Why You Should Read The Master and Margarita: An Animated Introduction to Bulgakov’s Rollicking Soviet Satire

in Books, History, Literature | June 3rd, 2019

Which are the essen­tial Russ­ian nov­els? Quite a few unde­ni­able con­tenders come to mind right away: Fathers and Sons, Crime and Pun­ish­ment, War and Peace, Anna Karen­i­na, The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov, Dr. Zhiva­go, One Day in the Life of Ivan Deniso­vich. But among seri­ous enthu­si­asts of Russ­ian lit­er­a­ture, nov­els don’t come much less deni­able than The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta, Mikhail Bul­gakov’s tale of the Dev­il’s vis­it to Sovi­et Moscow in the 1930s. This “sur­re­al blend of polit­i­cal satire, his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, and occult mys­ti­cism,” as Alex Gendler describes it in the ani­mat­ed TED-Ed video above, “has earned a lega­cy as one of the 20th century’s great­est nov­els — and one of its strangest.”

The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta con­sists of two par­al­lel nar­ra­tives. In the first, “a meet­ing between two mem­bers of Moscow’s lit­er­ary elite is inter­rupt­ed by a strange gen­tle­man named Woland, who presents him­self as a for­eign schol­ar invit­ed to give a pre­sen­ta­tion on black mag­ic.” Then, “as the stranger engages the two com­pan­ions in a philo­soph­i­cal debate and makes omi­nous pre­dic­tions about their fates, the read­er is sud­den­ly trans­port­ed to first-cen­tu­ry Jerusalem,” where “a tor­ment­ed Pon­tius Pilate reluc­tant­ly sen­tences Jesus of Nazareth to death.”

The nov­el oscil­lates between the sto­ry of the his­tor­i­cal Jesus — though not quite the one the Bible tells — and that of Woland and his entourage, which includes an enor­mous cat named Behe­moth with a taste for chess, vod­ka, wise­cracks, and firearms. Dark humor flows lib­er­al­ly from their antics, as well as from Bul­gakov’s depic­tion of “the USSR at the height of the Stal­in­ist peri­od. There, artists and authors worked under strict cen­sor­ship, sub­ject to impris­on­ment, exile, or exe­cu­tion if they were seen as under­min­ing state ide­ol­o­gy.”

The dev­il­ish Woland plays this over­bear­ing bureau­crat­ic life like a fid­dle, and “as heads are sep­a­rat­ed from bod­ies and mon­ey rains from the sky, the cit­i­zens of Moscow react with pet­ty-self inter­est, illus­trat­ing how Sovi­et soci­ety bred greed and cyn­i­cism despite its ideals.” Such con­tent would nat­u­ral­ly ren­der a book unpub­lish­able at the time, and though Bul­gakov’s ear­li­er satire The Heart of a Dog (in which a sur­geon trans­plants human organs into a dog and then insists he behave as a human) cir­cu­lat­ed in samiz­dat form, he could­n’t even com­plete The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta before his death in 1940.

“Bulgakov’s expe­ri­ences with cen­sor­ship and artis­tic frus­tra­tion lend an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal air to the sec­ond part of the nov­el, when we are final­ly intro­duced to its name­sake,” says Gendler. “The Mas­ter is a name­less author who’s worked for years on a nov­el but burned the man­u­script after it was reject­ed by pub­lish­ers — just as Bul­gakov had done with his own work. Yet the true pro­tag­o­nist is the Master’s mis­tress Mar­gari­ta,” whose “devo­tion to her lover’s aban­doned dream bears a strange con­nec­tion to the dia­bol­i­cal company’s escapades — and car­ries the sto­ry to its sur­re­al cli­max.”

