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The Bohemian Review
Apr. 10th, 2015 02:28 pmHey,
So I read through The Bohemians by Ben Tarnoff. The book covers a brief slice of time when four writers converged in San Francisco to produce a new, American style of literature. The four authors are Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Cooolbrith. All of them met with some levels of success, but, obviously, it was Twain who went on to international and historical fame.
In fact, that's the real problem with this book. Twain overshadows everyone and you're curious to know more about him. It's hard for the book not to lean heavily on Twain because he's the one you know about. It's unlikely you've heard of the others.
That said, Bret Harte was, for a time, a brighter star than Twain. Harte is a classic story of early fame setting someone up for a fall. He was a very popular author back in San Francisco and got his stories published in Eastern publications. At the zenith of his career he went East and promptly lost his muse. It was a long downward spiral from there.
Harte is interesting to me because I know him from Twain's Autobiography (oh Vol. 3, when will you arrive???). Harte had provided invaluable editorial help for Twain's early writing, but by the end, Twain was quite hostile towards Harte and in his Autobiography rips into him at length. This book actually is interesting in that it provides a lot of background detail on the men and their friendship and eventual enmity. However, it really becomes mostly about Twain and how you really didn't want to piss him off because he would go to war on you.
So as someone reading his Autobiography, it is nice to see an outside scholar look at formative factors in Twain's life and also the man who was one of Twain's best friends and most hated rivals.
Oh, the other two people. Yes, so Charles Warden Stoddard was a poet and then author who spent a great deal of time in the South Seas because, well, people there were less constrained by sexual hangups -- particularly when it came to homosexuality. Ina Coolbrith was a niece of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and although a wonderful poet, she was trapped in the role of caretaker and was the only one of the four who could never leave the city to succeed or fail on a grander stage. We just don't get very much information about the two of them -- or rather, their writing didn't make enough of an impact (then or now) for us to be super interested in them. The two of them sort of orbit Harte and Twain and when they leave town, that's really pretty much it.
So it doesn't quite do what it says on the tin. I did appreciate it because of the Autobiography, but I'm not sure it's going to be a real draw for most folks.
later
Tom
So I read through The Bohemians by Ben Tarnoff. The book covers a brief slice of time when four writers converged in San Francisco to produce a new, American style of literature. The four authors are Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Cooolbrith. All of them met with some levels of success, but, obviously, it was Twain who went on to international and historical fame.
In fact, that's the real problem with this book. Twain overshadows everyone and you're curious to know more about him. It's hard for the book not to lean heavily on Twain because he's the one you know about. It's unlikely you've heard of the others.
That said, Bret Harte was, for a time, a brighter star than Twain. Harte is a classic story of early fame setting someone up for a fall. He was a very popular author back in San Francisco and got his stories published in Eastern publications. At the zenith of his career he went East and promptly lost his muse. It was a long downward spiral from there.
Harte is interesting to me because I know him from Twain's Autobiography (oh Vol. 3, when will you arrive???). Harte had provided invaluable editorial help for Twain's early writing, but by the end, Twain was quite hostile towards Harte and in his Autobiography rips into him at length. This book actually is interesting in that it provides a lot of background detail on the men and their friendship and eventual enmity. However, it really becomes mostly about Twain and how you really didn't want to piss him off because he would go to war on you.
So as someone reading his Autobiography, it is nice to see an outside scholar look at formative factors in Twain's life and also the man who was one of Twain's best friends and most hated rivals.
Oh, the other two people. Yes, so Charles Warden Stoddard was a poet and then author who spent a great deal of time in the South Seas because, well, people there were less constrained by sexual hangups -- particularly when it came to homosexuality. Ina Coolbrith was a niece of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and although a wonderful poet, she was trapped in the role of caretaker and was the only one of the four who could never leave the city to succeed or fail on a grander stage. We just don't get very much information about the two of them -- or rather, their writing didn't make enough of an impact (then or now) for us to be super interested in them. The two of them sort of orbit Harte and Twain and when they leave town, that's really pretty much it.
So it doesn't quite do what it says on the tin. I did appreciate it because of the Autobiography, but I'm not sure it's going to be a real draw for most folks.
later
Tom
