Harvard beats Yale (GRE epic, part 2)

Allegory of Vices. Antonio Allegri, known as Corregio (Correggio, circa 1489 – Correggio, 1534)

It is cool, it is democratic and progressive, it is new cultural history, it is doing justice for the often ignored masses, it is social history (it’s society, maaan…), it is revising traditional canons, it is denouncing discourses of power, it is gender-inclusive, it discovers the beauty of pop-rock culture. New! Improved! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it’s just disgusting.

From “The New Criterion”:

October 2009

Harvard’s latest PC travesty

We admit, however, to experiencing a brief flash of empathy with Headmaster Tracy when a 1,095-page tome entitled A New Literary History of America plopped heavily on our desk. Edited by Greil Marcus (“notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary”) and Werner Sollors (a Professor of English and African American Studies at Harvard), this curious waste of wood pulp is published by Harvard University Press.

It is difficult to communicate the global awfulness of the book, the pretension mixed with smarmy demotic knowingness, the preposterous glorification of pop culture, the constant deflation of serious cultural achievement by means of sociological analysis. Perhaps the first thing that should be understood is that, despite its title, A New Literary History of America is only incidentally concerned with literature. A fair percentage of its approximately 200 chronologically arranged entries purports to deal with literary texts or figures. But the whole focus, the whole tone and gestalt, of the book is on extra-literary phenomena. An entry for 1982 is devoted to explaining how “Hip-hop travels the world”: “Perhaps hip-hop’s greatest contribution is the ease with which it inhabits contradiction.” It is hard to argue with that. The entry for “1956, April 16” dilates on the significance—Oh, what great significance it is said to possess!—of Chuck Berry’s pop song “Roll Over Beethoven.” An entry for 1970 is devoted to the porn star Linda Lovelace (she of Deep Throat). And so on. Nineteen-thirty-eight saw the introduction by Action Comics of Superman. In 1945, “Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie record together for the first time.” Another entry for 1945 is devoted to the atom bomb. The tagline: “Nobody apologized, nobody atoned.”

For the editors, the year 1969 was memorable partly because the Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop appeared, but mostly because “Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre.” (“American crimes” is the operative phrase in that essay.) The penultimate essay, by which time we’ve reached 2005, is devoted to—Can you guess?—Hurricane Katrina. “If, for that moment,” the editors ask, “New Orleans was the nation, did the nation still exist?” Care to answer that? But the real point of that portentous non-question comes in the next sentence: “If it did, did it deserve to?” The unexpressed answer to that question, of course, is “not really.”

Not then, anyway. Not when George W. Bush, the villain of the essay, was president. But when we come to 2008, the book’s last entry, the clouds part and redemption is at hand. “Barack Obama is elected 44th President of the United States” reads the ecstatic headline. This is the apogee, the denouement, the culmination of all that A New Literary History of America has been building toward. If a book could sing, it would now burst into song. Instead, the book’s final entry consists of that headline and a series of propaganda posters by Kara Walker, an “African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity.” And that’s what this bloated travesty is really about: the left-wing politically correct worldview in which literature, in which cultural endeavor generally, exists only as a prop in a “progressive” political agenda. Harvard University Press should be ashamed.

Land of Silence and Darkness (Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit), 1971. Directed by Werner Herzog

A must-see for the sophisticated, bored, nihilist; for those too lazy to get up from the bed in the morning, for the “righteous” ones who judge people struck by fate, for those who feel that “society” does not understand them, for those who think they are born in the wrong period, region, culture or even the wrong type of universe; for the proud and beautiful, for beauty queens and those obsessed by germs and dirty people in the bus, for those who are empty of love and full of resentment.

We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress. . . . In your life you haven’t known what joy was; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait. . . . We shall rest.

(“Sonya”, final line in “Uncle Vanya”, by Anton Chekhov)

Goose hunting in Moldova (Inspiration. Directed by Igor Cobileanski)

Aporia liberalismului

Pe Hotnews, Mihail Neamtu publica o radiografie exemplara a esecului PNL de dupa ‘90. Reiese imaginea unui partid sovaielnic, ambiguu, abatut catre un pragmatism amoral. Dincolo de cauzele strict legate de contextul Romaniei postcomuniste, merita investigata urmatoarea pista de reflectie: de fapt, au avut ei suficiente repere? Pentru aceasta, o analiza de durata lunga, deopotriva istorica si filosofica, merita sa fie propusa atat pentru liberalismul romanesc, cat si pentru cel european. Propun urmatoarele premise:

