I have gone on a bit of a hiatus. I am still interested in the twee little essays, but I don't have time to do them for the foreseeable future, and as the main purpose of this blog is supposed to be to store my various lists, which is not being done, I am going to devote the next 60 or so posts to doing that. Trust me, it will be fun, and I hope sometime we can have a meet-up of all the devotees and groupies of the site in one of our dominant literary cities.
Authors, Subjects, Pertinent Sites, Volume I:
Robert Sherwood (1896-1955): Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938). BP: New Rochelle, Westchester, New York (address unknown). Buried: Unknown (d. New York, New York). College: Harvard.
(Yes, there are a lot of Lincoln Sites. Most of these guys are not so fondly memorialized. And even Lincoln is not as popular as he used to be. According to one Wikipedia page, visitors to the house in Springfield fell from 650,000 a year in the late 1960s to 393,000 in the early 2000s, while those to the village in New Salem fell by half over the same period. The same page claims that visits to the Memorial in Washington peaked at 4.3 million in 1987 and have since declined, though it does not give current figures, and estimates given by other web sources varying wildly, from as low as 3.5 million up to 6 million).
Ann Rutledge (1813-1835): BP: near Henderson, Kentucky. Buried: Oakland Cemetery, Petersurg, Illinois.
Raymond Massey (1896-1983): BP: 519 Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Buried: Beaverdale Memorial Park, New Haven, Connecticut. College: Balliol (Oxford).
John Drinkwater (1882-1937): Abraham Lincoln (1918). BP: Dorset Villa, 105 Fairlop Road, Leytonstone, London, England. Buried: Churchyard, Piddington, Oxfordshire, England.
John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865): BP: Tudor Hall, Bel Air, Maryland. Buried: Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
William Faulkner (1897-1962): The Sound and the Fury (1929), Sanctuary (1931), Absalom, Absalom (1936), Requiem For a Nun (1951). BP: Jefferson & Cleveland Streets, New Albany, Mississippi. Buried: Oxford Memorial Cemetery, Oxford. Rowan Oak, Oxford, Mississippi; Union County Heritage Museum, 114 Cleveland Street, New Albany, Mississippi.
Absalom: BP: Hebron, Israel. Buried: Tomb of Absalom, Kidron Valley, Jerusalem, Israel. (I am aware that this supposed tomb dates from about 1,000 years after Absalom's death, but in matters of such antiquity, especially where no authentic sites associated with the person can be expected to have survived, I allow longstanding tradition to be accepted as if truth).
Samuel: BP: Ramah (modern Er-Ram), Israel.
George Eliot (1819-1880): Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861). BP: South Farm, Arbury Estate, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Buried: Highgate Cemetery, Highgate, London, England (*****9-9-96*****).
James M Barrie (1860-1937): The Admirable Crichton (1902), Peter Pan (1904), Dear Brutus (1917). BP: 9 Brechin Road, Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. Buried: Cemetery, Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland. College: Edinburgh.
Virgil: (70-19 B.C.): The Aeneid (29-19 B.C.). BP: Andes (Mantua), Lombardy, Italy (*****3-2-97*****). Buried (trad.): Salita della Grotta 20, Naples, Campania, Italy.
Aesop: Aesop's Fables (6th century B.C.). Samos, North Aegean, Greece.
Phaedrus (15 B.C.-50) BP: Pydna, Central Macedonia, Greece.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) Ethan Frome (1911), The Age of Innocence (1920). BP: 14 W 23rd Street, New York, New York. Buried: Cimitiere des Gonards, Versailles, Ile-de-France, France. The Mount, 2 Plunkett Street, Lenox, Berkshire, Massachusetts.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) The Age of Reason (1795). BP: 6 Thomas Paine Avenue, Thetford, Norfolk, England. Original Burial Site: Thomas Paine Cottage Museum, 20 Sicard Avenue, New Rochelle, Westchester, New York. Thomas Paine's Cottage, 20 New Street, Sandwich, Kent.
King James I (1566-1625) BP: Edinburgh Castle, Edinurgh, Scotland. Buried: Westminster Abbey (Henry VII vault), Westminster, London, England.
Anne Bronte (1820-1849) Agnes Grey (1847). BP: 74 High Street, Thornton, Yorkshire, England. Buried: St Mary's Churchyard, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Yorkshire, England.
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) Beyond the Horizon (1920), The Emperor Jones (1920), Anna Christie (1921), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), All God's Chillun Got Wings (1932), Ah, Wilderness! (1933). BP: Broadway & 43rd Street, New York, New York (*****2- -98*****). Buried: Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Suffolk, Massachusetts (*****8-3-96*****). Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site (Tao House), Danville, Contra Costa, California. Monte Cristo Cottage, 325 Pequot Avenue, New London, Connecticut.
George M Cohan (1878-1942) BP: 536 Wickenden Street (Corner of Governor), Providence, Rhode Island. Buried: Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. Statue, Times Square, New York, New York.
