Note: do not update this page any more. The official page for "storytelling" is now this post.
Storytelling
ENGLISH LITERATURE
- The Beginnings to 1500
- The Renaissance
- The Seventeenth Century
- The Eighteenth Century
- The Romantic Period
- The Pre-Raphaelites: the last phase of the Romantic Period; transitioned to the Victorian
- Victorian
- The Victorian Period (1830 – 1901)
- The Georgian Period (1911 – 1936)
INDEX
(Note:
much of the history of writing below was taken directly from the web.
Do not copy it for publication or school papers; it will easily be
identified as plagiarism.)
Personal Thoughts
- Chet Raymo: Catholic Agnostic
Authors (those that have interested me)
- Overview
- The Brontës
- Jane Auste
- George Eliot
- Ernest Hemingway
- Eugene O’Neill
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Ovid
- T.S. Eliot
- The Romanticists
- Woolf
- Willa Cather
- Edith Wharton
Definitions, Writing, Concepts
Genres
Epic Sagas, Oral
Mythology
Epic Sagas, Written
Novella
English Poetry
Drama
The Novel
The Realistic Novel
Seventeenth Century
The Novel
Daniel Defoe
The Realistic Novel
Nineteenth Century
Pre-Raphaelites
Pre-Victorian
Edgar Allan Poe
Victorian Literature
The French and Russian Novel
The Gothic Novel
Romanticism
The American Novel
Exile Literature
Fin de Siècle
Decadence, Artifice and Aesthetics
Twentieth Century
The Modernists
The English Novel
The American Novel
American Writers
The French Novel
The Russian Novel
The Mystery Novel
Naturalism (Emile Zola)
Kafka
Graphic Novels
Gonzo
Miscellaneous
Poetry: definition
English Eras
Lists
Essays and Other Rambling Thoughts
Books in Apartment
Trivia – Connecting the Dots
Personal Thoughts
May 30, 2021: “cleansed”
July 10, 2019:
Jane Eyre: A Portrait of a Life, Twayne's Masterwork Studies, Maggie
Berg, c. 1987. Wow, what an incredible book/explanation/background of
Charlotte Brontë, England at the time, and her autobiography, Jane Eyre.
March 9, 2019: something I had never heard before — “The
Great Pause.” Between the end of the Romantic Period and the beginning
of the Victorian Period, there seems to be a void. Lucasta Miller refers
to it as “The Great Pause.” Her second book, the biography of L.E.L.
helps fill in that gap. Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Lucasta Miller’s first
book was a biography of the Brontës — her thesis in that book:
Elizabeth Gaskell and the eldest Brontë conspired to develop the myth of
the Brontës. The great Romanticists: “shelleybyronandkeats” and the
first Victorian of note, Charles Dickens. I’ve now added a small section
in the body of “storytelling” below to include this phase.
January 14, 2019:
I continue to read and I continue to take notes, but most of them are
now on “literature” blog. It’s too bad a lot of this will be lost when I
die, but I doubt the three grandchildren would have much time for my
writings. [Five grandchildren now.]
February 27, 2018:
it’s too bad the internet came along. LOL. Because of the internet, I
spend much more time “surfing” than I do serious reading. And,
unfortunately, I no longer, for the most part, keep journals. I update
my blog — including a literature blog. But my writings are strewn all
over the place. Today, I am reading Katherine Frank’s biography of
“Crusoe” and Daniel Defoe, c. 2004.
November 12, 2017:
two days ago I visited the library at a local community college, the
Tarrant County Community College. I was struck by the number of books
devoted to Shakespeare. Interestingly enough, it appeared the section on
literary authors was not alphabetical, but somewhat chronological. It
was interesting that after all the shelves on Shakespeare, the next
author that appeared was DeFoe.
November 12, 2017: I do a
lot of reading, although I have slowed down a lot since I started
blogging about the Bakken. In all the reading I have done, I had never
come upon “naturalism” or “realism” until I read Gilberto Perez’s essay
(p. 445) in New Literary History of America, edited by Greil Marcus and
Werner Sollors. Today, I added a section on “naturalism” and “realism”
but then it appears I already had a section on naturalism. I added my
“new” comments on naturalism to the “Naturalism” section. Briefly, it
appears naturalism followed (or was a reaction to) Romanticism. Realism
grew out of naturalism, and one might argue that dystopian literature
naturally followed realism.
