June | 2013 | Guy Portman's Blog

Posthumously Famous Authors

Jun 28 2013

The following blog post is dedicated to two authors, who became more famous after they died.

Jane Austen

(December 16th 1775 – July 18th 1817)

Notable works: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Emma (1816), Persuasion (1818)

Though Jane Austen achieved a degree of recognition during her lifetime for her prodigious literary talents, she received little personal renown, due in part because she published anonymously. After the author’s death her books became steadily more popular though none of them achieved best-seller status during the 19th Century.

It was the 20th Century that saw Jane Austen meteoric rise to iconic status. During the early decades of the century there was an increase in the academic study of her books and then in 1940 came the first film adaptation of one of her works, the MGM production of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. From the 1970s The BBC were making dramatisations of her books, the most successful being the 1990s adaptations of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. These only served to fuel Jane Austen fever, which to this day shows no signs of abating. Not only are her books adored by readers around the world and studied in schools, but her fame has transcended the literary world, evidence of which is her being ranked as the 70th out of ‘100 Greatest Britains’ of all time.

All of which would no doubt have made the bashful author blush if she were still around today. However there is normally a down side to fame, in this instance this may come in the form of the latest adaptation of her work, the soon to be filmed, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Jim Thompson

(September 27th 1906 – April 7th 1977)

Notable works: The Killer Inside Me (1952), The Getaway (1959), The Grifters (1963)

The American novelist and screenwriter is best known for his paperback pulp novels. Jim Thompson started writing for magazines as early as the 1920s and later turned to crime fiction in the 40s’. Despite his prolific output (wrote 20 books in the 1950s alone), he also worked as a journalist to support his family and prodigious alcohol intake. Thompson became well known for The Killer Inside Me (1952), which remains to this day probably his most acclaimed work. He later wrote and co-wrote Hollywood screenplays for prestigious directors, including the iconic Stanley Kubrick, as well as having two of his books adapted for the cinema during his lifetime.

Jim Thompson’s success was however only fleeting and when he died in 1977 he was largely forgotten, his work out of print in his home country and his legacy appeared to be little more than a footnote in the history of pulp fiction.

Today Jim Thompson is widely regarded as one of the greatest crime writers of all time. Not only are his novels back in print but two of them have been adapted for the silver screen, The Getaway (1994) starring Alex Baldwin and Kim Basinger and The Killer Inside Me (2010) starring Casey Affleck.

It appears that Jim Thompson may well have been anticipating future success when he asked his wife to look after his manuscripts and copyrights shortly before his death.

Click on the links to read reviews for The Killer Inside Me and The Getaway

Tormenting Twitter Types

Jun 21 2013

Anyone who follows my blog will know that I am somewhat obsessed with Twitter and frequently devote posts to the subject. One particular favourite pastime of mine is categorising types of Twitter users. The following post is devoted to three Twitter types, who have tormenting me and no doubt others of late.

Forex Foragers – Forex is a form of exchange for the global decentralised trading of international currencies (according to Wikipedia anyway). Trading takes place everyday, with the exception of weekends. Forex Foragers in their desperation to get us to ‘trade’, ignore the weekend interlude and Tweet incessantly, 24/7 7 days a week, from thousands of accounts. Tweets such as:

Best Forex Robot FOREX INCOME ENGINE BILL POULOS COMPLETE SET BRAMD NEW annoyingforexspammer/q3

And

Best Forex Robot MEGA NEW ‘STRATOSPHERE’ ES SYSTEM FOREX TRADESTATION incessantforexforrager/q3

I don’t even know what these Tweets mean and I don’t want to.

(Courtesy of cloudcoomputing.blogspot.co.uk)

Mundane Messengers – Anyone who uses Twitter regularly will be aware of Mundane Messengers. These are Tweeters whose Tweeting habits consist of Tweeting random, non-inspirational, worthless information throughout the day. The following are two recent examples:

(Don’t you just love it when the kettle boils faster than you thought it would.
sent from Iphone)

And

(Driving along when the lyrics for Elvis’s ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ appeared in my mind. Don’t you just love it when that happens.
sent from Iphone)

No I do not.

Admittedly neither of these occurrences have happened to me. But if they ever were to, not only would I not love it, I would not feel the need to Tweet about it.

Asian Accumulators – These are the ‘10,000 Followers for $5’ type spam Twitter accounts us Twitter users are constantly being Followed by. More often than not the john is lured in by an under-age looking South East Asian girl, unscrupulously being pimped out as jail bait. It is a sad indictment of the ageing Western males found kerb crawling throughout South East Asia that this method is considered to be the most effective in getting us to part with our $$.

Having recently had a Twitter conversation with an Asian Accumulator (for research purposes only), I discovered that the Tweets consisted of little more than the predictable ‘Only $5’, ‘me love you long time’, ‘me sucky sucky’, ‘You pay NOW’ variety.

Click here to read an earlier post about Twitter Types.

Controversial Authors (Part 2)

Jun 14 2013

Many authors have been branded as being controversial over the course of history. What is viewed as controversial varies over time and what constitutes controversy in one era may well not in a later one. The following blog post is dedicated to two authors, widely regarded as being controversial, who will always be remembered as being pioneers by the literary establishment.

D.H. Lawrence

(September 11th 1885 – March 2nd 1930)

Notable works: Sons and Lovers, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rainbow.

David Herbert Lawrence to give him his full name, was a novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright and literary critic, in addition to being a talented painter. Born into humble means as the son of a coal miner, D.H. Lawrence went on to become one of the most influential writers of his generation. Controversy courted the writer incessantly, primarily because of the perceived explicit nature of his works.

His novel The Rainbow (1915) for instance faced an obscenity trial and was banned, all copies being seized and burnt by the authorities. One of his most famous novels, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) though published was heavily censored, due to what was regarded at the time as its pornographic content.

D.H. Lawrence was eventually forced into a voluntary exile, where after a sustained period of poor health, he succumbed to tuberculosis in France, at the age of only forty-four.

The controversy did not end with his demise. In 1960 Penguin attempted to publish the original version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but were forced to go to trial due to the ‘Obscene Publications Act’ of the previous year. However as the book was deemed to be of literary merit, it was allowed to be published. In the more permissive era in which we live the controversy surrounding D.H. Lawrence has all but been extinguished and he is now remembered fondly as a literary pioneer and one of the most talented writers of his generation.

Click here to read resident book reviewer Adam’s review of Sons and Lovers.

Bret Easton Ellis

(Born: March 7th 1964)

Notable works: American Psycho, Glamorama, The Informers.

Author Bret Easton Ellis’s third novel, the infamous American Psycho (1991) caused uproar even before its release date. The book was viewed by many in the literary establishment as scandalous; no mean feat in a period of permissive tolerance. The reasons for this were the book’s explicit violent and sexual content as well as its perceived misogynistic elements. American Psycho went on to become a cult classic and one of the most influential books of the nineties.

Easton-Ellis has continued to cause controversy ever since, not only through his books but also with his incendiary Tweeting habits, which have included crude and controversial Tweets on such sensitive subjects as HIV and Aids. These comments have left the author open to accusations from some that they are nothing more than publicity stunts. One might argue that controversy appears to be such an integral part of the author’s identity that he will never be able to willingly abandon it.

Whilst the author and his books are certainly an acquired taste, there is no doubt that Bret Easton Ellis’s destiny as a literary pioneer and social commentator is assured. His works, particularly American Psycho, will be studied and debated for centuries to come.

Click on the links to read my reviews of American Psycho and Glamorama.

Famous Authors Who Died Destitute

Jun 07 2013

Writing is generally regarded as a poorly paid profession. For every J.K.Rowling, Stephen King and Dan Brown there are infinite struggling authors, dreaming of a day when they too might become rich and famous. The advent of the era of the Kindle and ebooks has seen a multitude of new authors entering the publishing arena, hoping to follow the likes of self-published authors such as John Locke and Amanda Hocking in striking gold.

In reality only a tiny minority of authors will ever achieve financial wealth and fame in their lifetimes, but that is not to say that one or two might not discover it posthumously. The following post is dedicated to two world famous and iconic authors, who died poverty stricken and largely forgotten, but went on to achieve the monumental success they deserved years after their demise.

Herman Melville (1819 –1891)

Best known for his epic novel, ‘Moby Dick’, Herman Melville is today regarded as one of the greatest American authors of all time. During his lifetime however Melville did not always receive the acclaim he undoubtedly deserved. Melville’s first book, the Polynesian themed ‘Typee’, quickly became a bestseller and by his mid-thirties Melville had achieved considerable success. But his initial success was short-lived and his career was soon in marked decline as he found himself beset with financial difficulties. Melville was to become so disillusioned with writing that he quit writing novels all-together and became a custom inspector, though he did continue to write poetry.

When Melville died of a heart attack in 1891, not only were his works out of print but he was virtually forgotten and penniless. It was not until the 1920s’ that the public rediscovered Herman Melville and he has remained in readers’ hearts and minds ever since.

Joseph Roth (1894-1939)

The Austro-Hungarian Roth is widely acclaimed as being one of the most influential writers of the inter-war years. In his prime Roth was a renowned and well paid political journalist, in addition to being a prolific novelist. Roth’s most famous book, The Radetzky March, which chronicles the decline of The Austro-Hungarian Empire, is regarded as being one of the greatest novels of the Twentieth Century.

Hitler’s rise to power saw Roth, a Jew, obliged to leave his adopted home of Berlin. His other mounting woes included severe alcoholism, a wife suffering from schizophrenia and a precarious financial situation. In 1936 Roth described himself as ‘Half madman, half corpse.’ Three years later he was to die a pauper, of delirium tremens in Paris, but not before he had written the critically acclaimed, ‘The Legend of The Holy Drinker’. It was to take decades for Roth’s genius to be fully recognised, due in part to the fact that he was largely ignored by the English speaking world. His correspondence, ‘A Life in Letters’, was not translated into English until nearly four decades after his death.