Willa Cather (1876-1947) Alexander's Bridge (1912), The Professor's House (1925), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1926) BP: Route 50, Gore, Virginia. Buried: Old Burial Ground, Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire (*****11-25-11*****). Willa Cather State Historic Site, 413 N Webster, Red Cloud, Nebraska. College: Nebraska.
Washington Irving (1783-1859) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819-20), The Alhambra (1832). BP: 131 William Street, New York, New York. Buried: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, Westchester, New York. Sunnyside, West Sunnyside Lane, Tarrytown, Westchester, New York. Washington Irving Trail Museum, 3918 S Mehan Road, Ripley, Oklahoma.
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking Glass (1872). BP: Glebe Farm, Morphany Lane, Daresbury, Chesire, England. Buried: Cemetery, Guildford, Surrey, England. Lewis Carroll Centre, All Saints Church, Daresbury, Cheshire, England. College: Christ Church, Oxford.
Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) BP: Bayswater, London, England. Buried: London, England (ashes in wife's grave, location unknown?).
Susan Glaspell (1882-1948) Alison's House (1930). BP: Davenport, Iowa. Buried: Snow Cemetery, Truro, Barnstaple, Massachusetts. College: Drake.
Eva Le Galliene (1899-1991) BP: 42 Doughty St, Holborn, London, England. Buried: Rock Outcropping (?), Weston, Connecticut.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) BP: Emily Dickinson Museum, 280 Main Street, Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts.*****(7-31-13)***** Buried: West Cemetery, Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts.*****(7-31-13)*****
John Dryden (1631-1700) The Conquest of Granada (1670), All For Love, or The World Well Lost (1678). BP: Opposite All Saint's Church, Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England. College: Trinity, Cambridge.
Antony (83-30 B.C.) BP: Rome, Italy. Buried: near Alexandria, Egypt.
Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.) BP: Alexandria, Egypt. Buried: near Alexandria, Egypt. Cleopatra Needles (3): Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London, England. Central Park, New York, New York. Place de la Concorde, 8me Arr, Paris, France.
Augustus Caesar (69 B.C.-14 A.D.) BP: Rome, Italy. Buried: Mausoleum of Augustus, Campus Martius, Rome, Italy. Domus Augusti, Palatine Hill, Rome, Italy.
Actium (Battle Site): Actium, Epirus, Greece.
Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) All Quiet on the Western Front (1929). BP: Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany. Buried: Ronco Cemetery, Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland. Erich Maria Remarque Friedenszentrum, Markt 6, Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Henry VI, Parts 1,2 and 3 (1591-2), A Comedy of Errors (1592), Richard III (1593), The Taming of the Shrew (1593), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), Richard II (1595), Romeo and Juliet (1595), The Merchant of Venice (1596), Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 (1596-7), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597), Henry V (1599), As You Like It (1599), Julius Caesar (1599), Twelfth Night (1600), Hamlet (1602), All's Well That Ends Well (1602/3), Othello (1604), Macbeth (1605), Antony and Cleopatra (1606), King Lear (1607), Coriolanus (1608), Cymbeline (1610), The Tempest (1611) BP: Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England*****(6-30-01)***** Buried: Parish Church, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England*****(6-30-01)*****
Seat of Count of Rousillon: Perignan, Langudoc-Rousillon, France
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) All the King's Men (1946) BP: Third & Cherry Streets, Guthrie, Kentucky. Buried: Willis Cemetery, Stratton, Vermont*****(7-30-13)***** College: Vanderbilt.
Huey Long (1893-1935) BP: Winnfield, Louisiana. Buried: Grounds of New State Capitol, Baton Rouge Louisiana. Huey Long Museum, Old State Capital Building, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Tom Jones (1749), Amelia (1752) BP: Sharpham Park (house), Sharpham, Somersetshire, England. Buried: British Cemetery, Lisbon, Portugal.
Henry James (1843-1916) The American (1877), The Bostonians (1886), The Awkward Age (1899) BP: 21 (Plaque at 29) Washington Place, New York, New York (*****2-25?-98*****) Buried: Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts (*****8-3-96*****) Lamb House, West Street, Rye, Sussex, England.
Edward Bok (1863-1930) The Americanization of Edward Bok (1920) BP: Den Helder, Netherlands. Buried: Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, Florida.
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) Sister Carrie (1900), An American Tragedy (1925) BP: 318 South 2nd Street, Terre Haute, Indiana (House now located in Fairbanks Park). Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Los Angeles, California.
A few months back, a prominent culture blogger (whose work I generally like) wrote a little piece, which has remained with me, breaking down some of the differences between that element of society which is creative and that which is not. While obviously the main premise could be argued against on the grounds that many highly creative and prolific people have managed to reproduce and a few have even forged fairly close relationships with their offspring, it is on the whole accurate as far as the masses of would-be artistic types who did not have what it took to avoid falling into the snares of conventional bourgeois life, myself sadly included among these. This demographic makes for a fat target in most areas where delusions of cultural dynamism or meaningful personal achievement are concerned, but its absurdities are not usually delineated so incisively, and with a clarity that even it can understand, as in the above article.
