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Tempos Fraturados (2013)

by Eric J. Hobsbawm(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

8535922601 (ISBN13: 9788535922608)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Companhia das Letras

review 1: The historian presents a story about how the role of women and culture has been shaped over the past 150 years. It goes something like this...At last women were allowed to enter "the public sphere". But then at that great historic moment their sisters sold them out. It had looked good for a while. Many women were supported by their liberal, progressive fathers who wished to see their daughters secure a highly regarded position in the prosperous middle class. Of course there were many men who wished to keep women out. Those like Freud, for instance, who didn't fear women's growing socioeconomic power so much as their independent sexuality. He was a married, middle class man, after all. By 1914 you could see a favorable pattern developing, the historian says: it was a lot ea... moresier to sleep with a Protestant or Jewish girl of the middle class than it had been a mere twenty years before. A hundred years later it seems a little baffling that men wouldn't want this - but there you go, times do tend to change.It had been argued prior to around 1910 that women were the primary carriers of culture, morally and spiritually superior to men. "This is the image of the prosperous businessman visibly bored at the symphony concert to which his wife has dragged him against his will." Not that women were interested in the symphony either; everyone had assumed that this is what attaining high culture brings. They were rewarded for being transmitters of culture, but a growing movement of men and women realized how condescending this was.Then the wife, encouraged by her father and husband, wished to be the genius that wrote the music. But she found herself left out as those women of her class were more interested in creating novels, fashion, news, social gossip that was best suited for a specifically feminine market. The strategies and tactics of securing marriage, the need of finding one's place, getting together to discuss women's issues for protection and advancement, these moves were essential to every woman except those who wished to be genuinely innovative: the artists, or the activists, or the rebels, or that rare female scientist seeking a cure. A split occurred that is still the legacy of the women's movement today. A woman could be a genius or accomplished beyond Victorian dreams but the rest of women would not be able to identify with her: "No doubt many emancipated and cultured women also devoured fashion pages and read romance novels without thereby derogating from their status, but even today not many such women actually like to boast about their taste for romantic fiction." Aesthetic values thus became the mistress of the home, not of the theater or of the symphony hall. If women suddenly had the power of securing their privacy (and soon the vote for themselves and eventually property), that meant they had no need to be purveyors of high culture and what that might exchange, spiritually or intellectually. High culture remained an exclusive club. And probably not all that important anyway. Still, the two movements brought women to the center of cultural life. The question then became, where is cultural life at? And who owns it if it's everywhere? The image of "culture" in 2014 seems to be of what land was to the Native Americans: they weren't imperialist and exploitative about it but they were living off its resources.T.S. Eliot viewed it this way: "in the room the women come and go/talking of Michelangelo." In one sense he's saying that's great if women do no more than that, at least they are attuned to culture. But it being Eliot he saw himself as a genius. He is isolated from these women. Those who know what genius is, he noticed, but who would never dare try becoming one. A kind of genius like himself, of course. And one who has no interest whatsoever about what's important to the feminine market. He could never make that compromise with common taste and morality; the women talking of Michelangelo do. The advancement of women as a race as opposed to women of individual genius is a central question that animates not just this one but all of Hobsbawm's essays, as he also takes a look at the avant-garde, Pop Art, Jewish intellectual life, religious opposition to modernity, technological advances. He has made a claim that Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind is more revolutionary than Picasso's Guernica. If that notion sounds ridiculous to you then I highly recommend this book. Personally I needed to hear this argument, one that's actually in favor of democracy and not the talk it engenders.
review 2: A generally stimulating set of essays displaying Hobsbawm's wit and erudition. One highlight was the essay on the crisis, failure, and capitulation of the 20th century avant-garde in the visual arts -- a capitulation which explains why contemporary art is characterized by, as Hobsbawm describes, Neo-Dada and (frequently mediocre) conceptual art. If, like me, you are fond of art nouveau and have wondered why its efflorescence was so brief, the essay on it is another highlight. However, I wish that the essays were selected and arranged to avoid repetition. I realize a scholar will return to the same themes many times over the course of his or her career, but I do not wish to read and re-read, in consecutive or near consecutive essays, the same anecdote about Beatrice Webb shopping for William Morris wallpaper. less

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