MetaFilter posts tagged with obituary and literature

Historian of a rich and terrible past

dickymilk — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:11:41 -0800

Louis Crompton, the author of Homosexuality and Civilization and Byron and Greek Love, has died. Crompton's pioneering work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the 1970's helped to pave the way for gay and lesbian studies in the American university, but his account of the history of gay identity left him on the unfashionable side of the essentialism/constructionism debate, and his name is often eclipsed by his flashier contemporaries. From Homosexuality and Civilization:

For many centuries in Europe, homosexuality was conceived principally as certain sexual acts... we must not be complicit in this dehumanization. These "sodomites" were human beings with whom the modern gay man may claim brotherhood and the modern lesbian recognize as sisters. To divide history in two in 1869 at the moment when the word "homosexual" was coined is to deny this bond. To adopy Michel Foucault's view that the homosexual did not exist "as a person" until this time is to reject a rich and terrible past.

Crompton is survived by his partner of 40 years, Luis Diaz-Perdomo.

Under the Eye of the Clock

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:17:15 -0800

Irish poet and writer Christopher Nolan died on the 20 Feb. Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and typed using a 'unicorn stick' attached to his head. Nolan has never spoken, yet his poetry has been compared to that of Joyce, Keats, and Yeats. Among firs, a cone high-flown, Winged, popped, Hied, foraying, embalming, Sembling tomb Among coy, conged fir needles, A migratory off-spring Embarks on life’s green film. A link from the Economist about him, and the Irish Times. He had an incredible vocabulary, and amongst other notable achievements provided the inspiration for a U2 song.

Harold Pinter's curtain call

The Salaryman — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:11:16 -0800

Harold Pinter has died, the BBC reports If you don't know about him it is worth getting acquainted. This is a sad day for literature, but at least he had a good innings.

RIP, DFW

gerryblog — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:34:15 -0800

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about. First reported by an anonymous tip to a blog, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed that David Foster Wallace has hung himself.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1922 - 2008.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:16:53 -0800

Alain Robbe-Grillet, French author, member of the Académie française and subject of this recent Mefi post, has passed away at age 85.

Grace Paley, 1922 - 2007

jokeefe — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:33:55 -0800

A wonderful obituary in the NYT for Grace Paley, who died yesterday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84.

once described himself as 'a fourth- or fifth-rate writer,'

amberglow — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:15:41 -0800

"Life is wise to deceive us," he once wrote, "for had it told us from the start what it had in store for us, we would refuse to be born." --Naguib Mahfouz, RIP --and more from when he won the Nobel in 1988

Rodney Whitaker Is Dead

NotMyselfRightNow — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 08:12:55 -0800

The author Rodney Whitaker is dead, taking along with him Trevanian, Nicholas Seare, Benat Le Cagot, and several of his other pen names. Under the name Trevanian he wrote The Eiger Sanction (1972) (which became a Clint Eastwood movie of the same name), Shibumi (1979), The Loo Sanction (1973), The Summer of Katya (1983), The Main (1976), Incident at Twenty-Mile (1998), and others. In real life, Whitaker was the Chairman of the Radio, Television, and Film Department at the University of Texas. He was believe to be 74 years old, and died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

atom128 — Wed, 24 Jul 2002 05:14:39 -0800

Chaim Potok dead at 73 Author of The Chosen, The Promise, My Name Is Asher Lev, and and many others has died of Brain Cancer. Here is a link to a biography and selections of his work for anyone who may be unfamiliar with his life and work.

Ms Snit — Sun, 11 Nov 2001 05:48:57 -0800

As a youngen, I was very much enamored with Ken Kesey's questioning soul and his flare for the wild. His novels provided much comfort as I tried to navigate my way through those conforming years we all know as high school. May he RIP.