BIOGRAPHIES WITH VALUABLE LESSONS ABOUT LIFE
I find biographies that share deeper experiences and deeper thinking, along with true life lessons, to be of value - and the rest perhaps, in some cases, "interesting" and/or enjoyable.
The Naked Face Of Genius, a biography of Bela Bartok written by Agatha Fassett. (The following is a sharing from a friend, a rare person who goes into the deeper insights of life and deals with reality in a true way.)
Hello, my friend,
I just finished “The Naked Face of Genius,” a biography of Bela Bartok written by Agatha Fassett. I have a cd of his “Concerto for Orchestra” playing, Chicago Symphony, Fritz Reiner conducting, a fellow Hungarian and student of Bartok. Bartok: 1881-1945; Reiner: 1888-1963.
The story is an extremely intimate, insightful, complex portrayal, not only of Bartok, but just as importantly the relationships between him and his second wife, Ditta Pasztory Bartok (1903-82) and the author. Agatha {Hungarian spelling} was first Ditta’s friend. Ditta’s first was Bela. I define friendship here as not only the total acceptance of each other but also the perception of each. The latter’s total psychological connection to Bela extended to his music, the performance of his music (she was his star pupil and most perceptive performer of his piano music), and to his philosophy and his soul. Agata offered this same connection to Ditta: not quite as profoundly with Bartok and at times relied on Ditta’s explanation and interpretation of her husband.
But Agata’s recall and relation of the conversations between Bela and Ditta, Bela and Agatha, and Ditta and Agata are astounding in terms of not only their detailed thoroughness but also their import. Unless she took notes and wrote each conversation down immediately, her detailed account bodes of a verbal photographic memory.
Such connection is rare and something I constantly seek reciprocally.
Agatha ends the book with the key that Ditta gave her: “All you have to know about Bela is that he loves everything that is real.” Then Agatha: “I didn’t tell her that there was one other thing besides, for you also have to know what is real.”
