BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF WRITING #2

"One time, during the recent war, an Air Force sergeant
 accosted Robert Benchley in a bar and, with little or no preamble, said, 'I might as well tell you that I don't 
like your work.' Benchley replied that he had moments 
of doubt himself, and the sergeant then explained that 
he had hitched a ride from Africa to Italy on a cargo 
plane, and that the only available  sleeping space had
 been on bags that were full of oversea editions of 
Benchley's books. By the time they passed Sicily, 
the man said, he was so stiff and sore that he hoped 
never to hear the name Benchley again. 'Try it yourself sometime,' he concluded. 'That stuff isn't funny when
 you have to sleep on it.'"

Nathaniel Benchley. The Benchley Roundup (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983)
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“ All writers must woo and win readers, and readers 
are wooed and won, today as yesterday, by stories 
of flawed, sympathetic people who do big and significant
 things despite many obstacles put in their way. The 
bigger the obstacles and the more grooved-in the 
personal flaws, the better the story.”

Adam Gopnik .”Finding the Founders” in The New
Yorker (October 31, 2022)

**
 “In the marriages of celebrated literati throughout
 history, husband is to fame as wife is to footnote."

 from LIVES OF THE WIVES: FIVE LITERARY MARRIAGE
by Carmela Ciuraru
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ELAINE STERNE CARRINGTON--20,000 WORDS A WEEK

"The author of two of radio's most popular daytime serials, Pepper Young's Family and When a Girl Marries, is Eleanor Sterne Carrington, a prolific writer who produces not only her 20,000 words a week for radio, but three-act plays for Broadway, many short stories for magazines, patriotic scripts, and (as a hobby) popular songs.

Current Biography 1943

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FROM THE WRITER MICHAEL GOODMAN

Once, asked about his writing routine, E. L. Doctorow 
said: "Here's how it goes: I'm up at the stroke of 10 
or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the papers, and 
then it's lunchtime. Then maybe a little nap after 
lunch and out to the gym, and before I know it, it's 
time to have a drink."
 
Sounds fun, but how do those damned books get written?

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T. CAMPBELL -- PALINDROMIC NOVELS

"... from a wordplay perspective, one of our greatest losses is a far more modern one: Satire: Veritas by David Stephens, a palindromic novella published informally in 1980. It’s not quite the longest palindrome—that would be Dr. Awkward and Olson in Oslo, by Lawrence Levine, a bizarre, often nonsensical detective story. And I can find no information about Satire: Veritas’ actual content…one assumes it’s a satire, but that’s all we got."

T.Campbell. "Lost Works" -email (July 31, 2023)


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ON MONEY AND THE SUN ALSO RISES

“Originally published in 1926, with its title taken
 from a particularly down-in-the-mouth section of 
Ecclesiastes, Sun was notorious because its main 
character, Jake Barnes, was sexually impotent owing 
to a wound suffered to World War I. Even Papa’s own 
mother had called it ‘one of the filthiest books of 
the year.’ Papa had given it to his first wife, 
Hadley, as part of her divorce settlement , and 
she’d sold it practically right then and there 
for ten thousand dollars. By the time Darryl F.
 Zanuck decided he wanted to turn it into a movie 
nearly three decades later, those same rights cost
 him a hundred and twenty-five thousand, none of 
which came home to Papa.”

Ava Gardner. AVA: MY STORY (New York: Bantam Books, 1990)


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“The progress of any writer is marked by those
 moments when he manages to outwit his own inner 
police systems.”
                       Ted Hughes

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THE WORLD’S OLDEST SURVIVING ROYAL LIBRARY

“The world’s oldest surviving royal library (is) 
that of King Ashurbanipal of the Assyrian Empire 
in the city of Nineveh, close to modern-day Mosul 
in Northern Iraq. Ashurbanipal assembled a vast 
library of written works from across Mesopotamia. 
This amounted to  30,000 tablets, containing everything 
from rituals, medical encyclopedias, astronomical 
observations and the exploits of royals. The writer 
called it ‘the most precious source of historical 
material in the world,’ but it was reduced to rubble
 and burned when the city was sacked in 612 BC.”
  I see evidence of this first-hand during my trip 
to the British Museum, where the remains of this 
library are now stored, their blackened scorch 
marks still visible.”

Alison George. “Cracking the Code” in New Scientist 
(Spring 2023)

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THE BIG WOW-WOW

"Only 150 years ago Walter Scott was able to pay tribute to
Jane Austen's mastery of "the exquisite touch on commonplace thing," while reserving for himself what he called the Big Wow-Wow."

Shirley Hazzard. We Need Silence to Find Out What 
We Think (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016)
**

"As for me, I think about what I have always thought
 about -- literature. I try to take hold of everything 
I see; I'd like to imagine something. But what, I don't
 know. It seems to me that I have become utterly stupid."

 FLAUBERT (translated by Francis Steegmuller)

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EDGAR A. POE

If Edgar A. Poe
Had created Winnie the Pooh,
Eeyore wd kick and bite,
And young children wouldn't sleep at night.

JOHN BUCHAN

John Buchan--
Wrote less about fuckin'
& more about spies.
I wonder: was that wise?

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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Placed his hands on his wife's belly
& recited: "Hail to thee, blithe spirit".
He hoped his unborn child might hear it.

LJP
**