Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter of Advice to People Living in the Year 2088

in Letters, Literature | December 27th, 2024

There was a time when a com­pa­ny like Volk­swa­gen could com­mis­sion var­i­ous lumi­nar­ies to write let­ters to the future, then pub­lish them in Time mag­a­zine as part of an ad cam­paign. In fact, that time was­n’t so very long ago: it was the year 1988, to be pre­cise, when no less an opti­mistic (or opti­misti­cal­ly bleak?) nov­el­ist than Kurt Von­negut was still active. At some point between writ­ing Blue­beard and Hocus Pocus, he com­posed a mis­sive direct­ed toward human­i­ty a cen­tu­ry hence (in 2088), which you can read even in this rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly year of 2024 here.

Von­negut begins with quo­ta­tions from Shake­speare and St. John the Divine, explain­ing that “our cen­tu­ry has­n’t been as free with words of wis­dom as some oth­ers, I think, because we were the first to get reli­able infor­ma­tion about the human sit­u­a­tion.” In his time, we knew full well “how many of us there were, how much food we could raise or gath­er, how fast we were repro­duc­ing, what made us sick, what made us die, how much dam­age we were doing to the air and water and top­soil on which most life forms depend­ed, how vio­lent and heart­less nature can be, and on and on. Who could wax wise with so much bad news pour­ing in?”

Of spe­cial import to him was the rev­e­la­tion that “Nature was no con­ser­va­tion­ist. It need­ed no help from us in tak­ing the plan­et apart and putting it back togeth­er some dif­fer­ent way, not nec­es­sar­i­ly improv­ing it from the view­point of liv­ing things.” Earth may have giv­en rise to human­i­ty, but it has not the capac­i­ty to care whether we or any oth­er par­tic­u­lar life form sur­vives on it. And so we must take it upon our­selves to ensure our own well-being, which requires liv­ing in accor­dance with what Von­negut calls “Nature’s stern but rea­son­able sur­ren­der terms”:

  1. Reduce and sta­bi­lize your pop­u­la­tion.
  2. Stop poi­son­ing the air, the water, and the top­soil.
  3. Stop prepar­ing for war and start deal­ing with your real prob­lems.
  4. Teach your kids, and your­selves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhab­it a small plan­et with­out help­ing to kill it.
  5. Stop think­ing sci­ence can fix any­thing if you give it a tril­lion dol­lars.
  6. Stop think­ing your grand­chil­dren will be OK no mat­ter how waste­ful or destruc­tive you may be, since they can go to a nice new plan­et on a space­ship. That is real­ly mean, and stu­pid.
  7. And so on. Or else.

You can eas­i­ly imag­ine these words uttered by Von­negut him­self, but how about by Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch? There’s no need to imag­ine: you can sim­ply watch the new video above, tak­en from a recent Let­ters Live event. Cum­ber­batch is one of the series’ star read­ers, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly inter­pret­ed let­ters by Nick Cave, Albert Camus, Alan Tur­ing, and oth­ers onstage. This advice to the “ladies and gen­tle­men of AD 2088” has proven to be one of his hits; you can hear anoth­er, ear­li­er read­ing here. Per­haps Von­negut’s words bear repeat­ing, but then, he always showed a sharp aware­ness that human­i­ty has few qual­i­ties as per­sis­tent as the inabil­i­ty to lis­ten.

Relat­ed con­tent:

In 1988, Kurt Von­negut Writes a Let­ter to Peo­ple Liv­ing in 2088, Giv­ing 7 Pieces of Advice

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Let­ter to the High School That Burned Slaugh­ter­house-Five

Watch James Earl Jones Read Kurt Vonnegut’s Let­ter Urg­ing High-School Stu­dents to Cre­ate Art & “Make Your Soul Grow”

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch & Ian McK­ellen Read Epic Let­ters Writ­ten by Kurt Von­negut

Hear Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch Read­ing Let­ters by Kurt Von­negut, Alan Tur­ing, Sol LeWitt, and Oth­ers

