Vintage ephemera, or: Even the 1880s had B-grade horror

The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli, 1781

The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Wilkie Collins has apparently written better books than this, and given he was a friend of Charles Dickens, he certainly moved in literary circles. The story builds up well, but the finale is a retelling of the murderous plot (that by this stage one could have guessed) that is retold in the form of a proposal for a play by the evil protagonist (or at least the first person we meet in the story). The "haunting" is rather light-weight, and the ending asks the reader is "there any explanation of the mystery of your own life and death?" What does this mean? Is this a B-grade novel from the 1880s? It would seem so. Like Downton Abbey meets a PG-rated horror movie. Like any period horror movie where the build-up is ruined by the sight of the evil spirit or alien. It was scary until the spectre is revealed and then the climax is a slow-paced decline into lameness. It has some entertainment value, and some historical value, but the experience is ephemeral and rather wasted on the modern reader.

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On Our Taste in Music and Sociological Explanations with Michael Walsh

Dr Michael Walsh, Sociologist at the University of Canberra

Dr Michael Walsh is a sociologist at the University of Canberra. I asked Michael how sociology explains our musical preferences, what our preferences say about us, and about the future of music in a market-driven, high-tech world.

Michael mentions two sociological greats who have waded in on the discussion of music in society, Max Weber and Theodor Adorno. 

When it comes to sociological explanations of music in society, I was curious about the following:

• What is sociology? What does it mean to be a sociologist? How does music fit in with sociology? Is there such a thing as “Sociomusicology” and what is it?
• What did Max Weber have to do with the "Sociology of Music"?
• Pierre Bourdieu argued, “nothing more clearly affirms ones ‘class,’ nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music”. Bourdieu was like an individual publishing machine. Can we trust his judgement or is it true? I like Rose Tattoo and AC/DC, but I love John Adams, Mahler, and Brahms, not to mention Woody Allen soundtracks and Bob Dylan. Does that all mean I am a cashed-up booner?
• Why did you get into the sociology of music, and what music do you like and why? Do you see yourself enjoying the music you like on the basis of the European critical theory, or is it based on rational choice theory? And if someone listens to Katy Perry, are they an economist’s persona waiting to buy the next contrived musician? Or is that just my new-found class status speaking?

The curly questions about European critical theory and rational choice theory and how these relate to music were ring-ins. In my Google searching (not research) about the sociology of music, I found these two terms and just threw them into the interview. Michael took this in his stride.

On Narcissism or: How I learned to stop narking and love other narcissists

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903.
Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Rethinking Narcissism: The Secret to Recognizing and Coping with Narcissists by Craig Malkin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I discovered Craig Malkin’s work in Psychology Today. On subscribing to the magazine, I couldn’t help but think political science might have done the same thing. Psychology Today is a model for other disciplines of how to get their research out into the broader community in an easily digestible way. That’s not to say that I enjoy reading research results that are all presented as lists, i.e., “if you have these five characteristics you are an arsehole” – this becomes rather dull at times – but it does enable me to apply tools and learn about concepts in psychology that I would otherwise not have the training to comprehend appropriately.

Rethinking Narcissism is useful for self-analysis and for coping with others. The Narcissism Test was useful. I recall the first time I encountered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test in 1992, during a semester of “Character-Building”, a third-class module at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. I scored an extreme ENTJ (extraversion-intuition-thinking-judgment) – “The Commander”. I undertook the test again in 2001 and found I was slightly less extreme, less again in 2007, and since 2014 I occasionally score as an INTJ (introversion), but the NTJ types are still quite strong. Over time I have learnt to relax, to hold my tongue (when I am not ramming it down my throat), and to be patient, less aggressive, and less competitive. So, when I scored 7 on the narcissism spectrum (this is not too good – a five is ideal), I was not surprised but it made sense that from my teens until my forties I was easily in the extremely unhealthy narcissist range.

Malkin’s idea of narcissism as a spectrum was quite useful. When I left the military, I recall saying to my former CO, then a colonel, that I was sick of everything being so ego-driven (so said the young man who had been top of his cohort since Duntroon until leaving the Regular Army, a complete “thruster” if ever there was one and all at the expense of everyone around him). But the good colonel said to me that there was a bit of ego in everything, and it could be good. But off I went to join The Salvation Army, thinking it was circumstantial rather than me that was the issue (as you do). There have been several others who have recognised my philosophical struggles over the years and their insights were enlightening. Likewise, Malkin speaks to me in a way that makes it OK to be a narcissist sometimes, but to find a healthy balance in doing so.

On reading Malkin’s work, I can see I have much work to do. But now I also have a few tools to deal with the narcissists who surround me. Reading this work was similar to reading BIFF. One feels awkward reading about a scale of something rather than the binary “you suck – you’re awesome!” nonsense that drives most things in contemporary society. But Malkin echoes the words of the good colonel and for that alone it was worth the read. As for Goodreads’ rating system, I find it difficult to give such books a high score. Were they useful? Yes. Will I use the concepts? Yes. Does this strike me like Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice or Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast? Not really. So while my rating of this and other books is low, it is only in the company of the great literature I am reading. A separate ratings category for classics versus self-help books might be useful; regrettably, until such time I must rate books in the company they keep. But don’t let that stop you from reading this favourite from Oprah’s Book Club!

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