Customer Reviews (3)

It Works!
This book was worth every penny and then some.

The technique works.Not only do you look younger
(after repeated use), but your face feels rejuvinated.

Thank you, Lindsay!

A wonderful method
I discovered "New Beauty: The Acupressure Facelift" about five months ago and have practiced Lindsay's acupressure methods nearly every day since. I have noticed great results! I love this book and wish it would be re-printed. She provides a wonderful alternative to surgical facelifts--something plastic surgeons certainly wouldn't like! Still, I think all women should be able to learn about the benefits of facial massaging and exercises and decide for themselves if this method is right for them. It IS right for me.

Deserves Reprinting
I found this book several years ago at the public library.It delivers just what it promises, a useful method for improving circulation, health and thereby skin tone and color. Using this method provides a viablealternative to surgery. It's longer lasting, relaxing, non-invasive andcost-effective.A valuable book for anyone committed to self-responsibleself-maintenance.

Because it's out of print, I've borrowed this bookagain several times since.I've also looked for something simliar topurchase, but nothing comes close.Alas! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

a decent wagner study
this book is very fine account of wagners life and work.gutman knows wery well what he is writting about,and there iscertainly nothing dishonest in his approach,those are the plain facts.i can recommend his mozart biography as well.

Intellectually dishonest
Gutman has an axe to grind.He despises Wagner and sets out to discredit the composer whenever possible.While it is true that Wagner had many despicable traits (antisemitism, mendacity, oportunism, megalomania, womanizing, etc.), Gutman creates a wholly unsympathetic picture of this musical genius.Gutman sees the influence of Wagner's antisemetism everywhere, similar to the way UFO enthusiasts see the influence of space aliens everywhere in our culture.As a result this biography is not fair and balanced.Gutman's goal seems to be to get the reader to despise Wagner as much as he does.Laon, in his review, gives many detailed examples of Gutman's intellectual slipperiness as a biographer.Gutman maintains that Parsifal is Wagner's antisemitic magnum opus and the fact that Wagner's text does not support his argument, Gutman regards as proof of how clever Wagner was in hiding his antisemitism in his artistic works.He hid it so well that only Gutman can see it. Give me a break!How could the fact that there is no evidence be proof of the agrument he is making?

Regarding the "ihn" versus "ihm" controversy in Tristan, Laon does a good job in elucidating Gutman's silly inuendoes.There is another possibility, which is that Wagner was trying to emulate an archaic German, so he may have deliberately chosen the "wrong" grammar (by modern standards) to make the sentence sound like an older pre-modern Germanic tongue.Native German speakers sometimes have difficulty understanding Wagner's texts for that reason.I agree with Laon that Gutman's book is decent on the facts of Wagner's life but is biased and misleading on the interpretation of those facts.It's too bad that such a knowledgeable writer as Gutman could let his personal biases mar what could have been a balanced and thoughtful biography of this controversial musical genius.Gutman's logic appears to run as follows:Wagner was anti-Semitic, Hitler liked Wagner's music and ideas, therefore Wagner was responsible for the Holocaust.

I read this book hoping to understand how Wagner, with all his character flaws, could write such beautiful and psychologically insightful musical dramas.Gutman did not answer my question, except to say that what appear on the surface to be works of genius are really clever attempts by a scoundrel to indoctrinate others into his antisemitism.How is it then that I come away from listening to Wagner with a loathing of anti-Semitism and a overwhelming experience of comapssion for the human family?

A Masterpiece
Occasionally in life one encounters a biography so insightful, so rich in detail and so beautifully written that it nearly transcends its subject and stands as a work of art unto itself. It is in this category that Gutman's masterpiece belongs. There is so much to learn from this historiographical account of the great composer's life that one scarecely knows where to begin praising it. Best of all, in the Ernest Newman tradition, Gutman shows us the real Wagner, warts and all, and traces the all-too-tangible line leading from the composer's pen to the Nazi nightmare. At times shocking, Gutman's work "opens the kimono" on the breeding ground of hatred and racism that Bayreuth became, and the composer's steadily increasing obsession with the Jews. He offers incontrovertible proof, now widely accepted and expounded on in the indispensable works of Rose and Weiner and Zelinsky, of how Wagner incorporated these racist ideal into his operas. At the same time, Gutman recognizes the incredible genius of his subject, and praises the works mightily. His account is always balanced, fair and backed by evidence. It is no wonder the Wagner apologists have criticized this book heavily, while the leading musical journals and book reviewers have blessed it with near-unanimous acclaim: Many simply cannot bear the fact that their favorite composer directly influenced Hitler and had a streak of true evil in him. Gutman bravely shatters myths and shows us Wagner for what he truly was: a composer of incomparable gifts and a human being of precious few qualities. If you haven't read this book yet, I strongly recommend you explore it now.

Even less reliable than I remembered
I've just re-read this book, after first reviewing it over two years ago. I noted Gutman's unreliability then, but on re-reading I can only report that my opinion of Gutman has fallen further. I originally awarded it two stars; I now think that was generous.

This book is more careless of source material than any book has right to be, but it's not ordinary carelessness.All errors and misstatements happen to support Gutman's case for a proto-Nazi Wagner.When a book's errors all support one thesis, that pattern must raise questions not just of competence but also of integrity.

For example Gutman claims Wagner was "sympathetic" to proto-Nazi Bernhard Förster's attempted German community in Paraguay.But Cosima's Diaries show that Wagner held Förster in general and the South American project in particular in contempt.Why this "mistake"?Because it suits Gutman's thesis.

Or take Wagner's late essays.If you read the essays themselves rather than Gutman's profoundly dishonest exegesis, you find a man wrestling with his own racism.

In _Heroism and Christianity_, for example, Wagner does take it as a given that white people are superior to other "races".Wagner, like many other European and American artists, was the product of a racist culture and it is unhistorical to pretend otherwise.But then Wagner writes that although people find the idea of the commingling of all human "races" into "a uniform equality" distressing, this is because of their cultural blinkers. "It is only looking at it through the reek of our own civilisation and culture than makes this picture so repellant," he says.

Christianity, Wagner continues, is superior to other religions because it is aimed equally at all "races" while Judaism and Brahminism, for example, include noble ideas but are aimed at only one "race" or caste.Although (he writes) it is "natural" [meaning "likely to occur in nature"] for strong "races" to rule weaker "races", the rule of one "race" by another has led to "exploitation" and an "utterly immoral system". Wagner's answer is equality of all "races" under "a universal moral concord", something Wagner suggests that Christian doctrines could bring about.(Wagner was not a Christian, but in later life admired Christian rituals and doctrines.)

The essay is not enlightened by modern standards, but in its historical context it stands as Wagner's rejection of the proto-Nazi ideas of his own day.Gutman's systematic distortions are regrettable not just because they go beyond mere inaccuracy but also because they are much less interesting than the truth.

A passage recently cited as an example of Gutman's merits provides another example of Gutman's method:

"Monsalvat was Wagner's paranoiac concept of a small self-contained elite group, uniquely possessed of the truth, obsessed with its 'purity,' and struggling with an outside world it held worthless. Redemption was promised the hard-pressed knights, but, obviously, the Wagnerian redeemer was not to be found among Jewish craftsmen or lepers. Not by accident did Guernemanz almost immediately remark upon Parsifal's noble, highborn appearance. He knew what signs to read. Racial heredity and strict breeding, not natural selection, formed the new mechanism of salvation. Wagnerian eugenics had come into being; in his latest writing the composer had embraced the darker implications of Darwinism."

Problems?First, Gutman misses the way _Parsifal_ shows Montsalvat critically and ironically (our first glimpse is of its watchmen sleeping on the job), as a damaged community that fails to live up to its ideals.An example is the knights' and squires' rejection of Kundry as Outsider, a moral fault for which the saintly Gürnemantz, clearly Wagner's mouthpiece, reproves them.

