Notes For May 3rd, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On May 3rd, 1913, the famous American playwright and novelist William Inge was born in Independence, Kansas. After graduating from the University of Kansas in 1935, Inge moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend the George Peabody College for Teachers.

He later dropped out and returned to Kansas. With the Great Depression in effect, Inge worked at whatever position he could find, including that of a state highway laborer and a radio news announcer.

He also taught high school English and drama. After returning to Peabody College to complete his Master's degree program, he taught at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. In 1943, he became a drama critic for the St. Louis Star-Times.

Through this position, he struck up a friendship with legendary American playwright Tennessee Williams, who encouraged him to try his own hand at play writing. His first play was a one-act drama called Farther Off from Heaven (1947). It would be staged at Margo Jones' Theatre '47 in Dallas that year.

William Inge's second play, Come Back, Little Sheba (1950) made his name as a playwright. Doc and Lola Delaney, a middle-aged married couple, decide to take in a boarder, though they live in a cramped house.

The boarder, a pretty young college student named Marie, affects both the unhappily married Delaneys. Marie reminds Doc of Lola when she was young - before she let herself go and became fat and slovenly.

Doc, a chiropractor, had to abandon his dream of becoming a medical doctor in order to marry Lola, who had become pregnant with his child. She lost the baby - and her ability to conceive more children - in childbirth. A recovering alcoholic, Doc maintains his precarious sobriety by repressing his memories and emotions.

The obese, grotesque Lola also sees Marie as her younger self, before she was forced to marry Doc to avoid the scandal of unwed motherhood. She applauds Marie's lustful appetite for men and encourages the girl to pursue various lovers instead of settling like her. Though obese, Lola flirts pathetically with the milkman and the mailman.

When Doc finally realizes that Marie is not as perfect and pure as he had fantasized her to be, he falls off the wagon, driven to drink, despair, and slow, seething rage. Come Back, Little Sheba would be adapted as a feature film, a Broadway musical, and a TV play.

William Inge's 1953 play, Picnic, would win him the Pulitzer Prize. Set in a small Kansas town, the main character, the widowed Flo Owens, is the controlling mother of two daughters, Madge and Millie.

Flo has been grooming her older daughter Madge to be the trophy wife of Alan, a clean cut college boy bound for success. Shy yet rambunctious younger daughter Millie will go to college on a scholarship - just as Flo planned.

A monkey wrench is thrown into the works of Flo's well ordered life when Alan's friend Hal, a scruffy, handsome drifter, shows up and starts working for Flo's next door neighbor. Flo begins to fear for her daughters' safety.

Later, Flo is chagrined when her neighbor, Mrs. Potts, suggests that Hal escort the dateless Millie to the neighborhood Labor Day picnic. Hal agrees, but he's more interested in Madge.

At the picnic, Hal charms all the ladies while Millie sneaks off to drink whiskey. Unfortunately, she gets sick from drinking too much. Later, Hal and Madge have a revealing conversation, share a passionate kiss, and run off to spend the night together.

Ashamed of what she's done, Madge tells Hal that she never wants to see him again. Hal tries to talk to her later, but when Flo and Alan find out what's happened, he's forced to leave.

Alan and Madge's relationship is over. The play ends with Madge, suitcase in hand, running out of the house and telling her mother that she's going after Hal, who is her true love. All the controlling Flo can do is watch helplessly as her daughter leaves, her control of the girl lost forever.

William Inge followed Picnic with more classic plays, including Bus Stop (1955) and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957). Bus Stop was set in a diner in rural Kansas. Late one night, a freak snowstorm strands a bus driver and his four passengers.

Taking refuge at an all-night diner, they meet the owner, her young waitress, and the local sheriff. Elements of comedy, drama, and romance come together as the characters get to know each other. Bus Stop would be adapted as a feature film and a TV series.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs was a full length version of Inge's one-act debut play, Farther Off from Heaven. In it, the main character, Rubin Flood, deals with losing his job and a resentful wife who denies him affection.

