Frank Beacham's Journal

George Orwell, English novelist and journalist, was born 119 years ago today

George Orwell, English novelist and journalist, was born 119 years ago today.

Orwell’s work is marked by clarity, intelligence and wit, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism and commitment to democratic socialism. He was ahead of his time and reflected the themes in the news headlines to this very day.

Considered one of the best chroniclers of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and the allegorical novella, Animal Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th century author.

His book, Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture, and the term Orwellian — descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices — has entered the language together with several of his neologisms, including Cold War, Big Brother, thought police, doublethink and thoughtcrime. All his themes are as contemporary today as when Orwell wrote them.

On anarchism, Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier: "I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone."

Orwell died in 1950 of tuberculosis at age 46.

Here, Orwell discusses his masterpiece, “1984,” with this final warning

Athol Fugard, South African playwright, novelist, actor and director who writes in English, is 90 years old today

Athol Fugard, South African playwright, novelist, actor and director who writes in English, is 90 years old today.

Fugard is best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy Award-winning film of his novel, Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood.

Among his plays are Master Harold...and the Boys (1982), Valley Song (1996), Victory (2007) and The Train Driver (2010).

For several years, Fugard was an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego. For the academic year 2000–2001, he was the IU Class of 1963 Wells Scholar Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

The recipient of many awards, honors and honorary degrees, including the 2005 Order of Ikhamanga in Silver "for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre" from the government of South Africa, he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Fugard's plays are produced internationally, have won multiple awards and several have been made into films, including among their actors Fugard himself.

In 2012, Fugard moved to South Africa, where he now lives permanently.

Saul Bellow was born 107 years ago today

Saul Bellow in Capri, Italy, to accept the Malaparte Prize, September, 1984

Photo by Marisa Rastellini

Saul Bellow was born 107 years ago today.

A Canadian-born American writer, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and he received the Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.

In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee, his writing exhibited "the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age."

His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift and Ravelstein. Widely regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest authors, Bellow has had a "huge literary influence."

As Christopher Hitchens described it, Bellow's fiction and principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle "to overcome not just ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses."

Bellow's protagonists, in one shape or another, all wrestle with what Albert Corde, the dean in "The Dean's December," called "the big-scale insanities of the 20th century."

Bellow died in 2005 at the age of 89.

On this day in 1949 — 73 years ago — George Orwell's novel of a dystopian future, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published

On this day in 1949 — 73 years ago — George Orwell's novel of a dystopian future, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published.

The novel's all-seeing leader, known as "Big Brother," became a universal symbol for intrusive government and oppressive bureaucracy.

George Orwell was the nom de plume of Eric Blair, who was born in India. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell attended school in London and won a scholarship to the elite prep school Eton, where most students came from wealthy upper-class backgrounds, unlike Orwell.

Rather than going to college like most of his classmates, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and went to work in Burma in 1922. During his five years there, he developed a severe sense of class guilt. Finally, in 1927, he chose not to return to Burma while on holiday in England.

Orwell, choosing to immerse himself in the experiences of the urban poor, went to Paris, where he worked menial jobs. He wrote Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933, based on his observation of the poorer classes. In 1937, Road to Wigan Pier documented the life of the unemployed in northern England. Meanwhile, he had published his first novel, Burmese Days, in 1934.

Orwell became increasingly left wing in his views, although he never committed himself to any specific political party. He went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight with the Republicans, but later fled as communism gained an upper hand in the struggle on the left.

His barnyard fable, Animal Farm (1945), shows how the noble ideals of egalitarian economies can easily be distorted. The book brought his first taste of critical and financial success.

Orwell's last novel, Nineteen Eighty-four, brought him lasting fame with its grim vision of a future where all citizens are watched constantly and language is twisted to aid in oppression.

Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950.

The first copies of the classic vampire novel, Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appeared in London bookshops on this day in 1897 — 125 years ago

The first copies of the classic vampire novel, Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appeared in London bookshops on this day in 1897 — 125 years ago.

A childhood invalid, Stoker grew up to become a football (soccer) star at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation, he got a job in civil service at Dublin Castle, where he worked for the next 10 years while writing drama reviews for the Dublin Mail on the side.

Stoker met the well-respected actor, Sir Henry Irving, who hired him as his manager. Stoker stayed in the post for most of the next three decades, writing Irving’s voluminous correspondence for him and accompanying him on tours in the United States.

Over the years, Stoker began writing a number of horror stories for magazines, and in 1890 he published his first novel, The Snake’s Pass. Stoker would go on to publish 17 novels in all, but it was his 1897 novel, Dracula, that eventually earned him literary fame and became known as a masterpiece of Victorian-era Gothic literature.

Written in the form of diaries and journals of its main characters, Dracula is the story of a vampire who makes his way from Transylvania — a region of Eastern Europe now in Romania — to Yorkshire, England. The vampire preys on innocents there to get the blood he needs to live.

Stoker had originally named the vampire, “Count Wampyr.” He found the name Dracula in a book on Wallachia and Moldavia written by retired diplomat William Wilkinson, which he borrowed from a Yorkshire public library during his family’s vacations there.