While of course the underlying theme of this article is my sense of my own personal failure, or at least my innate non-artisticness, which while little more than a vague death-feeling that has descended upon my consciousness, is the only one of these feelings I can confidently identify, it is my (probably vain) hope that I will not dwell on myself too much. Suffice it to say, I have not done anything remotely artistic in years--not so much as redecorating a room (or even envisioning doing so), or designing a bulletin board, or displaying the slightest hint of flair either in dress, conversation or movement. My mental life has been completely aimless for years, and I have not felt an energy or passion or any sensation apart from worry about money in so long that I am nearly at a loss to speculate on what the source of any former interest I ever had in any area of life ever was. I am an absolute vegetable. I am dead to everything that might bring flair or spice into my life.
I was reading the other day about the expat American theater scene in Amsterdam--their shows mostly center around the issues of tourists, culture clash, progressive politics, etc. However the shows are well enough attended that one of these particular troupes has been there since the 90s, apparently able to support themselves and lead the bohemian life in this city of art and bars and coffee houses and adventure (read: sex)--seeking tourists from all over the world. They have at the very least averted one of the great soul-killing dilemmas which faces modern man, that of having to live within the corporate system and culture while being at the same time temperamentally and intellectually estranged from it--this latter ensuring that you will not even attain to the consolations of status, superior income and advancement in that system.
I don't believe that marriage and children in themselves are the problem, in my case especially. I was not married until I was 27 and I did not have my first child until I was 32. If I was ever going to do anything substantial, creatively or otherwise, it ought to have been long underway by that second date especially. The problem is my brain and my enthusiasm for day to day life and what has happened to them. Perhaps I am starting to get worn down with having very young children. There has been at least one person in my household in diapers constantly since 2002 (and this will continue to be so probably until early in 2014). The last child won't be in all day school until 2017, at which time I will be 47 years old! My two oldest are currently in 4th and 5th grade. If I had stopped there, like most people do, their pre-school years would seem a mere blip of time, years in the past now. They would be halfway to college age--of course they still are, but as things stand now, we will probably be desperate for them to go because we'll need the space. But everything would be so quiet and empty without all of the little ones, and I'm sure I would not be any smarter or more creative, or even richer. There has been a small spate of articles lately (this week, actually) about the travails of 'older' parents--most of the writers are about my age--a few of which offer laments that perhaps they should have had children earlier. I take some consolation from the fact that I seem to be holding up pretty well physically in comparison to some of the other parents. While my energy for literature is diminished I have much more of it for taking care of children than I would have had at twenty-five, at which time I would really have felt imposed upon. 'Chasing them around' causes me little trouble. It is true I am always tired, and I never get enough sleep, but not much more than I was ten years ago. One of the main problems of having many children is that nearly every day you are roused out of bed not merely before you are ready but by someone screaming or jumping on you or demanding something, which is quite disorienting and stressful. I did really notice the effect this had on my mood until one day last week, doubtless as a result of the days being short and the sun rising fairly late, I actually woke up to silence, and was able to collect my thoughts for a few minutes before I sat up and started pulling my clothes, and it was remarkable how this calm awakening effected my mood the rest of the morning. But literally, I have woken up in this kind of quiet state without any kind of outside prompting maybe five times in the last ten years.
But I am supposed to be writing about the life of the real artist here.
It is not what I have just written, or at least that is not its essence.
I gather from the article that for the urban creative type, sex, and especially new sexual adventures, remain very real aspects of life until the brink of old age. I still think about having sex the overwhelming majority of every day but over time it ceases to be real or to seem possible, for the likes of you anyway, in the mainstream world.
I would be most happy in any of my children grew up to have legitimate bohemian artist souls and live accordingly; I still imagine it as the highest kind of life, the great illusion, because real artistic skills and thought processes, and access to a society of people of similar qualities, make you the most alive, the most engaged with life, that you can be. Nearly all that is worthwhile in experience, social, sexual, intellectual, is open to you...
I cannot expand further at this time. I am too exhausted, and my concentration is absolutely shot.
It all comes back to the American in Paris thing though, the fantasy, and how the fantasy is real to those who understand it, and in most important ways is more real than whatever it is he is supposed at any given time to understand as real.
"Anne was the least-read and -admired of the remarkable Bronte sisters, but the fact remains that she was one of the remarkable Bronte sisters and her novels are brilliant in spots, competent elsewhere. Agnes Grey...published in 1847 (ed: author age--27)...has a large autobiographical background of course: Anne, like her heroine Agnes, was a poor clergyman's daughter, was docile to a fault, and worked as a governess. But unlike the novel, Anne's life had no happy ending--not even in a literary sense, for Agnes Grey was never well received during her lifetime...Agnes Grey is quite a short novel, under 150,000 words."--I.W.E.
