Oscar Wilde Offers Practical Advice on the Writing Life in a Newly-Discovered Letter from 1890

in Literature, Writing | March 20th, 2013

Accord­ing to The Tele­graph, experts rum­mag­ing through a dusty box recent­ly uncov­ered a let­ter penned by Oscar Wilde in 1890 (or there­abouts). Addressed to a “Mr. Mor­gan,” the let­ter runs 13 pages, and it offers what amounts to prac­ti­cal advice for an aspir­ing writer. Details on the let­ter’s con­tents remain scarce, although we will prob­a­bly know more when the doc­u­ment gets auc­tioned off in two weeks time. But, so far, we know that Wilde offered Mr. Mor­gan two points to con­sid­er:

“Make some sac­ri­fice for your art, and you will be repaid, but ask of art to sac­ri­fice her­self for you and a bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment may come to you,”

“The best work in lit­er­a­ture is always done by those who do not depend on it for their dai­ly bread and the high­est form of lit­er­a­ture, Poet­ry, brings no wealth to the singer.”

It’s essen­tial­ly the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry ver­sion of what Charles Bukows­ki lat­er said in much more sim­ple terms: “if you’re doing it for mon­ey or fame, don’t do it.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

So You Want to Be a Writer?: Charles Bukows­ki Explains the Dos & Don’ts

William Faulkn­er Explains Why Writ­ing is Best Left to Scoundrels … Prefer­ably Liv­ing in Broth­els (1956)

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

Ingrid Bergman Remembers How Ernest Hemingway Helped Her Get the Part in For Whom the Bell Tolls

in Books, Film, Literature | March 20th, 2013

Ernest Hem­ing­way took a dim view of Hol­ly­wood. He once said that the best way for a writer to deal with the movie busi­ness was to arrange a quick meet­ing at the Cal­i­for­nia state line. “You throw them your book, they throw you the mon­ey,” he said.“Then you jump into your car and dri­ve like hell back the way you came.”

But Hem­ing­way became a lit­tle more involved when it was time to film his 1940 nov­el For Whom the Bell Tolls, as this 1971 CBC inter­view with Ingrid Bergman reveals. Hem­ing­way sold the film rights to Para­mount Pic­tures in part because he want­ed his good friend Gary Coop­er, who had starred in A Farewell to Arms (which you can find in our col­lec­tion of 500 Free Movies Online), to play the lead role of Robert Jor­dan, an Amer­i­can vol­un­teer in the Span­ish Civ­il War who is giv­en a dan­ger­ous mis­sion to blow up a bridge. Coop­er was under con­tract with Para­mount.

Bergman first came to Hem­ing­way’s atten­tion when he saw the young Swedish actress in the 1939 Hol­ly­wood remake of Inter­mez­zo. Despite her Nordic appear­ance, Hem­ing­way thought Bergman would be per­fect for the role of the young Span­ish woman Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls. As Bergman explains in the inter­view, Hem­ing­way sent her a copy of the book with the inscrip­tion, “You are the Maria in this book.”

The prob­lem was that Bergman was under con­tract with anoth­er stu­dio, Selznick Inter­na­tion­al Pic­tures. But stu­dios occa­sion­al­ly made arrange­ments with one anoth­er to share actors, and David O. Selznick became con­vinced that the high-pro­file Hem­ing­way project would be great for his young pro­tégé’s career. So in typ­i­cal fash­ion, Selznick pulled out all the stops. On Jan­u­ary 31, 1941 Selznick sent a note to Kay Brown, his tal­ent scout who had dis­cov­ered Bergman in Swe­den, describ­ing his efforts to win Bergman the part. In a pas­sage quot­ed by Don­ald Spo­to in Noto­ri­ous: The Life of Ingrid Bergman, Selznick writes:

I pinned Hem­ing­way down today and he told me clear­ly and frankly that he would like to see her play the part. He also said this to the press today. How­ev­er, he tells me also that at Para­mount he was told she was wood­en, untal­ent­ed, and var­i­ous oth­er things. Need­less to say, I answered these var­i­ous charges.… I am also per­son­al­ly super­vis­ing a pub­lic­i­ty cam­paign to try to jock­ey Para­mount into a posi­tion where they will almost have to use her. You will be see­ing these items from time to time. Inci­den­tal­ly, Ingrid was­n’t in town today, or I could have brought her togeth­er with Hem­ing­way. How­ev­er, we are arrang­ing for her to fly today to see Hem­ing­way in San Fran­cis­co before he sails for Chi­na. If he likes her, I am ask­ing him to go to town with Para­mount on it. If she does­n’t get the part, it won’t be because there has­n’t been a sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign to get it for her!

