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| Arlington National Cemetery, alive with history in new book Robert Poole's On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetary, takes an in-depth look at the cemetery in time for ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Please Mr. Postman This meditation on the art of letter-writing embraces old friends — Flaubert, Freud, the Mitfords — and plenty of unknowns. feeds.nytimes.com |
Splendour & Squalor by Marcus Scriven A cast of aberrant, ultimately doomed aristocrats delights Oliver MarreOn his wedding night, John Hervey, 7th Marquess of Bristol, shut himself into the morning room of his grand house with two of his closest friends. Soon, there was a timid knock and his new wife appeared. Marcus Scriven relates what happened next:"John was the first to speak. He kept it brief. 'Fuck off'.'I want to go to bed now, John.''Go to bed then.''John, it's my wedding night.''I love these two men more than I'll ever love you.' John cackled... there were just two other sounds – Francesca crying and her retreating footsteps."This charming exchange pretty much sums up Hervey. And yet in his depiction of the marquess and three other 20th-century aristocratic calamities, Scriven avoids being judgmental. He treads a fine line between elegy and disapproval. By pitching his tone right, and providing plenty of juicy details, he has produced a work of wide appeal which manages to do justice to the fact that, privilege and scandal aside, the lives he depicts are rather sad.The diligently researched book is split into four parts – one for each of the disastrous toffs selected, as Scriven explains, for the memorable havoc they wreaked. Besides John Hervey, the cast includes Edward FitzGerald, 7th Duke of Leinster, who committed suicide after losing his £400m fortune; 21-stone Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester; and John Hervey's father, the playboy jewel thief, Victor Hervey (also the father, by a later wife, of modern-day celebrities Lady Victoria and Lady Isabella).Once, a duke would have wanted to be enormous, his fatness indicating wealth and a diet of rich foods. These days, the "formidable bulk" of the 12th Duke of Manchester is cited by Scriven as an indicator of the sad depth to which he had fallen by the time he died, alone, in a small apartment in a modern, low-rise block called Broadreach. Not that his immobility had stopped him taking advantage of the House of Lords, where he made a pretty strong one-man case for scrapping the hereditary system, thanks to his liberal use of the subsidised bars and restaurants.Yet his life story, which included a stay at the Federal Correctional Institute at Petersburg, Virginia, reveals an insecure and sympathetic man, not the brute he first appears. As a child, he was an incorrigible fantasist: rather than being smug about who he was, he dreamed of escaping on elephants and shaking hands with Chairman Mao. Later, when the dukedom was in sight, he developed an obsession with it, leading him to believe that he could never tip less than £10 or let anyone else pick up a restaurant bill.Still later he was, as Scriven puts it, "serenely ignorant that he was a peripheral figure in the world of organised crime". This may sound like a desperate defence, but he probably was too stupid to realise. An English judge, acquitting him of yet another misdemeanour, reflected that in ranking intelligence from one to 10, it was "kind" to put Montagu on the scale at all.Not everyone in the book is so dim, least of all the supporting cast of conmen and seductresses. It's a pity that there is no index provided to make identification easier. In its absence, Scriven's "Notes" are useful; indeed, they are sometimes more compelling than the rest of the book, which suggests that shorter biographies of a greater number of these people might have made for an even more entertaining work. As it is, Splendour and Squalor risks falling somewhere between biography and enjoyable loo book.BiographyOliver Marreguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Ihor Sevcenko, Byzantine and Slavic Scholar, Dies at 87 Mr. Sevcenko was a leading scholar of Byzantine and Slavic history and literature who persuaded George Orwell to collaborate with him on a Ukrainian translation of “Animal Farm” for distribution to refugees. feeds.nytimes.com |
Mystery as Edgar Allan Poe's famously dedicated fan misses anniversary Enigmatic 'Poe toaster' who has marked the author's birth for the last 60 years failed to show up for yesterday's celebrationEdgar Allan Poe would have turned 201 yesterday, but the mysterious stranger who has marked the birth of the author for the last 60 years failed to show up at his grave.Every year since 1949, the stranger – known locally as the Poe Toaster – has left three roses and a half-bottle of cognac on Poe's grave in Baltimore on his birthday. The roses are believed to represent the three bodies buried beneath the monument – Poe, his mother-in-law and his wife Virginia; the significance of the cognac is not known.But this year, as around 30 fans – one of whom had flown in from Chicago – waited all night in the cemetery for the visitor to show, he failed to appear. He usually leaves his gifts between midnight and 5.30 am. "I was very annoyed. I've been doing this since 1977, and there was no indication he wasn't going to show up," Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, told local paper the Baltimore Sun. "Everyone was very sad, but there was still a feeling of goodwill. We were there, and we paid our respects to Edgar." The fans occupied themselves instead by reading aloud from Poe's writings throughout the night.One theory as to why he failed to show up this year is that 2009 marked the bicentennial of Poe's birth. "If it was going to end, that would be the perfect time to end it," said Jerome. "Everybody has their theories about what happened. Somebody said, 'Maybe he just has the flu.'"Baltimore Sun writer Mary McCauley was even inspired to write a poem, based on Poe's "The Raven", by the stranger's absence. "Once upon a midnight dreary Long we waited, weak and weary, / To see the quaint and curious Poe toaster who has come before. / 'Come dark visitor,' we chattered, 'Leave us not with hopes a-tattered. / Lay cognac on the gravesite floor.' Though the wind took up our sighing, / No answer came back to our crying: Is a grand tradition dying? / Will you haunt us nevermore?" she wrote, calling the poem "The Raving".The Poe Toaster might not have paid tribute to Poe, but the author's birth was also marked yesterday by the Mystery Writers of America's release of the shortlists for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe awards, honouring the best in mystery writing. Tim Gautreaux's The Missing, set in the Southern badlands, Kathleen George's The Odds – her fourth novel featuring Pittsburgh homicide chief Richard Christie – and Norwegian author Jo Nesbo's Nemesis, about the latest investigation of Detective Harry Hole, are all up for the best novel award. The winner will be announced on 29 April in New York.Edgar Allan PoeFictionClassicsPoetryAlison Floodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |