Tag Archives: Despair

Tales of Despair: Swift Waters Under a Fantasy Bridge

One would normally consider children’s stories – the good ones, at least – to be intriguing, witty, adventurous and begetting a danger that resolves into a heartfelt and touching conclusion. Roald Dahl is wonderful at this; I remember well the tension of so many of his stories; the awful churning as Danny crept through the woods in the middle of the night, looking for his missing father; I remember holding my breath as Sophie hid from the Bloodbottler in a giant snozzcumber, only to end up in the giants mouth; I recall trembling as I turned the pages of The Witches, unable to believe that hero of the story had actually been turned into a mouse.

This particular tale is rather unique in its direction, in that – unlike the rather mediocre movie it spawned – the main character goes through an irreversible change (in this case a metamorphosis) that affects the remainder of his life, even after the end of the tale. The ending of this book is bittersweet; we learn that the boy will never return to human form, and is likely to die within the next few years – around the same time that his beloved grandmother will. What an ending for a children’s book.

There are many stories in the world of great change – of things never going back to how they were. These are the tales that leave us feeling sad and bittersweet, and are the ones that touch our hearts. The Lord of the Rings is such a tale; so is To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Pet Semetary. Some tales speak of the ultimate change, and bring our characters beyond the edge of death. This is the realm of the classical tragedy, epitomized in works such as Romeo and Juliet.

But these themes of strife, and pain, and death – they are not the themes you would expect of a children’s tale. Even tragedies that involve children (Pet Semetary springs to mind as a particularly gut-churning example) are not written for children.

So what, then, was Katherine Paterson thinking when she wrote the wonderful tale, Bridge to Terabithia? I was young – quite young – when I first read this story. I was innocent, and the closest I had come in literature to tragedy was the Hardy Boys (if anyone remembers, Joe’s girlfriend, Iola, dies in the Casefiles series). It was a cute story, I remember thinking; I identified very much with little Jess, lonely and depressed and shut off, and the strong desire to have a friend with whom to share your innermost thoughts.

Jess, who could draw so well; Leslie, who could bring this out of him so well. She, who could invent entire worlds, and make them so real that Jess could veritably live in them with her. At first, of course, he’s unable to see, but as their relationship deepens (never love, but a iron-clad friendship), he begins to imagine her worlds with her, and they spend many days deep in the woods, crossing the dry riverbed to the wonderful land of Terabithia.

The land that, along with her, would come crashing down. The land that would be flooded and washed away, stripped of life by the same waters that stole hers.

And the land that, in time, would come to be his only saving grace; the one he would build a bridge to.

I cried bitter tears to read this story as a child, and it brings them to my eyes to write of it now. I felt betrayed – how could she? How could that be how it ended? It was a children’s book – people don’t die in children’s books.

But of course, people do die in our children’s lives. And it is a horror, and a tragedy, but it is also a part of life; they are rare, but those tales that touch on our mortality, and teach us the frailty of life, are the ones to be cherished above all others.

Tales of Despair: The Suffering of Artists

This is a slightly different take on Tales of Despair this week; rather than focusing on a particular artist, I want to address the nature of despair and depression in art – why is it that darkness forms such a large part of the things we create? What is it that drives the most wonderful among us to the brink of despair?

There was once a young boy who grew up in an idyllic family environment; a boy who enjoyed life and love to paint and draw. And then, when he was only seven years old, his parents divorced. No one spoke to him about it. No one asked him how he felt. His father promised not to remarry, and did. He had another child, and the boy felt replaced. His mother remarried, and was beaten, and abused, and hospitalized. The boy watched each time. The adults, they didn’t see him. They didn’t care.

He continued to draw, and to paint. His work grew dark. He learned to play, and his music was dark. He took drugs, and it took his mind away, and relived the pain for a short moment.

And when he left his home, he avoided people; he made few friends, and they shared his misery. Some of them played too, and they began to play together. Out of the depths of depression, the music they made lifted him; he wrote about his pain, and he sang it to the world. And the world – they drank it deeply, and said he was a great artist. They said he was the voice of a generation; they said he would change the world.

And he didn’t care for what they said. Each word of praise demeaned his writing, abused his art. His music hated the world, and they were too dumb to see it. And he lost the joy his music brought him, and he began to despair. He sank, and was consumed by the black, and knew the world, for him, was ended. One April day, he locked himself away, and killed himself.

He was twenty-seven, and his name was Kurt.

His death was untimely, and it is accepted as a tragedy. Yet it is a tale that is told, over and over again, throughout history and the world of creators.

We suffer, we despair, and the rest of the world asks, why? Of course, the rest of us understand it all too well; insight grants us the pain of doubt, the fear of rejection, the knowledge that all goodness comes to an end.

Yet, why is it that so many of us, so many of those who create, are so afflicted? Hands up if your are a happy artist. In this imaginary crowd, you may well be in the minority. Is it intrinsic, or wrought by outside influence? Do we create because we despair, or do we despair of our creations?

