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Tuesday, September 26, 2006Regrets
Artistic tragedies that bug me:
Antonia White stalled on her fifth novel and never broke through her block. Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter bombed so badly he never directed another film. Mozart died halfway through writing his requiem. What bugs you? (Incidentally, don't bother looking up Antonia White on wikipedia if you haven't heard of her; the article is full of mistakes. She wrote, FYI: Frost in May, The Lost Traveller, The Sugar House and Beyond the Glass, and they are extraordinary.)
Comments:
Well...
The fact that the 1937 adaptation of "I Claudius" was never finished due to assorted reasons, an only a few filmed bits survive of what could have become Charles Laughton's greatest performance. The fact that Sergei Eisenstein was never able to direct the third part of "Ivan the Terrible" The early death of Egon Schiele.
1) Book 4 of the Dark Tower series turning into 600 pages of backstory.
2) Not enough quality space sci-fi movies ala Alien/Aliens. 3) The Harry Potter series turning into 700+ page tomes. 4) The TV shopw Firefly being cancelled after one season. I hate TV, and the one thing I love is killed. 5) And lastly, I regreat that all modern radio jazz sounds alike.
My big three are:
1) The only complete manuscript of Sappho's poems is supposed to have been destroyed by the Vatican during the 14th century or thereabouts, on the grounds that it was sinful. All we have left are fragments, and she was the greatest poet of her era. 2) Dickens died in the middle of writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which, even in its unfinished state, is my personal favourite of his works and which I think would have marked a whole new development in his writing. 3) Harper Lee, who once said that she wanted to be "The Jane Austen of small-town American life", hit a massive case of writer's block after To Kill a Mockingbird, and never got over it. And if I'm allowed one more... 4) When Emily Bronte was dying, she burned the unfinished manuscript of her second novel.
I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I can't let this question hang in space, with a place to answer, without saying this:
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Nick Drake. Three brilliant albums. Dead before thirty. Breaks my heart. << Home ArchivesJuly 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 |
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