May 16, 2017: I look at all
the books I’ve read since I began my “reading program” in 2004. It is
quite impressive. Looking at the list of books I’ve bought over the
years is a diary in itself, reminding me what I was interested in at the
time.
December 25, 2015: somewhere I wrote this
progression — I called it something like “passing the baton.” I can’t
find it now and can’t remember all the authors, but hopefully I can
either re-accomplish it or find it. For now, this is the progression of
the novel, invented by Daniel Defoe and moving to the present:
Defoe —> Robert Louis Stevenson —> Joseph Conrad —> Graham Green —> Ernest Hemingway —> Hunter S. Thompson
From
wiki:
Stevenson was seen for much of the 20th century as a
second-class writer. He became relegated to children's
literature and horror genres, condemned by literary figures
such as Virginia Woolf (daughter of his early mentor Leslie
Stephen) and her husband Leonard Woolf, and he was gradually excluded
from the canon of literature taught in schools.
His
exclusion reached its nadir in the1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of
English Literature where he was entirely unmentioned, and The Norton
Anthology of English Literature and excluded him from 1968 to 2000
(1st–7th editions), including him only in the 8th edition (2006).
The late 20th century brought a re-evaluation of Stevenson as an artist
of great range and insight, a literary theorist, an
essayist and social critic, a witness to the colonial
history of the Pacific Islands and a humanist. He was praised by Roger
Lancelyn Green, one of the Oxford Inklings, as a writer of a
consistently high level of "literary skill or sheer
imaginative power" and a pioneer of the Age of the Story
Tellers along with H. Rider Haggard. He is now evaluated as a peer of
authors such as Joseph Conrad( whom Stevenson influenced
with his South Seas fiction) and Henry James, with new
scholarly studies and organizations devoted to him. Throughout the
vicissitudes of his scholarly reception, Stevenson has
remained popular worldwide. According to the Index Translationum,
Stevenson is ranked the 26th-most-translated author in the world,
ahead of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.
December
25, 2015: our small apartment was becoming cluttered with way too many
books. A few weeks ago I put a large percentage of books in storage (a
storage closet on the patio of the apartment) keeping only the books I
thought I would be interested in this next year or so. I am hoping that a
year from now, I can go through storage, and throw away a large number
of books I will probably never look at again. One book I kept back was a
“throwaway,” American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever, c. 2006. It was a
very short book; the chapters were also very short. It was the story of
the Concord, MA, transcendentalists. It was really quite good; a nice
overview of that time and place. It got me interested (again) in the
subject, so I re-read a biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne by James R.
Mellow. It was the worst biography I have ever read. The writing was
bad; there were errors; and, the subject of the biography wasn’t
particularly interesting to begin with. I slogged through, mostly
skimming through the chapters. However, I followed that with Megan
Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters, c. 2005, and a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize. It was incredibly interesting; a real pleasure to read. It would
be a good book for someone like Arianna to read when she is in her
mid-teens. By the time she is in her late teens it might be too late for
her to absorb some of the lessons learned by Elizabeth Peabody about
the issues facing a young woman coming of age.
January 20, 2015:
I continue to read but not the “same way” I read when I began this
project. I think the scaffolding has been completed in this word
document. Now I add to it. I won’t subtract stuff, except through
editing to correct errors, but I will add items and they may not be
updated in the body of the document.
November 17, 2012: wow,
three years since I have updated personal thoughts regarding my reading
program. My handwritten journals have been kept up to date.
November 11, 2009
A couple weeks ago I deleted my blog (see July 5, 2009, entry) and
thus all the stuff I recorded regarding my reading program has been
lost. I will come back here to record my reading program.
I
am currently reading a) a biography of Anaïs Nin, by Bair; b) a
biography of Virginia Woolf; and, c) Adam Bede by George Eliot. The
latter is the most boring book I have ever read but I am slogging
through it. It droned on and on and then all of a sudden got very
interesting with a real plot about 2/3rds of the way through. Now I am
finally enjoying it.
