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A_HOUSE_IN_BALI
May 01, 2006
Additions: June 14, 2006
About Colin McPhee's "A House in Bali"
Published 1944-47
Before running off for an About events: 1931-35
extended stay in Bali, I and 1937-38
was looking around for
books that I might read on
the subject... this was my
first trip there -- indeed CITIZEN_DOOM
my first trip outside the
US -- though Dangerbaby
has been there many times.
Rather than be entirely
led around by her, I
wanted to develop my own
way of understanding the I was hoping for
place, so I went off looking something like 1930s
for some books that were spy novels set in One of my favorite
neither guide books, nor Indonesia. tricks: use low
heavy scholarly tomes... culture as a set
of hooks to attach
What I found was deeper knowledge.
a handful of
popular novels I might begin studying
and/or travelog British history by
set in or around For the most checking on details in
Bali. part voices from Katherine Hepburn movies.
an earlier era,
though there was
also some Pico Iyer OUT_OF_THE_DUMPSTER
in the stack.
I flipped through them quickly
to decide which one I would
carry with me.
"A House in Bali" begins with
Colin McPhee as a young
composer who is exposed to some
early phonograph recordings of
Balinese gamelan, and is
determined to travel there and And so, right there
learn more of this music. I was hooked, connected
to the material on
my musical exploration
axis, rather than via
pulp fiction. MUSEODD
(For lack of
"The records had been made in Bali, and anything
the clear, metallic sounds of the music better to
were like the stirring of a thousand link to.)
bells, delicate, confused, with a
sensuous charm, a mystery that was quite
overpowering." -- p 10
"A House in Bali" is a very
good book in many, many
respects; Colin McPhee writes
tremendously well:
"They used no notes (indeed there
were none, it seemed); each phrase of
the melody, each intimate detail of BALINESE_MUSIC
accompaniment they had learned by
ear, listening carefully and with
infinite patience to the teacher who
had, perhaps, been called from some Upon trying to return
other village. Late into the night to Paris in 1932:
they played. From the house I could
hear them going over phrase after "I went to concerts only to listen
phrase, correcting, improving, until with restlessness, for the
the music began to flow of its own programmes of new music that I
accord. I fell asleep with the once delighted in now seemed
sounds ringing in my ears, and as I suddenly dull and intellectual. I
slept I still heard them, saw them cared even less for the eloquence
rather, for now they seemed of the romantic symphonies. As I
transformed into a shining rain of sat in the concert halls I thought
silver." -- p. 26 of the sunny music I had listened
to in the open air, among people
who talked and laughed, hearing
yet not hearing the musicians, but
cheered and exhilarated by the
sounds." -- p. 77
But there are strange absences
throughout this book that are
ultimately very distracting.
Evidently McPhee made a decision to avoid
presenting Western viewpoints: it's about
his interactions with the locals, and the
things that he learned from them.
If he learned anything *about* the locals
from other Westerners, those are details
that are skipped in this account.
Throughout I had an uncomfortable feeling
that I was looking at a move in a turf war.
Perhaps McPhee wanted to be seen as someone
doing *original* research, not just a
tourist doing personal explorations?
If he published professionally, he
would be required to cite sources,
but in this popular format he can The trouble is that while I was
dodge that, and give the audience reading this book, I also started
the vauge feeling that he was a studying some other works
true pioneer in the Western study about people such as "Walter
of Balinese music. Spies"...
So, I was wondering, Walter Spies did things *like*
what was Colin McPhee's what McPhee was doing -- working
connection with Walter out a notation for gamelan music,
Spies? doing transcriptions of gamelan
for piano -- a solid ten years
before McPhee got to it.
McPhee definitely knew Spies...
He talks about staying with him However, Spies never published
after McPhee returned to Bali in very much of his work in this
1932. And throughout he casually direction-- one version of the
refers to him as "Walter". Late story: he didn't think it was
in the book he mentions, just good enough yet, and the
in-passing, that he and Spies had material was later lost in the
performed together at one point, Japanese invasion. And much
doing gamelan transcribed for of Spies life was spent
piano. These events weren't concentrating on his painting.
worth covering in the story?
PITA_MAHA
Spies absolutely *must* have
talked to McPhee about the work But Spies *was* recognized as
that he did in the mid-20s, and a Western authority on gamelan
McPhee simply chose not to say music. It's likely that the
anything about it. Balinese music records that
inspired McPhee to travel to
There are only two Bali were some of the ones that
possiblities as I see it: were produced with Spies'
assistance...
(1) McPhee did know about Spies
musical work, and sought him out (I gather that the
intentionally to find out what friends Colin McPhee
he could before proceeding. borrowed these records
from were Miguel and
(2) McPhee did not know of Spies Rose Covarrubias, some
work when he went to Bali and when friends of Spies.)
he met Spies and talked about it he
was either disappointed that someone
got there ahead of him, or was
excited to find someone who could
give him some hints.
Either way, you would think that
McPhee would talk about this.
The second case would be
particularly interesting. But I think the
first case is far
Any one who pursues a more likely.
creative impulse in any
direction must know that *Some* westerner
feeling of dissapointment or other had decided
when you learn that your to record that gamelan
work is not as original music.
as you thought it was.
And the records
were played for him
DONE_BEFORE by *friends* of
Spies, who must've
talked about him...
Another absence:
what kind of person
is McPhee, really?
BALI_UNVEILED
There is no mention whatsoever
of love interests in the years
he spent in Bali. This made me One of the driving
wonder if he was another one of forces of these The straights
the gay guys (like Walter Spies, expatriate scenes are fascinated
for example). always seems to be by the exotic
sexual. young girls,
I mean, there's a sub-plot the queers by
about him taking on a the young boys;
young boy from a farming Oct 20, 2009: all in a setting
village as a protege, and with much less
having him trained in a Evan Ziporyn, in the of the moral
style of dancing where the notes for his operatic (puritanical?)
boy dresses as a young version of this book, restrictions
girl... Doesn't that essentially confirms of home.
sound like a hint? my first impression
that McPhee was one of (Consider,
the queer cabal. Burroughs
in Mexico &
And I learned later that He suggests that one Tangiers.)
McPhee was married to the of the reasons McPhee
anthropologist Jane Belo. left Bali may have been
the Dutch crack down
She was with him in on homosexuals. (Ziporyn got
Bali, the whole started on
time... and wasn't following
mentioned once in the McPhee's
entire book? trail long
before I,
and studied
Dangerbaby had been skeptical music in Bali
of my "turf war" theory, with people
("It's just not what the book who knew
is about."), but when I McPhee.)
discovered this missing wife
problem her reaction was:
"Oh, for god's sake!"
But there are many other
angles one could take
to this book... many
subjects of interest.
TO_SEE_OR_TO_DO
"We returned to Sayan, to find on the
table by my bed-room door a large
silver bowl of yellow rice, buried in
flower petals. It was from Made'
Gria, the _dalang_. Beside the
palm-leaf books which he had been
working on the day before there lay a
little fan of blossoms.
"How do you honour books in America?
Durus asked as he set a lamp on the
table. A large mantis flew out of
the dark and settled in the circle of
light.
"I found it hard to explain."
-- p. 96
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