Internet Writing Workshop members continue to find publishing success in all venues. Congratulations to this week's crew!
Jody
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Barry Basden
I feel honored to be included in Issue No. 3 of Eat Your Words, Heidi Kenyon's exquisite new journal on food and its importance.
Somehow, she found the perfect illustration for my flash fiction piece, "Stalingrad, Summer of '42."
Please read your way down to it. There are some superb entries.
Stacey Dye
My poem "The Love Letter" is featured in this week's Here and Now. Thanks so much to the poetry group for helping me with it. Although I've managed to revise it yet again since I submitted it to Allen (thanks to your critique and support), it apparently is still in good form. Whew!
I have three new poems up at Here and Now. My poems are about 1/3 of the way down the page.
Chandra S.
After joining IWW, I have my first published article, "How to Keep the Car Clean," up on Associated Content. Though very tiny, it means a lot to me.
Anita Saran
The more I work for Suite101, the more I discover how tough it is for writers to break into it. So I'm glad I have. Thanks to the nfiction list, my "Poisons in Meat" (Now "Toxins in Animal Products") is finally revised and up.
Also up on Suite101 is my travel article, "Hampi - South India's Finest Holiday Destination," which already has been picked up by trigea.com (in bound link).
Another Suite101 article up is "Direct Response Writing." I have even managed to sneak in a photo of my David Ogilvy Award. Just hope the editor doesn't ask me to remove it!
Do take a look.
Wayne Scheer
"Look Out, Kid," my tribute to Bob Dylan--like he needs a tribute from me--is up at Camroc Press Review. I wrote it a while back for some contest I didn't win. The good folks at Fiction critiqued it, but blame for me not winning the competition rests solely on the shoulders of the contest editors. We all know what editors are like, don't we?
I subbed a story to IWW's own Amber Vilate for her Young Adult Literature Review site and she had her youngest brother, who is in the eight grade, record it. He did a fine job.
An old story of mine, "The Chimes Legacy," will be reprinted in Joyful! This story was critiqued in Fiction a while back.
Joanna M. Weston
My poem, "The Turn of August," written a couple of years ago and critted by the Poetry List, is now on a poster distributed across Canada by Dianne Reid of Scarborough, Ontario. She is dedicated to spreading the word about poetry. One amazing lady!
This is a delayed Yahoo: my review of Gary Hyland's "You" is up at PoetryReviews.ca. This book fascinated me, still does in fact.
Two poems, "The hot summer" and "The portrait," are up at Wizards of the Wind. Scroll down the right-hand side.
"The Portrait" was written as part of the ekphrastic challenge on the Poetry list a couple of years ago. Many thanks to the poets!
Prepared by: Carter Jefferson Posted on: 8/30/2009
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Exercise: In less than 400 words, write the opening to a story or novel based on the picture at the link below. If you're female, write from the man's POV; if you're male, the woman's.
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Writers find inspiration everywhere. For this exercise, find your inspiration in the painting you'll see when you click the link below. The picture dates from 1940, but you may set your story in any time or place you'd like.
But wait! There's more. Most writers tend naturally to create a protagonist of the same sex the writer is. There are exceptions, of course: men write romances with female protagonists, and women mysteries whose heroes are hard-boiled policemen. This week we're asking you to stretch your muscles: Write from the point of view of the opposite sex.
Here's the link. Edward Hopper's "Summer Evening <http://tinyurl.com/7nsgr>" Use the magnifier on the site for a full-screen picture. To return here, close the big picture, and then click on your "back" button.
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Exercise: In less than 400 words, write the opening to a story or novel based on the picture at the link below. If you're female, write from the man's POV; if you're male, the woman's.
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When critiquing, tell the writer whether you'd want to read more of the story. Is it clearly inspired by the painting? Are the characters realistic? Is the scene well set to develop the story? Did the writer succeed in using the opposite POV? If she or he didn't do it effectively, what went wrong? Give specific reasons, if you can.
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writers Workshop (http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/).
Writing Contest - GuideGecko GuideGecko is holding a contest for travel writers. Register on their site, submit your Travel and Sightseeing, Food and Dining, and / or Nightlife and Party Guide, and you could win. The grand prize is a trip to the [October] 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, with your guide(s) prominently showcased. Second and Third Prize winners will have their guide(s) showcased at the fair, which is the world's largest and most important book fair. Entries must be received by September 24th.
For more information and to enter the contest, click on the graphic below:
Note: this information is provided as a courtesy to IWW members and other readers. The Internet Writing Workshop is not affiliated with GuideGecko and assumes no responsibility for their contest. As with any contest, be sure to read the official rules before entering.
This Day In Writing History On August 28th, 1749, the legendary German poet, novelist, and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born. He was born in Frankfurt, where he lived with his family in a large house. Goethe's siblings, except for his younger sister Cornelia, died at early ages. As a boy, Goethe received his education from tutors, as his father was determined to give his children all the educational advantages he didn't have. The young Goethe quickly developed an interest in literature, with Homer and the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock among his earliest favorite authors. He was also devoted to the theater and particularly fond of the puppet shows staged in his home.
When he was sixteen, Goethe began studying law in Leipzig, but came to detest it. Three years later, in 1768, Goethe returned to Frankfurt, as his studies were going nowhere. While in Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with a girl named Käthchen Schönkopf and wrote her love poems. Nothing came of the relationship, but in 1770, in Frankfurt, Goethe published his first book anonymously. It was a poetry collection called Annette. Goethe began writing prolifically, but soon fell seriously ill. His relationship with his father had become strained, so he was nursed back to health by his mother and sister. Bored during his convalescence, he wrote in bed. After he recovered, his father sent him to Strasbourg to finish his studies.
In Strasbourg, Goethe met poet and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, and they became close friends. Herder got him interested in Shakespeare's plays and in volkspoesie (folk poetry). After finishing his law studies, Goethe's thesis, based on his own ideas, was published. He was offered a job in the French government but rejected it and returned to Frankfurt, where he was certified to practice law. Working for the local government, Goethe tried to make the law more progressive and humane. As a result, he was reprimanded and terminated from his position.
Disgusted with law, Goethe decided to pursue a literary career. This time, his father was supportive of his decision and even helped him out. Goethe became an editor for a literary magazine, but he couldn't support himself on his small salary. So, in 1772, he went to Wetzlar to practice law again. Two years later, in 1774, he published his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. The tragic tale was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period in German literature.