He must also deal with a shy teenage daughter preparing for her first dance, and a preteen son who would rather hide behind his mother's apron strings than deal with bullies. When Rubin turns to his female friend Mavis Pruitt for comfort and understanding, he unwittingly sparks rumors that they're having an affair.

In the 1950s, William Inge's plays were often staged live on television as episodes of the popular "live theater" series of the time. When his classic play Bus Stop was adapted as a TV series, he served as script consultant. The series ran for one season, from 1961-62.

Set in Colorado instead of Kansas, each one hour episode followed the lives of different characters who passed through the bus station and local diner in a small town, as well as the lives of the townspeople, including diner owner Grace Sherwood.

The legendary filmmaker Robert Altman cut his teeth directing eight episodes of the Bus Stop TV series. One of the episodes he directed, titled A Lion Walks Among Us, sparked controversy with its storyline.

The episode featured pop singer and teen idol Fabian as a psychotic serial axe murderer. Viewer outrage over the episode's disturbing content resulted in a Congressional hearing to investigate the impact of violence on television.

When he wasn't writing plays, William Inge dabbled in screenwriting, adapting other writers' novels for the screen. He also wrote original screenplays. His script for director Elia Kazan's classic 1961 film Splendor In The Grass won him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

In the early 1970s, Inge tried his hand at writing novels. Of the two novels he wrote, his debut novel, Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1970), was the most famous. Set in late 1950s Kansas, it told the dark, psychosexual story of Evelyn Wyckoff, a small town high school Latin teacher and lonely, virginal 35-year-old spinster.

Denied a healthy social and sexual life by her hateful, demanding, controlling mother, Evelyn is drawn into an unhealthy sadomasochistic relationship with her school's black janitor, who consummates the relationship by raping her on top of her desk.

Fearing that reporting the rape would disgrace her, Evelyn remains silent and allows her attacker to keep assaulting her. Soon, poor Evelyn, starved for affection, actually begins to look forward to their forbidden trysts.

She ends up getting caught, fired for consorting with a black man on school grounds, and disgraced for committing miscegenation. Not racist nor misogynistic, the haunting novel was adapted as a feature film in 1979.

Inge's second novel, the semi autobiographical My Son is a Splendid Driver, was published in 1973. It would be his last. He spent his remaining years teaching play writing at the University of California at Irvine.

After his last several plays proved unsuccessful both critically and commercially, William Inge fell into a deep depression. Believing that his well of writing talent had dried up permanently, he committed suicide in June of 1973 at the age of 60.

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Quote Of The Day

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"Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true."

- William Inge

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a complete live performance of William Inge's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Picnic, taped in 1986 and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. Enjoy!

Notes For May 2nd, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On May 2nd, 1903, the legendary American writer Dr. Benjamin Spock was born. He was born Benjamin McLane Spock, Jr. in New Haven, Connecticut.

The eldest of six children, Spock helped care for his younger brothers and sisters, which would plant the seeds for his future career as a pediatrician and author. Following in the footsteps of his father, he enrolled at Yale University after graduating high school.

He first studied literature and history, then changed his major and studied medicine. After attending the Yale School of Medicine, he studied at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

While at Yale, he became a star athlete on the rowing crew and won a gold medal for rowing (Men's Eights) at the 1924 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. He would graduate from Yale at the top of his class.

Dr. Benjamin Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis and incorporate it into his practice, in order to better understand his patients' emotional needs and the psychology of family dynamics. The insights he gained would inspire him to write his classic book, which would be published in 1946.

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, later shortened to Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care, was far more than just a doctor's guide to maintaining the good physical health of babies and children.

The 500+ page book was a thorough and revolutionary guide to child rearing, based on the author's experiences as a pediatrician and as a parent of two sons. Dr. Spock's book was a long overdue, stinging rebuke of traditional (conservative) child rearing methods.

For decades before its publication, most pediatricians and child psychologists had advised parents to be very strict with their children and not show them too much affection. A child raised in such a manner, they believed, would grow up to be strong and independent.

