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Tag Archives: Henry James
“You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
It’s her birthday today. In The Heiress, Olivia de Havilland gave one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema. Her final moment, ascending the stairs, as the grifter Montgomery Clift bangs on the door screaming her name, is … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Henry James, Montgomery Clift, Olivia de Havilland
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“Sunlight on a broken column.” — T.S. Eliot
It’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday. Poets like William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane both said that they needed to forcibly divorce themselves from Eliot’s influence in order to be able to write. His voice, his way, became THE way. (Interestingly enough, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, E.M. Forster, Edith Sitwell, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Hart Crane, Henry James, Jeanette Winterson, John Dryden, John Milton, Lord Byron, Marianne Moore, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, William Shakespeare
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Interpreting Lady Macbeth: Sarah Siddons vs. Ellen Terry
For Shakespeare’s Birthday Ellen Terry Sarah Siddons Michael Holroyd’s A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families tells the story of 19th century theatre-manager Henry Irving, and his lead actress Ellen Terry. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day
Tagged Charles Lamb, Ellen Terry, Henry James, Macbeth, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Siddons, William Shakespeare
15 Comments
The Books: Aspects of the Novel: ‘Introductory,’ by E.M. Forster
On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!) NEXT BOOK: Aspects of the Novel, a series of lectures by … Continue reading
2014 Books Read
2014 was a good reading year. I re-read a lot of favorites, including Rebecca West’s 1200 page Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. There was a fun mix of re-reads and new stuff, of fiction and non-fiction. My year of being … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, Amongst Women, Anjelica Huston, August Strindberg, books read, E.B. White, England, Evelyn Waugh, friends, George Orwell, Henry James, In Cold Blood, Inherent Vice, Ireland, John Cassavetes, John McGahern, Love Streams, Mark Helprin, Mark Twain, Patrick O'Brian, Rebecca West, Roger Angell, Seamus Heaney, Sweden, Truman Capote, Wales, war
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2013 Books Read
It’s been a hell of a year. Devastating as well as redemptive. I started it out in Memphis, and end it here in New Jersey. And now my new niece Pearl has arrived! It’s been both a busy year as … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Annie Proulx, Arthur Koestler, Balkans, books read, Darkness at Noon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, friends, George Eliot, H.L. Mencken, Henry James, Herman Melville, Hungary, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, Joan Didion, John Banville, Joseph Heller, Joshua Ferris, Lester Bangs, Lorrie Moore, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, Russia, Sam Cooke, Stalin, Tana French, The Netherlands, The Only Game In Town, Thomas Carlyle, Victor Serge, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
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Review What Maisie Knew
My latest for Roger Ebert: a review of What Maisie Knew, the modern-day telling of Henry James’ 1897 novel. It’s good. It’s upsetting.
The Books: “The Portrait of a Lady” (Henry James)
Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: Excerpt from The Portrait of a Lady – by Henry James I’m not really a big Henry James fan (I love this quote from TS Eliot which says it way better than I ever could) … Continue reading