1. Intrebandu-ne in ce masura a existat si s-a adoptat un model istoric romanesc valabil, va reiesi clar ca in 1990, liderii liberali ar fi avut nevoie de o memorie extrem de selectiva cu privire la liberalismul romanesc antecomunist si nu de o preluare in bloc a unei nostalgii. Indubitabil, de la venirea lui Carol I, principalul motor al modernizarii, cel putin material-institutionale, al societatii romanesti este partidul liberal. Institutii vestice, un invatamant inchegat, reforma agrara, vot universal, constitutie liberala, dezvoltare economica, toate acestea se datoreaza in buna masura si liderilor liberali. Insa ar trebui sa se observe caracterul aproape inevitabil etatist al acestor eforturi, dat fiind ca veneau exclusiv “de sus”. Protectionismul vamal ( e drept, impus dupa esecul liberalizarii comertului de dupa tratatul din 1875 cu Imperiul Austro-Ungar, fapt ce a dus la invadarea pietei romanesti cu produse finite straine si intimidarea initiativei industriale autohtone), dezvoltarea exagerata a administratiei in scopuri electorale, finantarea preferentiala a firmelor “amicilor” sau “rudelor” prin folosirea resurselor Bancii Nationale, si aceasta controlata de liberali, cu siguranta ca nu au facut cinste idealurilor liberale si nici macar statului de drept. Falsificarea repetata si sistematica a alegerilor- consecinta logica a sistemului “rotativei”-, folosirea discretionara a monopolului violentei incepand cu anii ‘30- in contextul miscarilor extremiste si a crizei structurale tot mai profunde a societatii romanesti interbelice-, acceptarea manipularii carliste, toate acestea au erodat lent nucleul ideatic al partidului, provocand confuzie, scindari si chiar naivi “tovarasi de drum” ca Gh. Tatarescu. In fapt, moartea fulgeratoare a lui Ion I. C. Bratianu si a regelui Ferdinand a aruncat inca de atunci partidul in degringolada, lipsit de tratamentul regal preferential si de forta de soc a Ministerului de Interne. Asa a fost posibil ca taranistii sa castige zdrobitor singurele alegeri relativ libere din 1928. Catre 1940, partidul dar si intreaga societate se aflau in confuzie generala, intr-un moment istoric in care violenta si deopotriva oportunismul dadeau tonul. Reiese astfel ca liberalii contemporani erau lipsiti din start de un model autohton coerent, preluarea acestuia in mod integral si fara discernamant fiind daunatoare.

2.  Cel mai probabil insa, nici referintele europene nu i-ar ajuta pe liberalii nostri. Si aceasta pentru ca liberalismul este de la inceput victima unei aporii. Nascut ca o reactie la ascensiunea statului absolutist din modernitatea timpurie, el ataca pozitiile privilegiate ale nobilimii si Bisericii vizand plasarea individului ca punct absolut de referinta. El beneficiaza de pe urma evolutiilor ultimelor secole medievale, rezerva nominalista, articularea Umanismului si militantismul anti-institutional si anti-traditie al protestantismului constituind radacini intelectuale importante. Peste toate insa stapaneste marele curent subteran al civilizatiei occidentale, crestinismul. Antropologia centrata pe naratiunea biblica a Creatiei dupa “chipul si asemanarea lui Dumnezeu”, etica sacrificiului si a responsabilitatii cu model suprem in Hristos, mefienta de factura augustiniana fata de orice proiect politic absolutist-mesianic, toate acestea se aflau deja “in aer”, constituind insasi fibra interioara a intregii civilizatii. Sinteza moderna le scoate la suprafata, profitand de criza temporara a Bisericii Catolice, de ascensiunea capitalismului ce erodeaza structurile Vechiului Regim, de bulversarea cognitiv-metafizica adusa de revolutia stiintifica si indoiala carteziana. Liberalismul pune asadar individul in prim-planul reflectiei, desfiintand intelectual pretentiile altor colectivitati in ierarhia importantei (fata de stat seductia va mai persista o perioada). Insa pustiirea adusa de razboaiele religioase, impreuna cu indoiala filosofica tot mai mare, vor duce treptat catre o raceala si ostilitate crescanda fata de crestinism si, in general, fata de orice pretentie de adevar absolut in spatiul public. Aici se naste si prima contradictie: insasi aceasta ostilitate era ea insasi bazata pe un adevar vazut ca absolut, anume ca tentativa de a aplica un adevar unei colectivitati duce la dezastru si inrobirea individului. Adevarul absolut era libertatea de a nu crede intr-un adevar absolut.