As part of Selznick­’s sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign, he invit­ed Life mag­a­zine to pho­to­graph Bergman’s lunch with Hem­ing­way and his wife, Martha Gell­horn, at Jack­’s Restau­rant in San Fran­cis­co. The mag­a­zine pub­lished a series of pho­tos along with a cap­tion quot­ing Hem­ing­way as say­ing, “If you don’t act in the pic­ture, Ingrid, I won’t work on it.”

Despite Selznick­’s machi­na­tions, Para­mount gave the part to one of its own con­tract actress­es, the bal­let dancer Vera Zori­na. Bergman had to con­tent her­self with the female lead in a lit­tle black-and-white film called Casablan­ca. But after sev­er­al weeks of shoot­ing the Hem­ing­way film in the Sier­ra Neva­da, Para­mount became unhap­py with Zori­na’s per­for­mance. Just as Bergman was wrap­ping up Casablan­ca, her wish came through and she was giv­en the role of Maria. For Whom the Bell Tolls became the block­buster hit of 1943, and Bergman received an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for her per­for­mance. Iron­i­cal­ly, though, it was her role in the low-pro­file Casablan­ca that sealed Bergman’s fate as a film icon.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sev­en Tips From Ernest Hem­ing­way on How to Write Fic­tion

Six Post­cards From Famous Writ­ers: Hem­ing­way, Kaf­ka, Ker­ouac & More

Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea Ani­mat­ed Not Once, But Twice

Three Raymond Carver Stories, Read by Richard Ford, Anne Enright, and David Means

in Literature | March 20th, 2013

Beloved of 80s MFA stu­dents and New York­er fic­tion edi­tors, Ray­mond Carv­er belonged to nei­ther world. He suf­fered and drank his way from work­ing-class obscu­ri­ty to lit­er­ary fame like anoth­er under­dog poet and writer, Charles Bukows­ki (though Bukows­ki nev­er had, and maybe nev­er want­ed, Carver’s cachet). Carv­er pub­lished his first col­lec­tion of grit­ty real­ist sto­ries—Will You Please Be Qui­et, Please?—in 1976, when short fic­tion was large­ly dom­i­nat­ed by the baroque exper­i­men­tal­ism of writ­ers like Don­ald Barthelme and John Barth.

But while Carv­er per­haps lacked the imag­i­na­tive exu­ber­ance, and ear­ly edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, of a Barthelme, his fic­tion gave read­ers some­thing they craved, maybe with­out even know­ing it. A Publisher’s Week­ly review­er of the first col­lec­tion not­ed that Carv­er voiced the “inar­tic­u­late worlds of Amer­i­cans,” the dim ache in the non­de­script lives of aspir­ing stu­dents, down-and-out­ers, din­er wait­ress­es, sales­men, and unhap­pi­ly hitched blue-col­lar cou­ples. Carver’s approach to qui­et des­per­a­tion is poet­ic, eschew­ing flashy post­mod­ernist con­trap­tions for pow­er­ful­ly direct and evoca­tive images. As writer and crit­ic Bri­an A. Oard puts it:

The Carveresque image allows the read­er to glimpse the ter­ri­ble waste of his char­ac­ters’ lives (some­thing the char­ac­ters them­selves can some­times feel but rarely see) and forces the read­er to recon­sid­er the entire sto­ry in the image’s dark light.

In the audio at the top, you can hear Carver’s friend, writer Richard Ford, read “The Student’s Wife,” from Will You Please Be Qui­et Please?, as part of The Guardian’s short sto­ry pod­cast. Ford describes the sto­ry as “spare, direct, rarely poly­syl­lab­ic, restrained, intense, nev­er melo­dra­mat­ic, and real-sound­ing while being obvi­ous­ly lit­er­ary in intent.”

“Fat,” anoth­er of Carver’s sto­ries from his first col­lec­tion, con­flates two arche­typ­i­cal images of dis­qui­et in the Amer­i­can psy­che: obe­si­ty and bad mar­i­tal sex. In a sto­ry about excess and long­ing, Carver’s min­i­mal­ist restraint lends these com­mon­places near-totemic sta­tus. Above, lis­ten to the sto­ry read by Irish author and mem­oirist Anne Enright.

Carv­er, a man of self-destruc­tive appetites, under­stood the crav­ing of char­ac­ters like Rita, the wait­ress in “Fat.” His own desires drove an alco­holism that near­ly killed him. Sev­er­al of his char­ac­ters share this flaw, includ­ing Wes in Carver’s sto­ry “Chef’s House,” read above by cel­e­brat­ed short sto­ry-ist David Means. Pub­lished in The New York­er in 1981, “Chef’s House” marks the begin­ning of Carver’s long rela­tion­ship with the tony mag­a­zine.

In 2007, The New York­er also broke open the myth of the hyper-min­i­mal­ist Carv­er, inspi­ra­tion to thou­sands of cre­ative writ­ing stu­dents, by show­ing how his stream­lined prose was per­haps as much the prod­uct of Alfred A. Knopf edi­tor Gor­don Lish as of the author. The mag­a­zine pub­lished Lish’s edit of Carver’s “Begin­ners,” which became in Lish’s hands the sig­na­ture sto­ry “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

I do not think lovers of Carv­er need be too dis­mayed by these rev­e­la­tions. Sev­er­al well-known works of lit­er­a­ture are close col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts between edi­tor and author. See, for exam­ple, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, which we’d nev­er know by that name with­out Ezra Pound (the famous foot­notes were not Eliot’s idea either). And the glit­ter­ing sen­tences of Fitzger­ald would not shine so bright­ly with­out edi­tor Mal­colm Cow­ley. But as The New York­er alleges, Carv­er felt forced to accept Lish’s edits. Once he had gained more con­fi­dence and suc­cess, his prose took on much more expan­sive qual­i­ties, as you can see in the 1983 sto­ry “Cathe­dral.”

The read­ings above can be oth­er­wise found in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rare Audio: John Stein­beck Reads Two Short Sto­ries, “The Snake” and “John­ny Bear” in 1953

Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Don­ald Barthelme’s Syl­labus High­lights 81 Books Essen­tial for a Lit­er­ary Edu­ca­tion

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

John Cleese, Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers Trash Priceless Art (1969)

in Comedy, Film | March 19th, 2013

Here’s a curi­ous scene from the 1969 cult film The Mag­ic Chris­t­ian. In the sto­ry, Peter Sell­ers plays an eccen­tric bil­lion­aire, Sir Guy Grand, who adopts a home­less man, played by Ringo Starr, and sets out to play a series of prac­ti­cal jokes on peo­ple, demon­strat­ing that “every­one has their price.”

Sell­ers and Starr were at the hight of their fame when the movie was made, but John Cleese, who plays a snooty auc­tion direc­tor at Sothe­by’s, was still a few months away from the for­ma­tion of Mon­ty Python. The Mag­ic Chris­t­ian is based on a book of the same name by comedic nov­el­ist Ter­ry South­ern. Cleese and anoth­er future Python mem­ber, Gra­ham Chap­man, co-wrote an ear­ly ver­sion of the script, includ­ing this scene, which was not in the book.

The film was direct­ed by Joseph McGrath and includes an assort­ment of bizarre cameo appear­ances, includ­ing Christo­pher Lee as a vam­pire, Rac­quel Welch as an S&M priest­ess and Yul Bryn­ner as a trans­ves­tite cabaret singer. But per­haps the most endur­ing ele­ment of The Mag­ic Chris­t­ian is the hit song “Come and Get it,” which was writ­ten and pro­duced for the film by Paul McCart­ney and per­formed by Badfin­ger.

