The Twentieth Century Mastermind: Kurt Vonnegut

    Kurt Vonnegut is latest born author to make my Great American Authors List. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1922. He attended Cornell University for a short period but would leave to enlist in the Army during World War II. Captured at war, Vonnegut was sent to a POW camp in Dresden, Germany. The city was destroyed in 1945 by allied forces during the carpet bombings while Vonnegut was still there. Luckily, he was working in an underground meat locker and was one of the only people to survive.

    Some of his is best known works "Slaughterhouse Five" and "The Children's Crusade" were based on his experiences during the war. These books were released in the early 1970s at the height of the controversial Vietnam War. "Slaughterhouse Five" in particular had many anti-war tones and caused a great uproar with many people during this time. However, it became a cult classic at the time and caused many people to read Vonnegut's other works. Today it is seen as an insightful work on war and peace. 

    Vonnegut has been hailed by New York Times columnists as a "postmodern Mark Twain" and "a literary idol" while his works are known as "classics of the American counterculture".  Vonnegut's death in 2007 marks one of the last truly great American authors and begs the question "Who will be next?"

Nevermore: The Life of Poe

    Edgar Allen Poe was probably one of my favorite authors to study in school. His life was an enigma. His death, a mystery. Yet his works clearly are the beginnings of new kinds of writings we now know has horror, science fiction, and suspense.
    Born to the Poe family in Boston, he abandoned by his father at the age of one. His mother died a year later. He was adopter by John Allen, giving him the name Edgar Allen Poe. His despairs continued as a teenage when he became estranged from Allen over gambling debts. He was also deeply in love with a woman named Sarah Royster who became engaged to another man instead of Poe in 1827.
    Around this time, Poe enlisted in the US Army under the name Edgar A. Perry and told them he was 22 when he was actually 18. After being discharged a few years later, Poe began writing poems. Some of these focused on love and loss and many were based on his love affair with his 13 year old cousin. His most famous poem is the dark and erie "The Raven". He also wrote many famous essays focusing on love, loss, sickness, and death such as "The Bells" and "The Cask of Amontillado" about the Bubonic Plague. Many of his later writings were based on the death of his wife Virginia.
    Poe died in 1849 in the gutter of a street in Baltimore wearing someone else's clothes. The original speculated cause of death was "congestion of the brain" but today it is believed to have been alcohol related or possibly even deliberate poisoning. His last words were "Lord help my poor soul". Poe's strange, sad life lead to his twisted mind that created the erie, horrific stories and poems that are known today to be some of the greatest in American History.

By the Mark, Twain!

    "By the mark, twain!". A term often yelled on riverboats during the 1800s to determine the depth of the water was an acceptable 6 feet.
     Samuel Langhorn Clemens adopted the pen name Mark Twain in 1862. He grew up in Mississippi, building the foundation of many of his novels. He worked as an editor for a few years and later as a steamboat pilot which was one of his greatest dreams. He served briefly in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He traveled to the Wild West in 1861 with his brother to Nevada and later California where he settled and married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a rich New York coal merchant.
    For years throughout all of Twain's travels and life experiences, Twain was writing two major novels. The first, stemming from his experiences in Missouri, was "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" which was published in 1867. The character of Tom Sawyer was said to have been based on Twain's childhood friend Tom Blankenship. The second novel was about a supporting character of Tom Sawyer. This novel was entitled "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".
   Ernest Hemingway would later write that all American literature stems from this book. "Huck Finn" captures the American way of life during the 1800s. Before this book, no American novel had used the voice of the people. Nothing had ever been written in such a raw tone that embodied the colonial life of the times. Twain's two main related works set the tone for many future writers and gave way to the new form of American Literature.

The Curious Case of Harper Lee

    Harper Lee has only ever had one published work. However, that one published work was an immediate hit that has won a Pulitzer Prize and is now considered to be one of the most influential and classic novels in American Literature. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is Harper Lee's claim to fame. But should she be considered a great American writer or is she just lucky, a one hit wonder, a fluke?
     From a glance, many would say yes. That Harper Lee wrote one great novel and could not ever match it or even come close and left the writing game for good. However looking at Harper Lee's life, I would argue differently. Like her childhood friend Truman Capote, who would also go on to become a well known American author, Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. She attended University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and also studied at Oxford which is one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Her lack of early writings is not due to a lack of talent but more-so a lack of funding. She worked as a ticket agent and had very little free time to write. Once put up by her friend, famous composer Michael Martin Brown, Lee was able to write full time and not have to worry about working. During this time, she wrote the novel first entitled "Go Sell a Watchman" and then "Atticus" and finally "To Kill A Mockingbird". The book won the Pulitzer Prize in '61 and was turned into a film that won 4  major awards.
    After to Kill A Mockingbird, Lee worked on a few small projects with Truman Capote and only two other solo works that were never published. She retreat from the Public eye in the 1970's and has been seen or heard from very little since. She currently still lives in Monroeville and has a home in New York City. She avoids any acknowledgements or interviews regarding her single famous novel.
    Although Harper Lee has only published the one work, her education shows that she is very bright. Also her life struggles and lack of actually writing shows that when she had the time and the drive, she could create great things. Her masterpiece is one of the most revered and controversial in the history of American Literature. I doubt yet hope that she will ever write again, but either way her novel has been cemented as a great piece of American Literature and she as a great American writer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Jazz Age Icon

    Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Named after his distant relative Francis Scott Key, the writer of "The Star Spangled Banner", Fitzgerald was born to a an upper middle class midwestern family. He attended pre-schools and later Princeton University where he mastered the craft of writing. However, his grades were low and once put on academic probation Fitzgerald left the university to join the Army. He was stationed in Montgomery Alabama during WWI.
    In Montgomery, he fell in love with the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice, Zelda Sayre. They were engaged but Zelda would not marry him until he made enough money so he joined an advertising firm. However it was his writing that would make him his money when he wrote the novel "This side of Paradise". Ironically the book that made the money to convince Zelda to marry him was about a Midwesterner who falls in love but is rejected by women of higher class... Sounds familiar.
    In 1920, at the age of 24, Fitzgerald skyrocketed to stardom and married Zelda in New York to make them into a New York power couple living the life of fame. He continued his success in writings through short stories mostly in magazine publications. In an attempt to hone in on his creativity, Fitzgerald moved to Paris in 1924: the virtual hub of arts and literature in the 1920's. There he met fellow writer Ernest Hemingway. The two became good friends (Fitzgerald and Zelda are both characters in the novel "The Paris wife that I am currently reading). However, Hemingway was not fond of Fitzgerald's "whoring" in his writing by selling his works to magazines and writing only for money and fame. Realistically this was mostly Hemingway's "holier that thou" attitude since he did achieve great fame and fortune also by stepping on his friends and family.
   It was in France that Fitzgerald wrote his most famous work "The Great Gatsby", a personal favorite of mine. This novel also focuses on the same theme of Midwestern characters and a rejection based on money which comes from his early relationship with Zelda. The book was an instant classic and fully captured the Jazz Age and the Roaring 20s.
   Afte the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald did not produce any real notable works. His wife, Zelda was very sick and had to pay medical bills. The Fitzgeralds' life of luxury and fame had cost them much of their money and they were now struggling to get by. He attempted to write a few more pieces and also tried his hand at screen writing, but was not extremely successful. Fitzgerald died at age 44 in 1940. He died believing he was a failure because he had slipped out of the spotlight. However, today he is considered to be one of the greatest American writers of all time and his best work "The Great Gatsby" is forever cemented as a literary classic. If only he had lived longer to make his climb back to the top we may have seen more of his great writing style.

Ernest Hemingway: The Most Interesting Man in the World

    As I described in my previous blog, my interest in this topic stems from my new found obsession with Ernest Hemingway. It begun last week as I told my mother I planned on running with the bulls in Pamplona on my trip to Europe next summer. She told me I had to read Hemingway's account of the event. I did that and then I started reading a novel by Paula McClain about Hemingway and his first wife. However, my links to Hemingway have really go back farther than I ever realized. As I began reading about life I found that he vacationed every summer of his childhood at Walloon Lake near Petoskey, where I have been many times. Two years ago I also went to Key West and saw Hemingway's house, the Hemingway cats, and the library where many of his works are stored. At the time I cared very little about any of it, but now I wish I had payed closer attention.
    Hemingway as a person is fascinating. For those of you who are more familiar with popular culture than history or literature; the character "The Most Interesting Man in the World" on the Dos Equis commercials is based off of Ernest Hemingway. He was an ambulance driver in WWI but fought with the Italian army for a short stint. He studied art and writing from some of the finest minds in the world while in Paris in the 20s. He lived in several countries all over the world. He was a competitive boxer, a prized sport fisherman, hunted lions and rhinos in Africa, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. During WWII, Hemingway went to battle cites and "unofficially" participated in the war effort claiming to have killed many Nazis. My favorite story about Hemingway comes his time living in Cuba where he won several big game fishing awards. According to the story, the locals were upset that he was winning all of their awards. Hemingway offered to give the awards back as long as anyone could last 3 rounds in the boxing ring with him. He kept all of the awards.
    Despite his amazing life accomplishments and writing genius, Ernest Hemingway was a tortured mind. He burned bridges with many of his best friends because of his temper. He was extremely chauvinistic and was married four times. He was a raging alcoholic and dealt with serious depression issues. Eventually, at age 61, Hemingway took his favorite shotgun into the woods and took his own life.
    Hemingway as a writer is in my opinion one of the best. My favorite pieces I have read by him are "The Old Man and the Sea" and "A farewell to Arms". His literature is timeless and classic. Some of the stories about his life have been proved to be a bit embellished. However he did accomplish so much and his portrayal of his life just shows how talented of a story teller he really was. He has left the world with his legacy of bringing the new style of writing to the 20th century as well as being a icon for machismo and what a legend truly is.

Intro to American Authors blog

My earlier blog "Metro-Detroit Nachos" fell short of what I expected when I realized one can only eat so many nachos before getting sick of them. I have decided to change my topic to finish out the last five blogs for the semester.
Since I am a history major I decided to follow in one of my interests and do a profile on a historical person. Since I find that to be broad, I've decided to go along with the class topic and pick a famous American author to do a profile on.
This idea was mostly inspired by a book my mom gave me last week entitled "The Paris Wife", which is written from the perspective of the Ernest Hemmingway's first wife Hadley Richardson. The book got me hooked on Hemingway to the point of watching documentaries on his life and doing research about him FOR FUN.
The blog will require some research and some personal opinions about each of the writers lives and works. It will being with Hemingway and likely move to Fitzgerald and other 20's writers and then whichever others I chose.