Era, cu alte cuvinte, o libertate negativa, afirmata fata de ceva sau cineva. De la inceput insa, a devenit evident ca exista un pericol abisal de atomizare si competitie lipsita de reguli. Inevitabil, acesta trebuia sa fie un liberalism constitutional, evoluand in cadrul unor reguli de drept si in care actorii sociali s-ar fi anulat reciproc printr-un echilibru delicat al puterilor si normelor. Insa cutia Pandorei era deja deschisa: cele doua cuvinte magice, libertatea individuala, semnau in filigran tentativele tot mai radicale. Deja cu Rousseau se naste o denuntare a intregii structuri a civilizatiei, o ostilitate fata de o societate care ar fi corupt o puritate initiala. In domeniul gandirii, liberalismul nu putea decat sa fie solidar cu scepticismul fata de Revelatia crestina si, mai apoi, fata de legea naturala: era in insasi natura sa. Un liberalism care punea limite cautarilor intelectuale sau care credea in valori imuabile nu mai era liberalism.

In acest moment, o prima despartire de drumuri se produce. Edmund Burke, nicidecum un reactionar fanatic, fusese in tinerete sustinator al Revolutiei americane si critic al colonialismului britanic din India. Reflectiile din 1790 sunt in acest sens, perfect solidare cu pozitia sa din tinerete. Si in cazul coloniilor americane, si in cazul Indiei, si in cazul denuntarii exceselor revolutiei din Franta el s-a bazat pe apararea demnitatii individului si celulelor traditionale ale societatii fata de agresiunea etatista. El era in acest sens un liberal in sensul initial al termenului si un conservator in sensul ulterior, mai degraba peiorativ. Or, demnitatea umana sau apararea traditiei tin de un simt transcendent, al gandirii de dincolo de evidente, al acordarii acesteia cu legea naturala si/sau Revelatia crestina. El va fi astfel primul om, urmat apoi de Benjamin Constant sau Tocqueville, care va semnala pericolele liberalismului pur, al celui care se ia in serios si isi respecta cu strictete doctrina libertatii negative. O a doua directie se naste din pozitia lui Rousseau de contestare a ideii ca normele sunt date si nu construite. Odata eliminata aceasta intuitie metafizica, va deveni usor ca individul sa capete o pozitie de creator absolut al noii lumi, al oricarei lumi; tragedia este ca aceasta pozitie este, in fapt, perfect solidara cu premisele de baza ale liberalismului.

Cred ca un adevar dureros este ca acesta nu poate supravietui in absenta contestarii permanente a adevarurilor absolute. Utopiile revolutionare pleaca de fapt de la acest relativism radical, de la plasarea individului in completa libertate, intr-o lume fara verticala catre Cer, fara lucruri date, ci doar construite pentru a justifica puterea unor grupuri. O vreme gandirea liberala a functionat intr-un cadru moral acceptabil prin adoptarea imperativului categoric kantian. Dar de la Revolutia Franceza in zilele noastre, aporia sfasaietoare a liberalismului s-a manifestat continuu. Putini au fost cei care au incercat sa vada in acesta o gandire “de centru”; in secolul 19 multi vireaza catre socialism si conservatorism deopotriva. Catre socialism s-a derapat pentru ca spirala intelectuala dezlantuita de ostilitatea fata de valori imuabile a inceput sa conteste deopotriva formele materiale si spirituale, pana acolo incat insasi demnitatea umana a fost calcata in picioare. De la experimentele totalitare la postmodernism, de la pozitivismul delirant al lui Comte la descalificarea credintei si lumii ideilor practicata in unele curente din stiintele sociale, barbaria relativista si-a aratat pe deplin roadele otravite.

Cat despre conservatorism, in aceasta directie s-a virat pentru ca asa nu se mai putea. Pentru ca, in fond, ceea ce mai putem recupera astazi din liberalism este cel mult o doctrina economica; iar o comunitate care nu recunoaste caracterul sacru al demnitatii persoanei si care nu concepe libertatea ca fiind pozitiva si nu negativa, mai exact ca un mijloc catre virtute si Dumnezeu, devine ea insasi o aporie infricosatoare.

Horia-Roman Patapievici si Ion Vianu despre relatia tata-fiu si Arhetipul acesteia

Herta Muller wins Nobel prize for Literature

Romanian born German writer Herta Muller has won the Nobel prize for Literature. “Time” gives an account on her work, which is apparently obsessively focused with her traumatic experience in Romania, which she left in 1987 for Germany.