You can watch the com­plete film here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cleese’s Eulo­gy for Gra­ham Chap­man: ‘Good Rid­dance, the Free-Load­ing Bas­tard, I Hope He Fries’

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

Peter Sell­ers Gives a Quick Demon­stra­tion of British Accents

Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla Face Off in “Epic Rap Battles of History”

in Comedy, History, Science | March 19th, 2013

We’ve writ­ten a fair amount on the var­i­ous facets of Thomas Edison’s career, and some­what less on his less-famous for­mer employ­ee-become-rival Niko­la Tes­la (who seems to polar­ize peo­ple in ways Edi­son doesn’t). Both inven­tors pro­voke all kinds of seri­ous spec­u­la­tion, com­men­tary, and debate. But even peo­ple hav­ing fun with these larg­er-than-life char­ac­ters feel the need to pick sides. For exam­ple, there’s web­com­ic The Oatmeal’s “Why Niko­la Tes­la was the great­est geek who ever lived,” which obvi­ous­ly comes down hard in favor of Tes­la. Then there’s Tet­suya Kuro­sawa Bio­graph­i­cal com­ic Thomas Edi­son: Genius of the Elec­tric Age, which gives the edge to Edi­son.

Now, in anoth­er show­down between the pio­neer­ing genius­es of the elec­tric age, we have Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry, Sea­son 2, with Edi­son and Tes­la spit­ting rhymes to prove who should wear the top inventor’s crown. Pre­vi­ous Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry episodes pit Gand­hi against Mar­tin Luther King, Oba­ma vs. Rom­ney, and Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates. They’re all pret­ty great, but this one goes out to the sci­ence his­to­ry nerds (who have a sense of humor). The lyrics hit the high points of Edi­son and Tesla’s careers—Edison’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty theft, end­less string of patents, use of direct cur­rent, and “stack­ing rich­es”; Tesla’s almost reli­gious belief in the pow­er of elec­tric­i­ty, dis­in­ter­est in busi­ness, griev­ances with Edison—and there are plen­ty of per­son­al insults thrown into the mix.

Whether you’re a par­ti­san of Edi­son or Tes­la, or couldn’t care less either way, no doubt you’ll get a kick out of this. And for an added bonus, check out the “mak­ing of” video below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

A Brief, Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Thomas Edi­son (and Niko­la Tes­la)

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Watch Philip Roth, Now 80, Read from His Irreverent Classic, Portnoy’s Complaint

in Literature | March 19th, 2013

While it did come as a shock to some of Philip Roth’s friends when the nov­el­ist announced his retire­ment from writ­ing last year, one might imag­ine that after 31 nov­els, two Nation­al Book Awards, a Pulitzer, three PEN/Faulkner Awards and a host of oth­er acco­lades, the man deserves a break. Roth cel­e­brat­ed his 80th birth­day on Tues­day. New York­er edi­tor David Rem­nick writes in his account of Roth’s Newark birth­day par­ty that the writer “sensed that bet­ter books were not ahead” and quit rather than expe­ri­ence his pow­ers fail­ing. This is in char­ac­ter, writes Rem­nick, for a writer whose books “rage against the indig­ni­ties and inevitabil­i­ties, the inescapa­bil­i­ty, the hor­rif­ic cos­mic joke of age, of death.”

Remnick’s obser­va­tion reminds me of the two Roth char­ac­ters who loom large in my mem­o­ry of his work—both over­sexed mama’s boys, dri­ven by grim humor and nar­cis­sis­tic self-regard. First I think of grotesque old lech­er Mick­ey Sab­bath in Sabbath’s The­ater, who ekes out his lat­er years on tiny bits of sym­pa­thy, las­civ­i­ous remem­brances, and sui­ci­dal fan­tasies. At one point in the nov­el, he observes, “we are immod­er­ate because grief is immod­er­ate, all the hun­dreds and thou­sands of kinds of grief.”

If Sab­bath is a pro­jec­tion of Roth’s fear of aging, he is an effec­tive­ly ter­ri­fy­ing por­trait of dis­so­lu­tion and decay; for all his gal­lows humor, he can’t hide the fact that he just doesn’t know when to let go of for­mer glo­ries. If he’s an elder­ly Alexan­der Port­noy (per­haps), he’s a Port­noy gone to pot with a few hun­dred kinds of grief. Of course Port­noy— 33-year-old neu­rot­ic chron­ic mas­tur­ba­tor and “lust-rid­den, moth­er addict­ed young Jew­ish bach­e­lor”— nar­rates the nov­el that made Roth a house­hold name. You can see Roth read from Portnoy’s Com­plaint in the video above from PBS.