The other novel of Anne Bronte (who died at age 29), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was not chosen for the I.W.E. Hall of Fame, though currently it appears to be regarded with at least equal esteem to Agnes Grey.
This is not my copy of the book--I haven't read it--but I have a lot of these 1995-2003 or so era Penguin Classics with which it would be at home.
The Brontes are such central and beloved figures in the popular history of English literature that I feel I have little enough to contribute to the general understanding where they are concerned, and as I also prefer to wait to write about Emily and Charlotte, whom I have read and am thus at least somewhat familiar with, when their turns on the list come up, there seems little to say about Anne. I checked Winnifred Gerin's dusty 1959 biography of her out the State Library (the first person to do so since 1984) looking for any of the interesting anecdotes that are sometimes found in such works, but the book tends to be both idolatrous towards the whole family and completely pre-60s middlebrow in outlook (i.e., no discernible humor or even speculation regarding sensualism) that I could find nothing in it worth using. I don't believe the family could really have been that boring, though maybe Anne was.
One does wonder what possessed these creatures in their isolation and apparently innocent--especially sexually so--youth to set for themselves the task of 'instructing' the nation through the writing of novels; not to mention largely succeeding in doing so. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are both secure among the top 100 most read and probably most esteemed English novels, perhaps among the top 50. Our current society of 300 million people, with its thousand universities and hundreds of graduate level creative writing programs and publishing houses turning out 6,000 novels a year and constant mass traveling to every corner of the earth has little hope of ever producing two such books, which was the work of a single fairly poor and informally educated household in rural Yorkshire in the 1840s. They also of course doubtless encourage the idea that anybody can become an author, however provincial their background or paltry their connections to the literary world, which I guess is bad for society, since most people who aspire to a literary career seem to be very poor at assessing their literary talents, as well as figuring out anything they might actually be able to perform usefully and competently and earn an income from. But let us not forget that mediocrity and failure, the common lot, are dreary and neverending, and achievement and success, even posthumous, are inspiring to those who come after. So I hope the Brontes do not fade into oblivion as irrelevant to the new age of man yet.
Anne Bronte was born in 1820, the youngest of a family of six and the fifth daughter, in the same house as her famous sisters, 74 High Street in Thornton, West Yorkshire. Anne only lived here for a few months before the family moved to nearby Haworth. The building still stands, though altered over the years, and is commemorated by a plaque. The house was actually acquired by devotees of the Brontes and turned into a museum from the late 1990s until 2007, but they were unable to keep it open and it has reverted back to a private residence again. The train station in Thornton closed in 1955. If you are traveling by rail you will have to take the bus the last few miles from Bradford.
The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, according to the 1996 edition of Lonely Planet Britain (I don't care for their guidebooks since about 2000, but I fear that is because the world has changed and I have not been able to change enough with it), 'rivals Stratford-upon-Avon as the most important literary shrine in England'. They were enthusiastic about the museum and indeed the whole town, which was far from a sure thing with their hip young travelers at the time--this was still kind of back in the young Justine Shapiro era, I believe. Among other things you could, and presumably still can, see "one of (Charlotte's) dresses and a pair of her tiny shoes." I always had something of a crush on Charlotte, among all the Victorian lady writers.
The nearest real train station to Haworth is in Keighley, from which during the week you would have to take the bus. However on the weekends there is a tourist line running trips via steam engine on the hour between the two towns which is at least an option for the non-driver.
While most of the family, including the two more famous sisters, are buried in the churchyard adjacent to Haworth Parsonage, Anne died at the formerly fashionable and now faded North Yorkshire seaside resort of Scarborough, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church there, near both the ruins of the ancient castle and the sea. The town is the terminus of several train lines and has regular direct service to York, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.
Thomas Paine is a fun guy to have on the list. Not only does he remain very dear to Americans of a certain imperfectly balanced tilt, but the tourist sites associated with him are in good locations, and have in themselves been the source of considerable wildness. These are welcome qualities in the ordinarily dry world of literary tourism.
Just one ofThomas Paine's celebrated works got officially tapped for this roll call of immortals--in my memory I thought two or three had made the cut--the 1795 tour de force The Age of Reason (author age at publication: 58):
"Thomas Paine wrote Age of Reason in 1793 and 1794, when he was France participating in the French Revolution (and considered himself a citizen of France). The book is of historical importance because it created such a furor, especially in the United States, where it was published. Even today there will be those who disapprove its being summarized here. At the time, Age of Reason was called 'atheistic'; but this was a misuse of the word, because in the book Paine affirms belief in one God and in human immortality. Rather than being an attack on religion, the book is an attack on literal interpretation of the Bible, specifically the Authorized ('King James') version."