In the event, a cen­sored ver­sion of The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta was first pub­lished in the 1960s, and an as-com­plete-as-pos­si­ble ver­sion even­tu­al­ly appeared in 1973. Against the odds, the man­u­script that Bul­gakov left behind sur­vived him to become a mas­ter­piece that has inspired not just oth­er Russ­ian writ­ers, but cre­ators like the Rolling Stones, Pat­ti Smith, and (in a per­haps less than safe-for-work man­ner) H.R. Giger as well. Per­haps the author him­self had some pre­mo­ni­tion of the book’s poten­tial: man­u­scripts, as he famous­ly has Woland say to the Mas­ter, don’t burn.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? (This could include The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta.) Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta, Ani­mat­ed in Two Min­utes

Pat­ti Smith’s Musi­cal Trib­utes to the Russ­ian Greats: Tarkovsky, Gogol & Bul­gakov

Why You Should Read Crime and Pun­ish­ment: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Dostoevsky’s Moral Thriller

Why Should We Read Ray Bradbury’s Fahren­heit 451? A New TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Explains

Why You Should Read One Hun­dred Years of Soli­tude: An Ani­mat­ed Video Makes the Case

Watch the Sur­re­al­ist Glass Har­mon­i­ca, the Only Ani­mat­ed Film Ever Banned by Sovi­et Cen­sors (1968)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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When Boris Pasternak Won–and Then the Soviets Forced Him to Decline–the Nobel Prize (1958)

in Literature, Politics | May 30th, 2019

Behind the award­ing of the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, there are sto­ries upon sto­ries, some as juicy as those in the work of win­ners like William Faulkn­er or Gabriel Gar­cía Márquez—and some just as dev­as­tat­ing to the par­ties involved. Last year’s award was post­poned after sex­u­al assault alle­ga­tions lead to sev­er­al mem­bers to resign­ing. (There will be two prizes award­ed for 2019.) The charges need­ed to be aired, but if you’re look­ing for details about how the secre­tive com­mit­tee selects the nom­i­nees and win­ners, you’ll have to wait a while.

“The Swedish Acad­e­my keeps all infor­ma­tion about nom­i­na­tions and selec­tions for the pres­ti­gious award secret for 50 years,” writes Alli­son Flood at The Guardian. New­ly unsealed doc­u­ments from the Acad­e­my have shone light on Jean-Paul Sartre’s rejec­tion of the prize in 1964, and the shun­ning of Samuel Beck­ett in 1968 by com­mit­tee chair­man Anders Öster­ling, who found his work too nihilis­tic (Beck­ett won the fol­low­ing year), and of Vladimir Nabokov, whose Loli­ta Öster­ling declared “immoral.”

Per­haps the sad­dest of Nobel sto­ries has tak­en on even more vivid detail, not only through new­ly opened files of the Nobel Prize com­mit­tee, but also recent­ly declas­si­fied CIA doc­u­ments that show how the agency used Boris Pasternak’s Doc­tor Zhiva­go as a pro­pa­gan­da tool (hand­ing out hasty re-trans­la­tions into Russ­ian to Sovi­et vis­i­tors at the World’s Fair). In Octo­ber 1958, the author was award­ed the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture. He had, as The Guardian report­ed in Octo­ber of that year, intend­ed to “accept it in per­son in Stock­holm next month.” He may have had lit­tle rea­son to think he could not do so.

Despite his role as a per­pet­u­al thorn in the side of the Sovi­et gov­ern­ment, and their attempts to sup­press his work and refusal to allow Doc­tor Zhiva­go to be pub­lished, the repres­sive regime most­ly gave Paster­nak his rel­a­tive free­dom, even after the nov­el was smug­gled abroad, trans­lat­ed, and released to an inter­na­tion­al read­er­ship. Whether or not the Nobel com­mit­tee chose him as an anti-Com­mu­nist state­ment, as some have alleged, made no dif­fer­ence to his rep­u­ta­tion around the world as a pen­e­trat­ing real­ist in the great Russ­ian nov­el­is­tic tra­di­tion.

The award might have been per­ceived as a val­i­da­tion of Russ­ian let­ters, but the Sovi­ets saw it as a threat. They had “raged” against Doc­tor Zhiva­go and its “anti-Marx­ist” pas­sages, “but that only increased its pop­u­lar­i­ty,” writes Ben Panko at Smith­son­ian. Paster­nak had already been “repeat­ed­ly nom­i­nat­ed for the Nobel Prize” and the “world­wide buzz around his new book pushed him to the top of the list in 1958.” Upon learn­ing of the win, he sent a telegram to the com­mit­tee that read, in part, “Thank­ful, glad, proud, con­fused.”

