The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography by A. J. A. Symons (1934)

Corvo top 

Baron Curso - A K A Frederick Rolfe (1860 to 1913, born England, died in Italy) published Hadrian the Seventh in 1904

Alphonse James Albert Symons (1900 to 1941, England, the son of Russian Jewish Immigrants, remembered primarily for this book
Not long ago I read and posted upon a book that will doubtless become required reading for those interested in the art of literary biography, The Long Pursuit:  The Romantic Biography by Richard Holmes.  Holmes taught a Masters class in writing biographies for years at the University of East Angelia.  For that he prepared a list of what he considered "canon status" biographical works that he wanted his students, all aspiring biographers, to read.  Among the seven from the 20th century was The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography by A. J. A. Symons.  I fell in love with this book five pages in!

The Quest for Corvo is widely regarded as one of the best of literary biographies.  Symons has given the world a biography of the author of Hadrian the Seventh written in exquisite prose.  His every sentence is a polished gem.  We also see how he came to write the biography and his methods of research.

Hadrian the Seventh is the story of how a sexually depraved poverty stricken Englishmen became pope and ended up dying in abject poverty in Venice.

Symons was given lots of papers and a copy of Hadrian the Seventh by a friend.  On reading the novel he was determined to find out all he could about the author.  He discovered both a con man and a genius, living from borrowing money and art projects and some money from writing.  He was Gay and the book is considered an early GLBT classic.  We follow along as Symons contacts through letters initially friends and family of Corso.  He had assumed the title Baron, claiming with no substantiation he had been awarded the honor, and tried to live like royalty.  He died in the gutters of the bad side of Venice.

This book is worth reading just for the prose style, the many people we meet and for an appreciation of how hard serious biographical research in pre-internet days.  I guess no more books like this will probably be written, more the pity.

The Dream by Ivan Turgenev (1877, translated by Constance Garnett, 1897)

The Dream (some would classify this work as a short story, others as novella, the reading time will be for most all under thirty minutes) is the first work by Turgenev I have so far read with a supernatural overcast.  Turgenev had serious mother issues (she ruled over 5000 serfs with a very cruel hand to the point of severe whippings  for petty offenses), his biographers said she treated Turgenev very harshly after the death of his father.  This sort of a cold indifferent mother abused and abandoned is very much like the mother of the first person narrator of The Dream.  

Garnett's prose beautifully sets the story in motion

"I was living at that time with my mother in a little seaside town. I was in my seventeenth year, while my mother was not quite five -and -thirty; she had married very young. When my father died, I was only seven years old, but I remember him well. My mother was a fair -haired woman, not very tall, with a charming, but always sad -looking face, a soft, tired voice and timid gestures. In her youth she had been reputed a beauty, and to the end she remained attractive and pretty. I have never seen deeper, tenderer, and sadder eyes, finer and softer hair; I never saw hands so exquisite. I adored her, and she loved me…. But our life was not a bright one; a secret, hopeless, undeserved sorrow seemed for ever gnawing at the very root of her being.....

No! something more lay hidden in it, which I did not understand, but of which I was aware, dimly and yet intensely aware, whenever I looked into those soft and unchanging eyes, at those lips, unchanging too, not compressed in bitterness, but, as it were, for ever set in one expression. I have said that my mother loved me; but there were moments when she repulsed me, when my presence was oppressive to her, unendurable. At such times she felt a sort of involuntary aversion for me, and was horrified afterwards, blamed herself with tears, pressed me to her heart. I used to ascribe these momentary outbreaks of dislike to the derangement of her health, to her unhappiness…."

The story unravels in a very suspenseful way the mystery behind the sadness of the mother.

My Posts on Ivan Turgenev

Way Station by Clifford Simak (1963, Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel, 1964)

Open Road Media - Publisher of 1000s of high quality value priced E Books

Open Road is the publisher in E Book fashion of Clifford Simak and lots of other top name science fiction writers

In the long ago I used to enjoy reading a lot of science fiction.   My favorite science fiction novel was Dune by Frank Herbert.

I decided to read Way Station by Clifford Simak (1904 to 1988, Wisconsin, USA) for three reasons, it was a Hugo Award Winning novel, the description intrigued me and the Kindle edition was on sale for $0.99.