This seems to have been the standard mid-century opinion. The introduction to Age of Reason in the volume pictured below also makes the argument that Paine was completely misunderstood and was in fact a deeply religious man. I have not read this particular work, so I cannot comment on it specifically, however I have read the Rights of Man and my impression, and the one I would imagine most modern readers would get from that book is not of a deeply religious man, if they even had a conception of what that means. He was doubtless a man possessed of extraordinary animal spirits and a tireless capacity for outrage and antagonizing those in authority who were offensive to him, which temperament, as William James for one observed so lucidly in his Varieties of Religious Experience, is frequently more conducive to an intense spiritual life than that of what he refers to as the 'ordinary sluggard'. Paine's spirituality, I think it is safe to say, was not characteristic of the school known as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, the squishy, inoffensive, nondemanding spiritual-but-not-religious creed which is viewed as the predominant (and false) understanding of the spiritual life among our modern day educated population.
My Thomas Paine book. Another author, another Modern Library edition--it won't be like this all the way through, though the series does match up pretty well with the list we are currently working on. This edition, from 1945, is a rather odd one, in that in addition to the man's own famous works--Common Sense, The Crisis Papers, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and two letters to George Washington--there is a two-page wrap-up entitled "Tom Paine: an Estimate" which is written in an ebullient, boosterish, unmeasured tone, and a 300-page novel of what looks to be uncertain literary merit about Thomas Paine's life by the heretofore unknown to me Howard Fast.
My hastily written summary of The Rights of Man, dated March 7 of this very year, 2012, is enthusiastic. 'Invigorating stuff. Man had a genius for contrariety, though perhaps overly optimistic re. democracy. Love reading him though. Makes one feel vital, alive.' You get the idea. I have often thought, if there is any epoch of history from which I wish there were more literary works, it would be the early years of the American republic, around 1780 to 1810/1820 or so. The optimism and energy and general personality of the free portion at least of the population of the new nation at that time seem to have been extreme, unique, and remarkably effective by historical standards in that period. For writings from the time which capture this spirit you have Paine, you have the Federalist Papers, which can be an exciting read in the right frame of mind, Jefferson's various writings, such speeches and anecdotes of George Washington that were recorded, the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, which I know was written before the revolution but I think still fits in with this theme, Lewis & Clark's Journal: I want more stuff in this mode, or at least a greater sense of its carrying weight in the culture, because those years are essential to whatever this country is now, and in many instances and aspects in a more positive sense than any comparable period of time.
His prediction regarding the potential imminent abolition of war in Europe when the intrigue of royal courts should be replaced by democratic government was somewhat premature (especially as the book was published in 1791).
Paine is against taxes.
He swats his philosophical enemy Edmund Burke around so much that at first you wonder why Burke is still relatively respected today, and at second how much Paine is willfully misinterpreting and misrepresenting the crux of Burke's arguments.
'Man has no authority over posterity in matters of personal right; and, therefore, no man or body of men had, or can have, a right to set up hereditary Government.' This point is hammered home a lot. Paine loathed hereditary privilege with a righteous fervor that at least as far as its effective expression goes, seems to be absent from our current political discourse.
His book over-romanticizes the representative system. He is blind to its defects.
"...the routine of office is always regulated to such a general standard of abilities as to be within the compass of numbers in every country to perform, and therefore cannot merit very extraordinary recompence." Evidently this is no longer the case.
"We already see an alteration in the the national disposition of England and France towards each other..." Maybe not. "That spirit of jealousy and ferocity, which the Governments of the two countries inspired, and which they rendered subservient to the purpose of taxation, is now yielding to the dictates of reason, interest, and humanity." International strife is just a masquerade to bolster taxation? Paine wasn't much of an economist either, at least of the type that is in fashion nowadays. He considered domestic trade preferable to foreign because only half of the benefits rested with the Nation. Ha!
"Yet from such a beginning, and with all the inconvenience of early life against me, I am proud to say that with a perseverence undismayed by difficulties, a disinterestedness that compelled respect, I have not only contributed to raise a new empire in the world, founded on a new system of Government, but I have arrived at an eminence in political literature, the most difficult of all lines to succeed and excel in, which Aristocracy with all its aids has not been able to reach or to rival." This is an excellent distillation of the revolutionary mentality, which I admire by the way, even though I am nitpicking at some of his arguments. Multitudes of eminently qualified people in his own day took apart his arguments much more harshly that I have and Thomas Paine came back firing with twice as much venom in every instance, absolutely convinced of his righteousness and the evil of his enemies. That is the revolutionary spirit.
Illustration of how the world has changed since the 1790s: "To form some judgment of the number of those above fifty years of age, I have several times counted the persons I met in the streets of London, men, women, and children, and have generally found that the average is about one in sixteen or seventeen." This is probably not a precise calculation, but I do often think that we don't realize how skewed towards the middle-aged and elderly the population of our current society is compared to almost all of human history and the kinds of odd effects this dynamic is producing on us.
