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Synopsis
A beautifully produced, 837-page collection in two parts, Plays and Prose.
The literary work of Scottish author Ian Dallas, for which he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2001, traverses a startlingly wide range of topics from Wagner to Sufism, from myth and philosophy to modern politics.
The cover depicts a classical image of a couple, and the creative bond between man and woman is a common theme running through all of Dallas' works.
The partially autobiographical Introductions to the book's two parts provide a fascinating insight into a man whose writings operate at the most profound level of thinking, and whose work is original, inspiring and transformative.
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From the Publisher
In his Introduction Ian Dallas says: "My desire is to submit my work to those fellow travellers who seek for maps to make sense of their life's journey."
And indeed, the Collected Works of Ian Dallas is an account of a journey. One man's journey, told from many angles, yet at the same time a vivid reflection of a whole society as it emerged out of the World War spanning from 1914 to 1945, and culminating in the situation which we see in the world today.
The Works
The Collected Works consist of three plays and four prose pieces, each of the two parts being prefaced by a fascinating introduction. The works were written between 1952, when the author was a 22-year-old student at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the present day where we find him, more active and prolific as a writer than ever before, engaged in a series of world-wide activities enacting those conclusions to which his journey has taken him.
`A Masque of Summer' was Ian Dallas' first play and was first presented at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre. A comedy in three Acts, its story revolves around Louisa, the young socialite daughter of high-society parents, subject of ceaseless attentions and yet lost to her own true identity. The play is about her collapse into despair and illness, then her recovery from the edge of death, and her encounter with three very different suitors.
`The Face of Love' is a Tragedy in three Acts set in a modern-day Troy, portrayed as the unquestionable State, besieged by the Greeks and on the verge of war. Dallas portrays the illusion of a society: the absolute sanctity of the Nation State of Troy, along with exaltation of its mythic heroine Helen, representing an idealised beauty and freedom-rhetoric which all citizens affirm. Yet amid the strain of events and the threat of death, matters change.
The truth of the situation is not arrived at rationally, rather by insight in the hearts of men. It takes the advent of passionate love between man and women, innocent and rising above the rationale, to finally lay bare the terrible hypocrisy which is the cause of the imminent suffering. `The Face of Love' is a tragedy, and the characters move forward to their fate. Dallas utilises myth and stage to awaken his audience to the underlying realities of modern political power.
`Oedipus and Dionysus', written almost three decades later, overlaps with this theme and moves to a resolution and a breakthrough. Confronted by the destiny script-written for them by those seemingly inescapable worldly forces put forward as `The Gods' by scheming men, the couple, Oedipus and Astymedusa, at the last moment reject the dreadful doom which they are asked to accept.
Ian Dallas describes `The Ten Symphonies of Gorka König' as a `Fictional Textbook', and indeed, although it is a fictitious biography interwoven among the historical events of the Twentieth Century, it has the capacity to transform its readers.
Dallas' masterly ability to suspend the reader between fact and fiction produces an extraordinary opening which could not be reached by factual argument. This coupled with the winning, passionate vibrancy of the book's narrative and the realism of the Symphonies themselves, described in intimate detail, captures the reader and draws him into the world of the German composer, his philosopher father, and his psychologist wife Frieda Ludendorff.
With characteristic decisiveness, Ian Dallas opens his next work, `The New Wagnerian':
"Do not be put off by Wagner's bitterly sarcastic critics, or perhaps, yes, do be put off. If you view life as they do, and envy vastness of spirit and profundity of meditative reflection on existence and nature, and surrender to the erotic drive, yes, do turn away. Wagner is not for you."
The book is an appreciation of the man and his music. It is also the portrait of a visionary ahead of his time, and the social questions which he tackled. And it is a signpost to something beyond Wagner himself. Dallas quotes the great composer thus:
"`Revolution alone can give me the artists and audiences I need.'" Dallas continues: "Wagner said he would convey in his works the meaning of their revolution in its noblest form. Then, he insisted, there would be an audience which could understand him, for his contemporaries could not."
The next prose piece, `The Book of Strangers', was written in 1973 and quickly became celebrated as a vivid and memorable account of the quest for genuine knowledge and the journey to the Spiritual Master. Set in the not-too-distant future, it follows the Clerk of the State Library as he is re-posted as Keeper of the Archives to replace the former incumbent who has inexplicably disappeared. The Clerk soon discovers that Kasul, like him, had been dissatisfied with what now passed as knowledge: mere information, that is: and that his yearning, like his own, had caused him to set out in search of something he could not yet formulate or imagine.
Journeying out to the deserts, he hears of the Shaykh of Instruction, the man of perfected knowledge. After becoming Muslim to begin the travel in earnest, he enters the world of the Sufic Brotherhood and meets his Master and the great men of knowledge who surround him.
The final piece, `The Gestalt of Freedom' is a study of that principle theme in the work of Germany's great author, poet and most decorated soldier of both Wars, Ernst Jünger. Ian Dallas explains that the culmination of Jünger's work, and the encapsulation of this Gestalt, or Form, of freedom, can be found in his book, `Der Waldgang'.
"The book," writes Dallas, "announces that we need a new concept of freedom. Defining the state system by the metaphor of a boat, and not just any liner, but indeed the Titanic, Jünger insists that the first question of existence is, `Is it possible to stay on the boat and preserve one's independence of decision?'"
"The central Gestalt of the book," continues Dallas, "is that of the one who goes into the forest. It is not a romantic or literal image. The forest he defines as the non-temporal, it is the inner zone, where the conscious break is made with the horrific lie of the now magical social contract. It is not a form of anarchy opposed to the mechanical world."
About the Author
Ian Dallas was born in Scotland in 1930. Educated at Scotland's oldest school, Ayr Academy, he went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and London
University, where he was tutored in Elizabethan social history by Muriel St. Clare Byrne. On leaving R.A.D.A. he wrote his first play, 'A Masque of Summer', which was presented at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre. His second play was first presented at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and then at R.A.D.A.'s Vanburgh Theatre with Albert Finney in the lead. This led to a BBC TV presentation with Peter Cushing and Mary Morris.
Contracted to BBC TV Drama, there followed a series of plays and dramatisations. With Constance Cox he initiated the first ever BBC TV classical series with 'Jane Eyre' and 'Vanity Fair'. His original plays on TV included 'Statue of David' with Jill Bennet and 'Light from a Star' with Isa Miranda.
Ian Dallas entered Islam in 1963 in Fes, Morocco. He is the author of two novels: 'The Book of Strangers' and 'The Ten Symphonies of Gorka König: a fictional textbook', a philosophical study, 'The New Wagnerian', and a political study, `The Time of the Bedouin - on the politics of power'. In 2001 the Science University of Penang, Malaysia conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate of Literature for his life's writings. In 2004 he founded Dallas College, an institute of higher education in Cape Town, South Africa. His Collected Works were published in 2005 by Budgate Press.
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