Since Port­noy’s 1969 pub­li­ca­tion, Roth has endured ques­tion after ques­tion about the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal con­tent in his nov­els. Sure­ly he invest­ed Port­noy and Sab­bath with some mea­sure of his rag­ing Id, but his body of work takes in con­cerns far beyond sex­u­al­ly obses­sive Jew­ish mother’s boys. To get a glimpse of the ear­ly, pre-Port­noy Roth, take a look at the 1958 and ‘59 short sto­ries “Epstein” and “The Con­ver­sion of the Jews” at the Paris Review. Both sto­ries appeared in Roth’s first book Good­bye, Colum­bus, for which he won his first Nation­al Book Award in 1960. And for a look at the aging writer wrestling with the brave new world of open source col­lab­o­ra­tive author­ship, read his fas­ci­nat­ing “An Open Let­ter to Wikipedia” from Sep­tem­ber of last year, a month before he announced his retire­ment.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Philip Roth Reads the Last Pages of His Last Work of Fic­tion: “The End of the Line After Thir­ty-One Books”

Philip Roth Pre­dicts the Death of the Nov­el; Paul Auster Coun­ters

Philip Roth on Aging

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Bob Dylan and Van Morrison Sing Together in Athens, on Historic Hill Overlooking the Acropolis

in Music | March 13th, 2013

“For­eign Win­dow” and “One Irish Rover”:

On a sum­mer day in 1989, Van Mor­ri­son and Bob Dylan met up in Greece and brought their acoustic gui­tars to the place in Athens where the ancients believed the mus­es lived. Philopap­pos Hill, tra­di­tion­al­ly known as the Hill of the Mus­es, ris­es high above the Athens Basin and has a com­mand­ing view of the Acrop­o­lis. It was June 29. Dylan had just wrapped up a Euro­pean tour the night before at Panathi­naiko Sta­di­um, and Mor­ri­son was trav­el­ing with a BBC crew for an Are­na doc­u­men­tary that would be broad­cast in 1991 as One Irish Rover: Van Mor­ri­son in Per­for­mances. The two leg­endary singer-song­writ­ers played sev­er­al of Mor­rison’s songs: “For­eign Win­dow” and “One Irish Rover,” above, and “Crazy Love,” below. A fourth song, “And It Stoned Me,” was appar­ent­ly cut from the film.

“Crazy Love”:

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:

The Won­drous Night When Glen Hansard Met Van Mor­ri­son

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

John Steinbeck Reads Two Short Stories, “The Snake” and “Johnny Bear” in 1953

in Audio Books, Literature | March 12th, 2013

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In an arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in book collector’s jour­nal Firsts Mag­a­zine, book­seller James M. Dour­gar­i­an includes a set of records called “The Colum­bia Lit­er­ary Series” (1953) as an essen­tial part of the “completist’s Stein­beck col­lec­tion.” Dour­gar­i­an describes the set, val­ued at $1,500 in 2007 thus:

The Colum­bia Lit­er­ary Series is a great item, a set of 12 12-inch records with a vari­ety of authors read­ing selec­tions from their works. It was issued in an edu­ca­tion­al edi­tion with a dou­ble slid­ing case, and a deluxe edi­tion housed in a black leather attaché case with snaps. Both issues includ­ed a book­let about the mak­ing of the series, which was edit­ed by God­dard Lieber­son. The Stein­beck record has the author him­self read­ing two of his most famous short sto­ries, “The Snake” and “John­ny Bear.” Oth­er authors in the series are William Saroy­an, the three Sitwells, John Col­lier, Edna Fer­ber, Tru­man Capote, W. Som­er­set Maugh­am, Christo­pher Ish­er­wood, Kather­ine Anne Porter and Aldous Hux­ley.

You can hear Steinbeck’s A‑side con­tri­bu­tion to this illus­tri­ous series below, where he reads “The Snake,” a sto­ry he says “isn’t a sto­ry at all. It’s just some­thing that hap­pened.” Also in his brief intro­duc­tion, the author describes his favorite piece of fan mail ever, from a small-town librar­i­an who wrote that “The Snake” was “the worst sto­ry she had ever read any­where. She was quite upset at its bad­ness.”

On the B‑side, above, Stein­beck reads “John­ny Bear,” a sto­ry about “a mon­ster,” who “real­ly lived in cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia.”

The sto­ries are now added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? 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:

“Noth­ing Good Gets Away”: John Stein­beck Offers Love Advice in a Let­ter to His Son (1958)

John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspir­ing Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

Rare 1959 Audio: Flan­nery O’Connor Reads ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

A Look Inside Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Library

in Books | March 12th, 2013

When Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe died in August, 1962, she left behind a lot of bro­ken hearts and some good books. Once mar­ried to play­wright Arthur Miller, Mon­roe stocked about 400 books on her shelves, many of which were lat­er cat­a­logued and auc­tioned off by Christie’s in New York City. A quick scan of the titles in the auc­tion cat­a­logue reveals one thing: The image Mon­roe pro­ject­ed in her pri­vate life hard­ly squared with the “dumb blonde” char­ac­ter that made her famous. Over at Library­Thing, you can sort through 262 books in Mon­roe’s col­lec­tion, which includ­ed no short­age of great lit­er­ary works — every­thing from Invis­i­ble Man by Ralph Elli­son, to Ulysses by James Joyce, to Crime And Pun­ish­ment by Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky and The Plays Of Anton Chekhov. Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glo­ry, a work that inspired Bob Dylan and oth­er trou­ba­dours, shared shelf space with The Roots Of Amer­i­can Com­mu­nism by Theodore Drap­er, still con­sid­ered the defin­i­tive his­to­ry of the Amer­i­can Com­mu­nist Par­ty. But along­side the heady texts of Freud, Proust and Bertrand Rus­sell, there were the more quo­tid­i­an texts that may … or may not .… reveal some­thing about Mon­roe’s per­son­al life: Pet Tur­tles by Julien Bron­son, Sex­u­al Impo­tence In The Male by Leonard Paul Wer­shub and, of course (like every­one else), Baby & Child Care by Dr. Ben­jamin Spock.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe Reads Joyce’s Ulysses at the Play­ground (1955)

The Har­vard Clas­sics: A Free, Dig­i­tal Col­lec­tion

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe Explains Rel­a­tiv­i­ty to Albert Ein­stein (in a Nico­las Roeg Movie)

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Find Clas­sics on Our Lists of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

Hear Jamaica Kincaid’s Classic Story “Girl” Read by Fellow New Yorker Writer Edwidge Danticat

in Literature, Podcasts, Writing | March 7th, 2013

Jamaica Kin­caid is out with her first nov­el in ten years, See Now Then, but she hasn’t been idle, steadi­ly pub­lish­ing non-fic­tion and essays in the span between 2002’s Mr. Pot­ter and now. Kin­caid is a many-faceted woman: Antiguan native, con­tent­ed Ver­mont gar­den­er, improb­a­ble lit­er­ary suc­cess sto­ry, fierce crit­ic of Euro­pean colo­nial­ism. She is also, most like­ly, one of the most anthol­o­gized writ­ers of the past few decades. Any­one who’s tak­en a writ­ing or intro lit class recent­ly has no doubt read her short sto­ry (or prose-poem) “Girl.”

With Kin­caid in the news for her new book, the New York­er’s Page-Turn­er blog caught up with one of her admir­ers, Hait­ian-Amer­i­can author and fel­low New York­er colum­nist Edwidge Dan­ti­cat and asked her to read two of Kincaid’s clas­sic sto­ries, “Girl” and “Wing­less,” pub­lished in the New York­er in 1978 and ’79, for their fic­tion pod­cast. Dan­ti­cat glad­ly oblig­ed (hear the audio above), but not before briefly dis­cussing her rela­tion­ship to Kin­caid and her work.

And for more on the new book, lis­ten to the NPR Kin­caid inter­view with All Things Con­sid­ered’s Celeste Headlee. Kin­caid dis­cuss­es writ­ing, the themes of the new nov­el, and the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal con­tent in her work. You can read an excerpt from See Here Now here.

The read­ing above has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The New Yorker’s Fic­tion Pod­cast: Where Great Writ­ers Read Sto­ries by Great Writ­ers

Rare 1959 Audio: Flan­nery O’Connor Reads ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July