Days lat­er, as The Guardian wrote, Paster­nak decid­ed to decline the award “with­out hav­ing con­sult­ed even his friends.” He sent a short telegram to the Swedish Acad­e­my read­ing:

Con­sid­er­ing the mean­ing this award has been giv­en in the soci­ety to which I belong, I must reject this unde­served prize which has been pre­sent­ed to me. Please do not receive my vol­un­tary rejec­tion with dis­plea­sure. — Paster­nak.

The author’s “deci­sion” was not as abrupt as it might have seemed. In the days after his win, a storm raged, as he put it. Even before the declas­si­fied trove of infor­ma­tion, read­ers around the world could fol­low the sto­ry, “which had more twists and turns than a Cold War-era spy nov­el,” Tina Jor­dan writes at The New York Times. It played out in the papers “with one front-page sto­ry after anoth­er.” Paster­nak angered the Sovi­ets by express­ing his “delight” at win­ning the prize in an inter­view. He was denounced in Sovi­et news­pa­pers, called by a Prav­da edi­tor a “malev­o­lent Philis­tine” and “libel­er,” and his book described as “low-grade reac­tionary hack­work.”

Paster­nak faced exile in the days after he gave up the prize and issued a forced pub­lic apol­o­gy in Prav­da on Novem­ber 6. The Acad­e­my held the cer­e­mo­ny in his absence and placed his award in trust “in case he may some day have a chance to accept them,” the Times report­ed. Paster­nak had hoped to be rein­stat­ed to the Sovi­et Writer’s Union, which had expelled him, and had hoped that his nov­el would be pub­lished in his own coun­try and lan­guage in his life­time.

Nei­ther of these things occurred. The events sur­round­ing the Nobel broke him. His health began to fail and he died two years lat­er in 1960. Pasternak’s son Yevge­ny describes in mov­ing detail see­ing his father the night after he turned down the Nobel. “I couldn’t rec­og­nize my father when I saw him that evening. Pale, life­less face, tired painful eyes, and only speak­ing about the same thing: ‘Now it all doesn’t mat­ter, I declined the Prize.’” Doc­tor Zhiva­go was pub­lished in the Sovi­et Union in 1988. “The fol­low­ing year,” notes Panko, “Yevge­ny was allowed to go to Oslo and retrieve his father’s denied prize.”

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? That could include  Doc­tor Zhiva­go. Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jean-Paul Sartre Rejects the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture in 1964: “It Was Mon­strous!”

Hear Albert Camus Deliv­er His Nobel Prize Accep­tance Speech (1957)

How the Inven­tor of Dyna­mite, Alfred Nobel, Read an Obit­u­ary That Called Him “The Mer­chant of Death” and Made Amends by Cre­at­ing the Nobel Prize

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Why You Should Read Crime and Punishment: An Animated Introduction to Dostoevsky’s Moral Thriller

in Literature | May 27th, 2019

A des­per­ate­ly poor law stu­dent kills a pawn­bro­ker. There we have the sto­ry, max­i­mal­ly dis­tilled, of Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment. Or at least we have the cen­tral event, to which every­thing in Dos­to­evsky’s best-known nov­el leads and from which every­thing else fol­lows. But as with so many 19th-cen­tu­ry Russ­ian nov­els, there’s much more to it than that; some Dos­to­evsky enthu­si­asts see the book as not just the sto­ry of a mur­der’s med­i­ta­tion and after­math but an inci­sive por­tray­al of the eter­nal moral con­di­tion of human­i­ty. But since such grand-sound­ing claims no doubt put off as many read­ers as they bring in, we’d do bet­ter to ask a sim­pler ques­tion: Why should you read Crime and Pun­ish­ment?

