cicada days

“Again and again, the cicada’s untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.”

Runaway Horses -- Yukio Mishima (1925-1970)

(Pictured:  Moonlight View of Tsukuda with Lady on a Balcony -- Utagawa Hiroshige)

born today

 

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891), author of Moby Dick, Billy Budd, Typee, and a personal favorite, "Bartleby, the Scrivener."

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener's business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. 

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street -- Herman Melville, 1853

june bloom

It's that day in June again, also known as Bloomsday, in commemoration of the famed 24 hours of James Joyce's Ulysses.  Celebrated throughout the world (especially in Dublin, Montreal, and in Philadelphia by the Rosenbach Museum and Library, where the original handwritten Ulysses manuscript can be found), the costumed reenactments of the novel, along with singing, pub-going and other revelry are a great testament to the power of literature.  It's also a good day to read or re/read Ulysses (click here for an online version), and maybe have a gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy to warm the memory and mind.  And some Italian olives and a nice cool salad, while pondering indeed whether God made food, the devil the cooks....

happiness

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather 

and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know....

John Keats

Pictured:  Still Life with Fruit and Wine -- Severin Roesen, 1852 (Wikimedia Commons)

the right wright?

 

Chris Wild's Mashable feature of 1946 Alfred Eisenstaedt photos taken at Howard University includes a young woman described as Sophomore Sara Wright.  Sara, standing next to dapper Walter Hall, has a bit of a quirky smile on her face, and both she and Walter look like they're trying not to seem self-conscious or burst out laughing at the prospect of being photographed for Life magazine.  Flashing forward to September of 2009, the New York Times laments the passing of Sarah E. Wright, novelist, whose 1969 This Child's Gonna Live received rave reviews and is considered a groundbreaking work of African-American fiction. 

According to Margalit Fox's obituary, Wright was born in 1928 and attended Howard University, eventually becoming editor of the college newspaper.  A serious lack of funds forced her to leave Howard before graduating, yet she continued to write through lean times.  She married, raised a family and became Sarah Wright Kaye, pursued political and literary passions, and worked as a bookkeeper.  This Child's Gonna Live came deep from Wright's personal experience of growing up along the Maryland shore, introducing an overburdened but still spiritual heroine named Mariah Upshur.  Death and poverty are intertwined in Wright's fictional Depression-era Tangierneck, Maryland, and Mariah struggles to keep her troubled world together: 

Mariah commenced into wrestling with Satan on that long road -- road that stretched on forever.  Went into her secret closet praying, "I'm in your service, Lord.  Clean my soul.  Clean my mouth that I may speak your words."

Sarah's husband noted in her obituary that a Tangierneck trilogy was planned and considerable work had been put into a second novel.  But she had kept progress on the project to herself, and the pages now are in the same box they were placed in by their author before her death.  And whether Sara Wright of the 1946 Eisenstaedt photo is the same Sarah E. Wright whose full life was detailed by the NY Times -- This Child's Gonna Live is a pearl of a novel worth discovering, along with Wright herself.

the razor's edge and oscar gold

W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge is one of my favorite books, with many fine turns of phrase and dialogue and memorable main and side characters.  The 1944 novel was made into a 1946 film starring romantic leads Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, along with Herbert Marshall as Maugham himself, gliding in and out of scenes as the worldly but not always present narrator.  Clifton Webb as shrewdly snobbish and haute Uncle Elliott Templeton steals the show, as does Anne Baxter in the more tragic role of Sophie.  Baxter earned an Academy Award for her performance; Webb was nominated but didn't win an Oscar (he did, however, score a Golden Globe).  The 1946 film is very good but doesn't totally capture the essence of the novel -- though that was unlikely to happen in Hollywood at the time.  The 1984 remake with Bill Murray seemed to have high hopes to come closer to the book, but didn't quite make it either for different reasons.

As noted, the original novel is full of great quotes and descriptives, but one of the best lines from the 1946 movie is Elliott's frank observation: "I do not like the propinquity of the hoi polloi." And regarding Maugham's character being invited to dinner, Elliott advises his guests:  "He's an English author. He's quite alright. In fact he's quite famous. So pretend you've heard of him even if you haven't."

Indeed.

(Pictured:  Clifton Webb as Elliott Templeton snobbing it up while Herbert Marshall/Somerset Maugham listens.)

man of mystery

Are you a fan of unflappable pipe-smoking French detective Jules Maigret? Georges Simenon, the Belgian mind and man behind the sleuth was born today in 1903 (d. 1989) -- and perhaps having a birthdate on the cusp of Valentine's Day gave him special powers involving the opposite sex, as he claimed to have had some 10,000 female lovers throughout his lifetime.  (Reportedly many of these were prostitutes but maybe he just considered it like going to Starbucks every morning.)  With such a busy extracurricular schedule, it's a wonder that he found enough time to peck away at the typewriter as well and write his literal hundreds of novels, but it seems that from sheer determination, focus, organization and a realistic scope of what he wanted to put into a literary work, he managed to get it all done.

The idea condition for the reader is to have time to read a whole book in one evening.  ** Georges Simenon, "Chez Simenon" -- NY Times, Oct. 24, 1971