In the 1968 edition of his book, Dr. Spock wrote "We need idealistic children" who could deal with the "enormous, frightening problems in our country and in the world." He elaborated further:

We have an overwhelming supply of the most powerful weapons the world has ever known... we are in imminent danger of annihilation... we are interfering arrogantly in the affairs of other nations and arousing worldwide resentment.

He concluded that:

Our only realistic hope... is to bring up our children with a feeling that they are in this world not for their own satisfaction but primarily to serve others.

In the 1960s, Dr. Spock became a political activist for the New Left. He joined the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, aka SANE, in 1962. As the war in Vietnam began to escalate, he became a vocal opponent of the conflict.

Then Attorney General Ramsey Clark charged Spock and four others (William Sloane Coffin, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, and Michael Ferber) with conspiracy to counsel, aide, and abet resistance to the draft.

Spock and three of the four other defendants were convicted. Spock was sentenced to two years in prison, but his conviction was thrown out on appeal. In 1967, at the National Conference for New Politics in Chicago, Dr. Spock threw his hat into the political ring.

He was selected to be Martin Luther King, Jr.'s running mate in the 1968 presidential election. Their bid for office fell apart when the conference was broken up by agents provocateurs working for the government.

It wouldn't be Spock's last bid for office; he would become the People's Party candidate for President in the 1972 election. His platform included establishing socialized medicine and legalizing abortion and marijuana.

He also called for an end to the "victimless crime" laws that persecuted homosexuals, a guaranteed minimum income for working families, and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries.

The following year, Spock signed the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, in which he and others refused to pay taxes to support the Vietnam War. He also published a book called Dr. Spock on Vietnam.

During the author's lifetime, Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care would be revised and reissued in five more editions, for a total of six. The seventh edition was published posthumously in 2004; his widow and second wife, Mary Morgan, had served as his research assistant and business manager.

When they married in 1976, she was 33 years old and he 73. He credited the restoration of his health and his long life to Mary, as she had introduced him to her health conscious lifestyle, which included yoga, meditation, massage, and a vegetarian diet.

Of vegetarianism, Spock would say:

Children who grow up getting nutrition from plant foods rather than meats have a tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer.

The first edition of Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care sold 500,000 copies in its first six months of publication. To this date, the book has sold over fifty million copies and continues to influence generations of parents. It also continues to court controversy.

In the late 1960s, then Vice President Spiro Agnew blamed Dr. Spock's child rearing books for the creation of the youth counterculture, (he called them the Spock Generation) accusing him of promoting permissiveness and disrespect for authority.

Agnew would resign in disgrace after being charged with evading taxes and accepting bribes, but many conservatives agreed with his assessment of Dr. Spock. In his last book, A Better World for Our Children (1994), Spock addressed this criticism:

The Permissive Label: A couple weeks after my indictment [for 'conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet resistance to the military draft'], I was accused by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, a well-known New York clergyman and author who supported the Vietnam War, of corrupting an entire generation. In a sermon widely reported in the press, Reverend Peale blamed me for all the lack of patriotism, lack of responsibility, and lack of discipline of the young people who opposed the war.

All these failings, he said, were due to my having told their parents to give them "instant gratification" as babies. I was showered with blame in dozens of editorials and columns from primarily conservative newspapers all over the country heartily agreeing with Peale's assertions. Many parents have since stopped me on the street or in airports to thank me for helping them to raise fine children, and they've often added, "I don't see any instant gratification in Baby and Child Care."

I answer that they're right--I've always advised parents to give their children firm, clear leadership and to ask for cooperation and politeness in return. On the other hand I've also received letters from conservative mothers saying, in effect, "Thank God I've never used your horrible book. That's why my children take baths, wear clean clothes and get good grades in school."

Since I received the first accusation twenty-two years after Baby and Child Care was originally published - and since those who write about how harmful my book is invariably assure me they've never used it - I think it's clear that the hostility is to my politics rather than my pediatric advice. And though I've been denying the accusation for twenty-five years, one of the first questions I get from many reporters and interviewers is, "Doctor Spock, are you still permissive?" You can't catch up with a false accusation.