Vampires — who left their burial places at night to drink the blood of humans — were popular figures in folk tales from ancient times, but Stoker’s novel catapulted them into the mainstream of 20th century literature. Upon its release, Dracula enjoyed moderate success. When Stoker died in 1912, none of his obituaries even mentioned Dracula by name. Sales began to take off in the 1920s, when the novel was adapted for Broadway.

Dracula mania kicked into even higher gear with Universal’s blockbuster 1931 film, directed by Tod Browning and starring the Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi. Dozens of vampire-themed movies, television shows and literature followed, though Lugosi — with his exotic accent — remains the quintessential Count Dracula.

In a ceremony presided over by President William Howard Taft, the New York Public Library — the largest marble structure ever constructed in the United States — was dedicated in New York City on this day in 1911 — 111 years ago

In a ceremony presided over by President William Howard Taft, the New York Public Library — the largest marble structure ever constructed in the United States — was dedicated in New York City on this day in 1911 — 111 years ago.

Occupying a two-block section of Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, the monumental beaux-arts structure took 14 years to complete at a cost of $9 million. The day after its dedication, the library opened its doors to the public, and some 40,000 people passed through to make use of a collection that already consisted of more than a million books.

In the late 19th century, New York had surpassed Paris in population and was quickly catching up with London, then the world’s most populous city. Unlike these cities, however, it lacked a public library large enough to serve its many occupants.

In 1886, former New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden died, bequeathing to the city $2.4 million to “establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York.”

The gift remained unspent until May 23, 1895, when New York’s two largest libraries — the Astor and Lenox libraries — agreed to combine with the Tilden Trust to form a new entity that would be known as The New York Public Library. Sixteen years later to the day, the main branch of the library was dedicated in midtown Manhattan.

During the next few decades, thanks in large part to a $5.2 million gift from steel baron, Andrew Carnegie, a system of branch libraries opened throughout New York City.

Today, the New York Public Library is visited and used annually by more than 10 million people, and there are currently well over two million cardholders — more than for any other library system in the nation.

Above, the library on opening day in 1911

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, was born 163 years ago

It's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of master sleuth Sherlock Holmes. He was born 163 years ago.

Doyle was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a teacher with extraordinary deductive reasoning power. Bell partly inspired Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, years later.

After medical school, Doyle moved to London, where his slow medical practice left him ample free time to write. His first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. Starting in 1891, a series of Holmes stories appeared in The Strand magazine.

The Holmes character enabled Doyle to leave his medical practice in 1891 and devote himself to writing, but the author soon grew weary of his creation. In The Final Problem, he killed off both Holmes and his nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, only to resuscitate Holmes later due to popular demand.

In 1902, Doyle was knighted for his work with a field hospital in South Africa.

In addition to dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories and several novels, Doyle wrote history, pursued whaling and engaged in many adventures and athletic endeavors. After his son died in World War I, Doyle became a dedicated spiritualist.

He died in 1930.

Above, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his garden, Bignell Wood, New Forest, 1927

Photo from Fox Photos

Robert Creeley, poet, was born 97 years ago

Robert Creeley, poet, was born 97 years ago.

Creeley wrote more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn.

Creeley served as the Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetry and the Humanities at State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1991, he joined colleagues Susan Howe, Charles Bernstein, Raymond Federman, Robert Bertholf and Dennis Tedlock in founding the Poetics Program at Buffalo.

Creeley lived in Waldoboro, Maine; Buffalo, New York; and Providence, Rhode Island, where he taught at Brown University. He was a recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

Creeley died at sunrise on March 30, 2005 in Odessa, Texas of complications from pneumonia.

Above, Creeley in 1972

Photo by Elsa Dorfman

Studs Terkel was born 110 years ago today

Studs Terkel was born 110 years ago today.

An author, historian, actor and broadcaster, Terkel received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for “The Good War” and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans. He hosted a long-running radio show for 45 years in Chicago.

Terkel was born to Samuel Terkel, a Russian Jewish tailor and his wife, Anna Finkelin, in New York City. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he spent most of his life. From 1926 to 1936, his parents ran a rooming house that also served as a meeting place for people from all walks of life.

Terkel credited his understanding of humanity and social interaction to the tenants and visitors who gathered in the lobby there, and the people who congregated in nearby Bughouse Square.

In 1939, he married Ida Goldberg (1912–1999), and the couple had one son, Dan. Although he received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1934, Terkel decided instead of practicing law, he wanted to be a concierge at a hotel and he soon joined a theater group.

A political liberal, Terkel joined the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project, working in radio. He did work that varied from voicing soap opera productions and announcing news and sports, to presenting shows of recorded music and writing radio scripts and advertisements.

His well-known radio program, titled The Studs Terkel Program, aired on 98.7 WFMT Chicago between 1952 and 1997. The one-hour program was broadcast each weekday during those 45 years. On this program, he interviewed guests as diverse as Bob Dylan, Leonard Bernstein, Jean Shepherd and Alexander Frey.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Terkel was also the central character of Studs' Place, an unscripted television drama about the owner of a greasy-spoon diner in Chicago through which many famous people and interesting characters passed.