I forgot the plot of Ethan Frome (see
July 5, 2009) so I had to quickly re-read it; then I remembered the
plot; it’s actually a pretty good book. They say Edith Wharton had a
great sense of humor and I enjoyed her biography; I find it fascinating
she could write such a dark, sad story as Ethan Frome.
July 5, 2009
I have run into a dilemma. I am using my blog to record my reading
program milestones, my reviews, etc. Because I don’t like doing things
twice, that means what I put on my blog is not being put here even when
it has to do with my reading program. I’m not sure what to do. For now,
if there seems to be gaps here, check my blog:
http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com. (It will link my literature
site.)
I am in my Edith Wharton phase: I have skimmed the
Hermione Lee biography of Wharton; I have read Edith’s autobiography, A
Backward Glance, and I have just completed what she considered her best
novel: Ethan Frome. [September 16, 2023: re-reading some of Hermione Lee's biography of Wharton -- I don't remember ever reading any of this book. How sad.]
I had always wanted to read Edith
Wharton but a recent discovery of a critical analysis of Willa Cather
and Edith Wharton in Susan Gilbert and Sandra Gubar’s No Man’s Land
spurred me into starting. I first read Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and
then moved on to Wharton. It was a slog to get through My Ántonia (the
subject did not interest me, the writing was unsophisticated, and it had
no action/no plot) but by the time I finished I was a wreck; very
tearful, just a great story. Willa Cather really makes one believe that
Ántonia/Tony is a real person. It was awesome. After that I read Ethan
Frome, which did not have the same emotional impact.
December 13, 2008
A comment on Amazon.com’s “Vine” program (see next entry dated
September 2, 2008): I think this program is a scam to some extent. I
have ordered several books and they are all very, very bad. I can see
why they are giving them away. The few good items they have, they run
out of so quickly one cannot order them, but it is very good
advertising. I probably won’t order any more from Vine.
Update, July 5,
2009: I continue to order occasionally from Amazon Vine. My views have
not changed. However, it’s a great marketing ploy: a) first, they create
some buzz on books by getting people to review them; and b) they find
out what we are interested in by teasing us with products (non-books)
that are not available. [Update, April 17, 2017: I haven’t ordered a
book from Amazon Vine in several years.]
September 2, 2008
I am really happy with my reading program. Because of my history of
reviews on Amazon.com, I was selected (among thousands more) to become a
member of the “vine.” As a member, I am given the opportunity to
select up to four books about every two months which will be mailed to
me free and free to keep – as long as I place a review on Amazon.com on
at least three of the four selections. The first selection was a book so
bad I can’t remember the title and I can’t find it on my bookshelves.
It was a first-hand account of a lawyer who hated his profession and has
since dropped out to write. I think he is still a lawyer. Regardless
his stories of law school are truly disgusting.
Today, I was
sent When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy by Chet Raymo. Raymo is
Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College in North Easton, MA.
He is the author of twelve books on science and nature. He has written
extensively on science, particularly nature. For twenty years he was a
science columnist for the Boston Globe. In this slim book Raymo posits
his “late-life credo,” in which he traces his half-century journey from
traditional faith-based Catholicism to scientific agnosticism. It is a
very enjoyable read. It dovetails nicely with my own reading program.
Herewith some fragments that remind me of my reading program and of the
wonderful opportunity to explore the world while in the Air Force:
Chapter One: Teilhard de Chardin; Graham Greene (p. 3); Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain (p. 3); Trappist monk.
Chapter Two: Charles Darwin, comets.
Chapter Three: Musee d’Orsay, Paris (p. 15); Richard Dawkins, p. 19;
dervish, p. 21; Cambellesque (Joseph Campbell), p. 21; Heloise and
Abelard, p. 22.
Chapter Four: London’s Victoria Station, p. 25;
Charles Darwin (Down House, Downe, England, fourteen miles south of
London), p. 25; physician/essayist, Lewis Thomas, p. 29; Goethe, p. 38.