Two other criticisms of Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care had nothing to do with politics and weren't really the author's fault because the evidence proving their validity hadn't been discovered yet.

In his book, Dr. Spock had supported circumcision and had encouraged parents to have their babies sleep on their stomachs. For many years, the medical community believed that circumcision was beneficial because the foreskin was prone to infection.

Now the value of the procedure is seriously questioned. In a 1989 article for Redbook magazine, Dr. Spock retracted his position on circumcision, saying, "circumcision of males is traumatic, painful, and of questionable value."

Two years later, while speaking at the International Symposium on Circumcision, (after receiving their Human Rights Award) Spock said, "My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone."

Also for many years, the medical community believed that having babies sleep on their stomachs would prevent them from choking if they were to spit up or vomit.

In the 1990s, evidence was discovered proving that babies who sleep on their stomachs have a significantly higher risk of dying from SIDS - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, AKA crib death.

Some urban legends about Dr. Spock stated that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry named the Enterprise's stoic Vulcan science officer Mr. Spock after him, and that one of Dr. Spock's sons committed suicide. Neither of these urban legends are true.

Roddenberry had never heard of Dr. Benjamin Spock when he chose the name of his beloved character. He simply wanted a one-syllable name for the Vulcan scientist that sounded strong and implied strength.

In the case of the suicide urban legend, it was Dr. Spock's grandson who had committed suicide at the age of 22, after a long battle with schizophrenia. Conservatives still try to exploit this tragedy as a means of debunking Spock's child rearing methods.

Dr. Benjamin Spock died in 1998 at the age of 94. A new English language edition of Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care aimed at readers in India was released in 2013.

Some of Spock's other memorable books include A Baby's First Year (1954), Caring for Your Disabled Child (1965), Decent and Indecent (1970), Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974), and Spock on Spock: a Memoir of Growing Up With the Century (1989).

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Quote Of The Day

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“I really learned it all from mothers.”

- Dr. Benjamin Spock

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features an 80-minute interview with the late, great Dr. Benjamin Spock. Enjoy!

Notes For May 1st, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On May 1st, 1923, the legendary American writer Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York. As a young boy, he was given a children's edition of The Iliad, Homer's classic epic poem set during the Trojan War. Enthralled by the power of words, he determined to become a writer.

After graduating high school in 1941, Heller worked at various jobs, serving as everything from a blacksmith's apprentice to a filing clerk. The following year, with America now involved in World War II, Heller enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

He was sent to the Italian Front, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier; When the war ended, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill and began his college education, first enrolling at the University of Southern California as an English major.

He would ultimately earn a Master's degree in English and spend a year as a Fulbright scholar at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. From there, Heller served as an English professor, teaching composition at Penn State and creative writing at Yale.

For a time, he worked as an advertising copywriter alongside future bestselling suspense novelist Mary Higgins Clark. He still determined to become a writer, and wrote at home when he wasn't working.

Joseph Heller's first short story, published in 1948, appeared in The Atlantic magazine. In 1955, he published the first chapter of what was originally intended to be a novella called Catch-18 in New World Writing magazine.

The planned work turned out to be novel length. When he was one third finished with the manuscript, Heller decided he would complete it only if he could find an interested publisher. Simon and Schuster bought the work, paying the author a $1500 advance.

He would receive half of it immediately and half when he delivered the finished manuscript. It took him five years to complete his first novel, but the wait was worth it. To avoid confusion with Leon Uris' then new novel Mila 18, Heller changed the title of his novel from Catch-18 to Catch-22.

The novel, published in 1961, would become a classic, and its title would be added to the English lexicon as a term meaning "a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule."

Catch-22 uses an experimental third person omniscient narrative to tell the story, describing events from different characters' points of view. The main character, Captain John Yossarian, is a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier stationed at the Italian Front during World War II. He belongs to the fictional 256th squadron.