22-Year-Old P.O.W. Kurt Von­negut Writes Home from World War II: “I’ll Be Damned If It Was Worth It”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The New York Times Presents the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Selected by 503 Novelists, Poets & Critics

in Books, Literature | December 26th, 2024

For long­time read­ers of Amer­i­can book jour­nal­ism, scrolling through the New York Times Book Review’s just-pub­lished list of the 100 best books of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry will sum­mon dim mem­o­ries of many a once-unig­nor­able crit­i­cal fuss. At one time or anoth­er over the past 25 years, some of us felt as if we could hard­ly con­sid­er our­selves lit­er­ate unless we’d read The Amaz­ing Adven­tures of Kava­lier & Clay, say, or A Vis­it from the Goon Squad, or The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao, or seem­ing­ly any­thing by George Saun­ders — all of which have placed on the Book Review’s list, the prod­uct of sur­vey­ing “hun­dreds of lit­er­ary lumi­nar­ies,” some of whose bal­lots have been made avail­able for pub­lic view­ing.

As a reminder of how deep we are into this cen­tu­ry, more than a few of the authors of these not­ed books — Denis John­son, Joan Did­ion, Philip Roth, Cor­mac McCarthy, Hilary Man­tel — have already shuf­fled off this mor­tal coil. Rober­to Bolaño, whose The Sav­age Detec­tives and 2666 placed at num­bers 38 and 6, respec­tive­ly, was already dead when both of those nov­els first appeared in Eng­lish trans­la­tion.

Some selec­tions may cause despair over the health of lit­er­a­ture itself: Don­na Tart­t’s The Goldfinch, for instance, whose rap­tur­ous recep­tion crit­ic James Wood once mem­o­rably described as “fur­ther proof of the infan­tiliza­tion of our lit­er­ary cul­ture: a world in which adults go around read­ing Har­ry Pot­ter.”

But then, every­one will have their objec­tions, which is the point behind these lists as much as behind lit­er­ary prizes like the Nobel, works by whose lau­re­ates from Toni Mor­ri­son to Han Kang have placed among the top 100. I note the omis­sion of Saul Bel­low and J. M. Coet­zee, whose Rav­el­stein and Eliz­a­beth Costel­lo would’ve eas­i­ly made my bal­lot were I lumi­nary enough to vote. In any case, these stand­ings are hard­ly like­ly to look much the same in a few decades’ time. Imag­ine a list of the best books of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry com­posed in 1924, when even The Great Gats­by had­n’t come out — or indeed, a list of the best books of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry from 1824, thir­teen years before the pub­li­ca­tion of the first nov­el by a cer­tain promis­ing young scrib­bler named Dick­ens.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The 10 Great­est Books Ever, Accord­ing to 125 Top Authors (Down­load Them for Free)

29 Lists of Rec­om­mend­ed Books Cre­at­ed by Well-Known Authors, Artists & Thinkers: Jorge Luis Borges, Pat­ti Smith, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, David Bowie & More

The 100 Best Nov­els: A Lit­er­ary Crit­ic Cre­ates a List in 1898

Joseph Brodsky’s List of 83 Books You Should Read to Have an Intel­li­gent Con­ver­sa­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Read J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Letter From Father Christmas” To His Young Children (1925)

in Letters, Literature | December 22nd, 2024

J.R.R. Tolkien is best known for the sweep­ing fan­ta­sy land­scapes of Lord of The Rings and The Hob­bit. Apart from being a cel­e­brat­ed author, the Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor of Anglo-Sax­on was also a devot­ed father who dot­ed on his chil­dren.

In 1920, a few short years after Tolkien returned from World War I, he began an endear­ing fam­i­ly Christ­mas tra­di­tion that would con­tin­ue for the next 23 years. After the birth of his first­born son, John, Tolkien began to write his four chil­dren let­ters from Father Christ­mas. These North Pole tales chiefly con­cern Father Christ­mas’ strug­gles against the north’s bat-rid­ing gob­lins, as well as the mis­chie­vous hijinks of his helper, North Polar Bear. An adept illus­tra­tor whose orig­i­nal draw­ings accom­pa­nied many of his writ­ings (see his book cov­er designs for Lord of the Rings), Tolkien includ­ed with many of his Christ­mas let­ters a set of charm­ing pic­tures.