Goethe's novel, which is mostly presented as a collection of letters, tells the story of Werther, a young, sensitive aspiring artist. While staying in the fictional village of Wahlheim, Werther meets a beautiful girl named Lotte, who has been caring for her siblings since their mother died. Werther falls in love with Lotte, even though she's already engaged to marry Albert, a man 11 years her senior. Werther becomes close friends with both Lotte and Albert, but his love for Lotte causes him too much pain, so he goes to Wiemar, where he suffers more embarrassment. Returning to Wahlheim, Werther finds that Lotte and Albert have married.
Lotte, feeling both sorrow for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther shouldn't visit them so often. He makes one final visit, where he delivers a memorable recitation of a portion of Ossian. Realizing earlier that the love triangle can only be dissolved by the death of himself, Albert, or Lotte, and that he is unable to harm Albert or Lotte, Werther commits suicide after having Lotte send him two pistols. He dies twelve hours after shooting himself, and neither Lotte nor Albert nor a clergyman attends his funeral. The book was considered controversial and accused of romanticizing suicide, which was considered sinful by Christian doctrine. Suicides were denied Christian burial. From a young age, Goethe disliked the Church, whose history he described as "a hotchpotch of mistakes and violence."
The Sorrows of Young Werther became a huge success for Goethe and made him world famous, but it didn't make him rich. Copyright law was virtually nonexistent at the time and pirated editions of literary works were common. Goethe would later solve this problem by periodically authorizing "new" and "revised" editions of his works. As the result of the fame his first novel brought him, Goethe was invited to the court of Carl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Goethe went to Weimar, where he lived the rest of his life and held several offices, eventually becoming the Duke's chief adviser.
As a writer, Goethe remained prolific and authored a large body of works, mostly poetry and plays, along with the occasional novel. Some of his classic poems include Prometheus (1773), Hermann and Dorothea (1798), and Roman Elegies (1790). Roman Elegies, also known as Erotica Romana, was a collection of poems written during Goethe's two year visit to Italy. During his lifetime (and afterward) some of these poems were suppressed due to their sexual imagery. Goethe's poetry has inspired the works of legendary composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.
As a playwright, Goethe was best known for his masterpiece, Faust. It was written in two parts. The first, Faust Part One, was published in 1808, and the second, Faust Part Two, which Goethe completed shortly before his death in 1832, was published posthumously. In the play, God bets Mephisto (the Devil) that he can't tempt His favorite scholar, Dr. Faust. So, Mephisto offers Faust a bargain - he'll do Faust's bidding on Earth if Faust will do his bidding in Hell when he dies.
Unsatisfied by his scientific studies, Faust has a clause added to the contract: Mephisto must provide him something that will satisfy him - a moment that Faust would want to last forever. Mephisto agrees, so Faust signs the contract in blood. God allows Faust to be led astray so He can lead him to the right path, teaching the scholar that "man must still err while he doth strive." Faust's attempts to satisfy his desires have disastrous consequences for those he cares about.
Faust became Goethe's best known work, one that still influences popular culture today. Goethe's play has been adapted for the opera and for the screen. The most famous movie adaptation was the 1926 German silent film classic directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto.
In addition to his writing and practice of law, Goethe was also involved in scientific work. He had a keen interest in natural science and wrote scientific books on subjects such as insect morphology, homology, and color theory. He was best known for his fiction, poetry, and plays, with which he established himself as one of Germany's greatest writers. He died in 1832, at the age of 82.
Quote Of The Day "None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Vanguard Video Today's video features a memorable short animated film adaptation of Goethe's poem Gefunden (Found), read in English and done in brick animation! Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 27th, 1871, the famous American novelist and journalist Theodore Dreiser was born. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, the twelfth of thirteen children. The popular songwriter Paul Dresser was Dreiser's older brother. In 1889, Dreiser entered Indiana University, but he flunked out a year later.
Several years after flunking out of university, Theodore Dreiser became a journalist, writing first for the Chicago Globe, then for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He wrote articles about famous writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Burroughs and interviewed public figures such as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison. On December 28th, 1898, Dreiser married his girlfriend, Sara White. The couple separated in 1909, but were never formally divorced.
In 1900, Theodore Dreiser's acclaimed first novel, Sister Carrie, was published. The controversial novel told the story of 18-year-old Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber, a young girl living an unhappy life in rural Wisconsin. So, Carrie takes a train to Chicago, where she has made arrangements to move in with her older sister Minnie and her brother-in-law, Sven. On the train, Carrie meets a traveling salesman named Charles Drouet. He is attracted to her and they exchange information.
Carrie finds life at her sister's apartment not much happier than it was in Wisconsin. To earn her keep, Carrie takes a job at a shoe factory. She finds her co-workers (both male and female) to be vulgar and the working conditions squalid. The job takes a toll on her health. After getting sick, Carrie loses her job. She is reunited with Charles Drouet, who is still attracted to her. He takes her to dinner, where he asks her to move in with him, lavishing her with money. Tired of living with her sister and brother-in-law, Carrie agrees to be Drouet's kept woman.
Later, Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of his favorite bar. Hurstwood, an unhappily married man, falls in love with Carrie, and they have an affair. But she returns to Drouet because Hurstwood can't provide for her financially. So, Hurstwood embezzles a large sum of money from the bar and persuades Carrie to run away with him to Canada. In Montreal, Hurstwood becomes trapped by both his guilty conscience and a private detective and returns most of the stolen money. He agrees to marry Carrie and the couple moves to New York City, where they live under the assumed names George and Carrie Wheeler.
Carrie believes she may have finally found happiness, but then she and George grow apart. After George loses his source of income and gambles away the couple's savings, Carrie, who has been trying to build a career in the theater, leaves him. She becomes a rich and famous actress, but finds that wealth and fame don't bring her happiness and that nothing will.
When it was first published, Sister Carrie sold poorly. Due to its controversial nature, even though parts of it had been altered by editors, the publisher refused to promote it and gave it a bland, red cover, with only the names of the novel and the author on it. When the publisher's wife complained that the novel was too sordid, he finally withdrew it. Later, it was republished when Frank Norris, a reader for Doubleday & McClure, sent a few copies to reviewers. All the subsequent editions of the novel came from the first publisher's edited version of the manuscript. In 1981, Dreiser's original, unaltered manuscript of Sister Carrie was finally published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Still, even in its edited form, Sister Carrie was regarded as a classic American novel. In his 1930 Nobel Prize Lecture, Sinclair Lewis said of it: "Dreiser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he dared to publish thirty long years ago and which I read twenty-five years ago, came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman."
