I was given a copy of “The Razor’s Edge” quite a while ago by a former employer stating “this is one of my favorite books and novels.” He meant that he liked the story and like the look of the book, physically. The book was given to him by the matriarch of a very prominent Seattle family when she was closing up and selling off her properties on the San Juans. I still have it and I hope to do the same with it one day.
Today is the birthday of W. Somerset Maugham, born in Paris (1874). His father was in Paris as a lawyer for the British Embassy. When Maugham was eight years old, his mother died from tuberculosis. His father died of cancer two years later. The boy was sent back to England into the care of a cold and distant uncle, a vicar. Maugham was miserable at his school. He said later: “I wasn’t even likeable as a boy. I was withdrawn and unhappy, and rejected most overtures of sympathy over my stuttering and shyness.” Maugham became a doctor and practiced in the London slums. He was particularly moved by the women he encountered in the hospital, where he delivered babies; and he was shocked by his fellow doctors’ callous approach to the poor. He wrote: “I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face; I saw courage and steadfastness. I saw faith shine in the eyes of those who trusted in what I could only think was an illusion and I saw the gallantry that made a man greet the prognosis of death with an ironic joke because he was too proud to let those about him see the terror of his soul.”
When he was 23, he published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, about a working-class 18-year-old named Liza who has an affair with a 40-year-old married man named Jim, a father of nine. Jim’s wife beats up Liza, who is pregnant, and who miscarries, and dies. The novel was a big success, and Maugham made enough money to quit medicine and become a full-time writer. For many years, he made his living as a playwright, but eventually he became one of the most popular novelists in Britain. His novels include Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), and The Razor’s Edge (1944).
Somerset Maugham said, “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
Every birthday, I drag out this old nugget, read it over, add/delete/edit anything that needs changing to match how I feel now and post it as my birthday gift to you. Since today is my 43rd birthday, here it is.
I’ve learned that it’s taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want to continue to grow and change and progress until I die. I do not ever want to rest on my laurels, get set in my ways, do something a specific way for no other reason that I have always done it that way. I want to be routinely evaluating my choices to see if they still match with the person I am and the person I am on my way to becoming. We can all do that, think about what is important to you and then reflect at the end of the day, as you drift off to sleep, to see if you accomplished it. It is really less of a score card and more of a reminder for the next day. Did you possess compassion whenever possible and applicable? Did you express gratitude to your friends and family for being able to share each other’s life?
I’ve learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. The past is nothing we can control and it can color who we are, but we can make the decision to be anything we set our minds to. Create your identity, do not let it be assigned to you. The traumas of our childhoods can easily make us into “victims” or “survivors” and we can hide behind that identity for the rest of our life if we desire. That trauma happened a long time ago and is over, your choice to continue the trauma is your choice, but it does not give you a free pass to poor behavior. It is a long struggle to be able to recognize you are worth good things happening to you, once you allow that thought to enter your consciousness, you start to let go of the past.
I’ve learned that we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change. Sometimes, our paths run right along each other at the same speed, seeing the same sights. Then our paths may separate, but that does not erase our history and the reasons why we first became friends. We all understand that we change, so thinking that our friends should not is unreasonable.
I’ve learned that money is a horrible way of keeping score.Money does not make you better or worse than anyone, it is an instrument. Like any other instrument, it can be used in a million different ways. The most beautiful concerto can be played on an old piano just as easily as the keys of a Steinway can be smashed with a mallet. Find something you are passionate about and devote your extra money to it’s promotion. Make your money work for you as hard as you worked for it. Keep the circle of energy flowing.
I’ve learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different. “I say tomato, you say tomato. Let’s call the whole thing off. But oh! If we call the whole thing off, then we must part. And oh! If we ever part, then that might break my heart!” The Gershwins were on to something. Learning to not be so arrogant that your way is the right and only way will take you far in love and life.