Paine does seem to be in favor of taxation/redistribution as long as it is on his terms. Defunding the Duke of Richmond's pension and slapping a tax on 'luxuries' as defined by himself, such as idle land on the estate of an aristocrat that is potentially a common good. We have been unsure of both the desirability and justness of this type of action over the last 30 years, but I'm pretty sure this sentiment is going to come back, in the United States anyway, especially when the generation that is now under 35 or so begins to come into power. The timing of this for me will probably work out that the day after I finally attain the raise and other assets to plausibly be able to call myself prosperous, be able to pay for my children's school, and so on, the tax rate will be raised to 75% or something, kind of like in the Bohumil Hrabal book I Served the King of England in which the day after the main character, after decades of struggle, becomes an official millionaire, the communists overthrow the government and declare all millionaires criminals. But I actually do want to live in the best possible society, and I don't think the current economic structure is very conducive to that at all, so I probably wouldn't be all that upset if it happened anyway.
The 'estimate' of our author in my book makes a lot of claims about the man that I am not entirely convinced of as yet, but this paragraph strikes as hitting somewhat close to the truth:
"Paine has that rare historical distinction of being unique; there are no comparisons, because there has been no one, before him or since, quite like him. He had the fortune to arrive in the right place at the right time, and once there, he accepted history instead of attempting to avoid it."
Paine was born at Thetford in Norfolk in England. My 1970s era reference book gives the site of the birth as the garden of Grey Gables in White Hart Street. The site is evidently now occupied, conveniently, by the Thomas Paine Hotel, and the address is 6 Thomas Paine Avenue. This indicates to me that our guy is not forgotten. Thetford has a train station, and is on several lines originating in Norwich, and connects with Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool, though there appears to be no direct service with London (change at Cambridge).
Paine lived briefly at Sandwich, in Kent, when he was 22. He was married there and set up in business as a staymaker, which seems to be an old term for a corset-maker. His business failed and shortly afterwards his wife died, at which time he was still just 23. His residence at 20 New Street still stands and is preserved as a rental cottage. Sandwich appears to be an extremely well-preserved and hopelessly quaint medieval town. Sandwich God bless them has rail service from Ramsgate and London (mainly Charing Cross, but also 3 trains a day to St Pancras).
The main Thomas Paine attraction in the United States is his cottage and adjoining museum in New Rochelle, New York, which is turning out to be quite a literary place (see Robert E Sherwood). I am thrilled to see that this complex appears to be back in operation as it was shut down for a time in 2009 as a result of, among other things, the selling off of 'priceless artifacts and documents' by the former president of the board--who had originally been hired as a janitor and lived rent-free in an apartment above the museum. I bet this kind of stuff does not go on at the Jane Austen museum. I would be keen to go to that Swing Dance Party that is being held at the museum on the evening of December 7, though I am not sure what swing dancing has to do exactly with Thomas Paine. The point is, it doesn't matter.
I have always liked the Westchester suburbs of New York City, and I pass through there several times a year on various journeys south. I frequently stop to eat in this area. It still retains a lot of that old New York atmosphere.
Here is a little video of the site:
Thomas Paine is also too cool to have his remains deposited in an identifiable place. He did once, on the grounds of the farm where his museum now is, and the spot is marked by a nice plaque. However:
"When William Cobbett returned in November 1819 from his second visit to America he caused great excitement at the Custom House by having the bones of Tom Paine in his luggage. He had exhumed these from a patch of unconsecrated ground near New York, where Paine had been buried (1809), with the intention, advertised in the Political Register, of raising money to build a mausoleum to house them in England as an object of pilgrimage, but instead of subscriptions he received only ridicule, as in Byron's lines:
'In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,/Will Cobbett has done well;/You visit him on earth again,/He'll visit you in hell.'"--The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles.
No one seems to know definitively what became of the bones after that.
Besides the enormous quantity of literary scholarship and commentary devoted to the works of this most fascinating founding father, there are many videos discussing his work on Youtube by well-known and little-known commentators alike--there appear to be several hours worth of Christopher Hitchens interviews alone which are solely devoted to talking about Paine. I have decided not to put any of them on here because they are all quite long and I don't have time to listen to them at the moment. Doubtless anyone who wants to find them can easily do so.
Thomas Paine's current-day fans seem to be on the whole as angry and impetuous as he was, perhaps especially towards each other. Here is a former trustee of the now-closed Thomas Paine museum (not to be confused with the cottage above, though it sits, shuttered, a couple of hundred yards down the street from it) breaking down the myriad reasons why he won't be attending this year's scholarly conference on our author in New Rochelle. Here, a no-nonsense visitor from Seattle concisely lays out all that is lacking at the mess that is the New Rochelle memorial from both the historical and the touristic point of view. Pretty damning review, though I still think it would be worth stopping by sometime if I were in the area. For me, even just a half hour walking around the abandoned grounds and reading the uninspired monuments would be a happy respite from the monotony and moment to moment insignificance of ordinary life.
