enowning
Thursday, March 20, 2008
 
Looking over recent books on Elgar, the TLS's reviewer doesn't like one of them.
First there is a rather long abstract of the contents of the book, then in Chapter Two we launch into a prolonged discussion of the work of that perennial cult figure, the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger. Next come the two musical chapters already discussed. But at page 154 we go back, under the heading “Hermeneutics and Mimesis”, to another twenty-nine pages on the Heideggerian world, with detours to W. H. Auden, Tolkien and King Lear. Elgar’s name is mentioned four times. The following “Elgarian hermeneutics” might well be thought to give us the worst of both worlds: consideration of Elgar’s music flashes on and off, like a failing torch. The idea of putting Elgar and Heidegger together is pour rire anyway: they have no conceivable connection with each other, and Harper-Scott does not succeed in making out any comprehensible case that they do.
It's laughable that an Englishman reviewing books on an English composer in an English paper needs to reach for pour rire when there are perfectly adequate English words and expressions ready to hand, and another indication that the reviewer has no conceivable comprehension of matters discussed.
 
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