Let me tell you what I wish I'd known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
— George Washington in the musical Hamilton
(Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
In perusing the program choices listed in our beautiful, hot off the presses program book, the varied approaches to and interpretations of this year's theme “Biography” will certainly make for compelling listening, so let the meetings of The Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson 2021–2022 begin!
Our inaugural meeting will be this Wednesday, September 22nd at 12:45 pm to hear Christine introduce us to The Quest for Corvo.
There has been a slight change to the venue. If we are lucky enough to meet together in person outdoors we will be meeting in Fran's lovely backyard. Currently, the weather report predicts rain, so please check your email by 11 am for confirmation from Fran if we will be meeting in person or on Zoom. And please feel free to call Fran if you have any doubts about where or how we will be meeting.
There has also been a slight change to our food policy. If we are meeting outdoors, please feel free to bring a drink or snack for yourself. If we are meeting on Zoom, please attempt to snack off-camera as a courtesy to all.
Please do a rain dance; implore the gods; wish on a star, an eyelash, or grab a wishbone – whatever your modus operandi to alter the course of the universe – with the hope that we will be able to meet in person on Wednesday. No matter what, we will be together. Until Wednesday! Jacquie
Christine's Minutes and Her Presentation
Alas, the last sentence of the last minutes of last season has been rendered incorrect by the resurgence of the Delta variant the continuation of the pandemic. We are still not enjoying the delicious lunches prepared by members.
But we are meeting ‘in real life’, outdoors, whenever possible. And so it was that for the first meeting of our 2021-2022 season, our 112th season, we gathered in President Fran Greenberg’s back yard. Twelve members were present to enjoy the intermittent sunshine, the camaraderie, and the dissonant obbligato of the power tools next door.
The meeting was called to order at 1:10pm. Fran thanked Connie for our elegant booklet featuring a “Cubist Woman” by Jean Metzinger on the cover. Members also enjoyed the switch to the Garamond font, with its distinctive small eye on the “e”, and the extended leg of the capital “R”.
The minutes of the previous meeting, way back in June, were read and accepted. Our treasurer reported we have $345.52 in our account. It was noted that we need to choose a book for the library in memory of Phyllis Frankel.
For our first program in this season of biography, Christine Lehner presented The Quest for Corvo, An Experiment in Biography, by A.J.A. Symonds. For her presentation, Christine wore a fez and a Coptic cross with an amethyst; the significance of these items became clear when pictures of Baron Corvo were circulated. Written in 1934, The Quest for Corvo is still considered groundbreaking, because the reader learns the story of Frederic Rolfe, Baron Corvo, right along with the biographer, who must act as a detective, seeking and finding information about his mystifying subject. The quest began when a friend innocently gave Symonds Hadrian the Seventh, Corvo’s brilliant novel about becoming pope, half autobiographical, and half wish-fulfilment. Symonds was bowled over by the writing and wanted learn about the writer. It took years of tracking down Corvo’s old friends and enemies for Symonds to compile a reasonable picture of this contradictory man. Frederic Rolfe (1860-1913) left school early and had a checkered career as a teacher and then a writer. In 1886 he converted to Catholicism, a religion he loved for its pageantry and rituals, and whose members he loathed. Rolfe famously said, “As for the Faith, I find it comfortable. As for the Faithful, I find them intolerable.” He quickly determined that he had a calling to be a priest. Twice he was thrown out of seminary, once in England and once again in Rome. In Italy he became friendly with the Duchess Soforza Cesarini, and began calling himself Baron Corvo. He claimed that she had bestowed upon him an ‘unused title’. Starting in1900, he lived in London and tried to make a living as a writer. In his novel Nicholas Crabbe – which could not be published until 1958 for fear of libel suits – Rolfe/Corvo wrote autobiographically of those London years, his dire poverty, the young man he takes in and nurtures. The book includes exact transcriptions of his elegant and vituperative correspondences with publishers and agents. In Hadrian the Seventh, Rolfe’s alter-ego, George Arthur Rose, is a Catholic convert who has twice been refused to become a priest. Then along come two Eminences to visit, and apologize for the egregious mistake, and immediately set about to ordain him. Soon after, back in Rome, the College of Cardinals finds itself at an impasse, unable to agree on a choice for the new pope. George Arthur Rose is presented as a dark horse candidate, and shockingly, is elected the next pope. With his first papal act of choosing a name, Rose/Rolfe makes it clear that he will follow his own inclinations, rather than ecclesiastical traditions. Hadrian is not a name the cardinals consider appropriate. Pope Hadrian then proceeds to sell all the art stored in the Vatican, and give the proceeds to the poor; he also brings several young men from London to Rome, and gives them titles and keeps them close.
While Frederic Baron Corvo Rolfe remains little known, his masterpiece Hadrian the Seventh has been reprinted, along with The Quest for Corvo. So, there is hope.
Members read selections from The Quest for Corvo and Hadrian the Seventh.
As we are beginning a year of exploring biographies, I quote Symonds, from his lecture Tradition and Biography: “Biography is the telling of a story-of a life-story, and it differs from fiction only in this, that whereas the novelist must confine his plot within the boundary of probability, the biographer must observe the boundary of fact.”
The meeting was adjourned at 3 pm, just before our president noted a red-bellied woodpecker in a tree behind us.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary
—(Christine did double duty today, as both presenter and recording secretary)
