN CHORD also reminds me of many things that are not in this book.

THE TRISTAN CHORD ~ WAGNER AND PHILOSOPHY by Bryan Magee starts out strongly with the idea that Wagner's work is based on an understanding of life that exceeds anything within the confines of philosophy or knowledge as it is contained in universities. Clearly Nietzsche acquired so many of his ideas from Wagner because Wagner had realized that ancient Athens was the kind of society he wished to inhabit, and the festivals at which tragedies were performed were so different from the commercial nature of entertainment values in modern global intellectual property that the context has to be explained to modern readers as follows:

... Third, human participation was also maximized, in that the whole community was involved. Dramatic performances were accorded the highest possible importance, a significance that was tantamount to religious - nothing that the community did was seen as mattering more, unless it was fighting a war. This attitude could scarcely be further from that of a bourgeois society towards its commercialized art. When Athens put on a play the entire life of the society revolved around it: the day was a public holiday, all other activities came to a halt so that everyone could go to the play, no one talked of anything else, attendance was free, the actors were maintained by the State; what we would call commercial considerations were totally absent. As Wagner summed it up in his essay `Art and Revolution,' published in 1849: `With the Greeks the perfect work of art, the drama, was the sum and substance of all that could be expressed in the Greek nature; it was - in intimate connection with its history - the nation itself that stood facing itself in the work of art, becoming conscious of itself, and, in the space of a few hours, rapturously devouring, as it were, its own essence.' (pp. 86-87).

Few adults in American society were able to offer young people anything as compelling in the 1960s, when Walter Kaufmann was writing and translating, but rock 'n' roll was having more impact. The Beatles are not listed in the index of THE TRISTAN CHORD, but one of their songs, `All You Need Is Love,' is mentioned on page 60, long after comments about the early Wagner opera `Das Liebesverbot' (p. 24) being in response to the intellectual discontent of the Young Germans:

In the arts they saw the classic figures of their immediate past, people such as Goethe and Mozart, as pre-revolutionary, and therefore antediluvian, no longer speaking to the condition of the young. ... They glorified love as it really was, the sexual intoxication of the young, and they saw it as socially subversive. To express it they wanted an art that was freely and frankly erotic. In opera this caused them to look away from Weber to the unabashed sensationalism of the French, and also, much more seriously, to the sensual, hedonistic lyricism of the Italians. Perhaps most important of all to the Young Germans as individuals, they wanted to live out these principles in their own lives, loving and expressing themselves as liberated beings, innovating boldly in politics and the arts, deriding authority, and free for ever from the stultifying conservatism and conventionality of their elders. (pp. 24-25).

The philosophy of Feuerbach is considered a major source for the setting of Wagner's `Ring' cycle of operas. I tend to associate this kind of catastrophe with the Vietnam syndrome of my generation, but THE TRISTAN CHORD links Feuerbachian philosophy of religion to picturing the gods as a gang of crooks. Just imagine, "Isaiah Berlin used to exclaim complainingly, `But they're just a lot of gangsters!'" (p. 54).

The interesting theme for me is the idea that Wagner did a lot of writing to generate the creative tension which he would like to turn into a form of art critical of his own society by composing music that would maintain a stream of consciousness worthy of the kind of life currently possible or imagined as a future ideal. "Because Wagner believed that we live in `a whole world of injustice' which was about to be swept away and replaced by `a righteous world' there is a sense in which he was living for the future." (p. 59). "Because the drama of ancient Greece is the art he is bent on re-establishing, and the opera of his contemporaries is the obstacle he is determined to sweep away, he is liable in a discussion of almost anything to dive off into the question of how whatever it is he is talking about relates to either or both of those things." (p. 91).

... The musical motives need not simply be repeated, they possessed infinite possibilities of musical transformation - the light hearted could be made tragic, the triumphant hollow, the confident full of foreboding, the loving grief-stricken. The potential for musical metamorphosis was protean, and also endlessly subtle. (p. 91).

Rock 'n' roll has filled many pockets with big bucks, but it is also carrying remnants of more than philosophy could say. The vocabulary was entirely different, but the simplicity of a chorus that kept repeating after verses that can go from bad to worse in so many ways, certain songs could be described as blues. Just one example is a song, `(Down to) SEEDS & STEMS (Again)' recorded in Austin, Texas, November, 1973, written Billy Farlow and George Frayne, who do vocals and piano for a group called Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, which was included on a collection of their songs `Too Much Fun' released on CD in 1990. A looser version on `Marijuana's Greatest Hits Revisited' has someone singing, "I have a few decent memories of what I was going to say. I'm down to seeds and stems again, hurray!" At times, it is nice to discover that the fun is going to stop and life can go back to being about something else. But for us, what else could there possibly be?