The ani­mat­ed TED-Ed les­son by Alex Gendler above answers that ques­tion in four and a half ani­mat­ed min­utes. “Though the nov­el is some­times cit­ed as one of the first psy­cho­log­i­cal thrillers,” Gendler says, its scope reach­es far beyond the inner tur­moil of the stu­dent-turned-killer Raskol­nikov. “From dank tav­erns to dilap­i­dat­ed apart­ments and claus­tro­pho­bic police sta­tions, the under­bel­ly of 19th-cen­tu­ry Saint Peters­burg is brought to life by Dostoyevsky’s sear­ing prose.”

With its large cast of ful­ly real­ized and often not-quite-savory inhab­i­tants, this “bleak por­trait of Russ­ian soci­ety reflects the author’s own com­plex life expe­ri­ences and evolv­ing ideas” — expe­ri­ences that includ­ed four years in a Siber­ian labor camp as pun­ish­ment for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in intel­lec­tu­al dis­cus­sions of banned social­ist texts.

You might assume that such a back­ground would pro­duce a bit­ter writer con­cerned only with revenge against the state, but Dos­to­evsky’s social cri­tique, Gendler says, “cuts far deep­er. Raskol­nikov ratio­nal­izes that his own advance­ment at the cost of the exploita­tive pawnbroker’s death would be a net ben­e­fit to soci­ety,” which “echoes the doc­trines of ego­ism and util­i­tar­i­an­ism embraced by many of Dostoyevsky’s con­tem­po­rary intel­lec­tu­als.” And all of us, not just intel­lec­tu­als and polit­i­cal lead­ers, have the poten­tial to cut our­selves off from our own human­i­ty as Raskol­nikov does. Some of us face pun­ish­ment for the crimes we com­mit, but many of us don’t — or not offi­cial, exter­nal­ly applied pun­ish­ment, in any case, but “Dostoyevsky’s grip­ping account of social and psy­cho­log­i­cal tur­moil” still shows us how the harsh­est pun­ish­ment comes from with­in.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Dig­i­tal Dos­to­evsky: Down­load Free eBooks & Audio Books of the Russ­ian Novelist’s Major Works

Dos­to­evsky Draws Doo­dles of Raskol­nikov and Oth­er Char­ac­ters in the Man­u­script of Crime and Pun­ish­ment

Fyo­dor Dostoyevsky’s Life & Lit­er­a­ture Intro­duced in a Mon­ty Python-Style Ani­ma­tion

The Ani­mat­ed Dos­to­evsky: Two Fine­ly Craft­ed Short Films Bring the Russ­ian Novelist’s Work to Life

Bat­man Stars in an Unusu­al Car­toon Adap­ta­tion of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Hunter S. Thompson’s Ballsy Job Application Letter (1958)

in Life, Literature | May 16th, 2019

Image by RS79 , via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 1958, Hunter S. Thomp­son applied for a job with the Van­cou­ver Sun. He was fresh out of the Air Force and strug­gling to make a liv­ing in New York City, though from the tone of the let­ter you wouldn’t know it.

Peo­ple who are experts in such things say that good cov­er let­ters should match the employer’s needs with the appli­can­t’s abil­i­ties, should be tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly to the job in ques­tion and should show some per­son­al­i­ty. By those yard­sticks, Thompson’s let­ter to the Van­cou­ver Sun is a mod­el to be fol­lowed. He lays out his eager­ness to work: “I can work 25 hours a day if nec­es­sary, live on any rea­son­able salary.” Any HR man­ag­er would be tick­led with lines like that. He suc­cinct­ly describes his work expe­ri­ence: “most of my expe­ri­ence has been in sports writ­ing, but I can write every­thing from war­mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da to learned book reviews.” And for any oth­er fault you might find with the let­ter, it def­i­nite­ly does­n’t lack in per­son­al­i­ty.

