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253 Pages·2004·3.5 MB·English

Alexander's Feast by Arthur R.G. Solmssen
Schloss Leopoldskron - Home of the Salzburg Seminar
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A.R.G. Solmssen: Novels
Novels by Arthur R.G. Solmssen
Rittenhouse Square (1968)
Alexander's Feast (1971)
The Comfort Letter (1975)
A Princess in Berlin (1980) (full text)
Takeover Time (1986)
The Wife of Shore (2000)
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Publisher's Foreword
Publisher's Foreword
Connecting Islands: The Power of Historical Fiction
With his series of novels Arthur Solmssen has given us fascinating insights into history, interweaving the true and
the fictional so closely that we do not perceive the seams. In my attempt to describe the extraordinary power of his
novel "Alexander's Feast" I wish to make use of knowledge neuroscience has provided us in the last decades. This
science seems to be ready to give us practical advice, now that it can present the arts with interpretations of what
we feel as "excitement", a description of the communication the artist is establishing with us, an awareness of the
impact fiction can have on us.
For many decades the neurologist Oliver Sacks has been a major wanderer beween two worlds, writing two types of
books: "wholly different, but wholly complementary, one more purely medical or classical, the other more existential
and personal - an empathic entering into patients' experiences and worlds" (O. Sacks "Awakenings", Foreword to the
1990 edition). I wish to let him describe the basic ideas that I want to build my evaluation of "Alexander's Feast" on.
The following quotes -printed in larger font- are from his review "In the River of Conscousness" (New York Review
of Books, Volume 51, Number 1 · January 15, 2004).
"In the chapter on "the stream of thought" of his Principles of Psychology [the
philosopher] William James stressed that to its possessor, consciousness seems to be
always continuous, "without breach, crack, or division," never "chopped up, into bits".
The content of consciousness might be changing continually, but we move smoothly
from one thought to another, one percept to another, without interruption or breaks.
For James, thought flowed; hence his introduction of the term "stream of
consciousness". But, he wondered, 'is consciousness really discontinuous... and does it
only seem continuous to itself by an illusion analogous to that of the zoetrope?'"
"Zoetropes contain a drum or disc on which a series of drawings -of animals
moving, ball games, acrobats in motion, plants growing- was painted or
pasted. The drawings could be viewed one at a time through axial slits in
the drum, but when the drum was set into motion, the separate drawings
flicked by in rapid succession, and at a critical speed, this suddenly gave
way to the perception of a single, steady moving picture. When one slowed
the drum again, the illusion vanished. Though zoetropes were usually seen
as toys, providing a magical illusion of motion, they were originally
designed (often by scientists or philosophers) with a sense that they could
serve a very serious purpose: to illuminate the mechanisms both of vision
and -by identifying the eye as a part of the brain- of perception and
ulitmately of consciousness."
"A movie, with its taut stream of thematically connected images, its visual
narrative integrated by the viewpoint and values of its director, is not at all
a bad metaphor for the stream of consciousness itself. And the technical
and conceptual devices of cinema - zooming, fading, dissolving, omission,
allusion, association and juxtaposition of all sorts—rather closely mimic (and
perhaps are designed to mimic) the streamings and veerings of
consciousness."
"Some of my post-encephalitic patients, when they were "awakened", and especially
overexcited, by taking the drug L-DOPA, described cinematic vision; some described
extraordinary "standstills", sometimes hours long, in which not only visual flow was
arrested, but the stream of movement, of action, of thought itself.
Such standstills showed that consciousness could be brought to a halt, stopped dead,
for substantial periods, while automatic, nonconscious function -maintenance of posture
or breathing, for example- continued as before."
This way these standstills are not consciously noticed, as the affected individual we have absolutely no knowledge of
them. Music can set us free, or the physical perception of someone touching our hand ("Awakenings", film by Penny
Marshall, with Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro, Dexter Gordon. NTSC, PAL).
