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TERRA AMATA by J.M.G. Le Clézio. 217 pages. Atheneum...
...Germans may have the word for it: Weltschmerz. But French writers have a long tradition in it too-a literary bleating of the young in which the gyrations of the ephemeral self and the monumental turnings of the solar system get dizzily confused. J.M.G. Le Clézio is a handsome lad of 29 with sporting initials and a static style who has in recent years been a flashily successful practitioner of that mournful art. His first book, The Interrogation, a kind of Krapp's First Tape, won France's third most prestigious literary award, the Prix Renaudot...
...people have been rude about Hector Berlioz," says English Conductor Colin Davis, and he wishes they would quit. Alas, poor Berlioz has suffered more than his share. In 1829, when he was 25, he submitted his passionately theatrical piece for soprano and orchestra, Cléopâtre, to the Prix de Rome committee. It was rejected with a scolding from one of the judges, who said, "You refuse to write like everybody else. Even your rhythms are new. You would invent new modulations if such a thing were possible." The story goes that when Gioachino Rossini was shown Berlioz...
...overture was followed by the maligned Cléopâtre composition, sung by Mezzo Beverly Wolff, and several excerpts from the dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet. The first is charged with imaginative pictorial touches-for example, the snakish slide of the violas and cellos as Cleopatra clasps the asp to her bosom. In Romeo and Juliet, Berlioz shows that he can be as tender with Shakespeare's young lovers as he is terrifying with Cleopatra. Berlioz did not, however, always have to rely on emotional pressure. The overture to the comic opera Beatrice and Benedict, which Davis played...
There is no exit except to succumb to the flood of insanity. The book's real villain is the pointlessness of life, and in Paris literary circles this is a very fashionable villain indeed. Author Le Clézio, 27, frankly enjoys life himself-he is an ardent jazz and movie buff-but he is much too clever to let the fact seep into his books. If he had to choose a bedside volume, he says, it would be Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps Le Clézio should reread that work more closely. As Tweedledum remarked of Alice...