Yet the let­ter some­how failed to charm his would-be employ­er; Thomp­son nev­er moved to Van­cou­ver. Per­haps they were giv­en pause by Thomp­son’s steady stream of insults direct­ed towards his for­mer edi­tor — “It was as if the Mar­quis De Sade had sud­den­ly found him­self work­ing for Bil­ly Gra­ham” — and towards jour­nal­ism in gen­er­al: “It’s a damned shame that a field as poten­tial­ly dynam­ic and vital as jour­nal­ism should be over­run with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-rid­den with myopia, apa­thy, and com­pla­cence, and gen­er­al­ly stuck in a bog of stag­nant medi­oc­rity.” Or per­haps it was his inten­tion­al­ly off-putting arro­gance, “I’d rather offend you now than after I start­ed work­ing for you.” In any case, it’s a hoot to read. More peo­ple should write job appli­ca­tion let­ters like this.

Read the full let­ter below.

Van­cou­ver Sun
TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN
Octo­ber 1, 1958 57 Per­ry Street New York City

Sir,
I got a hell of a kick read­ing the piece Time mag­a­zine did this week on The Sun. In addi­tion to wish­ing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my ser­vices.

Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a ten­ta­tive offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I did­n’t know any­thing about (see enclosed clip­pings) and I’m not quite ready to go charg­ing up anoth­er blind alley.

By the time you get this let­ter, I’ll have got­ten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks total­ly worth­less, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arro­gance is unin­ten­tion­al: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I start­ed work­ing for you.

I did­n’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Mar­quis de Sade had sud­den­ly found him­self work­ing for Bil­ly Gra­ham. The man despised me, of course, and I had noth­ing but con­tempt for him and every­thing he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very lik­able, (that I) hate peo­ple, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too supe­ri­or to min­gle with the aver­age per­son.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the pub­lish­er.)

Noth­ing beats hav­ing good ref­er­ences.

Of course if you asked some of the oth­er peo­ple I’ve worked for, you’d get a dif­fer­ent set of answers. If you’re inter­est­ed enough to answer this let­ter, I’ll be glad to fur­nish you with a list of ref­er­ences — includ­ing the lad I work for now.

The enclosed clip­pings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, how­ev­er, and I’ve changed a bit since it was writ­ten. I’ve tak­en some writ­ing cours­es from Colum­bia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the news­pa­per busi­ness, and devel­oped a healthy con­tempt for jour­nal­ism as a pro­fes­sion.

As far as I’m con­cerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as poten­tial­ly dynam­ic and vital as jour­nal­ism should be over­run with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-rid­den with myopia, apa­thy, and com­pla­cence, and gen­er­al­ly stuck in a bog of stag­nant medi­oc­rity. If this is what you’re try­ing to get The Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.

Most of my expe­ri­ence has been in sports writ­ing, but I can write every­thing from war­mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da to learned book reviews.

I can work 25 hours a day if nec­es­sary, live on any rea­son­able salary, and don’t give a black damn for job secu­ri­ty, office pol­i­tics, or adverse pub­lic rela­tions.
I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.
It’s a long way from here to British Colum­bia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip.

If you think you can use me, drop me a line.

If not, good luck any­way.

Sin­cere­ly,

Hunter S. Thomp­son

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in April 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thomp­son Typed Out The Great Gats­by & A Farewell to Arms Word for Word: A Method for Learn­ing How to Write Like the Mas­ters

Hunter S. Thomp­son, Exis­ten­tial­ist Life Coach, Presents Tips for Find­ing Mean­ing in Life

Read 10 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

Hunter S. Thomp­son Talks with Kei­th Richards in a Very Mem­o­rable and Mum­ble-Filled Inter­view (1993)

Hunter S. Thomp­son Gets Con­front­ed by The Hell’s Angels

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

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When Dracula Author Bram Stoker Wrote a Gushing Fan Letter to Walt Whitman (1870)

in Letters, Literature | May 15th, 2019

Every artist starts out as a fan, and in gen­er­al we see the marks of ear­ly fan­dom on their mature work. The best, after all—as fig­ures from Igor Stravin­sky to William Faulkn­er have remarked—steal with­out com­punc­tion, tak­ing what they like from their heroes and mak­ing it their own. But what exact­ly, we might won­der, did Drac­u­la author Bram Stok­er steal from his lit­er­ary hero, Walt Whit­man? I leave it to you to read the 1897 Goth­ic nov­el that spawned innu­mer­able undead fran­chis­es and fan­doms next to Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the book that most inspired Stok­er when it made its British debut in 1868.

