All the lonely people

I've been hearing just a tiny bit of buzz about Susan Boyle, the singer who wowed the judges on a recent episode of Britain's Got Talent, then happened to catch this story by Lisa Schwarzbaum (a film critic I much like) on ew.com, and read on. Then I watched the clip, contained within Schwarzbaum's story.

Boyle, 47, confesses shyly to the camera that she's "never been kissed" and hopes to "rock" the crowds. When she walks out on stage, the audience is clearly unimpressed with her dowdy clothes and frizzy hair. But her voice is lovely.


I got choked up too, just like Lisa Schwarzbaum. In the comments field below Schwarzbaum's PopWatch article, I noticed this posting that included a Wallace Stevens poem. That's always nice. Sometimes anonymous website postings are pure drivel. TCRNY, posting at Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 10:05 AM EST, provided something insightful:

"I'm with Lisa. I never watch "Idol" but checked out the video on YouTube after hearing about Susan this morning on CNN. As soon as she began to sing, I was in tears. Why? Because her the theme of her song, "I Dreamed A Dream" was being enacted before my eyes; a plain, unappreciated middle-aged woman from the provinces braved ridicule, then opened her mouth to sing the beautiful, perfectly-pitched song of the human soul. It's there in all of us. Wallace Stevens put it this way:
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang.
And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
"Soul transforms life;
Susan Boyle suprised us all and sang for everyone."

I liked this post as well. Marissa - Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 10:11 AM EST - said

"This moved me because it was an older contestant reaching for her dreams, who stood in the face ofridicule from thousands of people, then blew them all away with the beauty of her voice. And those of you who are saying her voice is just okay are on crack. Her voice is untrained -- what you are hearing is the rough draft. She has had no formal training whatsoever but can hold her own with some of the best. That should say enough."

When I watched the clip again and read the comments to the PopWatch story, I thought of Miss Brill, the protagonist of Katherine Mansfield's much-anthologized story. (I had to stop teaching it because so many students mocked the poor character, but I still recommend it to students I think will have the maturity to empathize with her.)


Oh Miss Brill - she forever breaks my heart. I love Mansfield's story deeply because it does so touch me every time I read it. Miss Brill is so lonely and forlorn, yet so hopeful that there's a place for her in the park.

There are so many of us in this lone world and wide. Sometimes I feel crushed when I think of all the despair. "Eleanor Rigby" said the same thing even more beautifully.



Sadly, Miss Brill is disappointed. Eleanor Rigby dies alone. But Susan Boyle might have that happy ending.