I’ve learned that you can get by on charm and looks for only so long. After that, you’d better know something. This does not always seem true and maybe the length can stretch out for years, but in the end the boys and girls will stop turning their heads when you pass, so you better at least have some good stories of your youth to retell. There is nothing wrong with physical charm, but giving it any weight and worth as a way to judge yourself or others is a mistake. It is just a roll of the DNA dice. It does not matter how attractive a person is if they are ugly on the inside. Everyone has a unique talent or gift in life. Personally, I have always been drawn to people that have an ability to tell a story, that have a talent of finding humor everywhere, and people that know that life is an ongoing journey of exploration. It is a physical attraction, an attraction to a glow or fire or something that people possess inside. Have you ever tried having a conversation with nice biceps and teeth? Exactly.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t compare yourself to the best others can do. We all have our talents, we all have our accomplishments, and for the most part, they are unique to us. Comparing yourself to the best parts of others will of course cause you to feel inferior. The exercise in being proud of and happy for your friend’s success is a hard one. It is hard to remove your jealousy or envy. When you are able to do it, however, you become a better friend and a better person. If you still cannot remove yourself from the equation, think about how awesome you are for choosing such talented and successful friends. We can be happy when our friend’s are successful, no matter what Morrissey says.
I’ve learned that you can keep going long after you can’t. It applies to running, it applies to life. It is always darkest before the dawn for a reason, so you appreciate the dawn all the more. Heartbreak and disappointment are horrible and painful, they can tear you into pieces from which you think you can never reassemble. You can, and in time, you will. That ability is one of the most exciting and unique parts of being human: resilience. Knowing that life right now is hard, but having the memory and perspective that none of it is permanent and situations will change. “Don’t give up, I know you can make it good.”
I’ve learned that just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.Learning to understand their language may make the difference between feeling loved and feeling neglected. Getting mad because someone doesn’t love you the way you want to be loved is like getting mad because the IKEA furniture assembly instructions are only in German. You can either try to translate and understand the IKEA instructions or you can shop somewhere with different instruction inserts. Complaining will not bring you any closer to having a chair.
I’ve learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you. Every second of every day, we have the choice on how we are going to behave. We can fly off the handle at the slightest things or we can choose to not let them ruin our day. How we react and behave to every day situations is completely in our control. Our past experiences may point us in a knee-jerk direction, but they have no actual power over us today. Choose an attitude that would make you proud of the person you are. If it does not feel natural to behave that way, fake it, eventually, it will become part of you. I am a strong believer in the school of “Fake it ’till you make it.” I am a result of that philosophy. I didn’t like something about me or recognized something about me that didn’t work, thought about how I could do it differently, and consciously did it that way going forward. It did not immediately feel natural, but eventually, it became a part of me. It is like diet and exercise for your character, it is hard and strenuous, but eventually, it becomes who you are. Anger is ego, we all know this. That person that cut you off in traffic did not do it to you because of who you are, they just did it. It didn’t happen to you, it just happened, don’t take it so personally that it changes your mood. Don’t hold onto it, that energy is undirected and wasted.
I’ve learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. The title of “Hero” has been been attributed to so many people in so many ways that it’s meaning has been diluted. For this, I mean a person whose courage and strength I admire. Heroes are quite often not popular or even liked at the time, usually because their actions cause discomfort and disruption. Heroes see how the world can be a better place and do their best to change it. For the most part, actors, athletes, popular musicians, and politicians are bad choices as personal heroes, there are plenty of examples why.
I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them. Learning and accepting that you cannot control how other people feel or react to your feelings is freeing. I have learned to not withhold my feelings due to fear of them not being matched with equal strength from the other person. Feelings are not discounted just because they are not returned. Love and affection require expression to attain it’s full potential, they need air around them to grow. It is crucial that you allow the organic nature of your feeling to exist and not squelch or play down them in any way. Washington Irving wrote, “Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” Take a chance, take a leap, the air rushing under your feet will do you good.
I’ve learned that it’s not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts.Everyone knows this. Your job and your stuff you love will never give you a ride to the airport or love you back. Your things you have will not bring you love. That BMW will get you attention that at first may seem a lot like love, but it is probably more like envy. The people you touch in your life may not sit impressively on your mantle or fill up your checking account, but they will hold your hand when you cry and bring you soup when you are sick. In life, the immeasurable out-values all. There are no price tickets attached to love, devotion, friendship, and loyalty.
I’ve learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back. None of this changes how I should feel. Zelda Fitzgerald is quoted as saying, “I don’t want to live — I want to love first, and live incidentally.” I find myself thinking of this quote often and understanding it to mean that we need love to live, that we should approach life as a series of opportunities to love. Everyone has been on both sides of this coin at one point in life: the lover and the loved. It sucks and I hate it, but at the same time, there is a real rawness to heartbreak that is the purest of emotions. That emotion has no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas that it hopes by creating one, another will follow. It is pure loss, pure ache, and purely human. No matter how horrible it is, you feel so alive and wonderful knowing that you possess such capacity for feeling.
I’ve learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them. Bring everyone you meet a gift. This obviously does not mean a physical item wrapped with a bow, it could be a compliment, a touch, a smile. Do not leave things unsaid for fear of over exposing your heart. Your heart functions best when exposed raw to the air, it expands and produces more than ever imaginable. This applies too even if you were thinking about someone during the day, send them a text or email to tell them. Keep communications open, don’t let too much time pass.
Today is All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween. The modern holiday comes from an age-old tradition honoring the supernatural blending of the world of the living and the world of the dead. Halloween is based on a Celtic holiday called Samhain. The festival marked the start of winter and the last stage of the harvest, the slaughtering of animals. It was believed that the dark of winter allowed the spirits of the dead to transgress the borders of death and haunt the living.
Eventually, Christian holidays developed at around the same time. During the Middle Ages, November 1 became known as All Saints’ Day, or All Hallows’ Day. The holiday honored all of the Christian saints and martyrs. Medieval religion taught that dead saints regularly interceded in the affairs of the living. On All Saints’ Day, churches held masses for the dead and put bones of the saints on display. The night before this celebration of the holy dead became known as All Hallows’ Eve. People baked soul cakes, which they would set outside their house for the poor. They also lit bonfires and set out lanterns carved out of turnips to keep the ghosts of the dead away.
The best photo I could find by Megan Murphy at MurphyPop.com
NAME: Edgar Allan Poe OCCUPATION: Writer BIRTH DATE: January 19, 1809 DEATH DATE: October 07, 1849 EDUCATION: University of Virginia, U.S. Military Academy at West Point PLACE OF BIRTH: Boston, Massachusetts PLACE OF DEATH: Baltimore, Maryland
Best Known For: American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his tales and poems of horror and mystery such as The Raven.
Born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of mystery and horror initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in national literature.
Early Life
With his short stories and poems, Edgar Allan Poe captured the imagination and interest of readers around the world. His creative talents led to the beginning of different literary genres, earning him the nickname “Father of the Detective Story” among other distinctions. His life, however, has become a bit of mystery itself. And the lines between fact and fiction have been blurred substantially since his death.
The son of actors, Poe never really knew his parents. His father left the family early on, and his mother passed away when he was only three. Separated from his siblings, Poe went to live with John and Frances Allan, a successful tobacco merchant and his wife, in Richmond, Virginia. He and Frances seemed to form a bond, but he never quite meshed with John. Preferring poetry over profits, Poe reportedly wrote poems on the back of some of Allan’s business papers.
Money was also an issue between Poe and John Allan. When Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, he didn’t receive enough funds from Allan to cover all his costs. Poe turned to gambling to cover the difference, but ended up in debt. He returned home only to face another personal setback—his neighbor and fiancée Elmira Royster had become engaged to someone else. Heartbroken and frustrated, Poe left the Allans.
Career Beginnings
At first, Poe seemed to be harboring twin aspirations. Poe published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827, and he had joined the army around this time. Poe wanted to go to West Point, a military academy, and won a spot there in 1830. Before going to West Point, he published a second collection Al Aaraaf, Tamberlane, and Minor Poems in 1829. Poe excelled at his studies at West Point, but he was kicked out after a year for his poor handling of his duties. Some have speculated that he intentionally sought to be court-martialed. During his time at West Point, Poe had fought with his foster father and Allan decided to sever ties with him.
After leaving the academy, Poe focused his writing full time. He moved around in search of opportunity, living in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Richmond. From 1831 to 1835, he stayed in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. His young cousin, Virginia, became a literary inspiration to Poe as well as his love interest. The couple married in 1836 when she was only 13 (or 14 as some sources say) years old.
Returning to Richmond in 1835, Poe went to work for a magazine called the Southern Literary Messenger. There he developed a reputation as a cut-throat critic, writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries. Poe also published some of his own works in the magazine, including two parts of his only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. His tenure there proved short, however. Poe’s aggressive-reviewing style and sometimes combative personality strained his relationship with the publication, and he left the magazine in 1837. His problems with alcohol also played a role in his departure, according to some reports. Poe went on to brief stints at two other papers, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and The Broadway Journal.
Major Works
In late 1830s, Poe published Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a collection of stories. It contained several of his most spine-tingling tales, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia” and “William Wilson.” Poe launched the new genre of detective fiction with 1841′s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” A writer on the rise, he won a literary prize in 1843 for “The Gold Bug,” a suspenseful tale of secret codes and hunting treasure.
Poe became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publication of the poem “The Raven.” It is considered a great American literary work and one of the best of Poe’s career. In the work, Poe explored some of his common themes—death and loss. An unknown narrator laments the demise of his great love Lenore. That same year, he found himself under attack for his stinging criticisms of his fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poe claimed that Longfellow, a widely popular literary figure, was a plagiarist, and this written assault on Longfellow created a bit of backlash for Poe.
Continuing work in different forms, Poe examined his own methodology and writing in general in several essays, including “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle” and “The Rationale of Verse.” He also produced another thrilling tale, “The Cask of Amontillado,” and poems such as “Ulalume” and “The Bells.”
Mysterious Death
Poe was overcome by grief after the death of his beloved Virginia in 1847. While he continued to work, he suffered from poor health and struggled financially. His final days remain somewhat of a mystery. He left Richmond on September 27, 1849, and was supposedly on his way to Philadelphia. On October 3, Poe was found in Baltimore in great distress. He was taken to Washington College Hospital where he died on October 7. His last words were “Lord, help my poor soul.”
At the time, it was said that Poe died of “congestion of the brain.” But his actual cause of death has been the subject of endless speculation. Some experts believe that alcoholism led to his demise while others offer up alternative theories. Rabies, epilepsy, carbon monoxide poisoning are just some of the conditions thought to have led to the great writer’s death.
Shortly after his passing, Poe’s reputation was badly damaged by his literary adversary Rufus Griswold. Griswold, who had been sharply criticized by Poe, took his revenge in his obituary of Poe, portraying the gifted yet troubled writer as a mentally deranged drunkard and womanizer. He also penned the first biography of Poe, which helped cement some of these misconceptions in the public’s minds.
While he never had financial success in his lifetime, Poe has become one of America’s most enduring writers. His works are as compelling today as there were more than a century ago. A bright, imaginative thinker, Poe crafted stories and poems that still shock, surprise and move modern readers.
I cannot seem to find a better copy of this video:
Tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
designing futures where nothing will occur:
cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she
will still predict no perils left to conquer.
Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight
finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard
of, while blasé princesses indict
tilts at terror as downright absurd.
The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,
compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;
and when insouciant angels play God’s trump,
while bored arena crowds for once look eager,
hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prizes
shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.
I found this article last night and fell in love with the idea for a photo challenge: Give yourself five minutes and a bag. Rush through your place and collect everything you think you want to have, knowing that everything else will be lost/burned/destroyed. What would you grab and why? Make it quirky. Make it unique. Make it meaningful. Take a photo, include a short description of what and why you chose each thing, and email it to me here at spa@waldina.com. I will post mine and any others I get.
The Burning House: What People Would Take if the House Was on Fire
by Maria Popova
A pictorial meditation on how we construct our identity through objects and material possessions.
If your house suddenly caught on fire, what would you grab as you fled out the door? That’s precisely the question Foster Huntington asked himself, so he gathered the belongings he himself would take and photographed them, then asked a few friends to do the same. Then, on May 10 of 2011, he launched The Burning House with 10 such photographs. Within a few hours, he got his first submission from a complete stranger. Within a few days, he was making headlines. But he soon realized the self-selection implicit to the project engendered a certain psychographic homogeneity in the responses he was receiving and, driven to make people of various walks of life feel included, he decided to seek out more diverse submissions himself.