42. New London, Connecticut..................153
Tisbury, Massachusetts.......................153
Torrington, Connecticut......................153
45. Litchfield, Connecticut...…………….158
46. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts......160
47. Rockland, Maine.................................164
48. Hamden, Connecticut..........................170
49. North Elba, New York.........................174
50. New Haven, Connecticut.....................175
Truro, Massachusetts............................175
52. Saranac Lake, New York.....................182
53. Tannersville, New York......................184
54. Bridgehampton, New York.................191
55. Hyde Park, New York.........................193
56. East Hampton, New York...................194
57. Southampton, New York.....................196
58. Weston, Connecticut...........................201
59. Cooperstown, New York.....................206
60. New Canaan, Connecticut...................210
61. Montreal, Quebec................................216
62. Lake Ronkonkoma, New York............219
63. Montgomery, New York...…………...222
64. Valhalla, New York.............................224
65. Sleepy Hollow, New York..................226
66. Haverstraw, New York........................228
67. Hartsdale, NY......................................230
Tarrytown, NY....................................230
69. Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.........232
New Rochelle, New York...................232
Rockland, New York.......................... 232
72. Huntington Station, New York............233
73. Nyack, New York...............................236
74. East Farmingdale, New York..............237
75. Bronx, NY...........................................238
76. Greenvale, New York..........................244
77. New York, NY....................................248
78. Maspeth, New York............................249
79. Ridgewood, New York........................250
Edith Wharton made the list twice, for Ethan Frome (1911) and The Age of Innocence (1920). The author's ages at the publications of these books were 49 and 58, which is a late age for a famous writer to turn out her most celebrated works. The IWE blurb on Frome is not one of their better-written efforts:
"It may have been only surprise that Edith Wharton, whose life was one of wealth in New York's excessively formal society, could write so well about poverty and simplicity on a New England farm where only poverty and simplicity were known; but for whatever reason, critics acclaimed this novel when it was published and have generally rated it her best work. That is a high rating, Edith Wharton was one of the most important American novelists of her times."
The introduction to Innocence appears to take its inspiration from the popular image of Wharton as an unsmiling, frigidly correct Henry James-like snob, which persona was not at the height of its esteem in the middle of the last century:
"Edith Wharton wrote of life as she knew it personally--the life of rich and socially prominent families in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Her depiction of the manners and mores of the times is accurate, revealing, and often exasperating to those whose lives began later than the lives of the characters in her books...(Innocence) is not a light novel and demands a modicum of understanding and sympathy from the reader--but it is an excellent portrait of life and persons in its time."
The copy of The Age of Innocence pictured above is the only stand alone Edith Wharton book I own. I have not yet read it, which is unusual with me in that I usually only buy books I intend to read right away. However the library in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, which is where most of my family lived, and still lives, and where I lived on and off myself for several years earlier in my life, used to have great book sales in its basement, lots of Modern Library editions for a quarter or 50 cents, which on the particular day I got this must have seemed too good to pass up. This is going to come up on my current reading list, which in November I will have been following for 18 years, at some point--I have seen it--though it does not look like that point is going to be anytime in the next five years, at least. I did read Ethan Frome sometime in late 2010. I do not own a separate copy of it because being quite short it is included in its entirety in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, where it only takes up about 60 pages, and I read it there. I thought it was a good book, well worth reading, especially perhaps if you are familiar with the part of the world where it is set, in which the landscape and basic village geography are in many places even today not much different from what is depicted in the novel (Western Massachusetts specifically, but much of Vermont and Northwestern Connecticut also fit this profile). The toll that the climate and isolation, especially in the years when you get a traditional New England winter (i.e., not so much this past year), takes subtly on your ability to project any warmth or sensuality towards other people over the course of several decades, which is still a real phenomenon, is illustrated as starkly and economically in Ethan Frome as I have found it anywhere, at least since I have been able to note the same process happening to myself. I only made a few little notations in the book while I was reading it, but I will reproduce a few of them here to provide a fuller impression of my feelings about the book (because after spending twenty fruitless years attempting to understand the world by means of thinking, this blog is going to be about the only thing that ever existed for me, my feelings).
The description of the vicissitudes of the male lover's (Ethan's) inarticulate romantic feelings are quite good. From Chapter V:
"Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther end of the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. 'Say Matt,' he began with a smile, 'what do you think I saw under the Varnum spruces, coming along home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting kissed.'
The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he had spoken them they struck him as inexpressibly vulgar and out of place."
This is pretty much my life story.
Some more description hitting painfully close to home, from Chapter VIII:
"Here he had nailed up shelves for his books...hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham Lincoln and a calendar with 'Thoughts From the Poets,' and tried, with these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a 'minister' who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at Worcester."