As Yossarian witnesses the horrors of war, he comes to fear his own commanding officers more than the enemy. The American military leadership is a monstrous, corrupt bureaucracy that operates on dangerously flawed circular logic. The "Catch-22" of the title is their sinister golden rule. Here's how it works:

Yossarian and his men must fly a certain amount of combat missions for their service to be considered complete. The military leadership keeps increasing the number of missions. The added stress is pushing them - especially Yossarian - to the breaking point.

Under military rules, he would be considered insane for willingly flying so many combat missions without regard to his health. Yet, it would be pointless if Yossarian were to make a formal request to be relieved of duty for reasons of severe psychological stress.

Under military rules, he would be considered sane and cleared for duty because he had the presence of mind to make that request. This is what's known as a Catch-22.

Although the novel is set during World War II and satirizes the absurdity of war, Heller actually wrote it as an indictment of McCarthyism - the U.S. government's relentless and mostly illegal persecution of suspected communists and communist sympathizers during the early years of the Cold War.

The first edition hardcover of Catch-22 received mixed reviews and sold only 30,000 copies. When it debuted in paperback, it captured the imagination of a new generation of young people who shared in its antiwar sentiments. The paperback release would sell 10,000,000 copies and bring the novel its rightful recognition as an all time classic work of literature.

In 1970, a feature film version of Catch-22 was released. Although Paramount sunk $17 million into the picture, which was directed by Mike Nichols and featured Alan Arkin as Captain Yossarian, the film was a critical and commercial failure.

Some blame its failure on the fact that it was released at the same time as another, far superior antiwar black comedy called M*A*S*H, but this writer places the blame squarely on Catch-22's awful screenplay, which butchered the novel, changing the story considerably.

It would be thirteen years before Joseph Heller published his second novel. Something Happened (1974) is even more experimental than Catch-22; it's a relentlessly bleak and blistering satire of the American dream.

Middle aged executive Bob Slocum has it all: money, a beautiful wife, three great kids, and a big house. He has achieved the American dream. Unfortunately for Bob, his American dream is a nightmare.

He no longer loves his wife and cheats on her. His children are dysfunctional. He believes that his co-workers are out to get him. He finds no meaning in life and worries that he might be going insane.

In the novel's stream of consciousness narrative, Bob recalls events in his life (in random order) and tries to figure out when and how it all went wrong.

Heller continued to write great novels. Good as Gold (1979), a dark comedy, tells the story of Bruce Gold, a middle aged English professor who determines to become America's first Jewish Secretary of State.

His ruthless ambition costs him his marriage and alienates him from his children and family - a price he considers steep, yet doesn't mind paying considering the return on the investment.

God Knows (1984) is a scathing, raunchy parody of the Bible, narrated by none other than David, the biblical King of Israel. The novel takes the form of David's deathbed memoirs as he gives a hilariously fractured yet moving account of his life, from cocky kid to warrior hero to King - and typical Jewish father.

Heller would author two memoirs of his own, No Laughing Matter (1986), which chronicled his battle with Guillain-Barré syndrome, and Now and Then (1998), which told of his early life, including his war experiences and determination to become a writer.

In 1994, Heller published Closing Time, a sequel to Catch-22, with an elderly Captain Yossarian up to his old tricks. After the war ended, he became a wealthy, successful corporate executive while remaining fiercely liberal. Now retired, he's a dirty old man obsessed with sex - and death.

Joseph Heller died of a heart attack in 1999 at the age of 76. When legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut heard of his passing, he said, "Oh, God, how terrible. This is a calamity for American literature."

Heller's last novel, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man, was published in 2000. It told the story of an aged writer struggling to write one last great novel, which could be his magnum opus.

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Quote Of The Day

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“Mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow."

- Joseph Heller

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a rare recording of Joseph Heller giving a lecture at UCLA in 1970. Enjoy!

Notes For April 30th, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On April 30th, 1945, the famous American writer Annie Dillard was born. She was born Annie Doak in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The oldest of three daughters, Annie's parents were affluent, but liberal and non-conformist.