So, for five months, he drove thousands of miles up and down the West Coast and around the Rockies, in search for people “other than typical blog readers,” in an effort to expand the project generationally, geographically, and socioeconomically. Using Richard Avedon’s In the American West as inspiration, he set out to find those rare specimens who “had never heard of Tumblr, had never seen an iPad” — in other words, the kinds of people with whom he would’ve never crossed paths had he stayed in Manhattan. The results — rich, surprising, refreshingly human, from people separated by 80 years and spanning six continents — are now gathered in The Burning House: What Would You Take? (public library), based on the Tumblr of the same name and a fine addition to this running list of blog-turned-book success stories.
Huntington writes in the introduction:
Today, developed countries are consuming more than ever before. This culture of consumption is often fueled by people’s desire to define themselves by the possessions they amass. The Burning House: What Would You Take? takes a different approach to personal definition. By removing easily replaceable objects and instead focusing on things unique to them, people are able to capture their personalities in a photograph.
What emerges is part Material World, part Things, part wholly singular lens on the human condition, bridging the practical and the sentimental in a way that bespeaks our constant see-saw between rationality and intuition.
Name: Miguel Age: 36 Location: Porto Occupation: Bike shop owner List: The picture you gave me and the leather box we found together. Mom and dads old camera and mom and dads old leather bag. The shoes I can’t live without. Your smell #1 and your smell #2. The notebook where I draw while you laugh. My iPod to listen to beautiful tunes while thinking in our next home.
Name: Brody Age: 6 Location: New Hampshire Occupation: A kid List: Wedgehead Garfeild cup Lego helicopter Bumblebee Transformer Chip yellow belt piggybank wallet weaving (not pictured) Lego Camera used to take photo
Name: Kate Molins Age: 26 Location: London, UK Occupation: Clapper / Loader List: Buster Kitten – 2 yr old cat My mum’s ashes Photo album / scrap book iPhone Grandmother’s watch Dad’s watch My watch – 16th birthday present from my mum Macbook Passport 8mm Camera – 24th birthday present from all my friends Dad’s “I Love Tits” Mug – in small print, “from the British Ornithological Society” Limited edition GONZO, Hunter S. Thompson photo book – 21st birthday present from my mum Lemmy, Buster Kitten’s brother My uncle’s old Leica CL Diary & notebook of VALUABLE ideas & info from the past year Portable hard drive with millions of photos and other important things
Name: Joshua Lee Bacon Age: 20 Location: Boone, Iowa Occupation: Student List: Favorite pants. Favorite underwear. iPhone. Box full of all my prints and negatives. Buffalo box full of treasures and special snapshots. Passport. Chinese cigars. Some cash. Photo of my grandparents. Photo of a friend. Field notes and pens. Vivitar and telephoto lens. I would want to take more records, but the first one I would grab would be this Envy Corps 7 inch. Some old letters. Wallet.
Name: Brenda Bell Age: 60 Location: Pinetop, Arizona White Mountains (wild fire country May/June) Occupation: Homemaker List: My dog, Baby Val and treats for him My husband Larry and treats for him Peanut butter and crackers, peanuts, candy and gum Bumblebee Transformer A spork (spoon/fork) Hand warmers Wool hat Lots of money (small dimensions) and change Emergency first aid kit and zip lock bags Matches
Name: Kristi Dahlstrom Age: 27 Location: Germany Occupation: Literature Teacher List: Great Aunt’s Violin (& Bow) US Passport Photograph of Siblings 2 Letters Journal New American Standard Bible Rilke’s Book of Hours T.S. Elliot Collected Poems MacBook Pro Black Flipflops
Name: Luca Age: 42 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Occupation: Pricing analyst List: My collected writings My Field Notes still to be used My current notebook the Midori Travellers Notebook On Writing by Stephen King From Hell by Alan Moore Important photographs The stove moka I had for the past 10 years (because nothing looks as bad after a proper coffee) The belt my dad had when he was in the army The beret I had when I was in the army Fountain pen and pencil, with my favourite brown ink My grandad’s petrol lighter Opinel knife Bookbinding tools Reading glasses and sunglasses iPhone 4S (used to take the picture)
Name: Alejandro Sosa Age: 36 Location: Venezuela Occupation: Technology consultant List: Everything is recoverable, except my daughter
And in case you were wondering, here’s what I would take:
Wallet (recycled newspaper and plastic bag, from HOLSTEE)
1935 edition of Ulysses with sketches by Henri Matisse and 22-karat gold accents (Sure, the hefty tome would weigh me down — but I decided against the replaceable iPad and pair of giant Canon cameras in its favor.)
