Can we have a thread about writers and their relationships with one another?
I know very little except that Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Joyce, Gertrude Stein and F Scott Fitzgerald all kind of hung out together. I know that Hemingway thought Joyce was great and that Fitzgerald was a sellout and Stein was a bitch. But I've only read his opinions.
I'd like to know more about the literary world. Who admired who? Who hated who? Who had fist-fights? Any time period. Photos would be nice, too.
Hans Christien Andersen was friends with Dickens for a time, until he went to briefly visit Dickens in England and ended up staying for something like two months. Apparently HCA didn't realize this was rude, but Dickens was so furious about it that the friendship ended.
>>7522910
full story
http://www.booktryst.com/2012/02/when-charles-dickens-met-hans-christian.html?m=1
Didn't Wittgenstein and Russell know each other and Wittgenstein was constantly an autistic pain in the ass to Russell?
Also, much more famously, Schopenhauer was a professor at the same university at Hegel and was jealous as fuck of all the attention Hegel received. That jealousy is actually the core of Schopenhauer's philosophy, it's pretty cringy.
>>7522927
As I had heard they were friends/acquaintances through school and one was considered a mentor of the other, though which had what position I can't recall.
I do recall Russell saying that Witty was brilliant, and would often worry his works would never be understood by anyone, ever.
>>7522953
Wittgenstein and Hitler were classmates for a while
Simone de Beauvoir, who was married to Jean-Paul Sartre, had an affair with the playwright Nelson Algren that lasted almost a decade, until they became too disgusted with each other to continue.
De Beauvoir frequently cheated on Sartre, usually with men, often with women, sometimes with her own students. Sartre and her developed an arrangement they called "the trio" in which de Beauvoir would seduce and bed one of her students, pass the student on to Sartre to do the same, and then compare their salicious notes.
I suppose it is disingenuous to say that they cheated on each other, as it was more like an open relationship. Still pretty fucked-up though.
>>7523004
Sartre fucked literally everyone. Bouvoir later wrote she only slept around to try and keep up with Sartre and pretend she was okay with being open, and that she had always wanted then to be exclusive.
they were both turbo sluts for sure. But Sartre got more pussy than Camus. . .
>>7523016
Interesting considering Sartre was one of the ugliest cross-eyed mofuckas to ever live.
>>7523027
He was literally a googlie eyed manlet with a boring as shit philosophy.
If anything he shows there is hope for everyone
>>7522963
That's historical speculation, not fact. Sources disagree about whether Wittgenstein had begun attending that school when that particular photo was taken.
Samuel Beckett was James Joyce's protegee and helped him write Finnegans Wake after Joyce's eyesight began to go.
Beckett also used to drive Andre the Giant to school while living in France.
>all these great writers and thinkers getting to hang out
I'm genuinely jealous. Not just in a "wanting to meet famous people" kind of way, but it's definitely true that hanging out with good artists improves one's own art. I know Hemingway had at least a little influence on Joyce's work, for example.
How can we as artists congregate and soak up each others' creativity, the way these people did?
>>7522338
Hemingway was friends with Sallinger, and Sallinger even visited him while he was a soldier in WW2
>>7522338
Ezra Pound pushed Joyce to publish the Ulysses serials.
>>7523066
Beckett also fucked Joyce's schitzophrenic daughter
>>7522927
Yeah, Witty was actually taught by Russell and annoyed the shit out of him until he realized Witty makes him look like a downy.
I do wonder how Hemingway dealt with his obvious inferiority before deservedly eminent writers.
>>7522953
>>7522927
>>7523163
Wittgenstein read the Principia vol1 and traveled to meet with Russell and talk about it
at this point Whitehead and Russell had slowed down producing it, because it was so tough and the paradoxes difficult to work around. Wittgenstein was highly motivated however and worked late into the night.
Witty thought that the Principia couldn't use infinity in anyway (because infinity can't exist in the universe) Russell felt this was an unnecessary and unworkable concession.
Witty ends up saying he cant find how to make progress, runs into the woods for a couple years, joins the military and almost dies and then writes the Tractatus which claimed that mathematics wasnt the holy truth it was built to be etc
hotly contested whether you could construct a "perfect" mathematical system until Godel shows up and BLOWS EVERYONE THE FUCK OUT
So in short, Russell liked Witty but thought he was too internally convinced(?) not sure of the word, zealous or jingoistic fits too
Witty liked Russell too, although he claimed Russell never understood his work in its proper context
>>7523192
Sheer physical bluster, combined with crippling alcoholism.
Do you think he was actually annoyed when Joyce would run behind him and make him clean up the fights he started? He loved it. It gave him validation. Joyce was far more talented than Hemingway, but he was less of a 'man,' and this gave Ernest a sense of self-worth.