First pub­lished in 1855, then rewrit­ten over the rest of Whitman’s life, the book of poet­ry bold­ly cel­e­brat­ed the same plea­sure and sen­su­al­i­ty that Stoker’s nov­el made so dan­ger­ous. But Drac­u­la was the work of a 50-year old writer. When Stok­er first read Whit­man, he was only 22, wide-eyed and roman­tic, and “grown from a sick­ly boy into a brawny ath­lete,” writes Mered­ith Hind­ley at the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Human­i­ties mag­a­zine.

Whitman—himself a cham­pi­on of robust mas­cu­line health (he once penned a man­u­al called “Man­ly Health & Train­ing”)—so appealed to the young Irish writer’s deep sen­si­bil­i­ties that he wrote the old­er poet a gush­ing let­ter two years lat­er in 1870.

Stoker’s fan let­ter cer­tain­ly shows the Whit­man­ian influ­ence, “a long stream of sen­ti­ment cas­cad­ing through var­i­ous emo­tions,” as Brain Pick­ings’ Maria Popo­va describes it, includ­ing “surg­ing con­fi­dence bor­der­ing on hubris, del­i­cate self-doubt, absolute artist-to-artist ado­ra­tion.” Whit­man, flat­tered and charmed, wrote a reply, but only after four years, dur­ing which Stok­er sat on his let­ter, ashamed to mail it. “For four years, it haunt­ed his desk, part muse and part gob­lin.” When he final­ly gath­ered the courage in 1876 to rewrite the emo­tion­al let­ter and put it in the mail, he was reward­ed with the kind of praise that must have absolute­ly thrilled him.

“You did so well to write to me,” Whit­man replied, “so uncon­ven­tion­al­ly, so fresh, so man­ly, and affec­tion­ate­ly too.” Thus began a lit­er­ary friend­ship that last­ed until Whitman’s death in 1892 and seems to have been as wel­come to Whit­man as to his biggest fan. A stroke had near­ly inca­pac­i­tat­ed the poet in 1873 and sapped his health and strength for the last two decades of his life, leav­ing him, as he wrote, with a physique “entire­ly shatter’d—doubtless permanently—from paral­y­sis and oth­er ail­ments.” But “I am up and dress’d,” he added, “and get out every day a lit­tle, live here quite lone­some, but hearty, and good spir­its.”

One also won­ders if Stok­er would have received such a warm response if he had mailed his orig­i­nal let­ter unchanged. The “pre­vi­ous­ly unsent effu­sion,” notes Popo­va, “opens with an abrupt direct­ness unguard­ed even by a form of address.” Put anoth­er way, it’s blunt, melo­dra­mat­ic, and over­ly famil­iar to the point of rude­ness: “If you are the man I take you to be,” he begins, “you will like to get this let­ter. If you are not I don’t care whether you like it or not and only ask that you put it in to the fire with­out read­ing any far­ther.” Con­trast this with the revised com­mu­ni­ca­tion, which begins with the respect­ful salu­ta­tion, “My dear Mr. Whit­man,” and con­tin­ues in rel­a­tive­ly for­mal, though still high­ly spir­it­ed, vein.

Stok­er had mel­lowed and matured, but he nev­er left behind his ado­ra­tion for Whit­man and Leaves of Grass. When he elo­quent­ly sums up the effect read­ing the book and its orig­i­nal 1855 pref­ace had on him—he echoes the feel­ings of mil­lions of fans through­out the ages who have found a voice that speaks to them from far away of feel­ings they know inti­mate­ly but can­not express at home:

Be assured of this Walt Whitman—that a man of less than half your own age, reared a con­ser­v­a­tive in a con­ser­v­a­tive coun­try, and who has always heard your name cried down by the great mass of peo­ple who men­tion it, here felt his heat leap towards you across the Atlantic and his soul swelling at the words or rather the thoughts.