The Schopenhauer Chord.......2006-09-21

Bryan Magee writes with enthusiasm and clarity. He's particularly good at explaining philosophy in layman's terms. According to Magee, Wagner was the most erudite of all the great composers, and his philosophical beliefs profoundly effected his compositions. His intellectual life can be broken into two main periods: the early, one of political radicalism and activism, and the late, one of resignation and mysticism.

As a young man Wagner believed that a revolution - a total annihilation of the existing order - must take place in order for people to start anew to build a free and equal society. This was the intellectual zeitgeist throughout Europe in reaction to the sweeping changes brought about by capitalist industrialization in the early 19th Century. It was, in part, a romantic longing for a simpler past.

In Wagner's first period two figures were his main influences, Mikhail Bakunin, the anarchist, and Ludwig Feuerbach, who taught that mankind created the Gods, or God, in its own image. This was not to dismiss religion but to appraise it seriously as something illuminating about human beings.

After numerous inconsequential attempts at revolution took place throughout Germany in the mid-1800's Wagner became disenchanted with politics. He immersed himself in the philosophy of his contemporary, Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer wrote a great deal about music and it occupied a large part of his philosophical outlook. Both he and Wagner shared an interest in Buddhist thought.

Schopenhauer maintained that human beings are the embodiment of a metaphysical "will", so that willing, wanting, longing, craving and yearning are not just things we do, they are what we are. And he believed that music was a manifestation of this metaphysical "will." Thus, music directly corresponds to what we ourselves are in our innermost being. Wagner's "late" period dates from his extensive study of Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer wrote that music proceeds by creating certain wants which it then spins out before satisfying. Even the simplest melody makes us want to close eventually on the "tonic" and provokes dissatisfaction if it ends on any other note than that.

Schopenhauer gave special attention to a technical device in harmony known as "suspension," and this instantly appealed to Wagner's musical sensibility. The suspension in music is the penultimate chord, when what we had just heard was what we thought was the penultimate chord. This causes a sense of discord in the listener. Schopenhauer said "this is clearly an analogue of the satisfaction of the will which is enhanced through delay."

This inspired in Wagner the idea of composing an entire piece of music moving from discord to discord in such a manner that the listener was always in a state of tension waiting for a resolution that did not come. This would be the musical equivalent of the dissatisfied longing , craving, yearning that our being is. There could only be one resolution to it, the final chord that was the end of the musical score (and in an opera, the end of the protagonist's life). This would be a musical expression of the essence of humanity in the universe.

The first chord of Tristan is the most famous chord in the history of music: F, B, D sharp and G sharp or any chord of the same intervals. It contains not one, but two dissonances. It then moves to resolve one of the dissonances but not the other, thus providing resolution, yet not resolution. Thus as the music proceeds, in every chord shift something is resolved but not everything. This "partial satisfaction" yet continued "frustration" carries on through the entire work. The only point where all discord is resolved is in the final chord, which is the musical analogue of freedom from striving, freedom from the tension that is existence. It is like a mystical state of nirvana.

What made this double-dissonance chord so famous was that it, in effect, closed the door on the age of classicism. And it opened the door to impressionism, atonalism, and modern classical music in general.

It was under the influence of the Schopenhauer-Buddhist belief system that Wagner's late works, Tristan, The Mastersingers, and Parsifal were written. Actually, since most of his operas were written piecemeal with many interruptions (sometimes years in length), there are traces of the early and late philosophical influences in almost every opera. Tristan is the only opera that Wagner wrote uninterrupted from start to finish.

There are many more aspects of Wagner's life and work contained in this book. New insights are provided into the Nietzsche-Wagner relationship and the vexed anti-semitism of Wagner. It should be noted that although Magee believes the above conjunction of philosophy and music in Wagner, he is not dogmatic. He says late in the book that "one does not have to be familiar with Schopenhauer's ideas, let alone accept them" to appreciate the greatness of Wagner's music.

This book has added a new dimension to my understanding and appreciation of Wagner. I heartily recommend it.

The best analysis of Wagner's music in the last century.......2006-08-21

I'm a careful fellow yet I make quite a claim in the title of this review; and I confidently stand by it. Wagner has stimulated an enormous bibliography, but most of it is biography and/or polemics regarding the man himself or else "way out" (e.g. Jungian) interpretations of his art. Surprisingly little criticism of real seriousness pertains to the actual music. Bryan McGee's book magnificently fills that gap.

It is not a musical analysis per se, but a study of Wagner's changing philosophical values and how they influenced his music...and there is no composer in history who was a more acute intellectual than Wagner and more influenced in his art by ideas. You cannot fully understand his art without this book...it is that seminal. And it does not pertain only to "Tristan und Isolde," despite the title. It covers the entire sweep of Wagner's output.