Chapter Five: Goethe’s science led nowhere, p. 39.
Chapter Six: William of Ockham (14th century), p. 52
Chapter Seven: Florence Nightingale, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Updike, William Carlos Williams, John Ruskin.
Chapter Eight: Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Rene Descartes.
Chapter Nine: Francis Crick, Hamer: The God Gene, p. 91.
Chapter 10: --
Chapter 11: Wow – the book he gave to graduating students – the
1200-page saga of 14th century Norway, Sigrid Undset’s 1928 Nobel Prize
winning-novel, Kristin Lavransdatter! Specifically Tina Nunnally’s
translation. Catholic literature, p. 122.
Chapter 12: On death, p. 128.
Chapter 13: --
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao,” wrote Lao Tzu, 2500
years ago. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” – p.
31. That reminds me of the Nietzsche phrase I placed in my retirement
luncheon program: That which we find words for is that which we cannot
hold in our heart. -- Nietzsche
How interesting: Thomas
Henry Huxley, Darwin’s 19th century champion, coined the word agnostic.
It was first used in 1870. Gnostics referred to those who felt they
knew the answer to the Big Question, as Raymo phrases it, whereas Huxley
was stating as an agnostic, he had no answer(s) to the Big Question(s).
Raymo provides an explanation why Goethe has failed to endure, p. 39.
Raymo: “Like so many other apologists, Raymo is hypocritical. “Still,
for all of my agnosticism, I call myself a Catholic. Not because I can
recite the Creed (I can’t), or because I practice that particular faith
(I don’t), but because the substance of Catholicism went into my system
like mother’s milk.” (p. 20 – 21). It appears he is saying that because
he was born and raised a Catholic, he calls himself a Catholic.
Interesting. For a professor emeritus that does not sound particularly
profound.”
This is his credo: “I am an atheist, if by God
one means a transcendent Person who acts willfully within the creation. I
am an agnostic in that I believe our knowledge of “what is” is partial
and tentative – a tiny flickering flame in the overwhelming shadows of
ignorance. I am a pantheist in that I believe empirical knowledge of the
sensate world is the surest revelation of whatever is worth being
called divine. I am Catholic by accident of birth.”
It sounds
like he is still confused. Does one even need a credo? I am a
scientist who has trouble believing that “this” is just a random event
modulated by simple mathematical laws. That does not mean that “this”
might be all there is; it just seems hard to accept that.
[December 13, 2008: Even the title When God is Gone, Everything is Holy
– yes, like genocide, abortion? No, I think a moral compass is needed.
If there is nothing higher than man, then man can decide what is right
and wrong.]
August 30, 2008
My reading program
has recently included Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway. I have not
completed Sylvia’s journals; I have read several biographies of
Hemingway, and recently completed Islands in the Stream, the first
Hemingway novel after I completed several biographies of him and his
(four?) wives.
Recently I completed Isaac Asimov’s Guide to
the Bible, Vol II: The New Testament. On page 540, Asimov writes: “The
church at Laodicea is bitterly condemned [by John], not for being
outspokenly opposed to the doctrines favored by John, but for being
neutral. John apparently prefers an honest enemy to a doubtful friend...
‘Laodicean’ has therefore entered the English language as a word
meaning ‘indifferent’ or ‘neutral.’”
Today, while browsing at
Half-Price Books (with a further 20% off this Labor Day weekend), I
stumbled across A Laodicean: A Story of Today by Thomas Hardy. Only a
few hours earlier I was reading Francis Wilson’s 1999 Literary
Seductions. In the introduction, early in the book, p. xviii, Wilson
discusses ‘On the Western Circuit’ by Thomas Hardy. I watched the
two-part TV adaptation of this story, Day After the Fair, with a friend
in 2003. It was a chick flick and something I would normally not watch,
but with that particular person I was game for anything. To the best of
my knowledge I have never read any Thomas Hardy novel but have always
been curious, and with that as background, I may be entering the “Hardy
phase” of my reading program. At Half-Price Books I bought a brand new
copy (soft cover) of Thomas Hardy’s A Laodicean and a biography of
Thomas Hardy by Martin Seymour-Smith. In the introduction to A
Laodicean, the editor states that “In common with Hardy’s other novels, A
Laodicean, written on the threshold of early middle age draws on deeply
personal sources. He is reported to have claimed that it ‘contained
more of the facts of his own life’ than anything he had written.”