Theodore Dreiser wrote more classic novels, including his Trilogy of Desire series, The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947). But his 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, became his first commercial success. It's also considered a classic novel. Inspired by a real life criminal case and set in Kansas City, it tells the story of Clyde, the son of poor, devoutly religious parents who force him to join in their street missionary work. Dreaming of better things, he takes a job as bellboy at a local hotel, where the other boys introduce him to alcohol and prostitution. He falls in love with a girl, Hortense Briggs, and does everything he can to impress her.
While driving a stolen car, Clyde accidentally kills a child. He flees Kansas City. After staying briefly in Chicago, Clyde reinvents himself as a foreman at a collar factory in Lycurgus, New York, owned by his long-lost uncle. Although Clyde promised himself that he wouldn't let his passions cause his downfall again, he falls for Roberta Alden, a poor farm girl who works under him at the factory. He enjoys their secret relationship (which is forbidden by factory rules) and manipulates Roberta into having sex with him. But he's not about to marry a poor farm girl. He falls for Sondra Finchley, an elegant rich girl whose father is a friend of his uncle's.
Just as his relationship with Sondra becomes promising, Roberta discovers that she's pregnant with Clyde's child. After his attempt at arranging an illegal abortion for Roberta proves unsuccessful, she threatens to reveal their relationship unless he marries her. So, Clyde plans to murder her and make it look like an accident. He takes her for a canoe ride, where he ends up hitting her with his camera. The boat capsizes, and Roberta, who can't swim, drowns while Clyde swims back to shore, unwilling to save her.
The narrative is deliberately unclear as to whether Clyde hit Roberta on purpose, with the intention of capsizing the boat and causing her to drown, or if it was just out of anger. But the circumstantial evidence suggests murder, and the authorities are so determined to convict Clyde that they resort to manufacturing evidence in order to secure a conviction. Despite a strong defense by lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted and sentenced to death. The novel's greatest scenes of pathos take place in prison, where Clyde corresponds with his mother until the day of his execution.
In addition to his novels, Theodore Dreiser also wrote short story collections and non-fiction books about political issues. A devout socialist, Dreiser wrote of his 1927 trip to the Soviet Union in Dreiser Looks At Russia and criticized American capitalism in Tragic America (1931) and America Is Worth Saving (1941). But he was best known for his fiction and is rightfully considered to be one of the all-time greatest American novelists. Theodore Dreiser died on December 28th, 1945, at the age of 74.
Quote Of The Day "Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail." - Theodore Dreiser
Vanguard Video Today's video features a Bloomberg TV segment about the world premiere of Tobias Picker's opera adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's classic novel, An American Tragedy, at the Met. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 26th, 1904, the famous British novelist, poet, and playwright Christopher Isherwood was born. He was born in High Lane, Cheshire, in North West England. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, and moved the family often, to wherever he was stationed. He was killed in action during World War 1. Afterward, Christopher Isherwood and his mother lived in London and Wyberslegh.
Isherwood attended St. Edmund's prep school in Surrey, where he met W.H. Auden, a future poet, playwright, and essayist who would later become Isherwood's protege and close friend. After St. Edmund's, Isherwood attended Repton School, where he met writer Edward Upward, who would become a lifelong friend. Isherwood and Upward collaborated on a short story collection, The Mortmere Stories. Although famous in literary circles, only one of the stories would be published during Isherwood's lifetime. The whole collection of stories was published posthumously in 1994.
Christopher Isherwood entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but deliberately failed his exams and left the college without a degree in 1925. He took a job as secretary for violinist André Mangeot and his string quartet, living with Mangeot and his family for the next three years. In his spare time, Isherwood studied medicine and wrote a book of nonsensical poetry called People One Ought To Know, which was illustrated by Mangeot's 11-year-old son, Sylvain.
Later in 1925, Isherwood was reunited with W.H. Auden. He became Auden's literary mentor and occasional lover. Auden introduced him to writer Sir Stephen Spender, whom he would later spend time with in Berlin. Isherwood's first novel, All The Conspirators, was published in 1928. It was about a young man, Philip, who longs to escape the office where he works, but is torn between pleasing his oppressive, domineering mother and living out his dream of becoming an artist. Philip's only ally is his sister, Joan.
Around the time his first novel was published, Isherwood studied medicine at King's College, London, but dropped out in six months to join W.H. Auden in Berlin. Having rejected his upper class roots and being openly gay at a time when homosexuality was frowned upon in his native England, Isherwood came to love Berlin, which, before the rise of Hitler and Nazism, was known as one of Europe's most cultured and open-minded cities. He took advantage of the sexual freedom in Berlin and indulged in his passion for handsome young men. He met one, Heinz, who became his first great love.
Isherwood's second novel, The Memorial, was published in 1932. It was another tale of conflict between mother and son, based on Isherwood's family history. While writing his third novel, Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935), Isherwood worked as a tutor. As Hitler came to power in Germany, Isherwood left Berlin and traveled around Europe, living in cities such as Sintra, Portugal, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Around this time, he collaborated on three plays with W.H. Auden: The Dog Beneath The Skin (1935), The Ascent Of F6 (1936), and On The Frontier (1939).
In 1939, Isherwood published one of his masterpieces, a collection of short stories and novellas called The Berlin Stories. Inspired by Isherwood's time living in Berlin and his experiences with its sexual underground, the book's stories would be adapted as a play called I Am A Camera and a popular, Tony Award winning Broadway musical, Cabaret, which would be made into a feature film in 1972 starring Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey. The city of Berlin would erect a plaque in Isherwood's memory on the house in Schoneberg, Berlin, where he had lived.
After visiting New York City on their way back to England, Isherwood and Auden decided to emigrate to the United States in 1939. This decision, made just months before England declared war on Germany, officially beginning World War 2, was seen as a kind of betrayal by the patriotic crowd in England. Isherwood stayed in New York with Auden for a few months, then moved to Hollywood, California.