The many let­ters were even­tu­al­ly col­lect­ed in a beau­ti­ful vol­ume called Let­ters From Father Christ­mas. Thanks to the good work of Let­ters of Note, we bring to you a sam­ple let­ter from 1925:

Cliff House

Top of the World

Near the North Pole

Xmas 1925

My dear boys,

I am dread­ful­ly busy this year — it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it — and not very rich. In fact, awful things have been hap­pen­ing, and some of the presents have got spoilt and I haven’t got the North Polar Bear to help me and I have had to move house just before Christ­mas, so you can imag­ine what a state every­thing is in, and you will see why I have a new address, and why I can only write one let­ter between you both. It all hap­pened like this: one very windy day last Novem­ber my hood blew off and went and stuck on the top of the North Pole. I told him not to, but the N.P.Bear climbed up to the thin top to get it down — and he did. The pole broke in the mid­dle and fell on the roof of my house, and the N.P.Bear fell through the hole it made into the din­ing room with my hood over his nose, and all the snow fell off the roof into the house and melt­ed and put out all the fires and ran down into the cel­lars where I was col­lect­ing this year’s presents, and the N.P.Bear’s leg got bro­ken. He is well again now, but I was so cross with him that he says he won’t try to help me again. I expect his tem­per is hurt, and will be mend­ed by next Christ­mas. I send you a pic­ture of the acci­dent, and of my new house on the cliffs above the N.P. (with beau­ti­ful cel­lars in the cliffs). If John can’t read my old shaky writ­ing (1925 years old) he must get his father to. When is Michael going to learn to read, and write his own let­ters to me? Lots of love to you both and Christo­pher, whose name is rather like mine.

That’s all. Good­bye.

Father Christ­mas

via The Paris Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

110 Draw­ings and Paint­ings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Of Mid­dle-Earth and Beyond

Explore Rarely-Seen Art by J. R. R. Tolkien in a New Web Site Cre­at­ed by the Tolkien Estate

Dis­cov­er J.R.R. Tolkien’s Per­son­al Book Cov­er Designs for The Lord of the Rings Tril­o­gy

Sovi­et-Era Illus­tra­tions Of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hob­bit (1976)

Map of Mid­dle-Earth Anno­tat­ed by Tolkien Found in a Copy of Lord of the Rings

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

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Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels

in Art, Books, Literature | December 5th, 2024

As Christ­mas­time approach­es, few nov­el­ists come to mind as read­i­ly as Charles Dick­ens. This owes main­ly, of course, to A Christ­mas Car­ol, and even more so to its many adap­ta­tions, most of which draw inspi­ra­tion from not just its text but also its illus­tra­tions. That 1843 novel­la was just the first of five books he wrote with the hol­i­day as a theme, a series that also includes The Chimes, The Crick­et on the Hearth, The Bat­tle of Life, and The Haunt­ed Man and the Ghost’s Bar­gain. Each “includ­ed draw­ings he worked on with illus­tra­tors,” writes BBC News’ Tim Stokes, though “none of them dis­plays quite the icon­ic mer­ri­ment of his ini­tial Christ­mas cre­ation.”

“Any­one look­ing at the illus­tra­tions to the Christ­mas books after A Christ­mas Car­ol and expect­ing sim­i­lar images to Mr Fezzi­wig’s Ball is going to be dis­ap­point­ed,” Stokes quotes inde­pen­dent schol­ar Dr. Michael John Good­man as say­ing.

Pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned less with Christ­mas as a hol­i­day and more “with the spir­it of Christ­mas and its ideals of self­less­ness and for­give­ness, as well as being a voice for the poor and the needy,” Dick­ens “had to cre­ate some very dark sce­nar­ios to give this mes­sage pow­er and res­o­nance, and these can be seen in the illus­tra­tions.”

