I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PHOENIX in Studio at KEXP (2009).

For this in-studio  performance, two members of Phoenix showed up to play a stripped down acoustic performance.

They play four songs (and all of the songs are quite short, as well).  Three songs from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (“Listzomania” “1901” and “Armistice”) and a cover of Air’s “Playground Love.”  Given how different Phoenix and Air sound (even if they are both French), it’ an impressive change of style for the set.

This stripped down version really shows what a great voice the singer has.  And these songs, while not quite as catchy as the originals, still sound fantastic.  There’s also a brief chat with the DJ about their then recent appearance on Saturday Night Live.

If you like Phoenix, this is a great show to download.

[READ: September 1, 2012]  An Iliad

Since I really enjoyed the two Baricco stories that I’ve read so far, I decided to try something else from him. An Iliad is a fascinating book from conception to execution.

Baricco wanted to read Homer’s Iliad aloud on the radio.  But when he investigated the project further he found that a) it was way too long and b) it wasn’t really well suited to contemporary audiences.  So (and he gives details about exactly how he modified it), he decided to remove sections of the original, restructure it and try to give it a more contemporary feel.

But he also tried to keep as much of the original as he could.  So, rather than rewriting the book, he worked with a prose translation (poetry being way too convoluted for his project) and used his  translation of that translation  (which for us gets further translated into English, yipes, although the translation is again a very good job by Ann Goldstein) to create his Iliad.  One of the major excisions he did for the book was to remove all of the sections with the gods.  They are alluded to, but he removed the gods (and all supernatural aspects) from the book reasoning that the mortals reference what the gods say and do so anyway, so he simply took away the duplication.  Plus, the gods aren’t really relevant to contemporary listeners.

He also structured the book with different narrators.  This is the most radical change in the book (as the original is by an omniscient narrator) and I don’t claim to understand exactly how he did it (at least in terms of how it relates to the original).  What he has done is he has presented each stage of the battle from the point of view of a different person.  So the first chapter is from the point of view of Chryseis, the second from Helen, etc.

I admit that I have never read The Iliad.  I have read The Odyssey several times, but not The Iliad, so I can’t really say how this compares to the original.  But I did get a full sense of the story and of the battles.

The whole Iliad, by the way, is war.  And maybe the stuff that he removed changes the uneasy feeling that all of this story is just fighting and fighting (and fighting and fighting).  But it is an interesting look at the legendary battle of Troy.  Basically the battle focuses on one man who slays a bunch of people and then the battle turns and then the other side slays a lot of people (most of them given by name with no context, which again,  I don’t know if the original does either).  Although the book is short, I found myself rather exhausted by it (which would likely be true of the original as well).

I think this proves to be a good introduction to The Iliad, and probably worked very well in the audio format that Baricco intended.  A review from the New York Times is very critical of the book saying it fails in many ways and lacks and kind of poetry.  This may indeed be true.  The Guardian also reviews it and proclaims it much more succesful overall, although they too have some of the same problems with Baricco’s execution.  In fact, if you are a fan of The Iliad, this will probably be a dissapointmnet to you, but I  think it’s an interesting way to experience the story for the first time, and maybe even get someone to want to hear more of it (although again, it’s pretty much just one violent battle after another).

I feel a little closer to the Guardian review, as I think he did a very good job, but there are some missed elements–some things that just don’t sit right.  And I would have liked to have an idea of how his story paired with the original (with chapters or lines listed or something).