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Publisher's Foreword
Neurological disorders might give us insight into mechanisms of our minds and take us to more biologically based
interpretations of our behavior. Such interpretations can perhaps serve as the basis for the traditional psychological
one. By telling us more about the rather inescapable confinement into which our minds can lead us, they offer new
ways of avoiding the standstills.
Here is an example: We know that even in times of great danger, such as during the height of the Cold War with its
increasing risk of global annihilation of our civilizations, we seemed to have been arrested in similar standstills,
unable to take action. The rationalization of our standstills -as calculated resignation in the face of too big a task- is
the traditional socio-psychological description. Another description would be the bio-neurological one in terms of
such standstills, a breach in the flow of consciousness, a confinement to an island within this flow: There were other
people who did not succumb to this hopelessness/standstill, who from prior experience recognized the island as
being part of the stream and who could leave it at will. We call these islands "culture" or "landscape (or map) of the
mind" and the questions are: How much do they determine my behavior? If they have been formed in my past, how
much liberty do I have in my present?
Oliver Sacks summarizes the new path laid out for us by Gerald Edelman:
"A crucial innovation in the neurosciences has been "population-thinking", thinking in
terms that take account of the brain's huge population of neurons, and the power of
experience to differentially alter the strengths of connections between them, and to
promote the formation of functional groups or constellations of neurons throughout the
brain - groups whose interactions serve to categorize experience into maps representing our
own, very individual reality.
l In stead of seeing the brain as rigid, fixed in mode, like a computer with a fixed program,
there is now a much more biological and powerful notion of "experiential
selection", of experience literally shaping the connectivity and function of the
brain [i.e. changing the computer's program] (within genetic, anatomical, and physiological
limits, of course).
l S uch a selection of neuronal groups, and its effect on shaping the brain over the
lifetime of an individual, is seen as analogous to the role of natural selection in
the evolution of species; hence Gerald M. Edelman, who was a pioneer in such
thinking in the 1970s, speaks of "neural Darwinism" [in Neural Darwinism: The Theory of
Neuronal Group Selection] (TNGS, read inside book).
l W illiam James himself always insisted that consciousness was not a "thing" but a
"process". The neural basis of these processes, for Edelman, is one of dynamic
interaction [between our "present" and "past" and between various parts of our "past"]. < He speaks
here of "re-entrant" (i.e., reciprocal) interactions, and sees consciousness as
arising from the enormous number of such interactions within our memory
system."
Here, Edelman tells me something about the role the arts are playing in our lives. My body needs excercise, and so
does my mind when life does not provide enough of it. It may well be that the arts are able to provide that exercise,
to open my culture, to connect islands that have formed in my stream of consciousness.
In "Alexander's Feast" Arthur Solmssen immerses us in an active, autonomous and responsible part of the American
civil culture of 1947 and 1961 by speaking its language and formulating the plot in it. On a second level of the story
this culture actually presents itself, makes itself understood: The novel is about the Salzburg Seminar, an institute
where -since the end of World War II- Americans have been meeting with Europeans in programs, e.g. seminars and
symposia, dedicated to special subjects, to bridge the intellectual gap that has developed between both sides of the
Atlantic. Solmssen names some characteristic American issues, formulated already in 1834 by Alexis de Tocqueville:
l W hy are the Americans so restless in the midst of their prosperity?
l H ow is the taste for physical gratifications united in America to love of freedom and attention to public
affairs?
l W hy do the Americans show so little sensitiveness in their own country, and are so sensitive in Europe?
l T he temper of the legal profession in the United States, and how does it serve as a counterpoise to
democracy?
With "Alexander's Feast" Arthur Solmssen tells us about the power of confidence, a gift from our very individual past
that may help us move again, when we get frozen into a standstill at the edge of an island in the river of our
consciousness.
Joachim Gruber
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Summary
In 1961, Graham Anders, suave, self-confident, thirty-three-year-old partner in the prestigious Philadelphia law firm of Coneyers
& Dean, is about to experience the most shattering moments of his life.