Second, the reference to "Jewish craftsmen and lepers" is Gutman's invention. Neither are mentioned, let alone disparaged, in _Parsifal_.

Third, Gutman must know that the remark on the hero's "noble appearance" is standard in Wagner's source material, and referred not so much to race as to "gentle upbringing", meaning having "courtly" deportment as opposed to the gestures and manners of a peasant.Example?In Wagner main source, von Eschenbach's _Parzifal_, similar observations are made about Parzifal's half-brother Fierafiz, whose mother was black.

Fourth, the Montsalvat community is not "self-contained".Wagner's text mentions that Gawain is a member of the Montsalvat community, though that character is also a member of Arthur's court.And Gawain, like the other Montsalvat knights, spends as much or more time out in the world than at Montsalvat.

Fifth, Montsalvat's alleged "racial hereditary and strict breeding" is more Gutmanian invention.Not only does _Parsifal_ not contain any such idea, or anything remotely like it, but Wagner's text rules out the possibility.Gürnemantz tells us that Montsalvat was founded by Titurel, who has had one adult child and is still alive when the opera begins.Gürnemantz was also a founding Montsalvat member."Breeding program"?When?Instead the Montsalvat community must have grown through that bugbear even of modern racists: immigration.Some of Montsalvat's knights and squires may be children of original members, but that's hardly a breeding program.(By the way, Wagner's Montsalvat is in Spain.Not Germany.)

Can a passage so densely inaccurate be the product of mere carelessness?I think not.

Actually Gutman misses an intriguing possibility about Parsifal's ancestry. Parsifal comes from "Arabia".His father Gamuret was probably Welsh or Cornish, but we are told that Herzeleide was pregnant with Parsifal when Gamuret was in "Arabia".Since knights didn't take wives with them on crusade, the implication is that Gamuret met Herzeleide in "Arabia".(Wagner's text concerning Herzeleide differs significantly from his sources.)It's amusing in this context to consider that Wagner's Parsifal may have been what the media is currently calling "of Mid-Eastern appearance", and quite ineligible for the Hitler Youth.Still, the Nazi thing is Gutman's obsession, not Wagner's.Oh, and far from loving _Parsifal_, as Gutman would have you believe, the truth is that the Nazis banned it.

In short, Gutman's "first casualty" wasn't Wagner, but truth. An irresponsibly unreliable book.

Cheers!

Laon

Extraordinary
This is an extraordinary book -- on a par with Maynard Solomon's Mozart -- but don't just take my word for it. The New York Times Book Review called it the "richest and best-accomplished single volume on Wagner in English." The late Paul Hume, himself no slouch as a musician, musicologist, and critic, called it "superb."

In 455 dense pages, Gutman, retired as a university professor and lecturer at Bayreuth, chronicles the comings and goings of Richard Wagner's life, probes the recesses of his often messy mind and his frequently strained relationships with other artists, lovers, thinkers, political figures, and hangers on, examines the development of his ever-changing esthetic, and analyzes the novelty of his music and, more importantly, the sometimes bourgeois, sometimes frightening sentiments of his words. As a reader, it helps to have some prior familiarity with the plots of Wagner's operas and with nineteenth-century European intellectual history.

Gutman's central thesis is that, as a composer of music, Wagner was a genius; as a poet, he was barely literate; and as a human being, he was egomaniacal, boorish, uneducated, greedy, opinionated in the extreme, and racist. In 1968, when Gutman first advanced this thesis, Wagner was enjoying a resurgence of critical acclaim as a poet. Otherwise there is nothing to be surprised by here. The composer's problems with patrons and creditors, his voracious sexual appetites, his meretricious relationship with King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the appeal of the composer's operas to Hitler and hence to the Third Reich, his involvement in the events of 1848, and his anti-semitism have long been well known.