It is increasingly clear that the seeds which fell on the ground and died during Romania’s totalitarian ordeal are starting to bear fruit now, again confirming that suffering is only the anti-chamber of life, knowledge and light. From the New Wave of Romanian film directors to Mircea Cartarescu and Herta Muller, a series of spectacular achievements point to the existence of a gifted generation with intellectual themes bringing new insights about the human condition.

Off to the library!

“Faust”, dupa Goethe. Regia: Silviu Purcarete, Teatrul National “Radu Stanca”, Sibiu

Spatiul e desigur prea mic pentru a discuta toate implicatiile operei lui Goethe. Ambitie antropocentrica, voluptatea damnarii, problema raului, misterul divin, toate acestea si multe altele trec prin filtrul artistului producand una din marile scrieri ale umanitatii. Ea marcheaza varful dar si zborul frant al romantismului, acea ultima reactie la clasicism si scientism dar si, de fapt, o prima anticipare a exacerbarii subiectivitatii care avea sa taie puntile dintre oameni si Dumnezeu. Voluntarismul, iluziile, atractia neantului specifice modernitatii sunt toate deja in “Faust”. Inca un lucru: poate ca salvarea lui Faust vorbeste indirect despre lumina care “intru intuneric lumineaza si intunericul nu a cuprins-o” (In. 1,5). Poate ca, asa cum argumenteaza Serghei Bulgakov, ceva a ramas totusi din “apokatastasis”-ul lui Origen in gandirea crestina, chiar daca intr-o minoritate. Pana a dezvolta insa toate aceste lucruri, intoarcerea la opera lui Goethe este desigur obligatorie.

Piesa lui Silviu Purcarete e ravasitoare. Locatia aleasa are o valoare simbolica nimerita: o hala industriala comunista- locul optim pentru a vorbi despre damnare, ambitie si Rau. Prin Purcarete, privim Raul in fata, in ipostaza sa clasica: armate de demoni, suflete cazute, cu infatisare de porci, iadul dezlatuit printre spectatori. Ratiunea nu are timp sa functioneze, iar simturile sunt cutremurate. Ofelia Popii, in rolul Mefistopheles, e transfigurata de geniu. Fara indoiala, in teatru si cinema, Romania e in elita mondiala.

P.S. Totusi… jocul regizorului e riscant. E o linie fina intre arta toala, implicand toate simturile, asaltand privitorul cu traire pura, si divertisment. El nu trece in categoria a doua, dar metoda sa ar trebui sa puna in garda viitorii imitatori. Cred ca tensiunea ideatica, miza filosofica, ar trebui sa ramana mereu curentul subteran al aparentelor spectaculoase pana intr-atat incat, chiar renuntand la acestea din urma, manifestarea artistica sa isi poata livra oricum mesajul. Altfel, lucrurile pot scapa de sub control.

Dovada, urmatoarele reactii. Nu stiu in ce masura  cele critice sunt justificate, dar ele cu siguranta arata in ce termeni se pune problema in arta.

The Telegraph: “The Romanian director Silviu Purcarete’s staging is full of sound and fury, but seems to signify remarkably little. You don’t feel you are in the presence of one of drama’s greatest works, but merely watching a massive ego trip from a flashy international director whipping up an in-yer-face spectacular for the festival circuit.”

The Guardian: “So ravishing that you’re almost prepared to sell your soul to the devil to keep the succession of lush images coming, Silviu Purcarete’s version of Goethe’s Faust is such a seductive visual fantasia that you might not notice it has sold its own soul to spectacle. But what a mighty spectacle it is, with a series of eye-popping illusions and conjuring tricks that make you feel as if you’ve fallen into a waking dream – or a nightmare.[...]

From the start, it’s clear we are witnessing a manufactured illusion. We are being seduced by emptiness, dazzled by sleight of hand so – like Ilie Gheorghe’s beaming Faust – we are blind to the fact we are being cheated. It’s a clever conceit but one Purcarete doesn’t entirely pull off – it is hard to portray phoniness without being phoney yourself.”