They believed in nurturing their children's creativity, curiosity, and sense of humor; as a young girl, Annie took piano and dance lessons, collected rocks and insects, and read voraciously.

Her father taught her about everything from plumbing and economics to Jack Kerouac's classic novel, On The Road (1957). Though her parents weren't churchgoers, Annie attended a local Presbyterian Church and went to a Presbyterian youth camp.

When as a teenager she told her minister she was rejecting her religion because of its hypocrisy, he gave her a collection of books by C.S. Lewis, which changed her mind about Christianity.

After graduating from high school, Annie attended Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia, where she studied literature and creative writing. She married her writing professor, poet R.H.W. Dillard.

By 1968, she earned a Master's degree in English, writing her thesis on Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), focusing on Walden Pond as "the central image and focal point for Thoreau's narrative movement between heaven and earth."

Annie Dillard began her writing career by publishing poetry and short stories. In 1971, after recovering from a near-fatal case of pneumonia, she began work on what would be her most famous book.

For eight years, she'd lived near Tinker Creek, a suburban area where she was surrounded by woodlands, creeks, mountains, and many different species of animals. It took her eight months to complete her book.

Cut off from the outside world and having no interest in the events of the time, such as the Watergate scandal, she would sometimes write for up to 15 hours a day. Annie's finished book, published in 1975, won her a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a Walden-esque collection of essays about Tinker Creek and its inhabitants. Dillard combines nature studies, philosophy, and spirituality to create a deeply introspective work of nonfiction.

It sold more than 37,000 copies in the first two months of publication and go through eight separate printings the first two years. Dillard was compared to Thoreau, and her book became required reading during the environmentalist movement of the 1970s.

At the time, Annie's spiritual outlook was a combination of elements from various religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Inuit spirituality, much like the transcendentalism of Thoreau and Emerson.

After making a name for herself with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard moved to the state of Washington and became the writer-in-residence at Western Washington University. She divorced, remarried, and had a daughter named Rosie.

She continued to write and publish both fiction and nonfiction, including a memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh called An American Childhood (1987). For 21 years, she taught in the English department at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Annie Dillard's most recent book, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old & New, was published in 2016.

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Quote Of The Day

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"Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spins the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair."

- Annie Dillard

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a reading from Annie Dillard's classic book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Enjoy!

IWW Members' Publishing Successes For The Week Ending 4/27/24

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Paul S. Fein

I learned that my piece titled "Does Djokovic Have the Perfect Game" was longlisted in the annual AIPS Media Awards writing competition. It didn't make the short list.

I'd like to thank everyone who critiqued this article and improved it considerably. I couldn't have achieved this without you.

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Notes For April 26th, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On April 26th, 1914, the famous American writer Bernard Malamud was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. He had a younger brother named Eugene.

In 1932, Malamud graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. He worked as a teacher-in-training before enrolling at City College of New York on a government loan. From there, he attended Columbia University.

After completing his education, Malamud taught high school English, mostly to adult night school students. He later taught freshman composition at Oregon State University.

Although he had earned a Master's degree in literature at Columbia, Oregon State would not allow him to teach literature because he lacked a Ph.D.

In 1942, Malamud met an Italian Catholic girl named Ann De Chiara. They fell in love and married, despite the strong opposition of their respective parents. They had a happy marriage. Ann bore him two children (Paul and Janna) and served as his typist and editor.

Bernard Malamud completed his first novel in 1948. Published four years later, the book would prove to be his most popular novel. The Natural, inspired by the life of a real baseball player, (Chicago Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges) takes a haunting look at the dark side of America's national pastime.

The novel opens with 19-year-old pitching phenom Roy Hobbs en route to Chicago for a tryout with the Cubs. On the train with Hobbs are his manager Sam, sportswriter Max Mercy, superstar slugger Walter "The Whammer" Whambold, and a beautiful, mysterious woman called Harriet Bird.

When the train stops at a carnival, The Whammer challenges Hobbs to strike him out. The equally arrogant Hobbs accepts the challenge - and strikes The Whammer out, humiliating him. Harriet Bird comes on to Hobbs and later invites him to her hotel room.