In Hollywood, he met mystic and historian Gerald Heard, who introduced him to Swami Prabhavananda and his Vedantic brand of Hindu spirituality and philosophy. Isherwood joined a group of mystic explorers that included writer Aldous Huxley and philosopher Bertrand Russell. He embraced Vedanta and, working with the Swami, translated Hindu scriptures, wrote Vedanta essays, and the biography Ramakrishna and His Disciples. He also wrote Vedanta themed novels and plays.
In 1946, Isherwood became a naturalized American citizen. This made him eligible for the draft, however, he had already established himself as a conscientious objector. Throughout the late 40s and early 50s, Isherwood spent most of his time with his Vedanta writings. On Valentine's Day, 1953, while spending time on the beach with friends, the 48-year-old Isherwood was introduced to an 18-year-old aspiring artist named Don Bachardy. Despite a 30-year age difference and being interrupted by affairs and separations, Bachardy and Isherwood would remain partners until Isherwood's death.
During the early months of their relationship, (which would be chronicled in the acclaimed 2008 documentary Chris & Don: A Love Story) Isherwood finally completed The World In The Evening (1954), a novel he'd been working on for a few years. Bachardy typed up the manuscript. When he wasn't writing, Isherwood taught creative writing at California State University, Los Angeles.
In 1962, Isherwood's novel Down There On A Visit was published. A sort-of sequel to The Berlin Stories, the novel is narrated by a hedonistic writer who proves himself to be a man of extremes. He relentlessly pursues physical pleasures, but interrupts his binges of debauchery to engage in meditation and take up disciplines such as learning a foreign language. He meets a famous male prostitute and the two men decide to take up a spiritual life dedicated to self-denial and meditation.
Two years later, in 1964, Isherwood published what is considered by many to be his finest novel, A Single Man. Told in a stream-of-consciousness narrative, the novel takes place during one day in the life of George, a middle-aged gay Englishman and professor living in Los Angeles, as he struggles to cope with the sudden death of his lover Jim in a car accident. The novel's frank and honest treatment of homosexuality and gay relationships proved to be a shocker in 1964, but it was Isherwood's dazzling prose that made the novel a masterpiece. Isherwood's fellow British writer Anthony Burgess declared it "a testimony to Isherwood's undiminished brilliance as a novelist."
For the rest of his life, Christopher Isherwood lived with his partner Don Bachardy in Santa Monica, California. He died of prostate cancer in 1986 at the age of 81, after which, Bachardy's portraits (he had become a successful draughtsman and painter) of his dying partner became famous.
Quote Of The Day "The Nazis hated culture itself, because it is essentially international and therefore subversive of nationalism. What they called Nazi culture was a local, perverted, nationalistic cult, by which a few major artists and many minor ones were honored for their Germanness, not their talent." - Christopher Isherwood
Vanguard Video Today's video features a clip from the 1972 movie musical Cabaret, based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, with Joel Grey singing Willkommen - my favorite number! Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 25th, 1949, the novelist and non-fiction writer Martin Amis was born. He was born in Oxford, England, the son of writer Sir Kingsley Amis. As a boy, Martin Amis attended 14 different schools, as his father gave lectures at colleges and universities all over the United Kingdom and the United States, taking the family with him.
Martin Amis was twelve years old when his parents divorced. He only read comic books until his stepmother, novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, introduced him to the works of Jane Austen, whom he credited as his earliest influence. As a teenager, Martin became a hippie and hung out at bars with the mod crowd. He later graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, with a Congratulatory First in English, which he described as "the sort where you are called in for a viva and the examiners tell you how much they enjoyed reading your papers."
In 1973, Martin Amis' first novel, The Rachel Papers, was published. The semi-autobiographical comic novel told the story of Charles Highway, a bright, bookish, 19-year-old wannabe intellectual making the transition from adolescence to manhood. Nasty yet moral, calculating yet able to love, Charles falls for the lovely Rachel, executes a carefully planned seduction of her, then abandons her even though she may be pregnant with his child. The absurdly conceited Charles doesn't realize how much he has in common with his father, whom he detests.
The Rachel Papers, which was adapted as a feature film in 1989, won Martin Amis the Somerset Maugham Award - the same award his father had won for his 1954 novel, Lucky Jim. Unfortunately Sir Kingsley Amis showed no interest in his son's work and often derided it. Martin's next novel, Dead Babies (1975), a black comedy, has been described as a cross between the works of P.G. Wodehouse and the Marquis De Sade. It's set in a bleak future where excess has become the norm, as the characters engage in orgies of sex and drugs. Dead Babies was adapted as a feature film in 2000, released in the United States under the title Mood Swingers.
Some of Martin Amis' best known and most respected novels were written in the 1980s and 90s, including Money (1984), London Fields (1989), Time's Arrow (1991), and The Information (1995). In Time's Arrow, which was nominated for a Booker Prize, the novel is the autobiography of its main character, an ex-Nazi doctor accused of torturing Jews during the Holocaust. Amis employs an unusual narrative technique: time runs backward during the entire novel, to the point that the characters even speak backward.
In addition to his novels, Martin Amis also wrote short story collections and non-fiction. Some of his most memorable non-fiction books include The Moronic Inferno And Other Visits To America (1986) - a collection of satirical essays about all things American, from fashion to the religious right, and Koba The Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million (2002), about the horrors of Stalinism. His most recent non-fiction book, The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom (2008) offers scathing attacks on both Islamic fundamentalism and the Bush administration's response to it.
Martin Amis' latest novel, The Pregnant Widow, is due for release in February, 2010. He teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester. He lives with his second wife, writer Isabel Fonseca, and their two young daughters. In 2008, he became a grandfather when his daughter Delilah gave birth to a son.
Quote Of The Day "When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life." - Martin Amis
Vanguard Video Today's video is a four-part interview with Martin Amis. Enjoy!
Internet Writing Workshop members had an extraordinary week of publishing successes, including one member who claimed two top prizes in a national competition.
We lead off with a letter sent to member Paul Fein, and offer a hearty congratulations to him and all other workshop members who found success in a number of other venues.
Jody
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Paul Fein
This morning I received this good news from the president of the United States Tennis Writers' Association:
Just wanted to let you know that you won two awards in the 10th Annual USTWA Writing Contest. They are both in the 'Service Story' category:
1st Place: "Ten Reasons Why Topspin is Essential on Clay"
2nd Place: "The Art of Anticipation"
Congratulations!
Thanks for participating in the USTWA Writing Contest.