The Observer: “Mi-aş vinde sufletul să mai văd acest Faust o dată. Cea mai uluitoare experienţă teatrală a acestei (sau, se poate spune, a oricărei) vieţi, Faust (Ingliston Lowland Hall) a înfierat şi a paralizat ca o smoală fierbinte aplicată direct pe piele. Acestă producţie, desfăşurată într-un hangar de lângă aeroport, ne-a fascinat şi ne-a vrăjit pe cei mai mulţi dintre noi, şi m-a întristat în privinţa unui singur lucru. Poate nu o să mai văd niciodată în viaţă un eveniment mai impresionant şi mai teatral.”

Financial Times: Nu am mai văzut o montare atât de complexă, fenomenală, de când Janusz Wisniewski a adus spectacolul The End Of Europe la Fringe, în 1985, iar Faust-ul lui Purcărete are o mare bogăţie de semnificaţii pe măsura impactului său visceral. (La urma urmelor, spectacolul reuşeşte chiar să îi aducă lui Faust mântuirea.) Această producţie a Teatrului Naţional “Radu Stanca” din Sibiu este deja vândută integral, dar sfătuiesc din tot sufletul pe oricine care se află la o distanţă mică de Edinburgh să apeleze la toate sursele care îi vin în minte pentru a obţine un bilet.

“Breaking the Waves sau Viata binecuvantata a lui Bess”, Regia: Radu Alexandru Nica, adaptare dupa un scenariu de Lars von Trier; Teatrul National “Radu Stanca”, Sibiu

In asteptarea filmului “Antichrist” al lui Lars von Trier, film despre care se aude ca a socat asistenta la Cannes, Radu Alexandru Nica ne propune o meditatie asupra discursului artistic al lui regizorului danez. Adaptarea scenica nu iese foarte mult din scenariul filmului “Breaking the Waves”, iar principalele momente sunt prezente: Bess McNeill, o fata cu probleme psihice dintr-o comunitate protestanta extrem de conservatoare, se casatoreste cu Ian, muncitor pe o platforma petroliera. Acesta sufera un accident care il lasa paralizat complet si care il arunca intr-o deznadejde cumplita. Cu judecata afectata organic de traumatism, acesta ii cere lui Bess sa se culce cu alti barbati si sa ii povesteasca totul, pentru a nu uita ce este iubirea. Bess, iubindu-l nebuneste, pana la limita patologiei, accepta dupa o lupta interioara devastatoare. In film, comunitatea refuza sa traga clopotele la moartea ei, dar Ian, dupa ce isi revine miraculos, aude clopote din Cer. In piesa, Bess apare crucificata pe un fundal luminos orbitor.

Altfel, Nica, oarecum previzibil dat fiind contextul, inoveaza prin incercarea de a reda furtuna interioara a lui Bess. Cam zgomotoasa si stridenta pe alocuri, piesa totusi impresioneaza; filmul ramane superior prin lentoarea curgerii inexorabile catre sfarsitul tragic. Ce ramane este insa reflectia asupra substratului etic din opera lui von Trier. Perfect indreptatit, Cristian Tudor Popescu, comentand cazul Polanski intr-un interviu Hotnews, spunea ca marii regizori au o “artera butucanoasa” etica in creatia lor. “Breaking the Waves” al lui von Trier a reusit, cred eu, sa contrarieze atat oamenii dedicati valorilor morale eterne, cu atat mai mult pe cei credinciosi, dar si publicul avangardist, preponderent agnostic; clopotele sunate de Dumnezeu in final cu siguranta ca erau departe de asteptarile unor fani Almodovar.

Persista insa ideea unui soi de antropomorfism aplicat justitiei divine in aceasta scena finala. Cu siguranta ca Biserica locala (probabil prezbiteriana) a iesit cea mai sifonata din discursul lui Trier. Pesemne ca “morala protestanta” a fost un pat prea ingust pentru o situatie atat de complexa, atat de ingusta incat a ratat vocatia martiriului spiritual al unei fete simple. Si poate ca sifonata iese si un o anumita intelegere “comuna” a iubirii erotice, a limitelor sale, a prioritatii sale in ierahia valorilor. De o parte, ideea ca acest tip de iubire nu trebuie sa confiste toate straturile fiintei umane si sa devina patologica si distructiva, de cealalta parte, ideea ca iubirea erotica presupune sacrificiul si nu cunoaste limite. Exista insa in cea de a doua afirmatie ceva suspect de familiar, ceva care tradeaza, in fond, contemporaneitatea absoluta a acestei convingeri. Clipa trebuie sa fie traita, iubirea si pasiunea fizica sunt complementare, se confunda si aproape ca nu se mai pot distinge separat. Traim in cultura postasului care suna intotdeauna de doua ori, a sfarsitului aventurii, a intelectualului macinat de gelozie, plimbandu-se singuratic pe sub felinare, a sotiei sufocate intr-o casatorie fada, in spiritul “sarmului discret al burgheziei”, a cuplului ce trece de la pasiunea furtunoasa la plictisul angoasat; el, student la arhitectura, isi ruleaza din cand in cand o tigara, ea citeste Cioran si scrie cronici in 24FUN.

