All of us probably have a dream list of the Greats. That list has changed over the years hasn't it? When I was 14 I wanted to see Ted Williams and ask him if was true that he could really smell the faint odor of smoke as the ball singed the bat when he foul tipped it. Later, I thought about Shakespeare or even Faulkner or Hemingway. By the time I was 30 only Shakespeare remained on my wish list. Yet today he remains too daunting for me. I don't have enough arcane, scholarly questions such as, "Why in Henry IV, Part 1, why did you take so long getting young Hal to battle? That's not even a good question, folks. I would like to hear others ask better questions, but would choose the back row, a seat on the aisle, if you please. Bathroom exit, you know. Even in Heaven?
Given my reservations, I have a better idea. What do you think about this possibility for you as well? Think about, say, three people you might want to thank for their lives, their personal contribution to your life.
Sorry, no loved ones, close friends, or divine figures allowed. I happened on this idea this afternoon, resting in bed, reading a thick book very slowly, my mind wandering back to my mother. One of her famous last statements before a killer stroke she told me in the rest home. "I want to hug and kiss your dad--and then I want to find John and Abigail Adams." Here a high school graduate who had read fewer than a dozen books on the Adams family, wanted to see them. I think she just wanted to thank them for the texture they brought to her life. She loved them for who they were and because they, as she said, "made my life more meaningful."
So, here we go. My gratitude simply echoes my mother's. A giant thank you to the following three:
Sorry, no loved ones, close friends, or divine figures allowed. I happened on this idea this afternoon, resting in bed, reading a thick book very slowly, my mind wandering back to my mother. One of her famous last statements before a killer stroke she told me in the rest home. "I want to hug and kiss your dad--and then I want to find John and Abigail Adams." Here a high school graduate who had read fewer than a dozen books on the Adams family, wanted to see them. I think she just wanted to thank them for the texture they brought to her life. She loved them for who they were and because they, as she said, "made my life more meaningful."
So, here we go. My gratitude simply echoes my mother's. A giant thank you to the following three:
1. Henry and Hester Thrale. Henry, a brewer, not a man of books and his sprightly wife, Hester, found Samuel Johnson kneeling at the feet of a bewildered minister. He was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Johnson was the greatest conversationalist in the known world of his day and famous essayist and poet. They bundled him off to their rolling estate, Streatham Park, where he began to heal. W. Jackson Bate says of this moment in time: "The Thrales did more than contribute to the restoration of Johnson's health. They made it possible."
They saved Samuel Johnson for all of us who love him and continue to read him today [many by assignment only]. He survived to produce nearly 20 years more of writing and famous conversations, recorded in James Boswell's famous Life of Johnson. My brothers and I always have a "Johnson" quote for the occasion. We love him.
2. Lev and Sophia Tolstoy. Both endured what critics call the "worst marriage in history." When Sophia read Anna Karenina [perhaps the greatest novel ever written], she said, this "thing is spotty--incomplete. Where are you in this novel?" He put himself in as Levin and added his sister-in-law, as Kitty and wrote the masterpiece.
When he began throwing successive drafts of War and Peace [perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I know, I know] into trash barrels, she picked them out, sorted them, and then rewrote each subsequent draft because she was the only one on earth who could read his handwriting.
When he began throwing successive drafts of War and Peace [perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I know, I know] into trash barrels, she picked them out, sorted them, and then rewrote each subsequent draft because she was the only one on earth who could read his handwriting.
When Tolstoy wanted to turn over all publication rights to his collected works, she fought--and they knew how to fight. She won. Stalin, in the only fit of compassion he ever revealed in his life, assented and turned the publication rights over to the Tolstoy Trust. Thank you for enduring the world's worst marriage, Tolstoys. Because of your guts and stubbornness, Sophia, we have, YES, the two greatest novels ever written. [See The Last Train Station, starring Christopher Plummer and the great Helen Mirren on Netflix.]
3. Abraham Lincoln. Where does one begin with this man? Yes, he was a politician; he wanted to be President of the country and he wanted to unite that country at all costs. When 7,000 Union Blue went down in 20 minutes at Shiloh, he paced the War Room, saying, "what will the people say!" Leave the convoluted arguments to historians, especially the revisionists; many of them the cadre of new black historians who peck at Lincoln's motives and slowness in emancipating the slaves. My love and thanks is purely personal. Here was a man who lived out his life with a bipolar wife, a man whose face shows the affliction of such battles as Shiloh [though the Union lost at a cost of only 24,000 men], Cold Harbor, the loss of Willie, his son, the distain and abuse of an ignorant father, the nagging darkness of melancholy, etc.
When talk in Sunday school wanders to those "perfect" bodies we all long for, I think of Lincoln's "sacred scars." He paid for every wrinkle with pain. And all those so-called "presidents" who followed? And those guys who "run" today away from one single concrete solution to our real problems? None of them ever did or will, now, hold a candle to Father Abraham Lincoln.
Do you think there are only three in your life? Let's talk about this again sometime.
Do you think there are only three in your life? Let's talk about this again sometime.
I've read Troyat's biography of Tolstoy, but you've already covered him. Your other limitations for choices leave me little to choose. Of the American authors I'd like to talk to Herman Melville. The great American novel is probably his, though his neighbor Nathaniel's Scarlet Letter is probably better, but not greater.
ReplyDeleteHerman took his manuscript over to the Hawthornes (It would be handwritten, wouldn't it?probably requiring a wheel barrow) to ask their comments. Hawthorne was in the middle of writing The House of Seven Gables and passed the manuscript to his wife (lucky for us and for American literature). She was a good reader. After finishing it she said to Melville she really liked how he could make the whale a symbol for good (omnipotent, omniscient, white, etc.) and also for evil. Herman was at a loss for words. He hadn't realized that ambiguity himself. I'd like to ask the two of them to replay that conversation for me.
donny