May 16
A few years ago, Philip Roth hung up his pen/typewriter/keyboard and retired from writing novels.
For a guy that’s won a Pulitzer and a ridiculous amount of other awards, and for a guy who’s written a crapload of highly acclaimed novels, that’s significant.
Not long after his retirement, NPR sat down with Roth for an interview. And, as you would expect, he uttered brilliance. Some great quotes from the interview (all interview quotes via NPR):
We’ve talked about Hemingway’s fascinating life the last couple of days, so—as morbid as it might be—I thought we’d talk about his death today.
Hemingway’s funeral was private and, at the time, his death was still a mystery.
His wife, and even the authorities, said the death was accidental. But people were suspicious because of Papa’s widely known abuse of alcohol and his battles with depression. Two days prior to his death, he had returned from the Mayo Clinic for treatment for “hypertension.”
Here’s how an article in The New York Times on July 5, 1961 described Hemingway’s funeral and the mystery surrounding his death.
Seeing Lady Gaga in a meat dress was one of the great visual regrets of my life. The only thing that could top that, perhaps, would be seeing Ernest Hemingway in a meat dress.
What am I talking about? I don’t know. It’s just that the biographer in this “mini bio” about Hemingway called Papa “the Lady Gaga of his era”…so there you go.
If you didn’t make it through yesterday’s post detailing some of the wild highlights of Ernest Hemingway’s life, or last week’s post about his revolutionary writing style, then today you have another opportunity.
This is an excellent short video bio from The Biography Channel that focuses on his extraordinary life.
Enjoy.
I’m convinced Ernest Hemingway was the inspiration behind the “World’s Most Interesting Man” Dos Equis advertisements.
That actor even looks like Hemingway in his later years. And, honestly, doesn’t one of the ads feature bullfighting? Come on! That’s Hemingway!
Regardless of whether or not he inspired the Dos Equis ads, Hemingway was extremely interesting. Just read about him for 5 minutes and you can figure that out.
That’s what I did. And to save you the trouble of googling and all that nonsense, I put together a timeline of highlights of many of the things Hemingway did in his life—things that me and you haven’t done and probably will never do.
Read this. It’s longer than my usual post, but I promise it will be worth your time. This is amazing.
In 2007, when Doris Lessing was 87, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
She was the 11th woman (and the oldest person) to win the literature prize. If you don’t know Lessing’s story, it’s pretty amazing. She was born in Persia (now Iraq) and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). She never finished high school and basically taught herself through a passion of reading.
She’s written dozens of novels, including my current read, The Golden Notebook, as well as nonfiction, plays, and two autobiographies. The Swedish Academy that announces the award had this to say about The Golden Notebook, regarded as her premiere work: “The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work, and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship.”
I hate cats. I really hate cats.
Kittens are fun. They’ll play and do cute stuff. But domestic cats are horrible creatures. They’re like an unemployed relative who lays on your couch all day and gives you a disapproving stare when you order Chinese take-out instead of cooking at home.
Cats suck.
But this post isn’t about my opinion on cats. It’s about Doris Lessing’s opinion on cats. She the author of my current read, The Golden Notebook.
And Doris Lessing loved cats. A lot.
In her introduction to The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing discusses how she used to get a lot of mail from college students asking her for a list of “authorities” and critics who have commented on her work. This, of course, was long before the internet.
That prompts her to write several pointed paragraphs about what she calls the “literary machine.” It’s pretty awesome to read, especially if you tire of the pretentiousness of many literary critics. Here’s part of what she said:
Sometimes we forget that authors are normal people just like us. They have likes and dislikes that extend well beyond their writing in the same way we do.
Richard Wright was into Haiku. Jonathan Franzen is an avid bird watcher. Stephen King is a Boston Red Sox fanatic.
But this side interest/hobby might be the most unusual: Vladimir Nabokov was an amateur lepidopterist.
A what? A lepidopterist is someone who is interested in butterflies, and Nabokov had a heavy interest in butterflies.
This story in the Hindustan Times last week describes how Nabokov inherited his passion for butterflies from his parents. When Nabokov was 8, he even took a butterfly to his father’s jail cell after he was imprisoned for his political views in Russia.
According to an article in The New York Times, Nabokov would have become a full-time lepidopterist if his family had not gone into exile during the Russian Revolution in 1919.
Nabokov’s expertise on butterflies eventually led to a theory that became widely accepted in the lepidopterist community (yes, there is such a thing). Here’s how the article explains it:
Holy crap.
If Hunter S. Thompson had treated his body well, I’m guessing he could’ve been an Olympic athlete–since he lived until 67 while doing this to himself.
Thompson doesn’t have a book on the Time list, but you might know him from having written Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell’s Angels, and creating what is now called “Gonzo Journalism.”
Even if it’s only halfway truthful, wow. As crazy and morbidly fascinating and sad as this is, you’ve got to love the entry for 6 a.m.
I think this is fascinating. It’s like a short piece of reality TV long before reality TV was cool. But instead of bratty teenagers or redneck duck hunters, it’s a world-famous author.
It’s just a short little video of Vladimir Nabokov perusing all of the versions of Lolita on his bookshelf.
When I grow up, I want to be a novelist who’s had a book published in 8 trillion different languages with 8 trillion different covers. Just not Lolita.
And I want to put all these books on a bookshelf and show party guests the third printing of the Swahili translation of my novel. And is he wearing a bathrobe?
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