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August212005

Fall books: Edmund Morris on Beethoven, more

Filed under: On the Spot   Tagged: , , ,

Edmund Morris, an occasional New Yorker contributor, has held off completing his trilogy of Theodore Roosevelt books to write a biography of Beethoven, out this fall [on October 1]. The Bob Dylan Scrapbook [out September 13] includes pictures, memorabilia and a 60-minute CD. Peter Guralnick’s Dream Boogie [out October 18] should provide the most thorough account yet of singer Sam Cooke.
From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Yes, other cities have newspapers.

Another December event at the 92nd St. Y to mark on your calendar now, if you're so inclined: Morris giving the Newman Lecture (all about Beethoven) on Dec. 13. From the Y site:


The Newman Lecture: Edmund Morris on Beethoven

Edmund Morris, the musically trained, Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of presidential power, examines one of the mightiest and most brilliant musicians of all time. Morris’ biographies, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan and Theodore Rex, were national bestsellers. His newest book is a HarperCollins Eminent Lives biography of Beethoven.


Wow, lots of adjectives there! Good work, Y copywriters. I like that Eminent Lives seems to be a sly attempt to trump Penguin Lives as a series title, though especially in this penguin-dreamy moment, a penguin life has come to seem pretty triumphant, too. I reviewed Jane Smiley's Penguin Life of Charles Dickens some years ago, and enjoyed it. Dickens was a manic so-and-so, as you know, and Smiley evokes the adrenaline blastoff of even his most ordinary days with admirably graceful gusto.

The Unknowable: Ronald Reagan’s amazing, mysterious life [New Yorker; remember this obit? I really liked it. I didn't read Dutch but read a lot of the babble about it, and was glad to be impressed by Morris' clear-eyed, touching, and truly three-dimensional piece.]

The Method President: Ronald Reagan and the Movies [New Yorker; Anthony Lane expresses skepticism about Morris' reportage on Reagan's sex appeal. I'm gradually forming a theory about Lane's philosophical quirks—no, it's not at all personal. Haven't you noticed I don't print stuff like that? Any critical insights will be appreciated.]

The Living Hand [Morris in 1995 on Reagan's letter announcing his Alzheimer's disease: "The throb of sympathy that ran through the country last November, when Ronald Reagan wrote his farewell letter to the American people, went beyond the ordinary sorrow we all must feel on reading that someone familiar has succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Much time and space, not to mention cyberspace, was devoted to the news, and many tears were shed, even by people who despised everything President Reagan had ever stood for. After nine years of studying him with objective coldness, I confess that I, too, cried at that letter, with its crabbed script and enormous margin (so evocative of the blizzard whitening his mind), and, above all, at the mystery of that black and scary erasure, concealing God knows what."]

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Comments

I wish you would send me the e-address of Edmund Wilson. (But I doubt that you will.)

Juergen HeberleNovember 10, 2007

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