Original drawing of Paula Scher, one of my big design heroes, by my friend and illustrator extraordinaire Wendy MacNaughton. It reads: “Impossible happens.”
“I get it now; I didn’t get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible… and enjoying everything in between.” - Mia Farrow
On this day in 1935, the publisher Penguin released its first paperback books, with the goal of making the classics accessible to the general public like never before. Waiting for a train back to London, publisher Allen Lane was frustrated to realize that the only reading available for sale on the platform was magazines or Victorian novel reprints. At the time, publishers thought that if the public wanted high quality literature, they wanted it to be beautifully bound so that they could keep it forever. Lane realized that more people might want to read good books if they were more affordable. He decided to put his savings into Penguin’s first run of paperbacks priced equal to a pack of cigarettes.
The summer of 1935, Penguin released titles by Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. By the following year, the company had set up shop in the basement of a local church, receiving shipments down a playground slide from the street above. Soon they had sold more than 3 million copies and expanded into children’s books, nonfiction, and classics. Today, the publisher keeps some 5,000 titles in print at any one time and has offices in more than 15 countries.
Word of the Day July 30
spoonerism \SPOO-nuh-riz-um\ noun
Definition: a transposition of usually initial sounds of two or more words
Examples:
Children will be delighted by Jon Scieszka‘s use of wordplay in Baloney (Henry P.), including the spoonerism “sighing flossers” for “flying saucers.”
George Orwell , born Eric Blair in London (1903). He is most famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). Both books were published during the last few years of his life, years filled with illness and personal tragedy. In late 1944, Orwell and his wife adopted an infant named Richard. Four months later, his wife went in for a hysterectomy and died under anesthesia. Orwell was devastated. He struggled to raise his infant son alone, so he hired a housekeeper. One of his friends described Orwell’s small flat in London as “quite emphatically bleak.”
Orwell had written for the Observer for several years, and the paper’s publisher, David Astor, had a family estate on a remote, rocky Scottish island named Jura. Astor offered to let Orwell stay there if he felt like he needed a change of scenery, and Orwell was enthusiastic. He left London with not much more than a cot and some pots and pans. Shortly after he arrived, he wrote to a friend: “The journey really isn’t so formidable as it sounds on paper [?] It’s only that one has to walk the last 5 miles, and maybe next year we shall have a vehicle that works. Bread rationing has hit us rather hard, but [we] get by on oatcakes and porridge. One has to catch and shoot a good deal of one’s food, but I rather like doing that.”
The next winter was one of the coldest on record, and the house on Jura had no electricity. He had a peat stove and used kerosene lamps. When the weather was good, he went outside with Richard, fishing and hiking. But most of his time was spent chain-smoking and writing his new novel, The Last Man in Europe. His health deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. His sister Avril moved in to cook meals and help out.
One day Orwell was out in a boat with Richard and some friends, and they got caught in a whirlpool and nearly drowned. Everyone survived, but Orwell grew even sicker, and his cough became constant. He refused to go to a doctor. By that winter, he was so sick that he was confined to his bed, but he kept writing his novel. He was put on a new tuberculosis drug, and it helped his symptoms but had terrible side effects, including hair loss, throat ulcers, and the disintegration of his fingernails. He was in the hospital in March of 1948 when he got a letter from his publisher, who said that he needed the book by the end of the year. So Orwell went back to Jura and devoted himself to writing. He thought his manuscript was terrible, and by that fall, he could not get out of bed, and could barely sit upright to type. But he finished it by December and sent it in, changing its title from The Last Man in Europe to 1984.