Ouch. Almost as deflating as the time my picture got a 3.41 rating on Hotornot.com. The aspirations of people like me to books and other cultural things are so humorous/absurd to people for whom the knowledge and understanding of these things is second nature. The heavy emphasis on the inarticulateness of country, or common, people in Ethan Frome is not a mere matter of the book's being 100 years old. If you ever peek into some contemporary fiction from the Ivy League/Manhattan based crowd (not that there is any great necessity to do so), the gap in literary and artistic sensibility and intelligence between people in or connected to Manhattan who care about such things and those outside that world who imagine they care about such things is still perceived to be enormous (and not, incidentally, to the denigration of the Manhattan people). How huge are these gaps, especially at the level of people who are not widely famous, and why are they thus huge? It is obviously the constant reinforcement one gets from the positive identification of oneself with the life and culture of the city and its all-conquering institutions--if one can swing the identification part in one's favor once and for all. When you are wholly outside of this, and especially outside of any scene at all reasonably approximate you can read and write and think and drink cocktails and maybe even occasionally try to hit on arty-looking girls in dingy alt-rock bars, you just can't get the reinforcement that any of it is getting you anymore, and everybody can see it in your confused and overeager demeanor.
Edith Wharton was born at 14 West 23rd Street in Manhattan in 1862. Most biographical accounts note that she was born into "Old New York"--the WASP/Dutch high society whose power and influence and numbers were diminished I guess by the floods of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, though I thought there were a few of them still around (Aren't they the characters populating Whit Stillman movies?) The building she lived in appears to still be standing, though it has been renovated so many times that most accounts of the site describe the Wharton house as hiding within the shell of the current facade. As of 2011 a Starbucks was installed on the ground floor. This address is near 5th Avenue and Madison Square Park. The Flatiron Building, which is a favorite of mine, can't be more than a few doors away. That whole neighborhood is one of my favorite (as in top 15) in town. According to another article from 2011 a commemorative plaque is supposed to be placed on the building in honor of Edith Wharton, who was known by the delightful sobriquet of Pussy Jones (Jones was her maiden name) when she lived in the house. Subway: 23rd Street at Broadway (N & R Lines)
The great Edith Wharton-themed tourist attraction is her opulent Berkshire house The Mount, physical address 2 Plunkett Street in Lenox, Massachusetts, 5 minutes from Exit 2 off the Mass Turnpike. I am delighted to see that The Mount appears to be open again, as I remember reading a few years back that they had had to close for a time due to financial problems. I should really try to get down there and see it, though Western Mass can be surprisingly far from anywhere. The Mount is 3 hours and 15 minutes drive from my house in New Hampshire. It is even an hour and 45 minutes from our camp in Brattleboro, though that would be doable as a day trip.
Here is a 12 minute video introduction to the Mount which it looks like the stewards of the property have put out themselves. I put it up here as a resource for anybody whose interest has been roused by the tone of this or any other of my modest articles
Edith Wharton was a 1% type from birth, so it is hardly surprising that the desirable geography where she was concerned would be extended onto the grave, her interment being at the Cimitiere des Gonsards in Versailles. Actually I could be wrong about the desirability of the location, but it sounds desirable. Besides the palace, which looks to be within strolling distance of the cemetery, my impression of the modern town is that it is a prosperous, haute bourgeois locale. One could make a decent day of the visit, I should think. The cemetery is very near the Versailles-Chantiers RER station. I can already picture myself trying to buy a ticket for this station and having the attendant assure me that I really want to go to Versailles-Rive Gauche, because that is right outside the gates of the palace and is where all the tourists want to go (the line appears to split right before it comes to these stations, so getting off a station early to satisfy one's petty desire to do things the way one wants to do them is not an option). The palace is only an 18-minute walk from the Chantiers station according to Google maps anyway.
Trailer for the rarely-seen 1934 film of The Age of Innocence starring Irene Dunne. Wharton herself was still alive at this time--she died in 1937--which I thought of interest because though one always associates her with a seemingly much earlier and more remote time than the 1930s, she of course was not.
I have never much warmed to serious literary adaptations featuring A-list Hollywood stars post-1980 or so, and I have never seen the 1993 Martin Scorcese version of Innocence, but I will put a clip from it on here because it is supposed to fairly good. Also I find I miss Winona Ryder now that she isn't around much anymore. She was never much of an actress, but she was ubiquitous, or seemed to be, for a while, and she was attractive in an earnest way that being soft of heart I always found rather endearing.
There is a pretty recent movie of Ethan Frome starring another favorite Generation-X era starlet, Patricia Arquette--who didn't like her?--but I cannot find anything snippet-sized from that production that I would want to put on here. I have not seen this movie either.
My French tutor in college, the late Douglas Allanbrook, who was a composer of some renown, wrote an opera based on Ethan Frome. Excerpts here. I have not listened to much of it--the time required for even a one hour and 48 minute recording somehow seems daunting to me nowadays--but I thought I ought to include it in the catalog, for Mr Allanbrook was one of the few serious adult men who didn't openly hate me that I have had the opportunity to engage with on a day to day basis, and I am pretty confident that his work contains some merit.
