Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Re: Henri de Catt Unplugged - I

[mildred_of_midgard]

OMG, Catt, you fucking liar! Look at this, guys.

From the diary:

Speaking of opera, we searched for a name, but couldn't find it. I withdrew, saying that I would seek, and that, if I did not find it, that would prevent me from sleeping. I was going to bed when he sent me his page with a half-sheet containing the word in question: Abdolonym.

From the memoirs:

Following this conversation, the King spoke of the operas of Berlin, of their virtues, and of the excellent singers he had.

“If I see Berlin again, I will have an opera produced which is all beauty.”

He wished to tell me its name, but he could not remember it. He sought and sought again, and then became impatient.

“This is diabolical,” he said, “I can’t find that name. Good evening. Perhaps it will come to me when I am alone. If I do not find it, it will be impossible for me to go to sleep.”

In the night, at one o’clock, there was a knock at my door. "Who is there?"

"It is the servant. I come from the King. Your master must be awakened. I have brought him a paper to which he must reply."

A candle was lit, and I read these words:

“I have found the name: it is Montezuma. I shall now be able to sleep quietly. Do the same. With the idea that you might be restless about this name and not able to sleep, I wished to spare you a bad night.”

It was not so bad, for I was sleeping quietly, and, awakened, it was not possible for me to go to sleep again. I thanked the King, however, on the following day for his kind intention."

Now, I have *always* been surprised and slightly skeptical Fritz forgot the name of an opera for which HE had written the libretto just a few years before, and not only that, but it was his and Graun's most acclaimed collaboration. But okay, these things happen.

The real upshot of this account, for me and tumblr fandom, has always been: "If Fritz can't sleep, he assumes no one can sleep, and if he's going crazy trying to remember the name of something, he assumes it's driving everyone else crazy. Well-meaning but lacking in emotional intelligence and possibly theory of mind."

Now we not only have a different opera, but it was Catt who said *he* wasn't going to be able to sleep if he couldn't think of the name, and he was only *about* to go to bed when Fritz sent him the name.

Everything else so far could be passed off as vanity + trying to make a more exciting narrative, but are you TRYING to make Fritz look bad? In return for firing you?

WTF, Catt.

(Also, this is why I put that searchable copy of volume one of the memoirs together; finding things like is infinitely easier.)

Re: Henri de Catt Unplugged - I

[cahn]

Oh, so, if Thiebault is the mystery novel where the bonkers solution turns out to be the right one, this is the novel where a plot element is introduced that at first looks a bit disquieting but perhaps not particularly any more interesting than any other part, and then it turns out IT MESSES UP EVERYTHING WE THOUGHT WAS TRUE.

Re: Henri de Catt Unplugged - I

[mildred_of_midgard]

I DON'T KNOW WHO FRITZ IS ANY MORE

(Seriously, so much of my armchair psychologizing was informed by Catt's memoirs, and having to pull out this part and that part leaves SO MANY HOLES that I don't know what holds water any more.)