Read Stoker’s orig­i­nal and revised let­ters and Whitman’s brief, touch­ing response at Brain Pick­ings.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Walt Whitman’s Unearthed Health Man­u­al, “Man­ly Health & Train­ing,” Urges Read­ers to Stand (Don’t Sit!) and Eat Plen­ty of Meat (1858)

Mark Twain Writes a Rap­tur­ous Let­ter to Walt Whit­man on the Poet’s 70th Birth­day (1889)

Hor­ror Leg­end Christo­pher Lee Reads Bram Stoker’s Drac­u­la

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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“Gonzo” Defined by Hunter S. Thompson’s Personal Copy of the Random House Dictionary

in Literature | May 9th, 2019

via The Hunter S. Thomp­son Face­book Page

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Hunter S. Thomp­son Gave Birth to Gonzo Jour­nal­ism: Short Film Revis­its Thompson’s Sem­i­nal 1970 Piece on the Ken­tucky Der­by

Hunter S. Thomp­son, Exis­ten­tial­ist Life Coach, Presents Tips for Find­ing Mean­ing in Life

Read 10 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

Hunter S. Thompson’s Deca­dent Dai­ly Break­fast: The “Psy­chic Anchor” of His Fre­net­ic Cre­ative Life

Hunter S. Thomp­son Chill­ing­ly Pre­dicts the Future, Telling Studs Terkel About the Com­ing Revenge of the Eco­nom­i­cal­ly & Tech­no­log­i­cal­ly “Obso­lete” (1967)

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Venerable Female Artists, Musicians & Authors Give Advice to the Young: Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson & More

in Art, Film, Life, Literature | May 6th, 2019

To the Louisiana Chan­nel and the Louisiana Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, on behalf of mature women every­where: Thank you. You have excel­lent taste.

We’ve weath­ered invis­i­bil­i­ty and Mom jeans jokes, as rep­re­sen­ta­tives from our demo­graph­ic are judged more harsh­ly in cat­e­gories that nev­er seem to apply to their male coun­ter­parts in pol­i­tics and the per­form­ing arts.

You’ll find plen­ty of cel­e­brat­ed male artists con­tribut­ing advice to emerg­ing artists in the Louisiana Project’s video series, but the Gueril­la Girls will be grat­i­fied to see how robust­ly rep­re­sent­ed these work­ing women are.

Noth­ing beats author­i­ty con­ferred by decades of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence.

And while young women are sure to be inspired by these ven­er­a­ble inter­vie­wees, let’s not sell any­one short.

We may have assem­bled a playlist titled Women Artists’ Advice to the Young (watch it from front to back at the bot­tom of the post), but let’s agree that their advice is good for emerg­ing artists of all gen­ders.

Author, poet, and God­moth­er of Punk Pat­ti Smith (born 1946) serves up her ver­sion of to thine own self be true.

Avant-garde com­pos­er and musi­cian Lau­rie Ander­son (born 1947) coun­sels against the sort of nar­row self-def­i­n­i­tion that dis­cour­ages artis­tic explo­ration. Be loose, like a goose.

Author Her­b­jørg Wass­mo (born 1942) wants young artists to pre­pare for the inevitable days of low moti­va­tion and self-doubt by resolv­ing to work regard­less.

Oth­er nota­bles include film­mak­er Shirin Neshat (born 1957), author Lydia Davis (born 1947), artist Joyce Pen­sato (born 1941), and per­for­mance artist Mari­na Abramović (born 1946).

The old­est inter­vie­wee in the col­lec­tion, artist Yay­oi Kusama (born 1929), refus­es to sad­dle up and come up with any teacher­ly  advice, but could cer­tain­ly be con­sid­ered a walk­ing exam­ple of what it means to be “liv­ing as an artist with a wish to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful world with human love.”

Enjoy the full playlist here:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Toni Mor­ri­son Dis­pens­es Sound Writ­ing Advice: Tips You Can Apply to Your Own Work

74 Essen­tial Books for Your Per­son­al Library: A List Curat­ed by Female Cre­atives

A Space of Their Own, a New Online Data­base, Will Fea­ture Works by 600+ Over­looked Female Artists from the 15th-19th Cen­turies

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Join her in New York City May 13 for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her@AyunHalliday.