Intr-o astfel de cultura, Trier trece toate categoriile: iubire, eroism, martiriu, degradare, moarte in acelasi registru. De la crestinescul “agape” la “eros” sau de la “amor amicitiae” la “amor conscupiscentiae”. Nu doar demnitatea, ci si degradarea se raporteaza exclusiv la iubirea erotica; Demnitatea, viata, decaderea, moartea, se joaca pe acelasi teren. Demnitatea se castiga prin iubire erotica, moartea spirituala si fizica vin prin exacerbarea sau pierderea acesteia. In “Eyes Wide Shut” al lui Kubrick, cosmarul debuteaza cand sotia marturiseste sotului fanteziile erotice pe care i le provocase un ofiter intr-un hotel. Sotul pleaca apoi intr-o Odisee urbana, nocturna, in care sexualitatea patologica apasa asupra tuturor. Pentru Lars von Trier, martiriul pare a fi posibil prin vinderea sufletului in prealabil. In crestinism, faptul de a nu-ti vinde sufletul inaintea mortii era conditia esentiala a sfinteniei. Astazi, trebuie ca si sufletul sa fie ars inainte de incinerarea corpului. Iar finalul e  aparent un act de justitie; el pare sa spuna ca oamenii nu trebuie sa pronunte cu aroganta o pedeapsa eterna pentru un pacatos, pentru ca doar Dumnezeu poate face asta. Adevarat, dar nici nu cred ca ar trebui sa ne pronuntam cu usurinta asupra fericirii vesnice a cuiva. Intr-adevar, soarta de dupa moarte sta in mainile Domnului. Iar clopotele din final dau fiori. Pare ca nu Dumnezeu le misca, ci Lars von Trier. Artistul-demiurg, in toate sinistrele implicatii ale acestui cuvant.

P.S. N. Steinhardt (citat din memorie):  Iuda poate ca a avut motivatii savante si sofisticate pentru tradare. Iisus, gandea el, trebuia sa moara pentru noi, deci era nevoie de cineva care sa se sacrifice ca tradator. Indiferent de aceste argumente insa, morala comuna, “taraneasca” dar si posteritatea l-au consacrat totusi ca un tradator. Fie ce-o fi, faca Dumnezeu ce-o vrea, eu nu-mi vand invatatorul.

Saint John’s Love

The episode describing St. John the Evangelist leaning on Jesus’ chest (Jn. 13, 23), although described in only one verse, has become a constant in Orthodox representations of the Mystical Supper. The image does seem to place a higher emphasis on it than the account in the Gospel, while the whole context suggests His great sermon and the first Eucharist. On an immediate level, John’s gesture seems, as the general attitude of the Apostles at the Supper, as expressing an unspeakable sorrow; this is however taking different forms according to their personalities: Peter passionately asks about the traitor, assures Christ of his will to give his own life for Him and wants to talk about fighting and swords. John, on the other hand, as His “beloved disciple”, leans on His chest as only a young, confused and frightened young man would, perhaps realizing the meaning of the situation, perhaps desiring to stop time.

In the light of the overall message, it would seem that this is only a case of human weakness. “You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come [again] unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.” (Jn 14.28). Weakness is frequent in the life of the apostles. They fear amidst the stormy sea, they fall to the ground on the moment of Transfiguration, they fall asleep in the garden of Gethsemane; Peter denies Christ three times. In fact, His mission is to deify the corrupted nature of man. Thus it would seem that John’s gesture belongs to this avatar of their manifestations of weakness. One could say with strong arguments that their eyes were not fully opened and did not see yet the true meaning of the Passion and the glory of the Son of Man resurrected. A lot of his last sermon is devoted to preparing them for the future drama: He offers bread and wine as His Body and Blood; “A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father” (Jn. 16, 16), a statement which anticipates the mystery of the Resurrection and the Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the Church and would inspire the members to finding and confessing the truth.  The dialogue between Him, Thomas and Philip (Jn. 14, 1-18) suggests the drama of the One which was known by so few and of those which would have been nothing without him. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.[…] Where am I going you know the way.” And Thomas replies, probably with a despair only dimly suggested in the written account, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?, to which Jesus answers for all the ages: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” He tells Thomas and us that the ultimate, complete Revelation of the Father is the person and works of His incarnated Son; and this is not only about the moral example, as the intellectuals of the Enlightenment thought, but also a fully and maximal, realistic perception of the Eucharist as an actualized Sacrifice and union with Christ, of the Church as Christ’s body and bride, of faith as uniting one’s being with the Son’s: “For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” (Gal. 2, 19-20).  Immediately, Philip fervently asks Jesus to show His Father to them, so that they may believe, to which He replies: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.” The drama thus reaches a new peak.