What Hobbs doesn't know is that she's a homicidal maniac determined to kill the best player in the game. The Whammer was her original target. When the womanizing Hobbs goes to Harriet's room, she shoots him.

The novel then flashes forward 15 years. Roy Hobbs, now in his mid-thirties and past his prime as a player, has just been signed as the new right fielder for the New York Knights, a slumping National League team.

As the new player on the team, Hobbs is subjected to mean spirited practical jokes by his teammates, including the theft of his favorite bat, Wonderboy. Hobbs gets a chance to reclaim his past glory when team manager Pop Fisher chooses him to pinch hit instead of slumping slugger Bump Bailey.

On his first at-bat, Hobbs hits a triple. A few days later, Bump Bailey, now an outfielder, is killed when he crashes into the outfield wall while trying to catch a fly ball.

Sportswriter Max Mercy, who had known Hobbs as a young pitching phenom, arrives and tries to get him to talk about his troubled past. He even offers him five thousand dollars for the story.

Hobbs turns Mercy down, telling him that "all the public is entitled to is my best game of baseball." When the arrogant Hobbs fails to persuade the Knights' ruthless co-owner Judge Banner to grant him a raise, Mercy writes about it in his column, resulting in a fan uprising.

Hobbs falls into a slump, then breaks out of it and plays brilliantly, leading his team to a 17-game winning streak. With the Knights one game away from winning the National League pennant, Hobbs goes to a party, binges on food, and collapses.

He wakes up in a hospital bed, and the doctor tells him that he must retire after the league championship game if he wants to live. Judge Banner had been offering Hobbs increasing amounts of money to throw the championship game because he wants to fire Pop Fisher as manager.

Facing the prospect of early retirement and no way to support the family he wants to build with love interest Memo Paris, Hobbs makes Banner an offer: he'll throw the game for $35,000. Although his conscience troubles him, it can't save him from self-destruction.

The Natural was adapted as a feature film in 1984, starring Robert Redford in the title role. Widely panned by critics, including the late great Roger Ebert, who denounced it as "idolatry on behalf of Robert Redford," as a novel adaptation, the film is a travesty.

With a completely different ending, it sacrifices Malamud's dark, mythological story of one man's downfall at the hands of his own hubris in favor of a typical Hollywood happy ending.

And yet, the film remains one of the most popular sports movies of all time. Surprisingly, Malamud himself liked it. The film's producers later claimed that it was never meant to be a literal adaptation of the novel.

While his first novel made his name as a writer, Bernard Malamud's fourth novel, The Fixer (1966) won him both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Inspired by both the author's own experiences with anti-Semitism and a true story of anti-Semitic persecution in Tsarist Russia, the novel tells the tale of Yakov Bok, a Jewish fixer (handyman) living and working in Kiev - without the proper papers.

When a Christian boy is murdered during Passover, the police assume that the killer is a Jew. This is what's known as the blood libel - the hateful false accusation that Jews murder Christian children as part of their religious practices and celebrations. Yakov Bok is soon rounded up for questioning.

When asked about his political views, he claims to be apolitical. Although there is no evidence against him, because he's an undocumented Jew, Bok becomes the prime suspect. He's arrested on suspicion of murder, jailed indefinitely without being charged, and denied counsel or visitors.

As he spends many months in jail, Bok contemplates his entire sad life in particular and human nature in general. Despite his fate, he finds himself growing spiritually, and is at last able to forgive his wife, who had left him just before the opening of the novel.

The novel ends with Bok finally being charged and brought to trial. In the last scene, as he's being taken to court, Bok has an imaginary conversation with the Tsar.

Bok rebukes him as the ruler of the most oppressive and backward regime in Europe, famously concluding that "there is no such thing as an apolitical man, especially a Jew."

