: an instance or act of belching
Well, it was a beautiful weekend and Monday. We had a fantastic time in Savannah, going to the Veteran's Day parade and art show and even discovering a new bakery. Gabriel had a fun time going to the park a few days in a row, and there were some good football games too. And Sunday's episodes of Homeland and Dexter were, as usual, immensely entertaining.
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On today's date, in 1850 Edinburgh, Robert Louis Stevenson was born. Stevenson just might be the most famous novelist you've never actually read.
He was a sickly child, attended and read to by his nurse; early on, Stevenson displayed an interest in religious issues and Scottish history. At Edinburgh University, he was a below-average student, interested in his own writing - and bohemia. To his father's disappointment, he chose to become a writer rather than an engineer. He began writing humorous and philosophical essays and even travelogues of his journeys, through places like France and America. Stevenson started a relationship with a married American ten years his senior, Fanny Osborne; eventually the two ended up back in England after a stay in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson's flailing health was given time to improve.
From 1880 to 1887, Stevenson's health continued to wax and wane, and he was traveling constantly. This, however, was the greatest period for him as an artist: Kidnapped (1886), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and, of course, Treasure Island (1883). The latter novel originated with Stevenson drawing a treasure map for his 12-year-old stepson and then thinking up a story around it; the novel was serialized over the course of three or four months in a boys' magazine.
Stevenson wasn't a great artist in the sense that Dostoevsky or Zola was; he admitted that he was in the entertainment business first and foremost. He wasn't interested in realism (which was the mode of his era) but, rather, escapism.
His art seemed to commercially dry up and his health and depression worsened. He and Fanny (and hi stepson and mother) took a long South Seas cruise in in late 1888: from Hawaii to Tahiti to Samoa, the Australia, and dozens of islands in between. He wrote diaries, letters, and essays documenting the wildlife and cultures he saw; a lot of his political views of the various societies and peoples he saw (and tended to sympathize with) were quite radical. He was a champion for the poor and oppressed.
He never returned to Scotland, but died in Samoa in 1894. His death sent shock waves throughout the literary community and world. Incidentally, it was his work about the South Seas (his travel writings, essays, etc.) that was seen by critics as his strongest work, though his beloved adventure novels are the ones that are synonymous with his name.
Information courtesy of:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stevensonbio.html
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One of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, according to moi:
Johnny Depp
as Edward Scissorhands (1990)
You either really like or really don't like Tim Burton's bizarre, tragic, outsider-romantic fantasy, but either way, you, um. cut it, Depp's creation - aided by Colleen Atwood's magnificent costume design and Stan Winston's makeup - is one for the ages. Depp's Edward (created by a wacky inventor, played the late, great Vincent Price) is a sad, soulful figure, eternally unable to fit in; Depp's eyes seem to cry out from a cold, friendless void. The actor makes Edward funny and touching and, as characteristic from this inventive actor, weird and charismatic. I can't think of one other actor who could have pulled this role off.
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Don't forget to check my other blog, http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/, for some recent reviews!
Images courtesy of:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2011/4/22/1303501517149/BE047683-006.jpg
http://afcadam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/600full-edward-scissorhands-photo.jpg
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