Our skillful and meticulous critiquers much improved these articles, and for that I am appreciative.
Barry Basden
Never underestimate the value of a good review. Someone from Australia recently posted a review of "Crack! And Thump" on Amazon, comparing it very favorably with Sledge's classic, "With the Old Breed." I'm not sure I can totally agree, but it's quite flattering and sales have spiked as a result.
BTW, the History Channel series featuring the book has been expanded, but unfortunately that has pushed it out to next winter. I've seen a rough cut of the first hour and it certainly takes the viewer back to the way things were just before World War II engulfed the globe.
I will of course post the date the series will be shown as soon as I have a date certain.
Thanks again to everyone on the nonfiction list who helped make this project so gratifying to me and especially to Captain Charles Scheffel, who just turned 90 and hopes to live to see himself in the film.
Despite what others have said, sometimes poetry is the last refuge. "Out of Time Blues" is up at The Poet's Haven.
If you are easily offended or believe in taboos, restraint, and censorship in writing, you probably won't want to read my microfiction piece, "Farm Boy," or many of the other pieces you'll find at Girls with Insurance.
Apparently their goal is to shock readers, so consider yourself warned.
Mark Budman
"Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field," to which I am one of the contributors, received a star review at Publishers Weekly.
Rebecca Gaffron
My first 6-sentence story, "Epitaph" is up at Six Sentences. Thanks to all the IWW writers who inspired this attempt with their own 6 lines.
Alan Girling
I have two poems, "Lust on the Bus" and "Me Drum 'n' Fife," in the Voyeurism issue of In My Bed Magazine, a themed, erotic and rather fun quarterly. Needless to say, my poems are fairly explicitly erotic, so be warned if you're curious. A .pdf subscription is free at the website. The upcoming theme is 'Obsession.' They accept poetry, fiction, essays, art and photography.
Leslie Greenwood
I just had my poem "Adolescence" accepted for the Fall 2009 edition of Flashquake.
Heidi Kenyon
I have two poems up in the new issue of Gloom Cupboard: "In High School Math Class" and "Hate is a Hard Stone," both of which were critted recently on the IWW Poetry list. Scroll down; I'm the sixth poet listed.
Thanks, everyone!
Eric Petersen
The Internet Review Of Books has published my essay, "From Dewey To Digital." The essay is about the evolution of libraries from the early days to online distribution of information.
Randy Radic
My review of Sarah Sarai's beautiful new book of poetry is up at Alvah's Books. Thanks to Sarah for the book and Rebeca for the opportunity.
My review of "Dream Room" is also up on Alvah's Books. Thanks again to Rebeca for the opportunity.
Just signed the contract with Headpress of the U.K. They will publish "Blood In, Blood Out: The Violent Empire of the Aryan Brotherhood" in 2010.
And hey, they sent me a bunch of Headpress T-shirts, too.
Loretta Carrico-Russell
"Montgomery Creek Volunteers Save School District $$$," a story I stumbled across while working on another story, is up at Food for Thought: a news café. It's appearing online and in a printed newspaper.
Anita Saran
I've been writer of the month for ages on Chillifreeze.
And, my Dull Short Story Writing Course is finally up on Chillifreeze.
My article on writing the short story is up on Suite101. Thanks to the critters on NFiction. And, I haven't had any revisions flagged for this one and the last one I wrote on Creativity and Suffering. Yaaay!
Also some travel articles on Hampi in Karnataka on Associated Content have begun to make waves. I have to thank Jamie K. Wilson for the leg up.
By the way, I also found a way of plugging my fiction through Associated Content. For example, I introduce my audio of "City of Victory" through travel guides on Hampi (the story is set in 16th century Hampi) and I sneaked in a chapter of my first novel "Circe" -- soon to be released by Mojocastle Press -- through an article, "The People Behind the 2012 Prophecy." The chapter is about Circe in the land of the Maya.
Wayne Scheer
I just found out that a silly poem I wrote for Practice is up at New Verse News. Since I don't usually write poetry (you'll see why if you read it), I want to brag on this one.
The poem is listed by title, not author, so you have to click on "Divine Order."
Paul Stenquist
My eighth and final Dream Cruise blog is up on the New York Times website. All eight appear there in reverse order.
Number five, "A Life Together..." ran in the city edition of the paper last Sunday.
Prepared by: Rhéal Nadeau Revised and Resposted on: August 23, 2009
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Exercise: In a passage of 300 words or less, describe one or two charactersusing physical cues only. Yet you must communicate what each character is thinking or feeling. Don't tell us what that is: let us determine that on our own.
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Experts say that the majority of communication is non-verbal. Body language,tone of voice, intonation, etc. For example, how often have we knownsomething was wrong with a friend or loved one, even though that personhadn't said so? The purpose of this exercise is to make us think about how we detect so muchabout the people around us. What are the physical signs that someone isangry, happy, tired, skeptical? Don’t provide dialogue or telling descriptions that reach conclusions for the reader (i.e., … He angrily …, Angry, he …).
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Exercise: In a passage of 300 words or less, describe one or two charactersusing physical cues only. Yet you must communicate what each character is thinking or feeling. Don't tell us what that is: let us determine that on our own.
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In your critiques, be sure to mention what you believe the character is experiencing. Extracurricular activity: for one day this week, pay attention to the body language of people you meet (strangers and acquaintances alike), and pay attention to how much you can tell about them without any words being exchanged. If you're feeling ambitious, try to see how different people use different signals and cues.
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writers Workshop (http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/).
This Day In Writing History On August 21st, 1920, Christopher Robin Milne was born. His father was British writer A.A. Milne, who began his career as a playwright, writing over 25 plays. When his son was a year old, he received a teddy bear as a present. Christopher Robin would later name it Winnie-the-Pooh, after two real-life animals he encountered: Winnie, a Canadian black bear he saw at the London Zoo, and Pooh, a swan he saw while on vacation.
Christopher Robin's growing collection of stuffed animals, including a piglet, a tiger, a donkey, and a kangaroo, inspired his father to try his hand at writing children's stories. His son's teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, would be the main character, and the animals' human friend, a young boy, would be named after Christopher Robin. In 1925, A.A. Milne bought a country estate, Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, East Sussex, which would serve as the inspiration for Pooh's home, the Hundred Acre Wood.