Perhaps it is some of both. When I write, I am lifted, as Kurt was, to a higher plane, a place where words and music float and flow, and the terrible visions in my mind find their way to paper and into sound in the air, and I am relieved of their pain. But when I come down, I look upon my creations, and I am filled with loathing: they are ignorant, they are plagiarism, they lack all subtlety, and are but a poor shadow of the great.

Perhaps the need to create is driven by the hopeless desire to express the inexpressible – how could anyone understand the absolute certainty that the things we create, that bring such value to so many, are inherently worthless? How could anyone understand what it’s like to be consumed by blackness, until your very vision is tinted and the world turns to grey? There are no words, no colors, no sounds that can explain how no bodily wound can equal the agony of a mind turned upon itself.

And yet we persist, we continue to try. We paint with blacks and reds; we write with heavy words that drag down the soul; we play in minor keys and descending notes, recreating the descent into the final, endless darkness.

And eventually, we may join the Kurts, the Vincents, the Ernests and the Sylvias and Virginias; and how could anyone understand the comfort of knowing that, in a world that is chaos and destruction and uncontrollable evil, we have at least the power to bring about our own ending.

We are doomed to create, and doomed to suffer; may we be at least also be doomed to see the beauty in the work of our fellow creators, if never in our own.

Tales of Despair: The Fantastic Descent into Hell

Perhaps disheartened by the difficulty of writing an actual opera, in 1804 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) had the bright idea to tell a musical story without the words, and so was born the programmatic symphony. His sixth orchestral masterpiece, the “Pastoral” symphony, was one of the first great musical creations to not just paint a scene or don a mood, but tell, from start to finish, a coherent and structured tale, through wordless music alone.

And it was a phenomenal achievement; through five intertwined movements, we are taken through the experience of the composer as he travels to an idyllic countryside, breathes in the beauty and serenity of the pastures and streams, and revels in the joyous dancing of the country folk. In a dark turn, we are overcome by a terrifying and violent storm, threatening to ravage the countryside, until finally it passes, and we rejoice with the shepherds. The story is, admittedly, rather naïve, but Beethoven was one of the great advocates of Goethe‘s humanism at the time, desperate for the belief that man was a better creature, and could aspire to beauty and greatness.

As the world moved forward into the romantic era, the youthful idealism became tainted with the dark reality of industrialism, war and poverty. Stories continued to be told, but they became ever darker. Composers and pianists, the rock starts of the nineteenth century, became corrupted by their popularity. Hector Berlioz (1803 – 1869), the infamous French composer, wrote many of his greatest works under the heavy influence of opium. In fact, perhaps his greatest tribute to Beethoven – a twisted retelling of his tale of beauty and serenity – is the Symphonie Fantastique, in which that very drug is the catalyst for a descent into murder and madness.

Being a child of the romantic era, Berlioz was infused with the passion and impetuosity of many of those of his generation, and he found himself infatuated with several women in his life. One of these, an Irish actress called Harriet, caught his fierce attention in Romeo and Juliet, and she became the inspiration for what is today perhaps his most enduring work.

Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is, as was Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, a song with a tale to tell. Our young musician, in a dream of passion, discovers a woman who embodies his every ideal, and cannot rid her from his mind. He is delirious, love-struck, despairing and joyful, and sees her in his mind every waking moment. These thoughts consume him even as he passes through life – at a ball, a festive, joyous occasion, he cannot see the lights or the music. Wandering in the fields, by the brook and past the shepherds, he cannot but brood on his terrible loneliness. He wishes – hopes – that he may soon not be alone, but thoughts of betrayal of evil creep through his mind.

And then, the story takes a dark turn, and does not return. Convinced his love has forsaken him, he poisons himself with opium, and as he lays dying, he is plagued with the terrifying dream that he has murdered his only beloved. Powerless from the drug, he watches helplessly as he is captured, and led to the gallows. The crowd looks on, he cries out in despair – and, as the guillotine’s blade descends, he sees her in the crowd – alive.

And it does not end there. Dead, he finds himself transported to hell, lost in the midst of a witches’ Sabbath. Shadows, demons, sorcerers dance sickeningly around him, taunting and teasing him in his own death. And then – horror upon horror – he sees that she is a part of the diabolical gathering, that she is dancing to his death with the witches. As the bells of his death sound, the terrible creatures conspire to mock god, dancing over the ancient music of his wrath, and all is lost to perpetual darkness.

Inspired by the beautiful Harriet, Berlioz went on nonetheless to become engaged to a Camille, instead. When she spurned him, he raced to Paris, seeking to murder her, her mother and her fiancé. Eventually, when this plan failed, he returned to Harriet – and there, he discovered the painful truth behind infatuation. The two wed for a mere two years.

Berlioz would go on to produce one of the most famous renditions of the legend of Faust, who sold his soul to the devil. He separated from Harriet, and though he continued to provide for her for the rest of her life, she died not long after from severe alcohol abuse. His mistress, whom he eventually married, died eight years later. A girl for whom he had affection, only twenty-one years old, died also, and Berlioz was left with nothing but his grief.

At the age of only sixty, he began, in his despair, to wish for death, and not long after, he was stricken with violent abdominal pains. The pains soon grew and spread, and in the end, consumed him. On his death bed, he spoke these final words:

Enfin, on va jouer ma musique.