All of these points to Jesus’ efforts to reveal Himself, to meet their blindness with grace, while still maintain their essential free will; faith is essentially a paradox, a free act of believing without evidence. So it can be argued that John’s touching gesture belongs to this series of their failures to accept and even rejoice for what was about to happen.

But can there be a second layer here? Let us look again at the icon. As it is the case with any Orthodox icon, no element is there by chance and it is only an expression of the Holy Tradition in its broadest sense, as a corpus of texts, images, beliefs and unwritten statements. St. John is leaning as a child to his father’s chest, with his eyes almost closed by the weight of pain. Jesus responds by laying his left hand on his back, while with his right he blesses the crowd and us, the ones who contemplate the icon. One cannot understand a gesture without the other. Although he encourages his disciples “not to let their hearts be troubled” and reproaches Philip for his uncertainty, he does not reject John as perhaps not having courage or not being willing to accept the fate of his master. Not at all. Instead, he greets him with love and a comforting hand laid on his tired back. In fact, another crucial aspect of the Mystical Supper sermon is the emphasis on love: He washes their feet, in a supreme act of humility and urges them to do the same in the future. Again, resounding throughout the ages, He says: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn, 13, 34) and “This is my commandment, love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15, 12-13)[…] “This I command you: love one another.” (Jn. 15, 17) Thus the gesture appears as another argument, but this time visual, rather than spoken one, in line with the message about love. John may be weak and frail, he may be partially blind on the spiritual level, but he is received by Christ near his heart. What may appear as lack of wisdom and courage has the highest place in the Gospel. He is, after all, frequently named as “His beloved disciple”; he is, together with Peter and James, taken to be witness to the Transfiguration; he is  named by Jesus, while on the cross, as a new son of Mary; he is the first who sees the empty tomb. Later, he came to be known as the “apostle of love”, an indispensable pillar of the Church, together with James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, Peter, the symbol of unity and Paul, the missionary which promoted “freedom in Christ”. That a figure like him was so favored by Christ is not by chance, of course. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, “blessed are the merciful” are statement which form an essential part of His revolutionary message, His “scandal”. Human logic is frequently bewildered and so outraged by Him that it eventually puts Him to death. Going into the house of a sinner, talking with a unclean woman are two significant examples of what this “scandal” means.

An incident closer to what is being discussed here is spotted very well by Nicolae Steinhardt in his comment over the episode in Bethany, when a woman (named a sinner in Luke 7, 37) anoints his head with mire and wipes his feet with her tears. A gesture to which the apostles reply that the money from that mire could have been used to feed a lot of poor people. How many of us wouldn’t have thought in the same way!… How coherent it would have been with the message of the Gospel to help the poor, rather than waste that mire for Jesus, who came here as a servant!… But Steinhardt accurately senses the tension and adapts the situation to our century: rather than shedding tears for an abstract notion of “humanity”, for the Third World, the working class or any other category more often than not invented by socialism, itself a direct consequence of modern atheism, our primary concern should be for the brother which is right next to us; to bear his physical disease, his filth, his bad mood, his lack of gratitude, his pessimism. To the rumblings of those near him, Jesus replies:  “Why do you make trouble for the woman? She has done a good thing for me.  The poor you will always have with you; but you will not always have me. In pouring this perfumed oil upon my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be spoken of, in memory of her”(Mt. 26, 10-13). Jesus thus praises the paradox, the “scandal”, the “waste” of mire and tears, the hardest type of help that we are able of:  the one being given to the man who stands right near us.