Winnie-the-Pooh would first appear in a series of short stories published in magazines and newspapers, including Vanity Fair and the London Times. In 1926, A.A. Milne published a short story collection in book form, called Winnie-the-Pooh, portions of which were adapted from the earlier stories. It would be followed by a second story collection, The House At Pooh Corner (1928). Both books were illustrated by Ernest Shepard, who used the real Christopher Robin and his stuffed animals as models for the illustrations.
In 1966, Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends made their film debut in an animated Disney featurette, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. It was such a hit that Disney made two more featurettes, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! (1974). Three years later, Disney cast Pooh in his first feature-length film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), which would become one of their all-time classics.
More movies followed, and the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise would include a TV series, animated TV specials, and even video games. The enduring, beloved character and his forest friends continue to win new generations of fans, both young and old.
And it all began over eighty years ago, with a little boy named Christopher Robin and his stuffed animals.
Quote Of The Day "The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counter-attractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course." - A.A. Milne
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading of A.A. Milne's children's poem, Disobedience. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 20th, 1890, the legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft was born. He was born Howard Phillips Lovecraft in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the only child of a traveling salesman, Winfield Scott Lovecraft. When H.P. was three, his father suffered a severe psychotic episode while on a business trip in Chicago. He never recovered and had to be institutionalized, as his incurable mental state was the result of syphilis. He died five years later.
After his father's death, H.P. Lovecraft was raised by his mother, her two sisters, and their father, all of whom lived in the same house. Lovecraft was a child prodigy; at the age of three, he could recite poetry verbatim, and by the age of six, he was writing his own poems. His grandfather encouraged his voracious passion for reading, supplying him with classics such as The Arabian Nights, Bullfinch's Age Of Fable, and children's versions of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Lovecraft's grandfather encouraged his passion for the weird by telling him his own original Gothic horror stories. Lovecraft's mother worried that these stories would upset him, but he loved them. He was a sickly child, though at least some of his illnesses were psychosomatic. He also suffered from night terrors, a rare sleep disorder. There was speculation that his father may have passed his syphilis on to him, but it was ruled out. Because of his poor health, lack of discipline, and argumentative nature, he rarely attended school until he was eight years old. Even then, he only lasted a year before he was pulled out of school.
As a voracious reader, Lovecraft educated himself. He developed a particular interest in chemistry and astronomy. When he was nine years old, Lovecraft printed his own hectographed publications, the first of which was called The Scientific Gazette. Age the age of 13, Lovecraft returned to high school. In 1908, just before his high school graduation, Lovecraft suffered what he called a nervous breakdown. Lovecraft biographer J.T. Joshi suggested that the breakdown was caused by Lovecraft's difficulty in learning advanced mathematics, which he would need in order to become a professional astronomer. Lovecraft's failure to complete his education was a lifelong source of disappointment and shame for him.
Though he had written some fiction before, most of H.P. Lovecraft's early work was poetry, which he wrote prolifically. In 1914, after he wrote a letter complaining about the insipidness of a series of popular love stories that had been published in a pulp magazine called The Argosy, the resulting debate in the magazine's Letters section caught the attention of Edward F. Daas, president of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA), who invited Lovecraft to join the organization. It encouraged him to submit more poems and essays for publication.
Three years later, Lovecraft, an avid letter writer, returned to writing fiction after being prodded to do so by some of his correspondents. His first new horror story, Dagon, was published in W. Paul Cook's The Vagrant in 1919, then reprinted in Weird Tales in 1923. The story is told by a tormented, suicidal morphine addict who recalls a horrific experience he had while in the Merchant Marines during World War 1. After his cargo ship is captured by the Germans, he escapes in a lifeboat and drifts across the Pacific, eventually landing on an island where he encounters a monster that was once worshiped as a sea god by an ancient race of fish-men. All that remains of them is the shrine that they built for their god.
In 1919, after suffering from mental illness for years, H.P. Lovecraft's mother was placed in the same institution as her husband. Lovecraft corresponded with her frequently, and remained close to her until her death in 1921 - the result of complications from gall bladder surgery. Lovecraft was devastated. A few weeks later, he attended an amateur journalist convention in Boston, where he met Sonia Greene, a Ukrainian-Jewish shopkeeper (she owned a hat store) whom he married in 1924. Lovecraft's aunts were not happy that he married a woman of the merchant class; the fact that she was Jewish probably didn't thrill them, either.
The Lovecrafts moved to the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. At first, Lovecraft was thrilled to be living in New York, but he quickly came to hate the city. The couple faced financial difficulties; Sonia lost her hat shop, and H.P. was unable to find work, as the city was teeming with a large immigrant population. Lovecraft's frustration fueled the racism that would later be reflected in his writings, which sometimes contained characters such as bestial blacks and scheming Jews.
Lovecraft's was an atypical form of racism; he tended to regard people more in terms of class than race. For example, in his story Cool Air, Lovecraft's narrator makes disparaging remarks about the poor Hispanics in his neighborhood, but he admires and praises the wealthy, cultured Dr. Munoz, who is also Hispanic. These and other contradictory aspects of Lovecraft's racism have led scholars to believe that in both his writings and in life, Lovecraft was questioning the veracity of his racial views.
Sonia Greene, Lovecraft's wife, had to remind him that she was Jewish when he made anti-Semitic remarks. It must have had an impact on him; near the end of his life, when he learned of Hitler's persecution of Jews in Germany, he was horrified. He regarded Nazi ideology as irrational. A few years after they were married, Lovecraft and Sonia separated. Sonia moved to Cleveland to work. They later divorced amicably, and Lovecraft returned to Providence to live with his aunts.
Lovecraft continued to write and publish short stories and essays. He wrote over sixty short stories, most of them horror, establishing himself as a master of the form. His stories reflected his personal beliefs. He considered himself an agnostic in theory and an atheist in practical terms. Many of his stories present gods not as loving creator beings, but as ancient, monstrous alien beings who have influenced the development of the human race over the ages. These beings are often malicious, inspire the formation of cults, and demand sacrifice, as seen in Lovecraft's "Cthulu Mythos" of loosely connected stories.
In some of these stories, Lovecraft mentions a book called the Necronomicon - an ancient book of black magic whose rituals can summon evil deities, demons, and spirits. The book was supposedly written by the "Mad Arab," Abdul Alhazred, in the 8th century. In the early 1970s, a book appeared that claimed to be the real Necronomicon, translated by someone known only as Simon. The book has no connection to Lovecraft and appears to be based on Sumerian mythology. It includes a forward warning the reader not to attempt to perform the rituals contained in the book, which has since become a cult favorite. Still in print, it has sold over 800,000 copies.
