The Pagliacci Question
Dear Reader,
If you’re a classically-trained baritone, you know to respect and fear Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. (Even if you aren’t into opera, you’ll probably recognize another aria from it, the wrenching tenor aria “Vesti la giubba”. I love this aria and especially this rendition of it.) If you’re a classically-trained baritone, you probably know something else: Pagliacci is Leoncavallo’s lone masterpiece. He was a one-hit wonder.
Leoncavallo had a bit of bad luck: his next-best-work was probably La Boheme and Puccini just so happened to steal Leoncavallo’s thunder on that opera, as Puccini’s own version of La Boheme is perhaps the best opera from one of the world’s great composers.
I’m about to get some nasty emails from those who double as classical music and classic literature enthusiasts, but you might consider this light analogy: Puccini is like Shakespeare. Even Puccini’s duds are of a better quality than most normal people’s A-games; and Puccini’s regular standard, like Shakespeare’s, is equal to most talented writers’ A-games. And like Shakespeare, Puccini still has that extra, world-class gear.
In light of this, Leoncavallo’s pretty decent La Boheme had no chance next to Puccini’s. And yet, even though Leoncavallo turned out some pretty pedestrian compositions (that is, he’s a B-class composer), Pagliacci is equal to anything Puccini wrote. In that one composition, Leoncavallo is world-class.
I’ve already invoked one writer for the music comparison, but now I’ll make the comparison clear: I think writers are often similar. You’ve got your Puccinis, turning out excellence after excellence. And you’ve got your Leoncavallos, churning out unremarkables and then that one bit of jaw-dropping glory.
And today, I’m especially intrigued by one-hit wonders. Written works that sit as the equivalent to Pagliacci. I noted in the re-read that my enthusiasm for Mark Edmundon’s “Pay Attention” (and also “Three Ideal Dinners”) is high. I find both of those works world-class, though “Pay Attention” is in another register. But as I read his book Why Write? I was underwhelmed.
In reading that book and some of Edmundson’s other essays, I’m reminded that they exhibit quality, but they aren’t catching. I’ve no desire to read everything he writes. He’s a B-level writer who’s written two of my favorite pieces, but I won’t seek out everything he’s written (nor finish Why Write?). To be a B-level writer is an accomplishment, I should note. Most bloggers and essayists today don’t even manage that standard. (Raises hand in acknowledgment.)
So I’m not surprised that Edmundson wrote “Pay Attention”. Yet his regular work isn’t at the level of the two pieces I mentioned—pieces that have distinct insight and range.
As I’d rather not write about Edmundson alone, I should perhaps mention a few more examples that come immediately to mind.
You’ve got one-hit wonders like A Confederacy of Dunces, though that one wasn’t even published till years after its author’s death. There are Frankenstein and E.A. Burtt’s The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science.
I’d be delighted to hear any examples that spring to mind for you.
Reps Required?
A question that I have about our Pagliacci writers is whether reps are required. That is, are the many and varied not-so-good offerings necessary for those writers to produce their Pagliacci? Can such writers tell when it’s not-so-good or world-class? (To this latter, I’m pretty sure the answer is that they can’t tell.)
And perhaps the reps shouldn’t be viewed via the narrow lens of practice—Pagliacci came pretty early on in Leoncavallo’s career. So we could view reps from the vantage point of “If someone writes enough things eventually the odds are that one of them will be great,” a sort of venture capitalist’s approach to artistic endeavors. (I have read a book on book proposals that made just such a comparison, though not for precisely the reason I offer.)
I genuinely don’t know. Must we suffer through so many pedestrian works in order that a Pagliacci might appear? (Do we appreciate Pagliacci more for the simple reason of comparing it to those works?) Must our B-list writers turn out a panoply of ambivalent reads for the grandeur of those one or two coruscations?
And again, this question isn’t primarily (or at all) about the reps novice writers require. For that, one could turn to Flora Klickmann’s entertaining The Lure of the Pen: A Book for Would-Be Authors. The question for today is about whether skilled and semi-skilled writers must produce (and share with the rest of us) a variety of pieces in order that the transcendental ones can emerge from that pile of predominantly not noteworthy works. Is it a volume game? A Confederacy of Dunces says no, but the rest of my chosen examples suggest otherwise.
Lost in the Shuffle
In a certain sense this doesn’t matter. Yet it also does. Consider the following excerpt from the informative piece “Rising Above a Flood-Tide of Writers”:
Thus, the 18th century saw a veritable explosion of printed texts of all kinds, in all genres, written with all levels of rhetorical skill and linguistic mastery, aimed at all kinds of readers. But the easier “getting published” became, and the more verbiage flowed from the presses to potential readers, the more difficult it was for writers to make their own voices heard amidst the noise.
In today’s context, that means the world-class essay “Pay Attention” has gotten lost amid a flood-tide of very good and mediocre entries that approach the same subject. But “Pay Attention” is itself the product of an author who contributes to that very flood. And this is why the Pagliacci question keeps worrying this reader. I don’t know what to make of it.
For your consideration,
Kreigh
P.S. The story of the Christmas Tree Boat and Captain Santa is technically not a Christmas Eve ghost story, like those I shared last week, but it is very much a Christmas ghost story. It has the added benefit of being both nautical and true. It’s an evergreen tale.
P.P.S. A bonus share because it’s Christmastide. Also because this is a bit of local Milwaukee legend: “The papal Latin secretaries have a storied history: the first to hold the office was St. Jerome, Latin secretary to Pope Damasus. During the Renaissance such Humanist luminaries as Lorenzo Valla and Poggio Bracciolini held the post. Foster was the first American so honored.” That that last sentence was not a thing known in my own childhood is something I’m more than a little annoyed about. Reginald Foster passed away this week, but his influence remains.