The central character in Way Station is Enoch, he is over 100 years old but looks thirty.  Ever since the civil war (the story seems set in the 1920s, in rural America.  Enoch was always a loner, made more so by his war experiences.  One day a stranger wandered up to his house.  He turned out to be an alien and he set up on Enoch's property a Way Station for intergalactic travelers.  Beyond earth there exists a huge universe of much more advanced beings who have a way of traveling through space involving transmission to Way stations throughout the universe.  Enoch becomes fascinated with the aliens who visit him.  He begins to attract attention from neighbors and the government.  Simak does a great job making this all very believable and super interesting.

There are very suspenseful events involving a deaf mute girl and her brutal father, the CIA and a sinister alien.

Way Station was a lot of fun, easy quick reading that will make you think.

The House of Names by Colm Toibin (forthcoming May, 2017)

My Posts on Colm Toibin



"Cassandra lifted her beautiful head and haughtily caught my eye, as if I had been placed on earth to serve her; then she looked at Electra, who stared at her in wonder. Many other chariots had come by now, some bearing treasure and others filled with slaves, their hands bound behind them. Cassandra stood apart from this, glancing with disdain at the slaves who were being led away. I moved towards her, and invited her to enter the palace, signaling to Electra that she should follow." Spoken by Clytemnestra upon the return of Agamemnon, her husband, from Troy

Colm Toibin (Ireland) is a tremendously successful author.  I have posted on several of his novels, short stories and his illuminating literary essays.  His fiction ranges from contemporary Ireland to recreations of ancient stories

I was very happy to receive a review copy of his latest novel, The House of Names.  Toibin focuses on Ancient Greece, circa 500 BCE at the court of King Agamemnon upon his return from Troy, nine year ago.  It centers on Clytemnestra's revenge for Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia.  Her father had promised she would marry Achilles but at what she and her mother thought was to be her wedding day, she was sacrificed to the Gods to assure smooth sailing to Troy.

The story, full of violence and suspense, is told from four points of view.  Clytemnestra is consumed by her hatred for her husband and her contempt for the Gods.  Her murder of her husband is very vividly rendered.  We enter the consciousness of Electra, younger sister of Iphigenia.  Agamemnon brought with him as one of the spoils of war a beautiful young woman who he intends to be his wife, with Clytemnestra being reduced to a servant.  In the character of Orestes, younger brother of the girls, we see his divided loyalties.

House of Names is an exciting and thought provoking work.  I enjoyed very much Toibin's imaginative recreation of these ancient Homeric myths.

Mel u

Two Short Stories by S. Ansky- Author of The Dybbuk

Excellent Bio on S. Ansky- from Jewish Heritage Online

"In the Tavern", 1884, translated by Robert Szulkin

"The Sins of Youth", translated by Lucy Danidowicz, 1910



I know for sure if I had not entered the international book blog community years ago I would have never dreamed of reading Yiddish literature.  Sometime back Yale University Press gave me the wonderful gift of all the books, eleven, in The Yale Yiddish Library.   Among them were a collection of works by the famous dramatist, S. Ansky, best now recalled for his play, The Dybbuk, first produced in 1914 and still widely preformed.

Yiddish literature, a great deal of which was written in America, is a world class cultural treasure.   (I recently acquired a fabulous 1500 page anthology, Yiddish Literature in America, 1870 to 2000, edited by Emmanuel Goldsmith and translated by Barnett Zumolf which will, I hope, greatly expand my erudition in Yiddish literature.).

Ansky grew up in what is now Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire.  The stories I am featuring today are set in the now lost culture of the shtel. They are not happy feel good stories, they depict the lives of the impoverished.

"In the Tavern" lets us see what goes on in a shtel tavern.  The tavern is the social center of the Shtel.  Sansky lets us see the business side of the tavern and the escape of the patrons into drunken oblivion.  It is a very harsh look which has the complete feel of the truth.

"The Sins of Youth" centers on a young teacher.  He has set up shop in a shtel he just moved to, tutoring a number of boys.  He gets in trouble when he begins to teach literature besides religious studies.  When there are rumors of a possible coming pogram, the shtel Rabbi says it is warning of God that this teacher must leave the community.  In a chilling scene, the community members burn a mass of forbidden books.


The two short stories I am featuring today are both set in

The Reading Life Review - March, 2017

There are now 3014 posts online

The Reading Life has had 4,534,646 hits

The top countries of origin for March were

USA, The Philippines, Russia, India and Belgium

The Russian hits were from bots, once or twice a month they inundate the blog, why I am not yet clear.