Mr. McGee brings to his text the virtues which previously made him an outstanding author in "popularizing" philosophy: clarity, honesty, common sense, and even-handed weighing of the evidence. I hesitate to say he "popularized" philosophy. That could suggest a "dumbing down." And that is definitely not this book. It is crystal clear for a layman yet it is a scholar's dream in substance...a rare combination.

The book is an absolute must for anyone who has ever been moved by Richard Wagner's music...and perhaps even for those who have wondered why the rest of us are so moved by it. I cannot recommend it enough. There are only two other texts in the last century which compare, in my opinion: 1) Ernest Neumann's multi-volumn biography of Wagner; and 2) Deryk Cooke's "I Saw the World End," (first published 1979), which is the definitive (if incomplete) analysis of Wagner's "Ring."

If you love Wagner's music, or want to investigate it, this book is both a delight and a "must."

Read Magee for a clear understanding of Wagner.......2005-12-03

Someone once said that one has to be a philosopher to understand "Parsifal." The statement is not far from the truth. In fact, it can apply to Wagner's mature works from "Ring" onwards. Magee's book is then heaven sent.

That "Parsifal" is the antithesis of "Tristan" gnaws at me for years. To understand it is what I wanted out of "Tristan Chord." According to Magee, the contradiction can apparently be traced back to Schopenhauer's ambiguity towards sexuality. Schopenhauer, on one hand, celebrates sex as this quasi-mystical realization of life essence - the will to live. On the other hand, he expounds compassion, or the denial of the will to live, as the road to redemption. Wagner grappled with this contradiction when he worked on "Tristan," and reconciled it in "Meistersingers", and more interestingly, in an earlier work of his, "Tannhauser."

Needlessly to say, I am very impressed with Magee's rich insights, solid scholarship and sensitive treatment of German history and philosophy.

Some of my favorite chapters are as follows.

Chapter 4, Feuerbach's influence on early Wagner and "Ring"
Chapter 9, Schopenhauer's philosophy
Chapter 10, Schopenhauer's powerful influence on Wagner
Chapter 12, on "Tristan"
Chapter 14, on "Meistersingers"
Chapter 15, on "Gotterdammerung"
Chapter 16, on "Parsifal"

The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy.

Average customer rating:

The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy.
Bryan MAGEE
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MYVIG4

Amazon.com

"The path to freedom from self-destructive qualms ran over the corpses of those nobler than you," Roman Frister writes in his bone-chilling autobiography. Moving between his childhood in Silesia, adolescence in Nazi concentration camps, postwar career as a journalist in Communist Poland and later in Israel (to which he emigrated in 1957), Frister's nonchronological narrative is carefully structured to slowly reveal the Holocaust's devastating impact on an individual life. Young Roman watches a German officer kill his mother with a single blow, then is forced to lie on her cooling corpse; at 15, he sits by his dying father's bed, thinking only of the half-loaf of bread underneath it: "I was afraid it might crumble before he stopped breathing." Frister does nothing to soften such horrific experiences, nor does he share his emotions. Yet readers will sense the author is not unfeeling, but rather in a state of profound moral shock that endures to scar his adult existence. The "thick layer of callousness" he wrapped around himself in the camps may seem to enfold him still, but it's peeled away by his ferocious passion for truth, however unsavory. As a colleague tells Frister after reading his account of saving his own life by stealing the cap of a fellow prisoner (who was shot), "You've demonstrated what honesty means." --Wendy Smith

Book Description

Uncompromisingly frank and unsparing, The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into the darkest terrain imaginable, that of a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings. Roman Frister's memoir of his life before, during, and after his imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps sparked enormous controversy upon its publication in Israel and went on to become an international best-seller. With bone-chilling candor, Frister illustrates how the impulse to live unhinges all our comfortable notions of morality, blurring the boundary between victim and oppressor, dissociating heroism from survival, and leaving absolutely no room for martyrdom.

By the time Roman Frister was sixteen years old, he had watched an enraged S.S. officer crush his mother's skull and had felt her body grow cold beneath him. He had waited with unmasked eagerness for his father to expire in a camp infirmary, aware that there was a half loaf of bread hidden beneath the dying man's lice-infested cot. When confronted with certain death, he had knowingly placed another inmate in harm's way in the interest of sparing his own life, and never looked back. Frister's resilience and his unequivocal instinct for self-preservation became the source of all his successes and failures throughout his life. Chilling and unsentimental, The Cap is that rare and unadorned self-portrait of a man not content to look at himself in only a flattering light, a man willing to bring all his scars into full view. And reflected in stark relief are the indelible wounds of all twentieth-century European Jews, as well as the rubble of the most brutal epoch in recent memory, from which the Jewish homeland was cobbled under the flag of Zionism. An exceptional and groundbreaking testimony, The Cap is already an international sensation and is destined to be a classic.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting work of fiction.......2002-08-06

This is a fascinating work of fiction undoubtedly based on a great deal of real-life experience, or if you prefer, it is an autobiographical work with a few fantastic anecdotes included.