Good­man’s name may sound famil­iar to ded­i­cat­ed Open Cul­ture read­ers, since we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured his online Charles Dick­ens Illus­trat­ed Gallery, whose dig­i­tized art col­lec­tion has been grow­ing ever since. It now con­tains over 2,100 illus­tra­tions, includ­ing not just A Christ­mas Car­ol and all its suc­ces­sors, but all of Dick­ens’ books from his ear­ly col­lec­tion of obser­va­tion­al pieces Sketch­es by Boz to his final, incom­plete nov­el The Mys­tery of Edwin Drood. And those are just the orig­i­nals: every true Dick­ens enthu­si­ast soon­er or lat­er gets into the dif­fer­ences between the waves of edi­tions that have been pub­lished over the bet­ter part of two cen­turies.

The Charles Dick­ens Illus­trat­ed Gallery has entire sec­tions ded­i­cat­ed to the posthu­mous “House­hold Edi­tion,” which have even more art than the orig­i­nals; the lat­er “Library Edi­tion,” from 1910, fea­tur­ing the work of esteemed and pro­lif­ic illus­tra­tor Har­ry Fur­niss; and even the 1912 “Pears Edi­tion” of the Christ­mas books, put out by the epony­mous soap com­pa­ny in cel­e­bra­tion of the cen­te­nary of Dick­ens’ birth. But none of them quite matched the lav­ish­ness of that first Christ­mas Car­ol, on which Dick­ens had decid­ed to go all out: as Good­man writes, “it would have eight illus­tra­tions, four of which would be in col­or, and it would have gilt edges and col­ored end­pa­pers.” Alas, this extrav­a­gance “left Dick­ens with very lit­tle prof­it” — and with an unusu­al­ly prag­mat­ic but nev­er­the­less unfor­get­table Christ­mas les­son about keep­ing costs down. Enter the Charles Dick­ens Illus­trat­ed Gallery here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

3,000 Illus­tra­tions of Shakespeare’s Com­plete Works from Vic­to­ri­an Eng­land, Pre­sent­ed in a Dig­i­tal Archive

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Édouard Manet Illustrates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edition Translated by Stephane Mallarmé (1875)

in Art, Literature | December 4th, 2024

Manet's Raven

Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame dur­ing his life­time after the pub­li­ca­tion of The Raven (1845), but he nev­er felt that he received the recog­ni­tion he deserved. In some respects, he was right. He was, after all, paid only nine dol­lars for the poem, and he strug­gled before and after its pub­li­ca­tion to make a liv­ing from his writ­ing.

Raven_Manet_B2

Poe was one of the first Amer­i­can writ­ers to do so with­out inde­pen­dent means. His work large­ly met with mixed reviews and he was fired from job after job, part­ly because of his drink­ing. After his death, how­ev­er, Poe’s influ­ence dom­i­nat­ed emerg­ing mod­ernist move­ments like that of the deca­dent poet­ry of Charles Baude­laire (who called Poe his “twin soul”) and his sym­bol­ist dis­ci­ple Stéphane Mal­lar­mé.

Raven_Manet_C2

Mal­lar­mé would write of Poe, “His cen­tu­ry appalled at nev­er hav­ing heard / That in this voice tri­umphant death had sung its hymn.” To bring that hymn of death, the raven’s cry of “Nev­er­more,” to French read­ers, he made a trans­la­tion of The Raven, Le Cor­beau, in 1875 at age 33.

Raven_Manet_D2

Poe also had a tremen­dous influ­ence on the visu­al arts in France. Illus­trat­ing the text was none oth­er than Édouard Manet, the painter cred­it­ed with the gen­e­sis of impres­sion­ism. The result­ing engrav­ings, ren­dered in dark, heavy smudges, give us the poem’s unnamed, bereaved speak­er as the young Mal­lar­mé, unmis­tak­able with his push­b­room mus­tache.

Sad­ly, the New York Pub­lic Library tells us, “the pub­li­ca­tion was not a com­mer­cial suc­cess.” (See Manet’s design for a poster and the book cov­er at the top of the post.)