The story is summarized as follows in the introduction: “Its hero,
George Somerset, strongly resembles his creator’s younger self: an
architect inclined to introspection, Somerset has a history of writing
poetry and a lively interest in religious controversy…The novel,
however, largely turns its back on Hardy’s more distant past – the
agricultural setting of his childhood and adolescence that so richly
stimulated his imagination, provided the raw materials for much of his
fiction and also reverberated throughout his large poetic output.”
So, I may be moving into a new phase: Thomas Hardy. Something I never thought I would do.
June 20, 2008
I am typing the entire The Waves. [August 30, 2008: sometime in early
August I completed that project. I have typed The Waves in its entirety
and now I can go back and explore the novel, do some research.] I have
been unable to read The Waves so I thought if I typed it out I would be
forced to pay attention, and it has been interesting, annotating it
along the way. I typed the entire Mrs Dalloway in verse form some time
ago. While reading Mrs Dalloway the second time, I thought it read like
poetry; typing it in verse form confirmed it was poetry, and I saw many
things in verse form that I had not seen in prose alone.
June 11, 2008
Updating my regarding program. I have finished several biographies of
Ernest Hemingway and am now ready to start reading his novels. The
first novel I read was Islands in the Stream; I finished it last night; I
wrote about it elsewhere.
I am now into my Sylvia Plath
phase. I have read two biographies of her; a biography of her marriage
to Ted Hughes; and a sort of biography which chronicled the biographers,
particularly Anne Stevenson. I started reading her only novel, The Bell
Jar, today and will eventually get to her poems.
April 18, 2008
Update regarding my reading program. I have moved into my Ernest
Hemingway phase. He is more incredible than I ever imagined. Again, it
is too bad that students are required / encouraged to read Hemingway
before first reading about the man himself. I first read Hemingway: The
Final Years by Michael Reynolds (c. 1999) which really got me interested
in Hemingway. It covers the years 1940 (WWII) to his suicide in 1961.
Then I started Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s third
wife who was with him for eight years, most of them before WWII, with
them parting ways during the war. That was enough to get me started. I
had read much about Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald, so A Moveable
Feast was what I wanted to read first, two people Hemingway wrote about
in Feast. I really enjoyed the essays. Then, incredibly, I picked up a
hardcopy of Charles A Fenton’s The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway
for a measly $20 at a discount bookstore! And today I bought a hardback
copy of A Moveable Feast and started reading it again, now that I know
Hemingway better, understand the origin of his writing style, and know
more about the authors he wrote about. I just bought the life story of
Hemingway by Carlos Baker and Mary Hemingway (his fourth wife) but have
not yet started it. So, by the time I am well into my Hemingway phase I
will have completed not less than four books about him as well as A
Moveable Feast. At that point, I should be ready to tackle his novels.
So many vignettes. He is known to have written in short declarative
sentences, a style that he was forced to use when he wrote for the
Kansas City Star. Knowing that, he came a long way, and it must have
been very difficult for him to write the following paragraph – one long
sentence – in the opening essay of A Moveable Feast in which he
describes his early days in Paris when he was a starving author:
“All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold
rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as
you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed
doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the
newspaper shops, the midwife – second class – and the hotel where
Verlaine had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked.”
Isn’t that a great sentence for Hemingway, someone noted for writing
short, declarative sentences? One of the greatest joys I have had in
life was reading in bed with the love of my life; she loved to hear me
read, and I loved to read to her. If I came across a really good
sentence, I would read it again, out loud, just so we could share the
sentence again. I wish I could have that, that experience, back. I
would read out loud, she listening, with her eyes closed, big smile on
her face, and I remember silently crying if the passage was particularly
sad. I don’t think May has ever seen me cry. Of course, the line
above is not sad, but it struck me not only because it is not a short,
declarative sentence, but because it is also the complete paragraph.
