Welles on Hemingway

A fascinating interview where Orson Welles discusses his relationship with Ernest Hemingway.

 

The Greatest Love Story of the 20th Century

I like just about anything that Sarah Vowell writes, but this piece about Johnny Cash and June Carter is probably my favorite.

 

Happy Birthday Studs

Today would have been Studs Terkel's 100th birthday. Unfortunately Studs only made it to 96, so her is not here to celebrate. Below is a short animated film from NPR's StoryCorps—"The Human Voice"—based on a recording of Studs.

Here is also a longer interview with Studs when he was in his middle 80's, talking about his life and career as an actor, writer and TV/Radio broadcaster. He was a fascinating man.

The Death of Poor Joe (1901)

Recently discovered, The Death of Poor Joe is believed to be oldest surviving film based on a Dickens character—Jo from "Bleak House". Here is an article from the Guardian on the film.

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck

Today is the 110th anniversary of John Steinbeck's birth. To mark this I was going to post a video of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. However, this two part video of Steinbeck's son, Thomas, discussing their dog Charley is much more entertaining. Charley is the dog Steinbeck wrote about in his book Travels with Charley.

The Swerve

Last night the National Book Award for non-fiction was awarded to Stephen Greenblatt for his book, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. The book is about the poem "On the Nature of Things", written by Lucretius over two thousand years ago. It was then lost for 1,000 years, and then rediscovered by Poggio Bracciolini in 1417.

I read the book last month, and am skeptical of Greenblatt's thesis that the rediscovery of this poem sparked the renaissance, but it is an incredibly interesting story all the same.

Here is an interview with Greenblatt where he discusses the book.

The Greater Journey

An interview with David McCullough discussing his most recent book, The Greater Journey. I am reading this book about Americans who went to Paris in the 1800's. The books covers a lot of interesting people, and since I didn't know hardly anything about French history between the downfall of Napoleon and the beginning of WW I, I am learning a lot.

Devil Sent the Rain

Tom Piazza discusses his recent book of essays, "Devil Sent the Rain". Some of the essays are from his previous work for the Oxford American magazine. He also is writer for the HBO series Treme.

To End All Wars

Next up on my reading list To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild. Published today, the book explores the conflict between pacifists and those supporting Britain's entry into WW I.

Hochschild's 1999 book, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, covers the little known history of the Belgium Congo. The story in that book is so gruesome, it is hard to believe it actually happened. In 2005 he published Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. I would say the Hochschild is one of the best non-fiction writers today, so I am anxious to read his new book.

The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah Vowell talking about her book on the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Titled The Wordy Shipmates, the book focuses on the writings of the early settlers, including John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity". 17th Century New Englanders argued about justification by grace, the way people today argue about a balance budget. The subject may change, but the argument remains the same.

No matter what topic Vowell decides to write about, she can always make it engaging.This book was published a couple years ago, but I just got around to reading it.

Tennessee Williams @ 100

Tennessee Williams was born 100 years ago today.

To mark his birthday excerpts from an American Theatre Wing seminar, "Interpreting Tennessee Williams," a remarkable one-time-only meeting of cast members from two concurrent Williams revivals on Broadway (2005) -- Natasha Richardson, John C. Reilly and Chris Bauer of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Jessica Lange and Christian Slater of "The Glass Menagerie."

Beatrice and Virgil

So I final read Beatrice and Virgil, and I liked it probably even more than Life of Pi. I like the fact that Yann Martel always tries to write something totally different than what he has written before. A lot of authors just try to do the same thing over and over.

My favorite part of the book would have to be Virgil's attempt to explain to Beatrice what a pear is. After you read this you will never look at a pear the same again.

There is also a lot of brutality in the book, but at the same time the relationship between Beatrice—a donkey— and Virgil—a howler monkey— is quite moving.

I already have posted two video of Martel discussing this book, so you can go back and look at them for more on this book. (April 14, 2010 and May 24,2010)

Mark Twain

A lot has been written about Mark Twain this year, since it is the 100th anniversary of his death. This article, from the Los Angeles Times, has three lists of works by Twain: Essential, Overrated and Overlooked.

My two favorite works by Twain are not on these lists. I have previously posted an animated version of one of them,The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Described by the publisher as:

The Diaries--written near the end of Mark Twain's life and career--are perhaps his wisest, most personal works. The wry humor we expect is matched by a heartbreaking tenderness found nowhere else in his writings. And it was only in Eve that Twain ever wrote from a woman's viewpoint. An afterword details Twain's fascination with Adam and the parallels between his own marriage and Adam and Eve as depicted in the Diaries.

My other favorite is The War Pray, written by Twain during the furor of the Philippine-American War. It was not published until years after his death, because as Twain himself said, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth".

He is an animated version of the Pray, which is actually more of a polemic, than a work of fiction. The animation in this version is adequate, by I much prefer John Groth's illustrations that are included in the print edition.

In two parts.

Tinkers

I just finished reading Tinkers by Paul Harding. This book won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I have to say that this year my taste, and the taste of the Pulitzer judges diverge quite a bit.

If you are into tediously long sentences, this is the book for you. It may be that my attention span is too short, but all too often I found myself thinking where the hell did this sentence start, and is it ever going to end.

The plot involves a dying man, and the story of his father and grandfather. George Crosby, the dying man, fixes old mechanical clocks, which acts as a metaphor for much that goes on in the book. His father and grandfather have both been forced, by circumstances, to abandon their families. Their stories are interwoven with scenes from Crosby's death bed.