Raven_Manet_E2

The book also illus­trates the rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ship between Poe and French art and lit­er­a­ture. Chris Semt­ner, cura­tor of a Rich­mond, Vir­ginia exhib­it on this mutu­al influ­ence, remarks that Poe “read Voltaire among oth­er French authors”—such as Alexan­dre Dumas—“in col­lege” and found them high­ly influ­en­tial. Like­wise, Poe left his mark not only on Baude­laire, Mal­lar­mé, and Manet, but also Paul Gau­guin, Odilon Redon, and Hen­ri Matisse.

You can read Le Cor­beau here in a dual lan­guage edi­tion, with all the orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions. View and down­load high-res scans of the engrav­ings here. And just above, lis­ten to The Raven read aloud in Mallarmé’s French, cour­tesy of the Inter­net Archive.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

Aubrey Beardsley’s Macabre Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Sto­ries (1894)

Har­ry Clarke’s Hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry Illus­tra­tions for Edgar Allan Poe’s Sto­ries (1923)

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

 

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Beautiful 19th Century Maps of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise & More

in Art, Books, Literature, Religion | December 3rd, 2024

Even the least reli­gious among us speak, at least on occa­sion, of the cir­cles of hell. When we do so, we may or may not be think­ing of where the con­cept orig­i­nat­ed: Dan­te’s Div­ina Com­me­dia, or Divine Com­e­dy. We each imag­ine the cir­cles in our own way — usu­al­ly fill­ing them with sin­ners and pun­ish­ments inspired by our own dis­tastes — but some of Dan­te’s ear­li­er read­ers did so with a seri­ous­ness and pre­ci­sion that may now seem extreme. “The first cos­mo­g­ra­ph­er of Dante’s uni­verse was the Flo­ren­tine poly­math Anto­nio Manet­ti,” writes the Pub­lic Domain Review’s Hunter Dukes, who “con­clud­ed that hell was 3246 miles wide and 408 miles deep.” A young Galileo sug­gest­ed that “the Inferno’s vault­ed ceil­ing was sup­port­ed by the same phys­i­cal prin­ci­ples as Brunelleschi’s dome.”

In 1855, the aris­to­crat sculp­tor-politi­cian-Dante schol­ar Michelan­ge­lo Cae­tani pub­lished his own pre­cise artis­tic ren­der­ings of not just the Infer­no, but also the Pur­ga­to­rio and Par­adiso, in La mate­ria del­la Div­ina com­me­dia di Dante Alighieri dichiara­ta in VI tav­ole, or The Divine Com­e­dy of Dante Alighieri Described in Six Plates.

“The first plate offers an overview of Dante’s cos­mog­ra­phy, lead­ing from the low­est cir­cle of the Infer­no up through the nine heav­en­ly spheres to Empyre­an, the high­est lev­el of Par­adise and the dwelling place of God,” writes Dukes. “The Infer­no is visu­al­ized with a cut­away style,” its cir­cles “like geo­log­i­cal lay­ers”; ter­raced like a wed­ding cake, “Pur­ga­to­ry is ren­dered at eye lev­el, from the per­spec­tive of some lucky soul sail­ing by this island-moun­tain.”

In Par­adise, “the Infer­no and Pur­ga­to­ry are now small blips on the page, worlds left behind, encir­cled by Mer­cury, Venus, Sat­urn, and the oth­er heav­en­ly spheres.” At the very top is “the can­di­da rosa, an amphithe­ater struc­ture reserved for the souls of heav­en” where “Dante leaves behind Beat­rice, his true love and guide, to come face-to-face with God and the Trin­i­ty.” You can exam­ine these and oth­er illus­tra­tions at the Pub­lic Domain Review or Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty Library’s dig­i­tal col­lec­tions, which adds that they come from “a sec­ond ver­sion of this work pro­duced by Cae­tani using the then-nov­el tech­nol­o­gy of chro­molith­o­g­ra­phy” in 1872, “pro­duced in a some­what small­er for­mat by the monks at Monte Cassi­no” — a crew who could sure­ly be trust­ed to believe in the job.