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Trivial Pursuit: The Shakespeare Edition Has Just Been Released: Answer 600 Questions Based on the Life & Works of William Shakespeare

in History, Literature, Theatre | April 26th, 2019

“The stan­dard thing to say is that each age makes a Shake­speare in its own image,” wrote The New York­er’s Adam Gop­nik on the the Bard’s 440th birth­day. But over the cen­turies, the bio­graph­i­cal and crit­i­cal por­tray­al of the play­wright of Ham­let, Romeo and Juli­et, Oth­el­lo, and King Lear has remained remark­ably con­sis­tent: “He was a genius at com­e­dy, a free-flow­ing nat­ur­al who would do any­thing for a joke or a pun, and whom life and abil­i­ty bent toward tragedy.” He evolved “a match­less all-sid­ed­ness and neg­a­tive capa­bil­i­ty, which could probe two ideas at once and nev­er quite come down on the ‘side’ of either: he was a man in whom a tem­pera­men­tal timid­i­ty and cau­tion blos­somed artis­ti­cal­ly into the near­est thing we have to uni­ver­sal­i­ty.”

But today, on Shake­speare’s 455th birth­day, we might still won­der how uni­ver­sal his work real­ly is. As luck would have it, the Shake­speare Birth­day Trust has just come up with a kind of test of that propo­si­tion: an all-Shake­speare edi­tion of the pop­u­lar board game Triv­ial Pur­suit.

“Devised by the Shake­speare Birth­place Trust, the inde­pen­dent and self-sus­tain­ing char­i­ty that cares for the world’s great­est Shake­speare her­itage sites in his home town of Strat­ford-upon-Avon, in part­ner­ship with games com­pa­ny, Win­ning Moves,” Triv­ial Pur­suit: The Shake­speare Edi­tion (which you can buy on the Shake­speare Birth­day Trust’s online shop) offers “600 ques­tions across six cat­e­gories — Come­dies, His­to­ries, Tragedies, Char­ac­ters, Biog­ra­phy and Lega­cy,” all “care­ful­ly craft­ed by Shake­speare schol­ars Dr Nick Wal­ton and Dr Anj­na Chouhan.”

One might assume that Shake­speare buffs and schol­ars will dom­i­nate this game. No doubt they will, but per­haps not as often as expect­ed, since its ques­tions give any­one with gen­er­al cul­tur­al aware­ness a fight­ing chance: “As well as ques­tions about Shakespeare’s life and works, there are oth­ers that link him to pop­u­lar cul­ture such as the Har­ry Pot­ter film series, TV shows Dr. Who and Upstart Crow, as well as actors Sir Patrick Stew­art, Sir Lau­rence Olivi­er, and Keanu Reeves, and the Bard’s less­er known influ­ence on the likes of Elvis Pres­ley and even the clas­sic car­toon Pop­eye.” As Wal­ton puts it, “there are all sorts of paths to Shake­speare,” not least because of his work’s still-unchal­lenged place as the most drawn-upon texts, delib­er­ate­ly or inad­ver­tent­ly, in the whole of the Eng­lish lan­guage. As for Shake­speare him­self, he remains “the reign­ing poet of the lan­guage,” in Gop­nik’s words, as well as “the ordi­nary poet of our com­pa­ny” — and now we have a game to play to keep him in our com­pa­ny.

Pick up your copy of the game here.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear 55 Hours of Shakespeare’s Plays: The Tragedies, Come­dies & His­to­ries Per­formed by Vanes­sa Red­grave, Sir John Giel­gud, Ralph Fiennes & Many More

30 Days of Shake­speare: One Read­ing of the Bard Per Day, by The New York Pub­lic Library, on the 400th Anniver­sary of His Death

Free Online Shake­speare Cours­es: Primers on the Bard from Oxford, Har­vard, Berke­ley & More

Read All of Shakespeare’s Plays Free Online, Cour­tesy of the Fol­ger Shake­speare Library

What Shake­speare Sound­ed Like to Shake­speare: Recon­struct­ing the Bard’s Orig­i­nal Pro­nun­ci­a­tion

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of Shakespeare’s Globe The­atre

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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