Already shaken with doubts - about the quality of his work, about the state of his marriage and the state of his mind - Anders is
invited to Salzburg as a participant in an international law conference. There he is confronted with some highly unsettling
memories: the enigmatic death of his father in the Spanish Civil War; his own youthful awakening in occupied Salzburg;
collaboration with Jews fleeing the refuge internment camps en rout to Palestine; and most unforgettably, the haunting face of
Paola von Fyrmian, his tragic and beautiful Austrian mistress.
Graham Anders has been a divided man. Now, in Salzburg, dealing with a fascinating and mysterious figure named Boris
Fleischer, handling a corporate takeover which could insure his future with Coneyers & Dean, confronting the dynamics of political
infiltration, Graham watches the disintegration of his own dream. And, ironically, finds himself uniquely qualified to save the
dream of another man - but at enormous cost.
In a tense courtroom drama Graham Anders makes his choice - and Arthur Solmssen reveals once again his consummate
knowledge of the law and his flawless ability to make its most intricate details exciting and relevant.
Alexander's Feast, brilliant successor to Rittenhouse Square, intrudes on the bedrooms and boardrooms of Philadelphia and
penetrates the hearts of one of the most romantic towns in Europe. Exploring the past and present as they are interwoven in one
man's life, this novel represents an impressive development in the power and scope of Arthur Solmssen as a compelling
contemporary storyteller
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Summary
Map
Summary
Preface
BOOK I
1961 - A Point of View
[1] The annual meeting of the stockholders of the Boatwright Corporation
[2] What are you going to do about Boatwright and what are you going to do about yourself?
[3] Have we learned anything this evening, Doctor?
[4] Producing results?
[5] Alexander's Feast
[6] How'd you like to go over to Salzburg for a month with me?
BOOK II
1947 - An Island
[7] You're not going to Berlin. You're staying here.
[8] All right, we're the Military Government.
[9] The Americans are teaching us to be democratic instead of fascistic.
[10] Well, this is Fasching.
[11] Letters after Ash Wednesday
[12] Say Boris is at Schloss Fyrmian.
[13] THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN EUROPE - Prospectus for the First Session
[14] Learn to think of people as individuals.
[15] Parlez-moi d'amour, redites-moi des choses tendres.
[16] Not one thing left to show that you've ever been on earth? - "Sources of Soviet Conduct"
[17] A Countess, a Prussian Officer and a Ländler
[18] Now this part of your life is over and I'm sending you home.
[19] A father who's too busy to watch his son die. - The Spring of 1961
[20] I cannot sell Schloss Fyrmian to the Academy.
BOOK III
1961 - A Change of Air
[21] The first thing I saw was the Festung Hohensalzburg far in the distance, silhouetted against the shadowy
curtain of the high mountains.
[22] Next day at the Academy we got to work - Graham, you know what Fleischer did?
[23] Im weißen Rößl am Wolfgangsee
[24] Brockaw writing a thesis on Austrian baroque architecture? - Boatwright Corporation and Boris Fleischer,
plaintiffs
[25] You know there a Mr. Devereaux? Mr. Armistead Devereaux?
[26] I think always of Peter Devereaux.
[27] It sounds like an act of desperation, and it won't hold up in court.
[28] In those Oklahoma Hills WHERE AH WAS BOW-AHHHN!
[29] ... that we should meet again like this . . . I think perhaps there is a reason.
[30] "Is there here an American by name of Brockaw?"
[31] This is Boris Fleischer!
[32] "Does Hans work for Gehlen?" Paola shook her head. "More the other way around."
[33] Won't you please come home? Everybody needs you, I most of all.
[34] With this Waffenstillstand you have time now.
[35] You're going to regret this for the rest of your life!
[36] We Europeans would not do it. None of us. - People think you need medical attention.
[37] Will they trust you?
[38] Some things about the U.S.A. are perhaps rather important, and to us impressive.
[39] You're going to need a good lawyer.
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Title Page
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COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2004: Arthur R.G. Solmssen
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from George S. Kennan's article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" which
appeared in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Internet Edition published 2004 by acamedia at
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