[December 25, 2015: subsequent to the above, I re-read Islands In The
Stream; I found the book incredibly boring, and it was nothing more than
a memoir of those times when his three sons stayed with him in Cuba.
Had the author not been Hemingway, it’s hard to believe this book would
have been published.]
December 15, 2007
Update
regarding my reading program. I finished two biographies of Zelda
Fitzgerald, one by Nancy Milford and one by Sally Cline, the latter from
England. This is what I recorded elsewhere regarding Zelda after I
finished the Sally Cline bio: “Tears are streaming from my eyes. I have
just finished Sally Cline’s biography of Zelda Fitzgerald – the story of
a 20-something Southern belle who marries into the richness of the Jazz
Age, and in the process is chewed up, misdiagnosed as being
schizophrenic, and ends up living out her last 10 years without the love
of her life, in poverty, and alone. Very alone.” The price of genius?
Lately I have been attracted to biographies. I used to think that
biographies were quite boring but I now find them very, very
interesting; I wonder if this has something to do with age? Although I
do remember in middle school that I really enjoyed biographies of
Abraham Lincoln (Carl Sandburg) and Albert Schweitzer.
I
always try to carry a book with me wherever I go; this week I didn’t
have many unread paperbacks to choose from, so I chose a biography of
Leonard Woolf. The author argues that Leonard Woolf was responsible for
Virginia Woolf’s insanity which I find highly incredible: a) Virginia
had a family history of mental illness; and b) she had two documented
(major?) “nervous breakdowns” before she even met Leonard. I argue
that Leonard’s support “saved” Virginia from a) being placed in a
nursing home or mental health facility; or b) an even earlier suicide.
However, I do have two “new” books I am quite excited to start reading
– but too heavy to carry around. The first is Henry James: A Life, by
Leon Edel; and the second, Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis,
by Paul O’Keeffe. It appears that Leon Edel spent his life researching
and writing about Henry James; the book I have is an abridged version
of his five –volume biography of James. About the same time I found a
hardcover that attracted my attention. The photo of the subject,
Wyndham Lewis, piqued my interest, but I have put it off until I
finished the Zelda biographies. The other night, while waiting for the
trucks to return to the FedEx facility (I was waiting for a package to
be delivered; I was not home when they attempted to drop it off the
first time), I started reading the Wyndham Lewis bio. Wow, the writing
is outstanding. It starts out with an excellent description of a
pituitary tumor, the cause of Wyndham’s death, which is some of the best
non-professional medical writing I have ever read. Paging through the
book, it appears that Windham was part of the Bloomsbury Group. We will
see. I have not seen his name in all the diaries, letters, or
biographies regarding Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.
I completed Lucia Joyce (daughter of James Joyce) by Schloss (the
second time I have read this biography) last week, and am still reading
the bio of Edmund Wilson. I have also finally started the biography of
Albert Einstein, a gift from one of May’s closest friends, Ellen Barry.
Ellen sent me the book as a birthday present last year, and I put it off
until I thought I would be interested in reading about Einstein
(again). I remember reading an Einstein biography many, many years ago.
November 26, 2007
I seem to be moving into a new phase: “my” F. Scott Fitzgerald /
Ernest Hemingway phase. It all started with, generally, Edmund Wilson
and then more specifically, with the Nancy Milford biography of Zelda
Sayre Fitzgerald. I am eager to read around and about Hemingway and
then his novels. Based on the Zelda biography and the little browsing I
have done at Borders Bookstore, it appears to me that there is no
comparison between these two, Fitzgerald and Hemingway. It appears to
me that Fitzgerald struggled and in the end did not produce much in the
way of novels, although he may have had more success with short
stories. It also appears that he stole most of his material from
journals, diaries, letters of others, especially girl- and
women-friends. Only recently has it come to light that he stole from
Ginerva King, his first love, a 16-year-old, when he was a Princeton
student; he made typewritten copies of the love letters she sent him and
from those wrote one of his successful novels. He also stole directly
from Zelda’s diary and probably her letters. I was surprised by the
thinness of The Great Gatsby. It looks like it could have been written
in a long weekend. He also signed his name to many short pieces / short
stories that were actually written by Zelda, knowing that he had more
“star” power. He was an alcoholic from age 19 or so, and wouldn’t admit
to it. He was narcissistic – more than most, if that is possible – and I
think he had a lot to do with Zelda’s insanity.