The Fixer was adapted as an acclaimed feature film in 1968, starring Alan Bates as Yakov Bok and directed by John Frankenheimer, working from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo. Bates's excellent performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Though he wrote seven novels, Malamud was also known as a master of the short story. He published several collections of short stories, including The Magic Barrel (1958) and Pictures of Fidelman (1969). His classic short story Man in the Drawer (1969) won him the O. Henry Award.

Flannery O'Connor once said of him, "I have discovered a short-story writer who is better than any of them, including myself." In 1988, the PEN/Malamud Award was established in the author's memory. The award recognizes excellence in the short story.

Bernard Malamud died in 1986 at the age of 71.

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Quote Of The Day

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“A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.”

- Bernard Malamud

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a tribute to Bernard Malamud, recorded live at The Center for Fiction. Enjoy!

Notes For April 25th, 2024

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This Day In Literary History

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On April 25th, 1719, Robinson Crusoe, the classic novel by the legendary English writer Daniel Defoe, was published. Although he wrote other classic novels such as A Journal of the Plague Year and Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe would be his most famous book.

This classic adventure novel was inspired by the true story of a shipwrecked Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk. It tells the story of the title character, who as a young man, first hears the call of the sea.

Against the wishes of his parents, Robinson Crusoe sets sail on his first ocean voyage. In a prelude to the events to come, Crusoe's first vessel is shipwrecked in a storm. He survives, but still hears the call of the sea.

On his next voyage, his ship is captured by Moroccan pirates. Crusoe is made a slave. After two years of slavery, he manages to escape in a boat.

Rescued by the captain of a Portuguese ship, Crusoe is befriended by the man, who helps him become the owner of a plantation. Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to procure and transport slaves from Africa.

Once again, Crusoe is shipwrecked. This time, however, he finds himself the sole survivor, marooned on a deserted island in the West Indies. With only the captain's dog and two cats for company, Crusoe names his new home the Island of Despair.

Overcoming his despair, he determines to survive. He gathers arms, tools, and supplies from his ship before it sinks, then stakes out a stretch of land near a cave.

There, Crusoe survives by hunting game, growing barley and rice, and storing fruit for the winter. He also raises goats, adopts a parrot as a pet, and learns to make pottery. Taking solace in his bible, Crusoe is thankful for his survival instead of bemoaning his fate.

Years pass, and Crusoe discovers that the island is not deserted after all. He finds natives and discovers that a cannibal tribe visits the island occasionally to hunt them and take them prisoner.

Crusoe considers killing the cannibals, but changes his mind, realizing that they are so primitive, they don't know what they're doing. A native prisoner of the cannibals escapes, and Crusoe befriends him.

Naming the man Friday, Crusoe teaches him English, converts him to Christianity, and makes him his personal servant. When Crusoe and Friday happen upon another tribe about to partake in a cannibal feast, they kill most of the cannibals and save two of their prisoners.

One of the prisoners is Friday's father, the other is a Spaniard who tells Crusoe that other Spaniards were shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is made wherein the Spaniard and Friday's father will return with the other Spaniards, then they'll all build a ship and sail to a nearby Spanish port.

Before the Spaniards return, a British ship arrives at the island. Mutineers have taken control of the ship and are planning to abandon the captain on the island. Crusoe helps the captain and his loyal men take back the ship.

In exchange for their help, the captain takes Crusoe and Friday to England. Back home, Crusoe discovers that his family believed he was dead, so his father left him nothing in his will. Crusoe goes to Lisbon to reclaim the wealth he'd accumulated from his plantation.

Afterward, he and Friday return - via land - to England, and in one last adventure, fight scores of starving wolves while crossing the Pyrenees mountains.

For nearly three hundred years, Robinson Crusoe has inspired countless tales of castaways - everything from Johann David Wyss's novel The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) to the classic TV series Gilligan's Island, whose theme song's lyrics state, "Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be."

The novel has been adapted numerous times for the screen and is rightfully considered one of the all time classic works of English literature.

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Quote Of The Day

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"I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent."

- Daniel Defoe

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a complete reading of Daniel Defoe's classic novel, Robinson Crusoe. Enjoy!