You can rightfully argue that the writing is accomplished. Here is an impressive passage:

Eighty-four hours before he died, George thought, Because they are like tiles loose in a frame, with just enough space so they can all keep moving around, even if it's only a few at a time and in one place, so that it doesn't seem like they are moving, but the empty space between them, and that empty space is the space that is missing, the last several pieces of colored glass, and when those pieces are in place, that will be the final picture the final arrangement. But those pieces, smooth and glossy and lacquered, are the dark tablets of my death, in gray and black, and bleached, drained, and until they are in place, everything else will keep on shifting. And so this end in confusion, where when things stop I never get to know it, and this moving is that space, is that what is yet to be, which is for others to see filled wherever it may finally be in the frame when the last pieces are fitted and the others stop, and there will be the stopped pattern, the final array, but not even that, because that final finitude will itself be a bit of scrolling, a pearlescent clump of tiles, which will generally stay together but move about within another whole and be mingled with in endless ways of other people's memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all of the other vitreous squares floating about in whoever else's frames, because there is always the space left in reserve for the rest of their own time, and to my great-grandchildren, with more space than tiles, I will be no more than the smoky arrangement of a set of rumors, and to their great-grandchildren I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and colored me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world because they were made from this world, even though the fleeting tenants of those bits of colored glass have vacated them before they have had even the remotest understanding of what it is to inhabit them, and if they-if we are fortunate (yes, I am lucky, lucky), and if we are fortunate, have fleeting instants when we are satisfied that the mystery is ours to ponder, if never to solve, or even just rife personal mysteries, never mind those outside-are there even mysteries outside? a puzzle itself-but anyway, personal mysteries, like where is my father, why can't I stop all the moving and look out over the vast arrangements and find by the contours and colors and qualities of light where my father is, not to solve anything but just simply even to see it again one last time, before what, before it ends, before it stops. But it doesn't stop; it simply ends. It is a final pattern scattered without so much as a pause at the end, at the end of what, at the end of this. - Kindle Loc. 520-38

I might admire the person who could write this, but it makes me dizzy to read.

After finishing the book, I went and looked at the comments on Amazon. It seems I am not the only person who noticed the striking similarity to the writing of Marilynne Robinson. Robinson's books Gilead and Home also deal with old men reconsidering their lives, and all three books have a pensive and reflective tone about them.

Robinson teaches at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where Harding has recently studied, so the influence appears to have been rather direct. They say that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", but that does not mean that it always works out. Robinson is one of my favorite writers. In my opinion, her writing is far more lucid than Harding's.

I think Tinkers could have made one, two or three good short stories, but for me in it's current form it did not work.

At the risk of sounding as cranky as H.L. Mencken, I will add one more point. What exactly is the problem with quotation marks? This is not the first book that I have read recent where the author disposed of quotes to mark dialogue. Maybe the lack of quotes is supposed to give the work a more stream of consciousness feel, but I for one find it annoying to have to constantly try to figure out if I am reading dialogue or description. This problem is made worse in this book, when it is difficult to remember where what you are currently reading actually started.

Extraordinary, Ordinary Family

Here is Condoleezza Rice's appearance at the National Press Club to promote her book Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me. A very fascinating talk about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in the 50's and 60's.

Note the first 5 minutes is introduction, so you can skip over that.

Elizabeth Gaskell

Today is the bicentennial of the birth of British novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Much of her work dealt with issues created by the rapid industrialization of mid-19th century England. This week a stained glass window honoring her was added to the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

In the last decade Gaskell has found renewed prominence based of the BBC's cinematic adaptations of several of here novels. Below is a trailer and a clip from two of those films.

Trailer for North & South.



An amusing scene from Cranford.

Allen Ginsberg—Photographer

The National Gallery has an exhibit, ending Thursday, of photographs by the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The New York Times has an article and a slide show of some of the photographs, including the one below of Jack Kerouac.

‘Beat Memories’

Parrot and Olivier in American

The short list for the Man Booker Prize was released today. Given to the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland, last year's prize went to my favorite book from last year, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. (See my previous post on Wolf Hall)

Of the six novels on this year's list, I have only read one, Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in American. I did like this book, but I found it a little hard to read. The book is told by the two main characters, Olivier, a French aristocrat who is kidnapped and sent to America by his mother to protect him from the machinations going on in France following the Revolution, and Parrot, a Briton sent along as Olivier's servant to look after him. The character of Olivier is loosely based on Alexis de Tocqueville.

The book explores the relationship between the aristocrat and his servant after they come to American, and goes back and forth between first person accounts by the two main characters. I suppose this was the best way to get into the characters of these two men, but I had a problem with the flow of the novel as the perspective switched back and forth. I was able to overcome that problem, because it is a very good story.

Here is a video of Peter Cary being interviewed about the novel.

To Kill a Mockingbird turns 50

To Kill a Mockingbird was published 50 years ago today, on July 11, 1960. To commemorate this event here is a short video about Harper Lee and the novel.

David Markson, R.I.P.

The New York Times today published an obituary for the writer David Markson, who died last Friday. The headline refers to him as a "Postmodern Experimental Novelist". Postmodern is a term that is hard to define, but if you read any of his recent books you will get a clear picture of what it is. On the other hand, it might be a stretch to refer to these books as novels. They probably deserve a genre all their own.

Wittgenstein's Mistress, which he published in 1988, is one of my all time favorite books. In the narrative of that book everyone has disappeared from the face of the earth, except one women who is living somewhere on the coast, I think in Greece maybe. She relates her shifting memories of the days before everyone disappeared and her subsequent travels around the world living in art museums.

Here is a video of Markson reading the ending of his last book, The Last Novel, a book which I have not read. Appropriately for the ending of his last book, this is about death. References are made in this excerpt to two of Markson's favorites, Wittgenstein and St. John of the Cross. Wittgenstein's Mistress also includes numerous references to these two men.