Mary Beard considers the ways that Tolstoy grappled with the end, in his own life and in The Death of Ivan Ilich and Confession – and offers an appreciation of how translator Peter Carson faced his own final illness as he worked on his new English versions of those two works.
Category: people
Grayson Perry’s Dramatic Critique Of How The Artworld Works
“His lectures were a triumph of style over content. Though his complex personality kept me glued to my radio, what he had to say about contemporary art and the world in which it is made, exhibited, sold and collected had all the analytical subtlety of a comic book and all the organisational logic of a pinball machine.”
Elderly Harper Lee Sues Her Town’s Museum
“In a move which has shocked Monroeville, Lee, who resides in an assisted-living facility in the town, is bringing a lawsuit against the local museum, accusing the small, not-for-profit institution of exploiting her fame and the prestige of her Pulitzer-winning book without offering compensation.”
The Poet Who Had A Spread In Sports Illustrated
Marianne Moore spent her earlier career as a difficult Modernist poet and fearsome editor. (Hart Crane complained about her as “the Rt. Rev. Miss Mountjoy”.) By the end of her life she was famous enough to be in a Cecil Beaton shoot for Vogue and appear on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
When Tony Kushner Speaks To Writers About Writing
“At fifty-seven years of age, having made my living as a playwright, I feel I ought to be able to write about writing. I’ve tried on several previous occasions and I’ve always failed, sometimes at great length. I’m about to fail again. Here goes.”
Last Year, When ‘The Pope Of Trash’ Hitchhiked Across The U.S.
John Waters: “I last hitchhiked when I was 16. It’s a bit different when you’re 66.”
When Everyone But You Knows The Biggest Secret About Your Life
Steve Lickteig’s best friends took him aside the night before high school graduation. Lickteig: “They told me who my mother was and they told me that they had known for basically their entire lives and that everybody I had grown up with had known for their entire lives.”
Bonding With Lou Reed Backstage, When Backstage Was No Big Deal
“Lou was gracious and kind, talking about everything from a weird diet he was thinking about — eating nothing but lettuce — to his love of Dion and his total dislike of Frank Zappa.”
Gérard de Villiers, 83, France’s Spy Novelist Who Never Got The Fame He Wanted
“He told Le Monde he chose to make his hero Austrian as ‘nobody would take a Frenchman seriously.’ ‘Besides cheese and wine, nothing about us is credible abroad.'”
The Last Days Of River Phoenix
“River celebrated his 23rd birthday – on Aug. 23, 1993 – and then flew down to Costa Rica with all his siblings and his father. John was opening a vegan restaurant, but his real agenda was to get his children, especially River, to leave behind the corruption of the USA and live by the Phoenix family values again.”