In developing his thesis, Gutman displays an encyclopedic understanding, not only of letters, libretti, Wagner's own vague scribblings (whether in support of revolution or a diet of vegetables), and other primary sources for a biography, but also of the political and intellectual context in which Wagner's life was played out. Nietzsche, Lizst, Kaiser Wilhelm, Metternich, the mistresses of the Jockey Club, Goethe, and Ulysses S. Grant march, leap, and slide effortlessly through these pages. Gutman's writing is lucid, rich, and spiced with urbane humor.

Thus, for example, Gutman writes that the failure of the first Bayreuth festival of 1876 apparently turned Wagner -- previously a romantic rebel and always a staunch atheist -- away from a belief in inevitable advance toward higher forms just as he was composing what he knew would be his final opera, Parsifal. The result was profoundly unchristian. "Monsalvat was Wagner's paranoiac concept of a small self-contained elite group, uniquely possessed of the truth, obsessed with its 'purity,' and struggling with an outside world it held worthless. Redemption was promised the hard-pressed knights, but, obviously, the Wagnerian redeemer was not to be found among Jewish craftsmen or lepers. Not by accident did Guernemanz almost immediately remark upon Parsifal's noble, highborn appearance. He knew what signs to read. Racial heredity and strict breeding, not natural selection, formed the new mechanism of salvation. Wagnerian eugenics had come into being; in his latest writing the composer had embraced the darker implications of Darwinism."

This book has a well-supported point-of-view. It is a great read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Terrific, multi-faceted and consistent analysis.
Reading the first few pages of this book it became clear to me what the emphasis of this interpretation of Wagner's masterpiece would be, namely a Freudian/Jungian interpretation of the subconscious driving force behind Wagner's genius. I wasn't particularly receptive to this approach initially, notwithstanding the fact that I have a first degree in Psychology. However, the author's cogent and fluid arguments convinced me of the validity of such an interpretation.

Wagner as an artist allowed himself to be driven by his subconscious in his later works, allowing his conscious self to contribute only for the purpose of rounding off the work. On the basis of this a detailed understanding of Wagner's subconscious, and indeed the interplay between his subconscious and conscious self must be seen as of indispensable importance to an indepth evaluation of 'der Ring des Nibelungen'.

I think it is important to note that given the complexity of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung such an interpretation does not preclude the relevance of other interpretations at different levels of abstraction. More orthodox evaluations of Wagner's tetralogy have concerned themselves with Wagner's apparent political and romantic motivations. While such interpretations are not necessarily incompatible with Donington's analysis the author looks beyond the realm of the salient in order to take us places that were closed even to Wagner himself.

Psychological analysis, particularly when of the Classical variety, may be unpalatable to many when used to interpret famous works of art. A common criticism of advocates of Freudian and Jungian psychology is that the theories to which they subscribe are outdated and often, in the case of Freudian psychoanalysis, fundamentally flawed. However, many such theories still resonate today and in fact the appearance of what 'hard' scientists may deem outdated terminology is a perfectly apt and valid way to deal with the issues in this particular artistic work. The use of words like 'ego', as when contrasted with the 'subconscious', might deter the interest of some, but Donington uses such terminology interchangeably with more contemporary expressions such as 'conscious will' and certainly from a psychological and neuroscientific perspective the conscious-subconscious duality is as relevant now as it ever was.

Donington uses his knowledge of Freudian and Jungian psychology to explain the Ring Cycle from a developmental psychology perspective. The power struggle between conscious-will, or ego, and the subconscious. Synonyms for such a conflict include power versus love (a popular understanding of the nature of the Ring Cycle) and the need of the self to reconcile individuality with a union to nature. Wagner completed the cycle over 26 years, a time during which he went through many a psychological and musical transformation - transformation being the key to the whole cycle according to the author.

Donington describes the developmental process that underlies the transformation that we all must go through. From separation of the conscious and the subconscious, in order to derive individuality and 'extra-natural' existence, to reconciliation of the two components of psyche to arrive at the self, a harmonised amalgum of individual and nature. Wagner's difficulty at making the psychological transformation from the conscious-willing, controlling individual to the mature, compassionate and fulfilled self is then convincingly claimed to be the driving force behind Wagner's creative expression particularly embodied in the Ring Cycle.