Like all holocaust survivor tales, it includes numerous near misses and miraculous lucky breaks. People who survived ghetto life, concentration camps and death marches to write about their experiences were the exceptions, and invariably their stories include such amazing incidents.

However, a few incidents read like pure wishful fantasy. I do not believe for example that Roman Frister actually snatched his girlfriend as she emerged from her marriage ceremony and drove her off for a three-day tryst in the mountains, before returning her to her groom...

Ultimately the fact that his narrative seeks to define its own reality is what makes the book very interesting. The book is about what defines the self, what memory means, what is real, and what, if anything, really matters. The book reminds me in this way of Robert Musil's "Man Without Qualities."

What a life; What a movie.......2000-07-01

I want to say that I really loved this book. The author takes us on one of the best adventure stories of human life that I have read in quite some time. Even though the central theme is his holocost survival he does not dwell on the subject too long, or I should say just long enough. His real adventure begins when he gets out. Learning to survive in the camps gave him the ability to achieve and become successful in life.

I hope Hollywood picks this one up. I'd love to see it on the screen.

THE LIFE WISH.......2000-06-16

To what purpose a clean conscious, to what purpose having been a hero, when you're dead? Roman Frister, author and protagonist of The Cap, is an artist of survival: in him, the wish to exist, to enjoy a beautiful view or a beautiful woman is stronger than any other impulse. The extraordinary vitality of boy Roman, as well as his handsome face, his perfect knowledge of various languages, his educated and captivating manner make him the ideal candidate to escape the mortal traps the Nazi occupants set up every single minute to snare the Polish Jews. Thus, when the trap will close on him and his family - and in a dark place two Gestapo men will order him to take down his trousers in order to check whether he's circumcised - Roman will not be overcome and will bring with him to the lager his animal-like, desperate will to survive at any cost.

What is the price of a life, then? Any reader immersing into Frister's narration, is forced to honestly answer this question. Moreover: in the concentration camp, are the moral principles those of the "normal" people? Is it right to condemn to certain death a camp-mate in order to save oneself? In the lager, the motto "live and let live" has no sense whatsoever: you need only decide whether to die or continue fighting.

The Cap does not end in 1945, as you may expect, doesn't close with the Nazi defeat and the liberation of camp prisoners. This is one of the attractive points of this book: existence, suffering, and the wish to be happy of those who have survived extermination are not dissolved with the transformation of lagers into museums. In Frister's excellent work, a true novel of a real life, we can find all the passions and pains of our past century.

It is with uncompromising candour that the author charts his extraordinary life story, causing a sensation on its first publication - due to its unequivocal frankness - this is a worthy addition to the growing number of WWII testimonials. Wishing to record what he terms "the extermination of a human spirit", his firm refusal to cloak his memoirs in anything but the crudest colours displays a rare courage and while this makes deeply disquieting reading, its fortitude says more about his tenacity than he would perhaps care to acknowledge.

The line is indeed blurred . . ........2000-06-16

This is not Etty Hillesum. This is not Victor Klemperer. This is not Primo Levi.

I can believe that the author saw his mother killed before his eyes. I can believe that he watched his father die in a camp. I can believe that he survived the camps. After that, I just don't know.

There are too many heroics for one teenage boy. There are too many miraculous escapes for one survivor. There are too many stories which sound vaguely familiar from elsewhere.

The book appears to be a life's story which has foundation in fact but which has also liberally incorporated material from the general holocaust history.

After 90 pages I gave up in exasperation. There seemed to be too many stretchers in the details. They tainted the credibility of the whole.

A few weeks later I picked up the book again. I started making allowances. After all, if the author wanted to include in his account real outrages which were suffered by others, the outrages did nonetheless occur. I doubt none of them.

But then near the end of the book I quit again in pluperfect exasperation. The author's story of how he broke back INTO the camp again after an inauspicious breakout lacks plausability completely. He says that he "trampolined" himself back over the fence from the tarpaulin top of an adjacent German truck. This is pure poppycock. The tarpaulins on army trucks are loose, flappy affairs. They are NOT taut, springy, trampoline devices. Not even a true trampoline, if it had been there, would have achieved what the author proposes. Magical realism does not belong in holocaust memoirs.

The Cap.......2000-04-27

This is one of the best autobiographies ever written, and I have read many. Images from this book will stay in my mind forever, and puts all other troubles and accomplishments into prospective. Frister's eyewitness account proves that there can never be vindication enough for the victims of the Nazi regime.

Average customer rating:

The Cap or the Price of a Life
Roman Frister
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

THE CAP - THE PRICE OF A LIFE
Roman Frister
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RAY6GC

Average customer rating:

THE CAP: THE PRICE OF A LIFE
Roman (transl. by Hillel Halkin) Frister
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J3LKPC

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books