OVERVIEW: Six Curtains for Stroganova
Dec. 5th, 2012 07:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllSix Curtains for Stroganova: Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon. Penguin 1953
This is the third in the series of books about the dreadful, wonderful Stroganov ballet company (previously discussed here. I enjoyed it more once I realised that there wasn't going to be a murder. The framing device is that Stroganov in London relates the story of the first season of his ballet company in (St) Petersburg and explains the provenance of the titular obsession with six curtains, which the company never quite manages to achieve for Stroganova, even at its apex.
For there is triumph in this tale of ambition, balletomania, delusion and Russians. It doesn't last long.
Stroganov crosses paths with ballerinas, (but mainly has to spend time with the lesser dancers who grace his company), Diaghilev and entourage (just as broke as Stroganov, but with more, er, vision) and even the Tsar and family. I chuckled at bits of it and there's always the underlying love for the art-form, even as the writers poke fun at its practitioners and what it brings out in them.
I'm also still slowly reading Blackie's Girls Annual. The last story that I read was 'The Proogle' by Alice M. Worthington, which had a great idea that it didn't exploit very well. It revolves around an object that the eldest daughter of a struggling but happy family buys as a gift at a mysterious second-hand shop. I have a weakness for mysterious second-hand shops. The object looks like a vase, but changes appearance to the fascination and interest of the whole family until their fortunes change and, like the shop, the Proogle, as they've taken to calling it, vanishes.
This is the third in the series of books about the dreadful, wonderful Stroganov ballet company (previously discussed here. I enjoyed it more once I realised that there wasn't going to be a murder. The framing device is that Stroganov in London relates the story of the first season of his ballet company in (St) Petersburg and explains the provenance of the titular obsession with six curtains, which the company never quite manages to achieve for Stroganova, even at its apex.
For there is triumph in this tale of ambition, balletomania, delusion and Russians. It doesn't last long.
Stroganov crosses paths with ballerinas, (but mainly has to spend time with the lesser dancers who grace his company), Diaghilev and entourage (just as broke as Stroganov, but with more, er, vision) and even the Tsar and family. I chuckled at bits of it and there's always the underlying love for the art-form, even as the writers poke fun at its practitioners and what it brings out in them.
I'm also still slowly reading Blackie's Girls Annual. The last story that I read was 'The Proogle' by Alice M. Worthington, which had a great idea that it didn't exploit very well. It revolves around an object that the eldest daughter of a struggling but happy family buys as a gift at a mysterious second-hand shop. I have a weakness for mysterious second-hand shops. The object looks like a vase, but changes appearance to the fascination and interest of the whole family until their fortunes change and, like the shop, the Proogle, as they've taken to calling it, vanishes.