That Donington has a particular angle on Wagner's Ring Cycle is to the book's credit rather than its detriment as it elucidates context which serves to engender and maintain interest in the reader when the narrative and musical symbolism of the work is described. I have read other books detailing Wagner's myths that seem pedestrian by comparison owing to a 'walk-through' approach.

Some descriptions are perhaps open to debate, e.g., is Alberich renouncing compassionate love or is he in fact renouncing naive love? Perhaps, through subconscious projection on to Alberich, Wagner is closer to overcoming his own longing for naive and unobtainable love than even the author imagines. In essence this point is not actually inconsistent with the tenor of that proposed by the author.
Other petty points may be proferred but the general consistency of argument and clarity of presentational style leave you feeling that you have ventured on yet another sparkling ring. This book rewards the patient and is a must for any Wagnerite/Ring Cyle enthusiast.

Don't take it too seriously; eccentric, sometimes insightful
To an even greater extent than, say, Freudianism, Jungianism involves a leap of faith. It isn't rational, let alone anything like scientific; it's another case where a charismatic person once came up with a set ofprecepts, and the disciples follow them. But while I wouldn't recommend aJungian therapist to anyone I cared about (I'd expect no harm except to thewallet; but little good either) Jungian analysis can be interesting whenits applied to myth; it is after all largely based on Jung's ideas aboutmyth. That makes Jungian ideas fairly apt for reading a myth-based worklike the "Ring".

Robert Donington is a Jungian true believer,and he applies Jung's ideas with considerable ingenuity and interest.Sometimes he'll do anything to fit Wagner into the Jungian framework, sothat, for example, he'll read the very male dragon Fafner as "themother in her devouring aspect". That's a pretty desperate reading:Fafner is nobody's female principle, and only someone with a stronglypre-determined agenda could try to make him one.

Still, Donington isoften insightful. Why is there a brief reminiscence of Erda's theme whenFricka appears in Walku:re Act II? Because, says Donington, Fricka issomehow representing Erda's wisdom in this appearance. Fricka may not seemwise, but on this occasion she is right. This and a hundred other smallinsights makes this a worthwhile and constantly interesting book. It's alsovery good on Wagner's mythological sources.

Donington is right inthinking that the Ring is an endlessly complex and profound work; butprobably wrong in thinking that Jung holds the key. Still, whileDonington's overall reading is eccentric and not entirely reliable, this isa very enjoyable and often insightful book.

Laon ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2007. The length of the article is 6496 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Robert Wagner, Milton Galamison and the challenge to New York City liberalism.(Essay)
Author: Clarence Taylor
Publication: Afro-Americans in New York Life and History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 31Issue: 2Page: 121(17)

Article Type: Essay

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Four works in one volume. Text in French. Black and white illustrations/photographs. ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Robert Walter Wagner, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 920 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
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West's Encyclopedia of American Law is 13 volumes and 5,000 entries of comprehensive information on the fascinating American Legal System and its components. Covering historical and current terms, concepts, events, movements, cases, and persons significant to U.S law, Wests has been written, updated, and reviewed by lawyers and professors with the everyday user in mind.Everyone from the layperson hooked on the weekly TV courtroom procedural to the serious student can find such valuable information as brief definitions of legal jargon, exhaustive examinations of courtroom procedure, explanations of complex topics such as civil rights, biographies of standout attorneys, analyses of controversial issues, and transcripts of crucial Supreme Court decisions.

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This digital document is an article from Entrepreneur, published by Thomson Gale on August 1, 2005. The length of the article is 752 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Robert Wagner hosts The Litigation Explosion, an eye-opening .expose of the growing need for asset protection and financial privacy.(asset protection)
Publication: Entrepreneur (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 33Issue: 8Page: 117(1)

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