In the same way, I think, it is possible to compare the incident in Bethany with John’s gesture. Jesus receives him in the same way. And it is also possible to derive meaning from the blessing given with his right hand. This gesture, so frequently reproduced in Orthodox icons, in fact means that the entire scene of the Mystical Supper is blessed and becomes, therefore, an archetype. Everything we see, including John’s head put near Jesus’ heart, steps into eternity. The scene is detached from its immediate historicity and becomes atemporal, perpetually actualized with the right instruments of reason and faith, truly Real. Nothing new is being said here: the entire Gospel is both fully historical and fully transcendent; Logos in historical hypostases, christocentric history. Son of God is Son of Man, the new Adam, the archetypical man, God emptying Himself and taking human nature which simultaneously means that human nature is deified.  With Origen the allegorical key of interpreting the Holy Scriptures is affirmed; Saint Maximos the Confessor beautifully takes us into the fine nuances and oppositions between letter and spirit, written word and Logos. Undoubtedly, all events of the gospels have this transcendent dimension: moral lessons, synthesis of the mysteries of God and man, elements of Divine wisdom changing forever the very texture of existence- all of these at the same time.

Only through this multi-layered filter can, in my view, John’s gesture be interpreted. For what we have here can be, for the sake of explanation, reduced to a man engaging in a contact with the Other, the exterior reality. He is like any of us, perhaps embracing a loved one, not willing to let go, to accept the fate; or perhaps a nostalgia which stretches for days and months, accompanying every spring morning, every leaf falling, every heavy sunset, every embittered rain. Or gentle wind among trees in a park, bringing laughters of the child one used to be; or the past crushing, poisoning, absorbing the present. Any of these situations and countless others forms an essential part of life, namely the one formed around the exterior reality. John’s leaning on Christ’s chest is a metaphor for our emotional relation with people and the world, more precisely for our love, by definition a relation with the exterior. And Jesus knows this better than all of us. Thus he lets us put our head near his heart. Since love is the very essence of the Holy Trinity, love is also the very essence and highest achievement of man. To the woman who weeps for his future suffering and to the young man who feels the same sorrow, he responds with love. Our greatest gift: our frailty.

But again, the entire Mystical Supper is an archetype. In the icon, Christ, although comforting John, looks somewhere else, to the next hours of that night, to the rest of the apostles, to the rest of us. He looks towards the Truth, the meaning of existence, and this Truth is only his mirror: He is the meaning of existence, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The apostles must know the joy which comes after suffering, the Kingdom of Heaven beyond this world, the Son of God beyond Jesus the historical person. This is in fact the Revelation. They and us must know that redeeming sense of suffering, must go beyond immanence, must know the Son of God in his glory beyond what the flesh shows. Our love must not stop here at the world, and must advance on a vertical axis. The world is made for us, with a divine imprint, in which we see God’s reflection and we anticipate the future joy.

The problem is, I believe, crucial. On an individual level, a love of the world, of the Other, which has no transcendent, vertical reference or no Christological synthesis may lead either to depravity or veneration of false idols or, when the structures of this world inevitably hurt, to melancholy, despair, nihilism, insanity.  One cannot help asking how much of the melancholy of Romanticism was contemplation of Beauty itself and how much, if not the greater part, was a love of the world which had lost its transcendent reference and had transformed itself into a circle of melancholy, extracting its force from a love deprived of its vertical. A love which had already become harmful. On the collective level, this loss may bring either to all the forms of veneration, from Epicureanism to empiricism, materialism, positivism, pop culture, or, when again the structures of the world prove to be unpredictable, to recipes of escape and/or transformation of reality: from Gnosticism and medieval apocalyptic thought to Marxism, National-Socialism, Fundamentalism- so, in fact, to the hatred of the world.

In this respect, the scene of John leaning to Jesus’ heart and Jesus comforting him is one of the richest in meaning in sacred art. The Gospel of John and the probably anonymous painters captured the essence of our existence in a crucial moment: because of the grief, John’s eyes are already half-shut. For them to be shut completely would mean that for him all hope is lost, that his master will be killed like any robber, in torment and humiliation and everything would end there; and for any man ever to live on this earth it would mean that any pain in his life is the final act of a meaningless existence. But His hand is there to comfort us, to fully open our eyes again, to transfigure the world and our love. “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world!” (Jn. 16, 33)

Limelight, 1952. Directed by Charles Chaplin

The old and rejected clown makes a young dancer find a new meaning in her life. “Life is a stage”, after all, and makes us think whether this old conviction can have a spiritual meaning. Aren’t we, in fact, supposed to act, as if life is a show of music, ballet dancers and Ideas acting before our eyes, as if the beggar is a gentleman, as if the pub is a castle, as if the world is transfigured, as if everything is in the everlasting Limelight of our Father?

Music: Charles Chaplin