Soon after that, he checked himself in to a sanatorium. Aware of Orwell’s condition, his publisher rushed the manuscript through publication, and 1984 came out in June of 1949 to rave reviews. In September, he was transferred to a specialist at a hospital in London. In October, he married Sonia Brownell, a beautiful young editorial assistant, in a bedside ceremony. He was busy scheming up ideas for books, including a study of Joseph Conrad and a novella set in Burma, where he had served in the Imperial Police Force. He believed that if he had a book left to write, he would not die.
He died two months later, at the age of 46. Up until his final days, he was planning a trip to the Swiss Alps. Just before his death, he asked that his gravestone use his real name, not “George Orwell.” His funeral was held a few days later, and one of his friends described it as “a rather melancholy, chilly affair, the congregation ? almost entirely unbelievers; the church unheated.” According to his wishes, his gravestone read only “Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1949.”
Orwell said, “So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.”
And, “Never use a long word where a short one will do.”
The Hardy Boys have evolved in various ways since their first appearance in 1927. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised, largely to eliminate racial stereotypes. The books were also written in a simpler style in an attempt to compete with television. Some critics argue that in the process the Hardy Boys changed, becoming more respectful of the law and simultaneously more affluent, “agents of the adult ruling class” rather than characters who aided the poor.
A new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series ended in 2005. A new series, Undercover Brothers, was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person.
Through all these changes, the characters have remained popular. The books sell more than a million copies a year. Several additional volumes are published annually, and the boys’ adventures have been translated into more than 25 languages. The Hardy Boys have been featured in computer games and five television shows and used to promote merchandise such as lunchboxes and jeans.
Critics have offered many explanations for the characters’ longevity, suggesting variously that the Hardy Boys embody simple wish-fulfillment,[3] American ideals of masculinity, American ideals of white masculinity, a paradoxically powerful but inept father, and the possibility of the triumph of good over evil.
One summer, I read “The Beautiful and the Dammed,” “This Side of Paradise,” and “Tender is the Night.” I had previously read “The Great Gatsby” and have since reread it multiple times. I once went to a theatrical performance where the company read the entire “Great Gatsby” word for word. It took nine hours and was glorious. It was like a master class. At that time, I think I still really love “Tender is the Night” most. Although, if you have an hour, you should read “Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” it is available on Google Reader. Even though I said “Tender is the Night” is my favorite, I must say that the last paragraph of “The Great Gatsby” is probably the best ever written (it is on Scott and Zelda’s tombstone). I fell in love with them all over again after seeing “Midnight in Paris,” if you haven’t seen it, you should, it may inspire you to read his books.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.[1] Fitzgerald is considered a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.
Novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.
In October of 1949, a few months after the release of George Orwell‘s dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, he received a fascinating letter from fellow author Aldous Huxley — a man who, 17 years previous, had seen his own nightmarish vision of society published, in the form of Brave New World. What begins as a letter of praise soon becomes a brief comparison of the two novels, and an explanation as to why Huxley believes his own, earlier work to be a more realistic prediction.
Fantastic.
Trivia: In 1917, long before he wrote this letter, Aldous Huxley briefly taught Orwell French at Eton.
Wrightwood. Cal.
21 October, 1949
Dear Mr. Orwell,
It was very kind of you to tell your publishers to send me a copy of your book. It arrived as I was in the midst of a piece of work that required much reading and consulting of references; and since poor sight makes it necessary for me to ration my reading, I had to wait a long time before being able to embark on Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is. May I speak instead of the thing with which the book deals — the ultimate revolution? The first hints of a philosophy of the ultimate revolution — the revolution which lies beyond politics and economics, and which aims at total subversion of the individual’s psychology and physiology — are to be found in the Marquis de Sade, who regarded himself as the continuator, the consummator, of Robespierre and Babeuf. The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it. Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest.
Partly because of the prevailing materialism and partly because of prevailing respectability, nineteenth-century philosophers and men of science were not willing to investigate the odder facts of psychology for practical men, such as politicians, soldiers and policemen, to apply in the field of government. Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations. Another lucky accident was Freud’s inability to hypnotize successfully and his consequent disparagement of hypnotism. This delayed the general application of hypnotism to psychiatry for at least forty years. But now psycho-analysis is being combined with hypnosis; and hypnosis has been made easy and indefinitely extensible through the use of barbiturates, which induce a hypnoid and suggestible state in even the most recalcitrant subjects.
Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.