This show, along with Marlin Perkins's Zoo Parade, Garroway at Large and the children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, are widely considered canonical examples of the Chicago School of Television.

Terkel published his first book, Giants of Jazz, in 1956. He followed it with a number of other books, most focusing on the history of the United States people, relying substantially on oral history. He also served as a distinguished scholar-in-residence at the Chicago History Museum.

He appeared in the film, Eight Men Out, based on the Black Sox Scandal, in which he played newspaper reporter, Hugh Fullerton, who tries to uncover the White Sox players' plans to throw the 1919 World Series.

Terkel received his nickname while he was acting in a play with another person named Louis. To keep the two straight, the director of the production gave Terkel the nickname “Studs” after the fictional character about whom Terkel was reading at the time — Studs Lonigan of James T. Farrell's trilogy.

Terkel was acclaimed for his efforts to preserve American oral history. His 1985 book, "The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two,” which detailed ordinary peoples' accounts of the country's involvement in World War II, won the Pulitzer Prize.

For “Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression,” Terkel assembled recollections of the Great Depression that spanned the socioeconomic spectrum, from Okies, through prison inmates to the wealthy.

His 1974 book, “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do,” also was highly acclaimed. “Working” was made into a short-lived Broadway show of the same title in 1978 and was telecast on PBS in 1982.

In 1997, Terkel was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Two years later, he received the George Polk Career Award in 1999. In 2004, Terkel received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.

In August, 2005, Terkel underwent successful open-heart surgery. At the age of 93, he was one of the oldest people to undergo this form of surgery and doctors reported his recovery to be remarkable for someone of that advanced age. Terkel smoked two cigars a day until 2004.

On May 22, 2006, Terkel, along with other plaintiffs, including Quentin Young, filed a suit in federal district court against AT&T Inc., to stop the telecommunications carrier from giving customer telephone records to the National Security Agency without a court order.

“Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.”

The lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Matthew F. Kennelly on July 26, 2006. The judge cited a "state secrets privilege" designed to protect national security from being harmed by lawsuits.

Terkel was a self-described agnostic, which he jokingly defined as "a cowardly atheist" during a 2004 interview with Krista Tippett on American Public Media's Speaking of Faith.

At his last public appearance, in 2007, Terkel said he was "still in touch — but ready to go.” He gave one of his last interviews on the BBC Hardtalk program on February 4, 2008.

Terkel died in his Chicago home on Friday, October 31, 2008 at the age of 96. He had been suffering ever since a fall in his home earlier that month.

In 1998, Terkel and WFMT, the radio station which broadcast Terkel's long-running program, had donated approximately 7,000 tape recordings of Terkel's interviews and broadcasts to the Chicago History Museum. In 2010, the Museum and the Library of Congress announced a multi-year joint collaboration to digitally preserve and make available at both institutions these recordings.

The Library of Congress called the recordings "a remarkably rich history of the ideas and perspectives of both common and influential people living in the second half of the 20th century."

Here, interviews by Studs Terkel

Thomas Pynchon, novelist, is 85 years old today

Thomas Pynchon, novelist, is 85 years old today.

A MacArthur Fellow, Pynchon is noted for his dense and complex novels. Both his fiction and nonfiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history, science and mathematics. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

From Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973) and Mason & Dixon (1997).

Pynchon's most recent novel, Bleeding Edge, was published September 17, 2013.

He is also known for being very private. Very few photographs of him have ever been published and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s. He has carefully avoided contact with reporters for more than forty years.

Pynchon has revealed himself in his fiction and non-fiction as an aficionado of popular music. Song lyrics and mock musical numbers appear in each of his novels, and, in his autobiographical introduction to the Slow Learner collection of early stories, he reveals a fondness for both jazz and rock and roll.

The character McClintic Sphere in V. is a fictional composite of jazz musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.

Younger contemporary writers who have been touted as heirs to Pynchon include David Foster Wallace, William Vollmann, Richard Powers, Steve Erickson, David Mitchell, Neal Stephenson, Dave Eggers and Tommaso Pincio whose pseudonym is an Italian rendering of Pynchon's name.

A review of V. in the New York Times Book Review described Pynchon as "a recluse" living in Mexico, thereby introducing the media label with which journalists have characterized him throughout his career.

Pynchon's personal absence from mass media is one of the notable features of his life, and it has generated many rumors and apocryphal anecdotes. During the 1990s, Pynchon befriended members of the band, Lotion, and attended a number of their shows, culminating in the liner notes he contributed for the band's 1995 album, Nobody's Cool.

The novelist then conducted an interview with the band ("Lunch With Lotion") for Esquire in June, 1996 in the lead-up to the publication of Mason & Dixon.

More recently, Pynchon provided faxed answers to questions submitted by author David Hajdu and permitted excerpts from his personal correspondence to be quoted in Hajdu's 2001 book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña (Warner 2001).