>>7523192
Youve never read the story of when Joyce and Proust were at the same party? Joyce was a total autist, and Proust was completely nonplussed
I think its much worse to be talented enough to KNOW youre a fraud compared to someone else, Hemingway (i dont think) was aware of his deficiencies in the same way as Joyce (that section in Ulysses where he sees himself in the mirror as a shitty Shakespeare A++)
also i want to be clear im not saying Joyce was worse than Proust, just that Joyce had these neuroses that you would expect to find in shitty writers that worry about being found out
(obviously not the same but DFW talks about this in the NEW HIT MOVIE END OF THE TOUR)
>>7523066
What a great example of the literary connections we can find in day-to-day life. Samuel Beckett helped write Finnegans Wake and then drove Andre the Giant to school, then Andre the Giant went on to feud against Hulk Hogan who feuded against Vince McMahon who had his head shaved after losing a hair vs. hair match to Donald Trump, author of The Art of the Deal.
>>7523225
>im not saying Joyce was worse than Proust
because something as obvious as that doesn't need to be said, pleb
>>7523151
He also edited Eliot's Waste Land and removed some absolutely embarrassingly bad bits. Ezra Pound seems like a really great /lit/ friend to have as long as you're not a yid.
>>7523027
Writers aren't born old.
>>7523153
Damn, she was qt
>>7523321
Are you joking? Her skull looks like the Moonman.
did charles bukowski have any other interaction with writers? i remember him mentioning norman mailer in a poem and he said "i dont think about normal mailer" and another antecdote wherein he met alan ginsberg and he was like lol who cares :D
>>7523317
that's p ugly tho
>>7523336
Bukowski was rather an outsider to the literary movements of his time, I think. There’s a piece where he meets Neal Cassady, and Bukowski clearly knows about Cassady’s significance (not only to Kerouac, but also, later, to Kesey), but has it in an outside-point of view. It’s interesting.
DFW and Franzen used to apparently jack each other off while grunting like apes
>>7523403
I always pictured DFW as more of a whiny cummer, rather than grunting.
>>7523409
When DFW came he made a sound like a dog whining, a dog who's been shut out from the living room for having chewed up a cushion, and there's something incredibly sad and banal about that
>>7523004
It was an open relationship, there was no "cheating."
I don't know whether somebody already told this story because I didn't read the thread at all, but Fitzgerald once went to Hemingway because he was concerned his dick was too small. He thought his dick might be too small, and he wanted to get Hemingway's opinion about it, since he considered Hemingway to be an authority on manliness. He told Hemingway that his wife called his dick very small and told him that he would never be able to please a woman, on account of the length of his dick (short). Hemingway told him that it just appeared small to him because of foreshortening, that he was looking at it from above, and that you had to look at it in the mirror to really get a sense of how big it was. Fitzgerald showed him his dick and Hemingway said he had nothing to worry about. Just suck it up. They then both went on to become famous writers.
>>7523864
>just suck it up
>>7523075
>I'm genuinely jealous. Not just in a "wanting to meet famous people" kind of way, but it's definitely true that hanging out with good artists improves one's own art. I know Hemingway had at least a little influence on Joyce's work, for example.
>How can we as artists congregate and soak up each others' creativity, the way these people did?
Well you're on /lit/
>>7523225
Furthering this Joyce and Proust apparently shared a cab in Paris but didn't talk to each other at all for the entirety of their journey.
I also remember reading somewhere that Joyce met J. M. Synge, the Irish playwright, in Paris as well but one of them (I can't remember which) didn't think much of the other, which is a shame.
>>7523891
implying there any actual writers on /lit/
>aged 18-24
>wrote a few short stories about a angsty protagonist fed up with the world
>read the meme trilology
>thinks he's on par with Joyce
>>7522927
>Russell was having tea with C. K. Ogden, when, according to Russell, "an unknown German appeared, speaking very little English but refusing to speak German. He turned out to be a man who had learned engineering at Charlottenburg, but during this course had acquired, by himself, a passion for the philosophy of mathematics & has now come to Cambridge on purpose to hear me."[80] He was soon not only attending Russell's lectures, but dominating them.
>Wittgenstein started following him after lectures back to his rooms to discuss more philosophy, until it was time for the evening meal in Hall. Russell grew irritated; he wrote to his lover Lady Ottoline Morrell: "My German friend threatens to be an infliction."[83]
Byron's social circle pretty much ruled British literature for a while. It included both Shelleys, both Rossettis, and Polidori, for starters. Slightly prior to this, Godwin's (Mary Shelly's novelist father) and Wollstonecraft's social circle was similar.
>>7523336
He stayed at a hotel William S Burroughs was at once, Burroughs seemed uninterested in meeting him though. He wrote about it in 'women' i think it was? he also met raymond carver, probably a few times.
Carver and John Cheever worked (ie drank) together at Iowa too.
>>7523962
How can anyone doubt that Wittgenstein had autism? If this sort of behavior isn't on the spectrum I don't know what is.
