Knowing a little more in depth those "crazy" writers who have given us so much joy with their literary creations always comes in handy. Perhaps this way we will partially understand what led them to write according to which books. If you like to know about anecdotes and fun facts about books and writers stay in Actualidad Literatura to take this little time. It will be entertaining!
The names and titles that we will see here will be: Kafka, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo and his novel "Les Miserables" and Arthur Miller.
Arthur Miller and his face that sounded like ...
Arthur Miller was sitting in a bar having a drink, when a man approached him very well dressed who started the next dialogue:
-Aren't you Arthur Miller?
-Yes I am because?
-You do not remember me?
-Your face is familiar to me, but ...
-I'm your old friend Sam. We study together in high school ...
-I fear that…
-Life has been good for me. I own a department store. What have you been doing?
-Well, I… .to write
-And what do you write?
-Plays, especially
-Have they ever produced one for you?
-Yes, some
-Tell me the title, to see if I know it
-Well ... maybe you've heard of "Death of a salesman"?
The man was puzzled with his mouth open. His face paled and stayed for a moment if he spoke. After a while he asked:
-Won't you be the Arthur Miller writer?
Dylan-Thomas and his poems
In the words of the poet Dylan-Thomas himself, his poems "Not even his mother understood them"… Judge for yourself:
«Crying good men, when the last wave arrives
For the brilliance with which his fragile works could have danced in a green bay,
They are enraged, enraged at the death of the light.
And death will have no lordship.
Even though the seagulls don't scream in your ear anymore
nor do the waves crash loudly on the shores;
Although flowers do not sprout where they did before or raise
already more the head to the blow of the rain;
Although they are crazy and dead as nails,
the heads of the corpses will hammer daisies;
They will burst into the sun until the sun bursts
and death will have no dominion.
They don't seem so complicated to understand, do they?
Victor Hugo and «Les Miserables»
Víctor Hugo was traveling but as a good writer awaiting his creations, he wanted to know how the edition of his novel was going "The Miserables".
Wrote a letter to his editor Hurst & Blackett putting a simple question mark "?". And the answer you would receive was as simple as the question, as you answered with a simple exclamation point "!". They say it is the shortest correspondence in history...
Today it may seem normal to us, with the facilities we have when it comes to communicating (Whatsapp, emails, Facebook, etc.), but then imagine sending how to receive a letter with only one character. Victor Hugo was a 'crack' and his editor was not far behind.
Kafka and the girl with the lost doll
According to recounted Dora DymantKafka's sentimental partner in his later years, the novelist starred in an anecdote that says a lot about his personality.
«While walking in a park near his house, he found a girl crying because she had lost her doll. That day, he entered the same state of nervous tension that possessed him every time he sat at his desk, even if it was to write a letter or a postcard. He decided to write a letter in which the doll told the reason for his departure. He had decided to go world wide. As the girl found comfort in her reading, Kafka continued to write missives from the doll that spoke of her travels as well for three weeks. In the last letter, he explained why he could not return: he was going to get married, which we suppose would be a reasonable explanation of his abandonment for the girl.
Charles Dickens and his no need for solitude to focus
In the words of his brother-in-law Burntt:
"One afternoon in Doughty Street, Mrs. Dickens, my wife, and I were chatting about the divine and the human in the love of the fire, when suddenly Dickens appeared. "How, you here?" He exclaimed. "Great, right now I bring the work." Shortly afterwards he reappeared with the Oliver Twist manuscript; then without stopping talking, he sat down at a table, begged us to continue our talk, and resumed writing, very quickly. From time to time he would also intervene in our jokes, but without stopping to move the pen. Then he would return to his papers, with his tongue pressed between his lips and his trembling eyebrows, caught in the middle of the characters he was describing ... »
Seen this, Charles Dickens created more and better when he had movement and bustle of people around him… A rare thing among the vast majority of writers who prefer solitude to recreate their craft.
Lord Byron
Lord Byron's life is full of anecdotes and curious facts that still surprise:
- It was patihendido (I had my toes turned in).
- Su first sexual intercourse it was 9 years old, with governess Mary Gray.
- It was recognized bisexual.
- Was consummate pedophile.
- He fell in love with two of his cousins.
- I practice the incest with his half sister Augusta Leigh, which had a daughter and it was rumored that it could be Byron himself.
A whole short lustful and controversial life ... He died at 36 years of age.
And up to here, readers. If you like these types of articles where we can get to know some of our favorite authors a little more, let us know in the comments section. Thanks!
What does it mean that Byron was a "consummate" pedophile?
Assuming that "consummate", applied to a person, means that he is excellent or perfect in the activity to which he refers, I do not understand the concept in this case ...
He is using it as a participle of the verb "consummate" which is "To fully accomplish something." In that sense, what he is meaning is that he had sex with children. My question is that if this is a redundancy. Is there a pedophile who has not had relationships with children or minors by law? Or is he who has an erotic inclination towards children, but does not consume it, falls into a broader field of pedophilia and pedophilia is classified only for consummate crimes of pedophilia?
I have really enjoyed this article. You have given me a formidable gift because I did not know Dylan-Thomas and he has breathing that is very comfortable for me, it is only enough to dislodge the voids to understand him. Thanks again, I already downloaded a complete anthology of him. Thanks again hehe
Hi carmen.
Thanks for this article, very interesting. He did not know the anecdotes about Arthur Miller, Dylan-Thomas, Dickens, and Lord Byron. Yes, that of Victor Hugo. And that of Kafka may have already read it a long time ago, although I did not know that this anecdote appears in Paul Auster's book and that it was used by Jordi Sierra i Fabra.
I wonder what happened to the letters that Kafka wrote pretending to be the doll and if they exist, where are they? Perhaps they are destroyed or perhaps, as has happened many times with other documents, they come to light at the most unexpected moment. Hopefully one day they can recover.
The Dylan-Thomas poem is very good and it is true that it is not difficult to understand.
Regarding Dickens, there are many curiosities: he loved to walk and took very long walks. He was attracted to acting and he did it very well. It was common for him to portray different characters to his family and friends when he read their stories aloud. What's more, he was going to audition for a prestigious acting school in London and an inopportune cold prevented him from doing so. He never tried again. Even a famous actor of his day praised Dickens's acting qualities.
I would like, like many other readers of this blog, that every week you publish an article like this one. I love to read historical, literary or any other anecdotes.
A literary greeting, and not anecdotal, from Oviedo.
Hello again, Carmen.
"The Storyteller" is right: the adjective "consummate" is not right next to "pedophile." Although the sense in which you say it is perfectly understood.
A literary greeting from Asturias.
I loved the article !!
Okay, Dylan Thomas is not Machado, but with such an atrocious translation, normal that it looks like a misshapen potato… I think we should have left behind "understanding poetry." Is Lorca's Little Viennese Waltz so well understood, for example, compared to Thomas's poems?
Another thing: I don't understand that script joining name and surname, Carmen-guillen!