I've done way too much mind mapping lately. This is because the only way I was able to layer and connect the three stories in my novel/thesis was to hold them in my head as a web of things connecting to other things. Remember those web diagrams from grade school? Apparently, it's now the latest fashion in the business world.
Anyway, here's how it's showing up these days (warning: what follows is link-heavy, and Oscar figures in the first example; consider yourself warned - you may want to go make some tea or something):
Two of the texts on my thesis reading list were by Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost and The Picture of Dorian Gray. These two stories in particular are his unique contribution to the gothic tradition. The Canterville Ghost was one of my favorite stories as a kid, and reading Dorian Gray is like indulging in chocolate.
As if I didn't have enough to read at the time, I came across two novels by Gyles Brandreth that feature Oscar as a kind of detective solving murders. They remind me of the Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron. While it may sound far-fetched, Oscar was a shrewd observer of humanity (as was Jane Austen), and he was great friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has had his Sherlock Holmes resurrected by Laurie King. These Oscar Wilde mysteries (and the Jane Austen ones and the Sherlock Holmes ones, for that matter) may not be high literature, but they're fun reads (and rather a nice break from high literature).
I also discovered that Oscar's letters have been published in various editions. I was keen to get the Complete Letters (more than 1500 of them!), but it was nearly impossible to find. I eventually located a used copy at Powell's. I immediately opened the box when it came in the mail, and I was surprised to find that tucked inside the front cover was an e-mail and a Smithsonian article about Oscar's photo session with Napoleon Sarony in 1882 when Oscar was on a lecture tour in the US.
One of Sarony's portraits of Oscar was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case. Sarony sued Burrow-Giles after they used unauthorized lithographs of Oscar Wilde No. 18 in an ad. He won $610 (today, that would be about $12,000). Burrow-Giles appealed twice, but the original decision was upheld, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of copyright protection for photographs. Sarony photographed the Supreme Court justices in 1890.
I'm surmising the article was tucked into the book as it pertains to the photo that is the same one on the book cover. It's not every day you see a 6' 3"-tall man in knee breeches.
The e-mail looks to be addressed to the previous owner of the book. It's quoting a section of De Profundis about Christ. I can never get through a reading of De Profundis without crying. Oscar wrote it while he was in prison, convicted for homosexual acts and sentenced to two years of hard labor. He converted to Catholicism on his death bed.
These discoveries in my precious copy of Oscar's letters reminded me of Roland Mitchell finding documents in Randolph Henry Ash's copy of Giambattista Vico's Scienzia Nuova in Possession by A.S. Byatt, another book on my thesis reading list (and one of my favorite novels - don't bother with the film version; it doesn't do the least bit of justice to the novel).
Here is the non-Oscar example for those of you who needed to go away and make tea:
This past weekend, I received a print from the estate of my grandmother's long-time neighbor, Mrs. Abbie Swain. Mrs. Swain was a lovely lady who was tiny, sharp as a whip, finger-waved her hair, and lived to be 100-something. She read a lot of books, which was likely a part of her secret formula for a long life.
The sign above the librarian's head in the print reads "Metaphysics." (Metaphysics seeks to explain the ultimate nature of being and of the world.)
The print reminds me of Lucien the librarian in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. Lucien is librarian of all the books ever dreamt of that remain unwritten. (I haven't found a good drawing of him to show you, but if you go read the comics, you'll find him.) Imagine reading in THAT library.
Anyway, here's how it's showing up these days (warning: what follows is link-heavy, and Oscar figures in the first example; consider yourself warned - you may want to go make some tea or something):
Two of the texts on my thesis reading list were by Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost and The Picture of Dorian Gray. These two stories in particular are his unique contribution to the gothic tradition. The Canterville Ghost was one of my favorite stories as a kid, and reading Dorian Gray is like indulging in chocolate.
As if I didn't have enough to read at the time, I came across two novels by Gyles Brandreth that feature Oscar as a kind of detective solving murders. They remind me of the Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron. While it may sound far-fetched, Oscar was a shrewd observer of humanity (as was Jane Austen), and he was great friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has had his Sherlock Holmes resurrected by Laurie King. These Oscar Wilde mysteries (and the Jane Austen ones and the Sherlock Holmes ones, for that matter) may not be high literature, but they're fun reads (and rather a nice break from high literature).
I also discovered that Oscar's letters have been published in various editions. I was keen to get the Complete Letters (more than 1500 of them!), but it was nearly impossible to find. I eventually located a used copy at Powell's. I immediately opened the box when it came in the mail, and I was surprised to find that tucked inside the front cover was an e-mail and a Smithsonian article about Oscar's photo session with Napoleon Sarony in 1882 when Oscar was on a lecture tour in the US.
One of Sarony's portraits of Oscar was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case. Sarony sued Burrow-Giles after they used unauthorized lithographs of Oscar Wilde No. 18 in an ad. He won $610 (today, that would be about $12,000). Burrow-Giles appealed twice, but the original decision was upheld, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of copyright protection for photographs. Sarony photographed the Supreme Court justices in 1890.
I'm surmising the article was tucked into the book as it pertains to the photo that is the same one on the book cover. It's not every day you see a 6' 3"-tall man in knee breeches.
The e-mail looks to be addressed to the previous owner of the book. It's quoting a section of De Profundis about Christ. I can never get through a reading of De Profundis without crying. Oscar wrote it while he was in prison, convicted for homosexual acts and sentenced to two years of hard labor. He converted to Catholicism on his death bed.
These discoveries in my precious copy of Oscar's letters reminded me of Roland Mitchell finding documents in Randolph Henry Ash's copy of Giambattista Vico's Scienzia Nuova in Possession by A.S. Byatt, another book on my thesis reading list (and one of my favorite novels - don't bother with the film version; it doesn't do the least bit of justice to the novel).
Here is the non-Oscar example for those of you who needed to go away and make tea:
This past weekend, I received a print from the estate of my grandmother's long-time neighbor, Mrs. Abbie Swain. Mrs. Swain was a lovely lady who was tiny, sharp as a whip, finger-waved her hair, and lived to be 100-something. She read a lot of books, which was likely a part of her secret formula for a long life.
The sign above the librarian's head in the print reads "Metaphysics." (Metaphysics seeks to explain the ultimate nature of being and of the world.)
The print reminds me of Lucien the librarian in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. Lucien is librarian of all the books ever dreamt of that remain unwritten. (I haven't found a good drawing of him to show you, but if you go read the comics, you'll find him.) Imagine reading in THAT library.
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