>>7524018
>Polidori
>>7523016
>But Sartre got more pussy than Camus. . .
Didn't he fall out with Camus because Camus got with one of his favourite side bitches?
>>7523273
underrated
>>7523066
Emil Ciaron thought very highly of Becketts work but didn't meet him for a long time. The first time he saw him in public, he was reading in the park and didn't want to disturb him
Ernst Junger went skiing with Heidegger and did drugs with Schmitt
Horace and Vergil were buddies. They once went on a road trip together to the south of Italy along the Via Appia, doing something or other for Augustus.
I read somewhere that Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs had some level of a friendship at least for a short period of time, can't find and source for that tho
>>7525863
has this been confirmed?
>>7524018
Curious why you took the time to mention that Godwin was Mary Shelley's father (by the way, he was more than a novelist, he was also a philosopher and is regarded as the first "modern" anarchist), but failed to mention that Wallstonecraft was her mother?
>>7524672
You just reminded me of a story my philosophy professor told in HS. It was a while, but if I remember correctly, it was after WW2 that some famous philosopher came to his friends house after years of not seeing him, but at the doors there was a sign "Do not disturb", so he never met him. Also, it might be in Switzerland. Sounds familiar to someone?
>>7525928
Burroughs was also in "On the Road". The gang stayed with him and his wife
>>7524449
he literally designed and built a house and concluded the ceiling had to be raised 3cm.
and he made it happen
all star autism top boy
>>7524672
Beckett used to drive Andre the Giant to school because he couldn't fit in the schoolbus.
Heartwarming anecdote to be honest.
I remember a humorous story about when Groucho Marx met T.S. Eliot. Apparently Eliot was a huge fan of the Marx Brothers and invited Groucho to dinner one evening. Groucho spent a lot of time preparing and researching so that he could carry on interesting conversation about art and literature with one of the great Modernist poets, and then on the night of the dinner Eliot spent the whole time talking about Duck Soup.
http://incompetentwriter.com/2012/06/15/james-joyce-meets-wb-yeats/
>>7523476
kekd
>>7528638
Duck Soup seems pretty interesting 2bh
>>7523314
He was. According to Hemingway, he did anything and everything to help his friends; he got them jobs; he got them published; he posted bail; he was like their papa.
wasnt nabakov pynchon's english professor?
>>7524689
Junger was so based
>>7528638
Based Eliot.
>>7528799
Yeah but Nabokov never showed up for lectures. He'd record himself reciting his lectures and then some assistant or other would come in and play the tape.
Nabokov didn't remember Pynchon and probably never met him.
Nabokov's wife used to grade his papers for him, and she remembers Pynchon's half-script, half-cursive handwriting, but that's it.
>>7528815
>half-script, half-cursive handwriting
Is this seen as sloppy? If i'm just jotting things down it's how I naturally write but if it's something formal I try not to mix them.
Andre Gide ran into Oscar Wilde in North Africa where Wilde was with his boyfriend at the time. While they were hanging out, Wilde procured the sexual services of an adolescent arab for Gide. Gide thought the shit was cash.
>>7528792
Except for Mussolini.
>>7528822
I think Vera just thought it was weird.
We're in sort of a "post-handwriting" world anyway.
>>7528792
It is due to their traditional morals and love of the classics. Great individuals and citizens, horrible rulers.
Kind of like Mormons, nicest people and so genuine but a crazy religion
>>7525863
In response to this, there's an illustrated biography of the Beats that I just saw at a bookstore, somewhat caught my eye, anyhow, in it I read something akin to this section from his Burroughs' wiki
>He left for Tangier in November 1954 and spent the next four years there working on the fiction that would later become Naked Lunch, as well as attempting to write commercial articles about Tangier. He sent these writings to Ginsberg, his literary agent for Junkie, but none were published until 1989 when Interzone, a collection of short stories, was published. Under the strong influence of a marijuana confection known as majoun and a German-made opioid called Eukodol, Burroughs settled in to write. Eventually, Ginsberg and Kerouac, who had traveled to Tangier in 1957, helped Burroughs type, edit, and arrange these episodes into Naked Lunch.[32]
The illustrated biography claimed that some Beat Scholars attribute more credit for Naked Lunch to Ginsberg than to Burroughs. I guess pages were fucking everywhere and ole Bill was too deep into drugs and boy prostitutes to put it together. Burroughs played the instruments but Ginsberg was the composer.
true genius don't value the opinions of minions.
brace yourselves for me, if i was to rule you marionettes worthy of such divinity
>>7523314
I remember reading somewhere that "April is the cruellest month" was initially the 40th or so line.
>>7528799
William Gass was also at Cornell while Nabokov was there, but didn't attended his lectures.
Fairly entertaining look at Faulkner and Hemingway's rivalry and correspondence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMbj1JdXhI