On the other
hand, it appears that Ernest Hemingway was a serious writer and really
did some good stuff with his novels. I can understand why Hunter S
Thompson idolized Hemingway. I can’t wait to read some of Hemingway’s
best-known works. I will have to read one or two of Fitzgerald’s novels
and a couple short stories, but something tells me I won’t appreciate
him much.
November 24, 2007
Ref: Zelda by Nancy Milford; Lucia Joyce by Schloss; Edmund Wilson by Dabney Lewis.
Zelda and Lucia both very interested in dance; both trying ballet in
their 20s (way too late to begin ballet); both hospitalized by same
psychiatrist in same Swiss psychiatric hospital just a few years apart
(1930 vs 1934, roughly). Very interesting. Also, need to explore
“eurhythmics” more. Eurhythmics was a movement founded in Europe
(Geneva?); Lucia became interested in it, and of course, there was a
rock sensation in the 90’s: the Eurhythmics. Eurhythmics, also called
“rhythmic gymnastics” or simply “rhythmics,” is an approach used in the
education of children to music.
Reading about Zelda and Lucia
it is interesting to see how F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and others
crossed paths. Simply fascinating. I find myself moving into phases.
I find myself moving into a new phase; I can’t remember how it first
started. I do remember that I read something that took me back to
Edmund Wilson, who seems to be the center of so much of the early 20th
century literature with which I am familiar. I am still reading Edmund
Wilson. Because of this reading, I will have to read some of Hemingway,
including A Moveable Feast, as well as Zelda’s only novel, Save Me For
The Last Waltz, which, based on excerpts, may not be all that good. We
will see.
So, my addiction to literature continues.
I have been typing quite a bit from Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae:
at least a few paragraphs from each chapter, and much more of several
chapters.
I am also typing a bit from Harold Bloom’s Critical Views of Virginia Woolf, an anthology of critical essays.
Stacked beside my reading chair is also an abridged edition of John
Ruskin’s Modern Painters and Tadié’s biography of Marcel Proust.
So, that’s my reading list for the moment.
November 19, 2007
Sometime ago, perhaps two or three years ago I literally stumbled
across Edmund Wilson. I had no idea who he was, but I am now reading
him and those in his circle. Wow, what a trip! It’s a whole new world –
all the American writers in the early 20th century. I am reading a
biography of Edmund Wilson, and I am also reading a biography of Zelda
Sayre Fitzgerald. And their biographies overlap completely. And they
bring in so many other poets / writers I have read or read about:
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Marianne Moore (in fact I feel
connected with Marianne Moore in some way, and have “fallen in love”
with her, if that’s possible – after the rum and Coke, I think anything
is possible)[Commonplace Notes on Marianne Moore], T. S. Eliot, Gertrude
Stein. They don’t mention Virginia Woolf, but they do mention Anaïs Nin
– to whom Edmund Wilson wrote. Wow! It is very, very interesting.
I am also reading the biography of James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia Joyce
– fascinating story. So simultaneously three biographies: Lucia Joyce,
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and Edmund Wilson. They all cross paths at
points – perhaps best connection is with Ezra Pound, who connects with
Edmund Wilson and with James Joyce. And, I am also re-reading and
typing some portions of Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae. We just saw
the new move Beowulf, so I pulled out my two copies of Beowulf [1.
Seamus 2. Norton Critical edition, prose translation] and looked at that
story again.
November 2, 2007
I am substitute
teaching at high school and middle school at Fort Sam Houston. I have
spent a number of days teaching 6th grade English. The teacher is
reading a contemporary novel Rats to the children, and currently the
children are reading, together, another contemporary novel, Hatchet. I
just took a look at my notes on Robinson Crusoe. It is obvious to me
that one could find a version of Robinson Crusoe that would be
appropriate for 6th graders. Robinson Crusoe is a classic, considered
the first English novel, and certainly a better choice than the
contemporary novel. I honestly don’t understand it; there is so little
time, and so little reading that is required, it seems that I would work
to make the most of that limited time, exposing children / adolescents /
young adults to best literature possible.
Currently
reading: Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia; biography of Edmund Wilson
(Lewis M. Danbey); edited Ruskin’s Modern Painters; Constants of Nature
(physics, math).
July 1, 2007
The biography of
Graham Greene, by Norman Sherry, led me to Joseph Conrad, and I have
quickly read, but need to re-read, Heart of Darkness, and am currently
reading Lord Jim. I assume I will complete Joseph Conrad by reading The
Secret Agent. (By the way, I am nearly finished with the first volume
of the 3-volume biography of Greene by Sherry.)
While
reading critical essays on Joseph Conrad, I was led to Ford Madox Ford, a
name I recognized from my pre-Raphaelite readings. I was confused. It
turns out that Ford Madox Ford was the grandson of Ford Madox Brown,
the Pre-Raphaelite painter. The younger Madox (born Ford Hermann
Hueffer) wrote a biography of his grandfather.
Ford Madox Ford wrote The Good Soldier (1915), which has been tagged as the “best French novel written in English.”
Ford Madox Ford founded The English Review in 1908 and published
Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, John Galsworthy,
and William Butler Yeats.
Finally, FMF collaborated on two novels with Joseph Conrad.
June 1, 2007
I am really enjoying the first volume of three of Norman Sherry’s
biography of Graham Greene, the famous 20th century English author:
self-destructive, suicidal, and oversexed. I have comprehensive notes
in a commonplace book elsewhere (not yet transcribed).
April 21, 2007
I have finished Juliet Barker’s The Brontës. By the time I got
about halfway through it was becoming quite tedious, too much detail. I
scanned through the last half fairly quickly. This is a great
reference book.
April 15, 2007
I am so
excited! I stumbled across a “new” biography of the Brontës! This is
the biography that may be the definitive biography of the Brontës (at
least for the next ten years). It is written by an English Ph.D. who
was a curator at the Brontë parsonage and museum for six years. This
book, the product of 11 years of research, 830 pages long, with an
additional 152 pages of notes, and 20 pages of index. This will keep me
occupied for many weeks. I have already 50 pages and so far it has
only been about Patrick Brontë, the patriarch, and finally he is
engaged, but not yet married, to Maria Branwell. Wow, this book gets
into the weeds.
November 30, 2006
I love to
write letters, and I love to talk about what I’m reading.
Unfortunately, I’ve not found anyone who shares my interests, and I
often feel my letters fall on deaf ears. The recipients always tell me
they enjoy my letters but they don’t seem to engender any further
discussion. The other night I realized that I have been blessed with
two grandchildren whom I will enjoy writing to.
In
addition, if Laura continues with her plans as a missionary, I am sure
she will enjoy letters from me, and who knows, perhaps she can share the
letters with those she ministers to. We will see.
August 24, 2006
I am reading Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary, edited by her husband
Leonard, and first published in 1953. It is absolutely fascinating on
my levels, but for the purpose of this chapter, it is fascinating
because she mentions so many famous writers and how reading prepared her
for her own writing. She also wanted to a write a book compiling all
her essays about literature. She mentions all the great 19th century
female authors, the Brontës, George Eliot and Jane Austin, and then she
goes on from there. It is absolutely fascinating. I feel I have found a
soul mate. I’m not sure I can go back to Jane Austen or the others.
May 10, 2005
I have started reviewing that very short anthology, and have started reading some of the selections.
It is interesting how fast so many literary dots can be connected.
I’m not sure how to organize my thoughts about the literature I’m reading, but I’m going to try.
So, let’s get started. Many of the longer passages below were “cut and
paste” items from the internet, so not all entries are original. It
should be obvious which writing is mine and which is taken from other
sources.
May 10, 2005, is when I first started this
chapter, but from this point on, I will update the information below but
will not date the additions or modifications. Comments regarding this
chapter will continue to be dated and will be placed at the top, in
chronological order, the newest entry at the top.
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