via the Pub­lic Domain Review

Relat­ed con­tent:

Visu­al­iz­ing Dante’s Hell: See Maps & Draw­ings of Dante’s Infer­no from the Renais­sance Through Today

An Illus­trat­ed and Inter­ac­tive Dante’s Infer­no: Explore a New Dig­i­tal Com­pan­ion to the Great 14th-Cen­tu­ry Epic Poem

Rarely Seen Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy Are Now Free Online, Cour­tesy of the Uffizi Gallery

A Dig­i­tal Archive of the Ear­li­est Illus­trat­ed Edi­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy (1487–1568)

Explore Divine Com­e­dy Dig­i­tal, a New Dig­i­tal Data­base That Col­lects Sev­en Cen­turies of Art Inspired by Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy

Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy: A Free Course from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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William S. Burroughs’ Scathing “Thanksgiving Prayer,” Shot by Gus Van Sant

in Literature, Poetry | November 27th, 2024

“Thanks­giv­ing Day, Nov. 28, 1986” first appeared in print in Tor­na­do Alley, a chap­book pub­lished by William S. Bur­roughs in 1989. Two years lat­er, Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunt­ing, My Own Pri­vate Ida­ho, Milk) shot a mon­tage that brought the poem to film, mak­ing it at least the sec­ond time the direc­tor adapt­ed the beat writer to film.

If you’ve seen Bur­roughs use Shake­speare’s face for tar­get prac­tice, or if you’ve watched The Junky’s Christ­mas, you’ll know that he was­n’t kind to con­ven­tion or tra­di­tion. And there are no pris­on­ers tak­en here, as you’ll see above.

For back­ground on Bur­roughs, read the New York­er piece “The Out­law, The extra­or­di­nary life of William S. Bur­roughs.” Find the text for “Thanks­giv­ing Prayer” here.

Now time for a lit­tle Thanks­giv­ing din­ner.…

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Tells the Sto­ry of How He Start­ed Writ­ing with the Cut-Up Tech­nique

How William S. Bur­roughs Influ­enced Rock and Roll, from the 1960s to Today

William S. Bur­roughs Teach­es a Free Course on Cre­ative Read­ing and Writ­ing (1979)

How William S. Bur­roughs Used the Cut-Up Tech­nique to Shut Down London’s First Espres­so Bar (1972)

 

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The Final Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured in Rare Footage from 1910

in History, Literature | November 20th, 2024

114 years ago today (Novem­ber 20, 1910), Leo Tol­stoy—the author who gave us two major Russ­ian clas­sics Anna Karen­i­na and War & Peace—died at Astapo­vo, a small, remote train sta­tion in the heart of Rus­sia. Pneu­mo­nia was the offi­cial cause. His death came just weeks after Tol­stoy, then 82 years old, made a rather dra­mat­ic deci­sion. He left his wife, his com­fort­able estate, and his wealth, then trav­eled 26 hours to Shar­mardi­no, where Tolstoy’s sis­ter Marya lived, and where he planned to spend the remain­der of his life in a small, rent­ed hut. (Elif Batu­man has more on this.) But then he pushed on, board­ing a train to the Cau­ca­sus. And it proved to be more than his already weak­ened con­sti­tu­tion could han­dle. Rather amaz­ing­ly, the footage above brings you back to Tol­stoy’s final days, and right to his deathbed itself. This clip comes from a 1969 BBC series Civil­i­sa­tion: A Per­son­al View by Ken­neth Clark, and these days you can still find copies of Clark’s accom­pa­ny­ing book kick­ing around online.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Only Col­or Pic­ture of Tol­stoy, Tak­en by Pho­tog­ra­phy Pio­neer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1908)

Thomas Edison’s Record­ings of Leo Tol­stoy: Hear the Voice of the Great Russ­ian Nov­el­ist

Leo Tolstoy’s 17 “Rules of Life:” Wake at 5am, Help the Poor, & Only Two Broth­el Vis­its Per Month

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Leo Tol­stoy, and How His Great Nov­els Can Increase Your Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence

 

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