On this day in 1935, the great American novelist Ken Kesey was born. I really only know him from his two novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. But he wrote more than this and I suppose I will have to go back and find what else he did. Certainly, those are two of the greatest American novels ever written. And he is probably the greatest writer of his generation, except for maybe Heller, but certainly not Salinger or Capote or Roth — as great as they may be.

There are generally two things that I think about with regard to Kesey’s work. First is his decision to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the first person. He could have written it in the third person and it probably would have worked well enough. But there would have been various problems. One is simply the way the plot is told. There would be no reason not to know far more of what’s going on outside the ward. But because Chief is thought to be mute, he is allowed limited access to staff meetings. But the most important aspect of the first person narrative is that the book is about Chief. One of the great disappointments in the film (as great as it is), is that we don’t get to see Chief’s evolution from mental illness to mental health.

The second thing about Kesey’s work is the way he shifts point of view in Sometimes a Great Notion. Basically, he does what Virginia Woolf’s does in To the Lighthouse. But Kesey is far more clear. Reading Woolf is like floating around at see, being pushed his way and that. It isn’t about the story but rather the journey. Kesey is interested in telling a story. And he has great insight into character that isn’t really true of the early stream of consciousness writers.

In 1989, Kesey wrote a novel collectively with 13 graduate students at the University of Oregon, Caverns. Three years later, he wrote his first novel in almost three decades, Sailor Song. And then he wrote a collaboration with Ken Babbs, Last Go Round. All of them sound interesting. I will have to see if I can dig them up. Until then…

Happy birthday Ken Kesey!

On this day in 1916, the great writer Roald Dahl was born. He wrote some of my favorite books when I was a child like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox. But by far my favorite book was James and the Giant Peach. I don’t really know what about the book so captured my imagination. It’s especially odd because I was no fan of insects — giant or otherwise.

I always associate Dahl with E B White, author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. But there isn’t actually any comparison. Dahl is a far more imaginative writer. And just as important: Dahl knew how to finish a story. I still read Dahl. I don’t much pick up White, although I did recently revisit Charlotte’s Web and I revisit Elements of Style from time to time.

When I was in the fifth grade, our class did a segment on tall tales. And at the end of it, we were all forced to get up in front of class and tell one of them. There was a lot of repetition with most students doing Paul Bunyan and similar stories. I fretted over this for days, knowing that if all else failed, I too could do Paul Bunyan or John Henry. And as I walked up to the head of the class, I still hadn’t made up my mind. And I remember having an epiphany: James and the Giant Peach was a tall tell.

Most of the kids had spent less than a minute giving their little speeches. Although I was a shy child, nothing inspired me so much as a captive audience. So I told the entire story from James and the Giant Peach. I was up there ten minutes. No one seemed to mind (not that I would have noticed). It is likely that everyone was relieved that they didn’t have to hear another story about a lumberjack or railroad worker.

Anyway, when I was that age, everyone loved Roald Dahl. This was when everyone was just starting to read Tolkien and more adult books. Although, if you ask me, he was a distinct step down in terms of telling a great story. But I’ve never really grown out of Dahl and John D Fitzgerald and John Christopher (Sam Youd).

This is kind of a bank-shot, but today is Fiona Apple‘s 37th birthday. And she recorded a great version of “Pure Imagination” from the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. I love this video:

Happy birthday Roald Dahl!

On this day in 1893, the great writer Dorothy Parker was born. She is best known today for her clever sayings like, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think” and her proposed epitaph, “Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.” But she was far more than this. She was quite an accomplished writer of poetry, short stories, screenplays, and nonfiction.

In her mid-20s, she became a replacement theater critic for Vanity Fair where she met people like Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott. Their lunches at the Algonquin Hotel became known as Algonquin Round Table. Basically, it was just a meeting place for clever and urbane people. But it was through this group that her work got a wider audience. According to Wikipedia, she published 300 poems during the 1920s. And she was on the board of editors of The New Yorker at its founding in 1925. During this period she also wrote a number of short stories, book reviews, and co-wrote the Broadway play Close Harmony.

In 1934 she went to Hollywood where she did quite well doing what we would now call “punching up” scripts. She did have screenwriting credit, however—most notably on A Star Is Born. In the 1950s, she was blacklisted because of her involvement in left wing politics. The executor of her will, for example, was Lillian Hellman and she bequeathed her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. So of course she was blacklisted!

What I still find interesting today is that no one went after former or even current fascists. And you can see just how radical Parker was by the fact that nothing she believed in is considered radical today. But the point is that anyone who stands up for the people against the power elite is attacked by whatever media and political organs are controlled by the power elite. And today, that means all of them. Of course, Parker was fine. She had money from all of her writing and was still employable in the magazine industry at places like Esquire.

She drank to excess in later years—especially after the suicide of her second and third husband, Alan Campbell. She died of a heart attack in 1967 at the age of 73. Here she is reading her poem “One Perfect Rose”:

Happy birthday Dorothy Parker!

On this day in 1902, the great poet Ogden Nash was born. In general, poetry is hard on readers. It takes greater concentration than we are used to giving. But Nash found an audience quickly because he was so clever and funny. His poems often included made up word puns and unusual pronunciations. He also worked as a librettist for a couple of Broadway musicals.

His father had an import-export business, so the family moved around a lot. He was born in New York, but chose to live almost his whole adult life in Baltimore. Of this fact, he wrote, “I could have loved New York had I not loved Balti-more.” Other that this clever line, I can’t really understand choosing to live in Baltimore. But I guess that was just one of the things that made Nash special.

Here is Nash’s response to Dorothy Parker’s, “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.” He wrote:

And here is his poem (part of a series about animals), “The Panther”:

It’s all very playful and fun stuff—well worth spending some time with. And here is one of his songs, “Speak Low” with music by Kurt Weill:

Happy birthday Ogden Nash!