Edmund White

After the news of White’s death, here is a guide to a foundational writer of gay lives and elder statesman of American queer literary fiction. Neil Bartlett, The Guardian

ci piace ricordarlo in questa foto, davanti ai suoi libri 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and activist, dies at 101

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher, bookseller and activist who helped launch the Beat movement in the 1950s and embody its curious and rebellious spirit well into the 21st century, has died at age 101.

Ferlinghetti, a San Francisco institution, died Monday at his home, his son Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said. A month shy of his 102nd birthday, Ferlinghetti died “in his own room,” holding the hands of his son and his son’s girlfriend, “as he took his last breath.” The cause of death was lung disease. Politico

L'ho conosciuto, all'inizio degli anni '80, quando stavo a San Francisco e ricordo bene la sua libreria, City Lights, nel quartiere italiano - almeno allora - della città.

Peter Matthiessen

Lo scrittore Peter Matthiessen è morto a 86 anni il 5 aprile. Jeff Jimmelman ne fa un bel ritratto sul NYT. Come spesso mi accade, sono attratta in particolare dalla descrizione della casa: "The home used to be the garage and outbuildings of a larger estate, and there is an improvised, of-the-earth sprawl to the place. One side of the main house is grown over with ivy, and under the portico, in between two piles of chopped firewood, an immense finback whale skull balances on blocks. Just to the left of the front door sits a tree stump covered stupalike with shells and other found objects. After I ring the doorbell and rap a few times on the glass, Matthiessen emerges from his living room and waves me in". nyt.

Over the Wall

Leggo con ritardo un bell'articolo di Roger Angell - 92enne redattore e collaboratore del New Yorker - sulla moglie morta di recente. Si intitola "Over the Wall", ed è uscito sulla rivista il 19 di novembre, ma purtroppo non è disponibile on-line. Esprime con garbo sentimenti sinceri; sentimenti che riconosco, primo fra tutti lo stupore, soprattutto al tempo che passa di fronte all'eternità. E poi cita una bella poesiola del suo step-father, E.B. White (nella foto Roger Angell con la moglie Carol nel 1966):


Hold a baby to your ear
As you would a shell:
Sounds of centuries you hear
New centuries foretell.

Who can break a baby's code?
And which is the older -
The listener or his small load?
The held or the holder?

Nora Ephron

Con molta tristezza ho saputo della morte di Nora Ephron. Mi piaceva molto. La voglio ricordare con un racconto autobiografico - uscito il 5 giugno 2006 sul New Yorker - che mi ha sempre ispirato molto e che ogni tanto vado a rileggere. "In February, 1980, two months after the birth of my second child and the simultaneous end of my marriage, I fell madly in love with a huge apartment on the Upper West Side. It was on the fifth floor of the Apthorp, a famous stone pile on the corner of Broadway and 79th Street. The rent was $1500 a month, which, by Manhattan standards, was practically a bargain. In addition, I had to pay the previous tenant $24,000 in key money for the right to move in. The apartment had beautiful rooms; high ceilings; lots of light; two gorgeous fireplaces; and five bedrooms. I was planning to live there forever. Till death did us part. All stories about love begin with a certain amount of rationalization. After a few weeks, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else ...". Purtroppo per leggerlo tutto bisogna essere abbonati, comunque ecco il link newyorker.

Barney Rosset

Qualche giorno fa è morto, a 89 anni, Barney Rosset, il fondatore di Grove Press, un uomo coraggioso, libero e anticonformista che ha pubblicato e fatto conoscere molti scrittori controversi. "The fiery and publisher Rosset, who introduced the country to countless political and avant-garde writers and risked prison and financial ruin to release such underground classics as Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley's Lover, has died ... A bon vivant who enjoyed long lunches and strong martinis, Rosset was a slightly built man with a brisk, peppery voice; and a breathless laugh, often at his own expense. His longtime editor in chief at Grove, Richard Seaver, would remember him as 'often irascible, a control freak, prone to panic attacks,' with a 'sadistic element' that shadowed his 'innate generosity.' Rosset, interviewed by The Associated Press in 1998, called himself an 'amoeba with a brain,' ever slipping into enemy territory.

Entro l'anno dovrebbe uscire presso Algonquin la sua autobiografia, dal titolo provvisorio di The Subject Was Left-Handed. wsj.

Dorothea Tanning

Qualche giorno fa è morta Dorothea Tanning, a 101 anni. Di solito era ricordata come moglie di Max Ernst, ma pare fosse un'artista più vigorosa del marito. Ed era anche una scrittrice e una poetessa di talento. Dan Chiasson parla dell'ultimo libro di poesie da lei scritto lo scorso autunno e che rivela una sensibilità molto particolare: "What struck me - besides the extraordinary fact of having the sensorium of a centenarian represented for almost the first time in history - was the nonchalance of her poems, their modesty. It wasn't as if Tanning had been dying all this time to say anything in particular; there was no triumph or despair; these poems dispensed no great wisdom or inspiration. They were rather, in a lovely and surprising way, emotional weather reports. Her great subject was the paradox of having run out of reinventions; everything she had made up to then, she knew, would be followed by other 'takes' and views. These poems were true to her impressions, her final impressions. We'll wait a long time for another book precisely like it. newyorker.

Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011. In Memoriam

Proprio ieri stavo contemplando di postare quel che adesso suppongo sia l'ultimo articolo di Christopher Hitchens: una cronaca da Tumorland, come chiamava il luogo in cui era finito, scritta per Vanity Fair. Confutava un detto diventato comune, "Tutto quel che non ammazza, rafforza", che pare sia di Nietzsche. Poi ho pensato - che sciocchezza - di non pubblicare un articolo così triste in tempi natalizi. Non è un articolo per niente triste. E' lucido, intelligente, colto e spiritoso. Come al solito.
Ieri Christopher Hitchens è morto.

Mi è capitato spesso di tradurre Hitchens per il Corriere (anche oggi pomeriggio, per l'ultima volta). Mi innervosiva sempre un po'. Hitchens non è facile da rendere. Ha un modo di scrivere molto libero, piuttosto tortuoso. A volte aggressivo. Non sempre chiarissimo di primo acchito.

Lo voglio ricordare con queste parole, prese dal necrologio di William Grimes sul New York Times: "He also professed to have no regrets for a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking. 'Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me,' he told Charlie Rose in a television interview in 2010, adding that it was 'impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle." nyt.