Another theme in Lovecraft's writing is the dangers of modern science and technology, which inspire humans to investigate things that should be left alone and tamper with the order of the universe. In his classic 1919 short story, Beyond The Wall Of Sleep, an intern at a hospital for the criminally insane uses one of the inmates - a homicidal maniac - as his guinea pig to test a device he invented to facilitate telepathic communication. The experiment goes awry as the intern and his test subject channel an alien being made of light.
Although H.P. Lovecraft published dozens of short stories in Weird Tales and many other pulp magazines - and was sometimes paid very large sums of money for them - his finances soon dwindled and he was forced to move to smaller quarters with his surviving aunt. In 1936, he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. He died a year later at the age of 46.
H.P. Lovecraft's stories have been adapted as feature films and for TV series such as Showtime's Masters Of Horror. Heavy metal bands such as Metallica and Mercyful Fate have written songs based on Lovecraft's works. He has inspired many contemporary writers. Horror master Stephen King considers him a major influence, calling him "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."
Quote Of The Day "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - H.P. Lovecraft
Vanguard Video Today's video is a two-part presentation featuring a reading of H.P. Lovecraft's short story, The Picture In The House. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 19th, 1902, the famous poet Ogden Nash was born. He was born in Rye, New York, the son of an import-export company owner. Due to the nature of the business, the Nash family moved frequently when Ogden was a boy.
After he graduated St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island, Ogden Nash entered Harvard University. He dropped out a year later and returned to St. George's School to teach. A year after that, he quit teaching and worked a series of menial jobs, including writing advertisement cards for streetcars at an agency that once employed writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Eventually, Nash landed a job as an editor for the Doubleday publishing house and began to write poetry. He would later say in a 1958 interview that he always had a fondness for rhyme: "I think in terms of rhyme, and have since I was six years old."
In 1931, Ogden Nash published his first book of poetry, Hard Lines. It became a huge success and earned Nash national recognition, establishing his talent for humorous verse with playful rhyming and an anti-establishment tone. That same year, he married his wife, Frances Leonard. Three years later, in 1934, the couple moved to Frances' hometown, Baltimore, Maryland, where Ogden Nash would live for the rest of his life.
When Nash wasn't writing poems, he made guest appearances on radio shows and toured the U.S. and England, where he gave lectures at colleges and universities. He was respected by the literary establishment and his poems were published frequently in anthologies, even serious ones such as Selden Rodman's A New Anthology of Modern Poetry (1946).
As a poet, Nash was known for his pun-like rhymes and for deliberately misspelling words for comic effect, as in this riff on Dorothy Parker's famous lines "Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses":
A girl who is bespectacled She may not get her nectacled But safety pins and bassinets Await the girl who fassinets.
In one of Nash's most famous rhymes, he parodied Joyce Kilmer's famous lines "I think that I shall never see / A poem as lovely as a tree":
I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all.
My favorite Nash lines are these classics from his poem Reflections On Ice-Breaking:
Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. Nash also wrote a series of poems dedicated to his favorite football team, the Baltimore Colts, now known as the Indianapolis Colts.
In 1943, Ogden Nash collaborated on writing the Broadway musical One Touch Of Venus. Nash wrote all the song lyrics himself and co-wrote the libretto with S.J. Perelman. The music was composed by the great Kurt Weill. The musical is a loose spoof of the Pygmalion myth that satirizes modern (1940s) suburban America and its values, artistic fads, and social and sexual mores.
The original Broadway production opened on October 7th, 1943, at the Imperial Theatre and closed on February 10th, 1945, after 567 performances. Directed by Elia Kazan, it featured Mary Martin, Kenny Baker, and Paula Laurence. Marlene Dietrich was originally cast in the title role of Venus, but backed out during rehearsals, calling the musical "too sexy and profane." Mary Martin took over the role and used it to establish herself as a Broadway star.
In addition to his poetry collections, Odgen Nash also wrote children's books. His daughter Isabel was married to the celebrated photographer Fred Eberstadt. Nash's granddaughter, Fernanda Eberstadt, became an acclaimed writer - a child prodigy who wrote her first novel at the age of eleven.
Ogden Nash died of Crohn's Disease in 1971 at the age of 68. On August 19th, 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Ogden Nash and six of his poems to commemorate the centennial of his birthday. It was the first stamp in the history of the Postal Service to contain the word sex.
Quote Of The Day "People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it, and I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it." - Ogden Nash
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading of Ogden Nash's poem The Sunset Years of Samuel Shy. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 18th, 1958, Lolita, the legendary, controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov, was published for the first time in the U.S. Nabokov's brilliant and daring tragicomedy told the tale of Humbert Humbert, an intelligent, cultured, middle-aged European man who becomes obsessed with sexually precocious 12-year-old American girl Dolores "Lolita" Haze, leading him down a path of degradation, depravity, paranoia, and ultimately, murder.
Nabokov had completed the novel in 1953, but he was unable to find an American publisher. One publisher told Nabokov that he should burn all copies of the manuscript. Another suggested that the story wouldn't be so objectionable if Lolita were a boy. Nabokov tried to get Lolita published in Europe, but one British publisher was so shocked by the novel that he tore up his copy of the manuscript.
Finally, in 1955, Nabokov found a publisher - Olympia Press, based in Paris. Olympia was known as a publisher of both controversial, challenging works of literature (such as William Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer) and pornographic novels. Olympia's first 5,000 copy press run of Lolita sold out across Europe. There were no real reviews of the book, but in late 1955, in an interview with the London Times, British writer Graham Greene called Lolita one of the best novels of the year.
Greene's comments provoked the editor of the London Sunday Express to publicly condemn Lolita, calling it "the filthiest book I have ever read" and "sheer unrestrained pornography." The newspaper further stoked the flames of outrage, and Britain's Home Office panicked, ordering Customs officers to seize all copies of Lolita that came into the U.K. France followed suit; the French Minister of the Interior instituted a ban on the novel that would last for two years.
In 1958, United States officials were nervous about Lolita, but the novel was published without incident by G.P. Putnam's Sons. It became a bestseller - the first book since Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind to sell 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of publication. Today, it's considered to be one of the greatest novels written in the 20th century. It was named the fourth greatest English language novel of the 20th century by Modern Library. Vladimir Nabokov originally wrote it in English and later translated it into Russian.
Written in a dazzling, lyrical prose style, Lolita is a novel-within-a-novel. It begins with a lengthy forward explaining that the book you're about to read was written by Humbert Humbert while in his jail cell awaiting trial for murder. Humbert died of coronary thrombosis upon completing the manuscript. Humbert begins his autobiographical account by relating the tale of his 1920s childhood romance with an angelic girl named Annabel Leigh, which was tragically cut short when she died of typhus. Their love for each other and his loss of her would affect Humbert for the rest of his life.
Later, just before the outbreak of World War 2, Humbert leaves Paris for New York after his first real relationship with a woman goes sour. After the war, he moves to New England to begin a writing career. He rents a room from grotesque widow Charlotte Haze after meeting and becoming smitten with her precocious 12-year-old daughter, Dolores, known by her nickname, Lolita. The tragically deluded Humbert sees in her his beloved Annabel, despite the fact that the corrupt, nasty Lolita is really the polar opposite of Annabel.
Humbert will do anything to be near Lolita. He even marries her mother, Charlotte, though he can't stand her. The marriage ends in dramatic fashion when Charlotte reads Humbert's secret diary, runs out of the house, and is struck and killed by a car. Later, when Humbert tries to have his way with Lolita, she ends up seducing him and reveals that she lost her virginity to a boy she met at summer camp.
Humbert and Lolita drive across the country in Charlotte's car, going from state to state and motel to motel, where the older man bribes the young girl for sexual favors. Humbert is frustrated by the fact that Lolita doesn't return his affection or share his interests, and blind to the fact that she is a manipulative sociopath who is exploiting him even more than he's exploiting her. When she falls ill and is hospitalized, after her recovery, while Humbert is away, Lolita checks out with a man claiming to be her uncle, who pays her hospital bill. Humbert begins a frantic (and funny) search for her, trying to make sense of humorous clues left behind by Lolita and her "uncle."
After giving up the search, Humbert has a chaotic, two-year affair with Rita, an alcoholic 30-year-old woman who reminds him of Lolita. Years later, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita, who is married, pregnant, and in need of money. Armed with a loaded gun, he tracks her down, intending to kill her husband. Lolita reveals that her husband is not the man she ran off with. That man was Clare Quilty, a demented playwright, pervert, and amateur pornographer whose play, The Hunted Enchanters, she acted in while a member of her school's drama club. He seduced her, and she became his lover for a time.
Humbert gives Lolita the money she asked for, along with her rightful inheritance from her mother's estate. Then he leaves to track down Clare Quilty and take revenge.
Lolita was adapted an acclaimed feature film in 1962, directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick and starring James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze, Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty, and 14-year-old newcomer Sue Lyon as Lolita. The screenplay was written by Vladimir Nabokov himself. Although the novel had to be sanitized as per Production Code requirements, the movie remains a naughty delight that wonderfully captures both the comedy and tragedy of Nabokov's novel.
In 1997, director Adrian Lyne remade Lolita. Despite the sincere acting of Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert, the movie is a plodding, depressing, boring mess, with dreadful performances by 17-year-old Dominique Swain as Lolita and a horribly miscast Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze. Frank Langella, also horribly miscast, plays Clare Quilty as a bestial psychopath instead of the delightfully perverse playwright portrayed with comic malice by the great Peter Sellers in the 1962 original.
Vladimir Nabokov would later name Lolita as his favorite novel. It still remains a classic work of literature.
Quote Of The Day "Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name." - Vladimir Nabokov
Vanguard Video Today's video is a two-part presentation featuring Vladimir Nabokov discussing his novel Lolita on Canadian TV in the 1950s. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On August 17th, 1926, the famous French actor and playwright Jean Poiret was born. He was born Jean Poiré in Paris, France.
Poiret first became famous in 1951, when he starred in the radio series Malheir aux Barbus, created by Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche. A year later, while working in a stage show at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre, Poiret met legendary French actor Michel Serrault. They co-starred in a sketch called Jerry Scott, Vedette International. They would later co-star in a production of Poiret's legendary play.
In 1961, Poiret had become a member of the French cinematic society Pathé and wrote and recorded La Vache à Mille Francs, a parody of the song La Valse à Mille Temps by Jacques Brel. Twelve years later, in 1973, Poiret married actress Caroline Cellier. She bore him one child.
That same year, Jean Poiret wrote the play that made him world famous - a comedy called La Cages Aux Folles. (The Birdcage) In the stage production, Poiret played the lead role of Renato Baldi, a middle-aged gay man who manages the Saint-Tropez nightclub where his partner, Albin Mougeotte, (Michel Serrault) performs in drag as Zaza Napoli. Renato has a son, Laurent, from an early heterosexual relationship. He and Albin raised him.
When Laurent returns from college, he announces his wedding plans and brings his fiance's arch conservative, homophobic parents home to meet his father. He didn't tell them that Dad was gay, and now he fears that they won't let him marry their daughter when they find out. So, Renato and Albin redecorate their garishly adorned apartment and try to pass themselves off as straight!
La Cage Aux Folles became a huge hit. In 1978, a feature film adaptation was made. Jean Poiret was replaced as Renato by Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi, but Michel Serrault resumed his co-lead role as Albin. For its U.S. release, the movie was retitled Birds Of A Feather and dubbed into English by the original cast - a rarity for foreign films released in the U.S. The highly acclaimed feature film was followed by two mediocre sequels, La Cage Aux Folles II (1980), and La Cage Aux Folles 3: The Wedding (1985).
The original La Cage Aux Folles would later be adapted as a Tony Award winning Broadway musical and remade as a film in 1996 - The Birdcage - which starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in the lead roles.
In his amazing career, Jean Poiret acted in dozens of movies over a 40-year period. In 1992, he directed his first film - Le Zèbre (The Zebra). It was an adaptation of a novel by Alexandre Jardin that starred Poiret's wife, Caroline Cellier. Unfortunately, three months before the film's premiere, Poiret died of a heart attack. He was 65 years old.
Quote Of The Day “To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.” - Jean Genet
Vanguard Video Today's video features a clip from a 2008 London performance of the La Cage Aux Folles musical. Enjoy!
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