But I'll save one word for you

[sovay]

Well, that was a shock . . .


You're a Narrative writer!


What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This has been a good weekend. Friday morning and several hours this afternoon I spent with my good friend Peter Gould, one of the most incredible people ever to walk the face of the earth. Last night went toward the Met's production of Puccini's Turandot, where Krassimira Stoyanova as Liù blew the top of my head off (metaphorically; she wasn't quite that loud). And in defiance of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousai, thank you very much, I still like Euripides.

On to what you like. Since I have not yet figured out how to set up livejournal polls, is there something of which people would like to see more at this site? "Assyriology" and "Silly Quizzes" are perfectly acceptable answers . . .

Comments

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I also tend to assume that Turandot wrote her riddles -- they so strongly reflect her vaunted philosophy of life, that hope is a thing of dreams, and men are weak subjects of their passions. She's almost issuing a philosophical challenge at the same time as her intellectual duel to the death "Go ahead, prove me wrong. See, you can't!". And I can't imagine that anyone other than she would have thought to make herself the answer to her own third riddle, particularly not that riddle. Interestingly enough, it just occurred to me, answering that last riddle (and to some degree all of them) is not just a form of beating her with herself; it also requires the victor to correctly assess who she is and how she sees herself. Some who's imposing their own dreams of and passions for Turandot on her might miss that -- "O ragazzo demente -- Turandot non existe!" The trick is not in finding an absolute answer, but in understanding how she would answer.

Also, no one except her actually has a stake in seeing any of the contestants lose, so one imagines if someone else wrote the riddles they might have been a tad easier.

[sovay]

I have a somewhat biased view, since I thought the first and third riddles were no-brainers, especially the last. (I might have died on the second and never had a chance to make it to the third, however; except for the line about "freezing at danger," I'd probably have guessed the second riddle as "a heart" or "passion," rather than "blood." Have you noticed how pertinent to the situation the three answers are?) But I do agree with you, they're very much tied up with her view of the world. If you can't think as she thinks, you haven't a prayer—and very few of suitors, one senses, have ever been interested in doing that. They're fascinated by the externals, the beauty and the unattainability. The woman beyond the ice-mask? Eh, whatever . . . So Calàf is different not only in that he can answer the riddles, but for the reasons that he can: he sees something else.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I thought the connections between the riddles and the answers were no-brainers, but I think I would have been seriously tripped up by all the valid possible answers that come to mind, at least with the first two. I had an exam like that last semester, where the questions were multiple choice and even if you knew all the information the right answer wasn't obvious -- and you could have argued out all the alternatives lucidly in an essay, but you don't have the luxury of that, you need to give one short answer and hope you picked right. The idea that you can know enough and still get it wrong is pretty scary in and of itself. And I didn't even have a crowd surrounding me with bated breath and Turandot glaring at me.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I can also imagine that if any of the other suitors had gotten to the third riddle, at least some of them would have heard the self-description and automatically exclaimed, "Come now dear, you don't really mean that!" and been slain on the spot.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

To comment yet again -- I also tend to assume that all riddles in operas, like role reversals and other such mind games, are a certain magnitude harder than they're actually written. Sort of like how you infer the appearances of certain characters regardless of whether the actors actually fit. The alternative is assuming that all the previous suitors were just brainless, which both seems improbable given the numbers involves and makes a less interesting story.

[sovay]

Well, I guessed the first and third without recourse to a libretto; but I take your point.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Recourse to a libretto?

To be fair, I heard the answers before I ever saw the questions, so I have no idea how well they work in drive. So I try to give the benefit of the doubt.

[sovay]

Yes; without knowing them beforehand. I knew the plot of Turandot very imperfectly when I saw the opera, and (partially because we got to our seats literally as the lights went down and I had no chance to read through the synopsis included in the program) had no idea what riddles Turandot would ask, much less the answers. So I guessed two of them and was correct, and would probably not have gotten the third. That's all.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Ah! I thought you were implying that they were clearer in the Italian than in the Met translation. Which is possible -- it's been a while since I've looked at that part of the libretto, and I've unfortunately yet to hear a Turandot who makes the words of the riddles comprehensible -- but seemed surprising.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

It just occurred to me that my listening experience with Turandot was essentially the Jeopardy version. That's an amusing thought.

[sovay]

Answers before the questions? I don't think I can visualize Alex Trebek in a fantasy-Chinese court . . .

(You know, I got a great discussion of opera out of this. But I realize that not one person responded to my question of what should go on this livejournal!)

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I would say all of the above. And more discussion of resolutely bloodthirsty operatic princesses and weird fake bards.