Normally in March I have focused on Irish Short Stories, this year I did not.  I still love this reading area and will return to it.

Works I read but did not post upon

"The Lady of the House of Love" by Angela Carter. From The Bloody Chamber

"Glory" by Lesley Nneka Arimah. A 2017 O Henry Prize Story.  I will post on her work soon

The Shadow in the Garden A Biographer's Tale by James Atlas.

Literary Biographies



I read two first rate just published literary biographies, one on Angela Carter and another on Elizabeth Bishop.  I will be reading more.

Novels

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a reread after fifty years

Coco Chanel by C. W. Gortner-a very well done literary treatment of her life




Buried in Print is conducting a read through of the short stories of Mavis Gallant.  I read for this a great story "The Other Paris".

I give my humble thanks to those who have left comments.  It means a great deal to me.

Mel u

Elizabeth Bishop A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall (2017)

"When you write my epitaph, you must say I was the loneliest person who ever lived.”  Elizabeth Bishop in correspondence with Robert Lowell

The Last Love Affair of Elizabeth Bishop by Megan Marshall (in The New Yorker, October 27, 2016)




1911 to 1979 (Massachusetts)

1956 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

1970 National Book Award

Elizabeth Bishop published only 100 poems in her life.  From these she has become one of the most admired and loved American poets of the 20th century.   Megan Marshall in Elizabeth Bishop A Miracle for Breakfast presents a vivid brilliant account of her life, a narrative relayed with the intensity of a highly skilled story teller that left me feeling very sad, loving Bishop for her art and courage to live as her heart dictated  while so much hating her terrible alcoholism, her need to drink herself into oblivion.  Marshall helps us understand why Bishop was driven to this. The problem endured her entire adult life, complicated her numerous friendships and romances.

Tragedy soon found Bishop, her father died when she was eight months old, shortly afterwards her mother was committed to a mental asylum which she never left.  Bishop did not again see her mother. She was sent to her maternal grandparents in Novia Scotia. After a few years she moved to the home of her wealthy paternal grandparents.  Bishop was not happy with them so she was transferred to the home of her mother's sister. Her aunt, paid by the grandparents for her care, instilled in her a love of poetry, this came to provide her direction in life.  Her father's estate set up a trust for Bishop which sustained her for life.  Having numerous health issues Bishop struggled with her schooling but did graduate from the very prestigious Vassar in 1934.

Megan lets us see the profound influence the poet Marianne Moore, Bishop met her while at Vassar.  Moore encouraged and guided her in developing her poems.  Megan talks about the influence of the poets Robert Lowell and Randall Jarrell, she met them in 1947, on Bishop.  Lowell became a life long friend and a poetic influence.  Lowell helped Bishop get a job teaching creative writing at Harvard toward the end of her life and Bishop,through an extensive correspondence tried to help Lowell with his issues.

Bishop did not have to work, she was not rich but comfortable, she began shortly after college to travel extensively.  She lived, in a romantic relationship with a wealthy fellow Vassar graduate in Paris for a few years. In 1938 they bought together a house in Key West, Florida where Bishop lived for a while. All the time Bishop is writing poems, Megan lets us see what a meticulous artist she was, often working on a poem for years.

In 1949, after working as poetry consultant for The Library of Congress for a year, she received a $2500.00 grant for travel from Byrn Mawr college for travel expenses. She planned on staying two weeks in Brazil but ended up staying 15 years.  Bishop fell in love with Brazilian culture and a Brazilian woman from a wealthy family, her longest lasting relationship. Bishop had only same sex relationships.  She loved living in rural Brazil, the contrast to New England and Canada must have been overwhelmingly.  Upon the suicide of her lover, Bishop began to spend more time in America, teaching for seven years at Harvard.

Megan Marshall was a student of Bishop and she includes as kind of interludes several chapters about her relationship with Bishop.

I think one of the many things I admired about Marshall's wonderful biography was her treatment of Bishop's sexuality. A less secure biographer might have felt the need to explain this, to offer conjectures as to the psychological reasons behind this.  Marshall just accepts it as not something requiring an explanation.

There is much more in this book than I have touched upon. I will, I think, reread her poetry with more understanding.

Marshall's webpage explains the genesis of this book.

meganmarshallauthor.com

I highly recommend this literary biography.

Mel u