My Favorite Things... a Blast from the Past

This is a page from my original website (ennyman.com) which I built in 1995 after reading a book titled How to Learn HTML in Two Weeks. Since that time I added a few movies (2, 4, 10 & 12), an author, and my favorite "place" in the world. Everything here is still meaningful to me, but there is probably a lot I'd need to add from the last 25 years to bring it up-to-date.

  My Favorite Things

Quote of the Week
"Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius." ~anon.

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Favorite Movies
1. Educating Rita (Michael Caine)
2. The Dancer Upstairs (Javier Bardem in a film directed by John Malkovich)
3. The Truman Show (Jim Carey) Original, philosophical fun.
4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly  
5. The Trip to Bountiful (Geraldine Page) One of those "I wish I could write like that" movies.
6. Groundhog Day (Bill Murray)
7. The Mission
8. Zelig
9. Chariots of Fire (Inspirational)
10. Vanilla Sky
11. Runaway Train (Jon Voigt as existential hero) 
12. As Good As It Gets
13. Chinatown
14. The Natural

Strictly for the fun of it.
--BeetleJuice (Michael Keaton)
--Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Michael Caine and Steve Martin)

Seven of my Favorite Writers in the 1990s
1. Jorge Luis Borges
2. Graham Greene
3. Andre Gide
4. Elmore Leonard
5. C. S. Lewis
6. Rainer Maria Rilke
7. Par Lagerkvist

Six of my Favorite Writers in Earlier Years
1. Joseph Conrad
2. Ernest Hemingway
3. Thomas Mann
4. Herman Hesse
5. Anton Chekhov
6. Jack London
7. Kurt Vonnegut

Favorite Quotes for Writers

Favorite Short Stories
If I were to assemble an Anthology...
1. The Bet by Anton Chekhov
2. A Piece of Steak by Jack London
3. The Lagoon by Joseph Conrad
4. The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
5. The Book of Sand by Jorge Luis Borges
6. The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
7. There Are More Things, again by Borges
8. The Harness, by John Steinbeck
9. Here We Are, by Dorothy Sayers
10. The Doctor & the Doctor's Wife, by Ernest Hemingway

PLUS (Must be mentioned): The Mirror and the Mask, by Jorge Luis Borges

Favorite Novellas
1. The Tenth Man, by Graham Greene
2. Of Mice and Men, by Steinbeck
3. Barabbas, by Par Lagerkvist
4. Theseus, by Andre Gide
5. A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean
6. Isabelle, by Andre Gide
7. Seize the Day, by Saul Bellow
8. Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann
9. The Sybil, by Par Lagerkvist
10. The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis
11. Mr. Majestyk, by Elmore Leonard
12. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton

Five Novels That Especially Made an Impression On Me When I First Read Them
1. Martin Eden, by Jack London
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
3. The Old Gringo, by Carlos Fuentes
4. Too Late the Phalarope, by Alan Paton
5. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo

Three Novels of Eighty Years Ago That Reveal Remarkable Prescience
1. 1984, by George Orwell
2. Brave New World, by Aldous Huzley
3. That Hideous Strength, by C.S.Lewis

Books on my Shelf That I Started But Haven't Finished Yet
1. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
2. Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust
3. The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone
4. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

Three Favorite Cities in Mexico
1. Guanajuato
2. Cuernavaca
3. Tepotzlan

Favorite City in the World (at this moment in time)
1. Florence, Italy

Favorite Pieces of Short Classical Music
1. Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28 No. 4) by. Chopin
2. None But The Lonely Heart, by Tchaikovsky
3. On Earth As It Is In Heaven, by Ennio Morricone
4. Adagio opus 11, by Samuel Barber
5. Concerto for Clarinet in A Major K622, by Mozart
6. Ballade No. 1 in G minor, by Chopin
7. Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, No 1 Op. 11, by Chopin
8. Sonata for Piano No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, Pathetique, Adagio, by Beethoven,
9. Elvira Madigan, by Mozart
10. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Second Movement

Most Memorable Honeymoon Dinner
J.J. Charlies', Monterrey, Mexico, 1981

Three Favorite Bible Passages
1. Matthew 25:31-45
2. James 1:27
3. Psalm 138:8

Two Turtledoves
And a Partridge in a Pair Tree 

Jack London Bio Offers New Insights While Raising Old Questions

At one time Jack London was the highest paid writer in America. There were two things that gave his writing such force. First, the stories he told were drawn from experiences he’d lived, adventures that transcended the norm. Second, and equally important, was his skill at storytelling.

His fame, however, came as the result of two other qualities. He was extremely persistent and incredibly prolific. Once he’d determined to be a serious writer he purportedly produced a minimum of 1000 words a day, every day, till the day he died.

The title of the biography I read this week is Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor. Although this is the first biography of London that I’ve read, I’ve been quite familiar with much of his life story because two of his novels — Martin Eden and John Barleycorn — are autobiographical.

For the record, Earle Labor is the acknowledged major authority on the novelist Jack London, serving as the curator of the Jack London Museum and Research Center in Shreveport. What makes Labor’s labors so authoritative is that he’s read every piece of correspondence that exists, to or from London, as well the diaries of the women London’s life story.

* * * 

Like many schoolchildren I’d read “To Build a Fire” and “Call of the Wild” during my youth. My intro to Martin Eden came years later at the first writers’ conference I’d attended. One of the instructors, who by his early 30’s had published over 3000 articles, stated that young writers would glean much of value from reading that book, and indeed I did.

Earle Labor begins the story of Jack London’s life by noting his accomplishments: fifty books and international fame by the time he died at age forty. The first half of those forty years included delivering newspapers starting at 3:00 a.m. before going to school at age eight; dropping out of school at age thirteen to to work twelve to eighteen hours a day as a child laborer; becoming an oyster pirate at age fifteen, working as a sailor on a seal hunting schooner, riding the rails as a hobo, serving time in prison for something he didn’t do, searching for gold in the Klondike and more.

In some ways London’s adventures reminded me of Hemingway. Both were the kind of “man’s man” that seemed drawn to violence. (London wrote many stories about pugilists, Hemingway wrote about bullfighting.) Both seem to have had short fuses and personalities that would put them out of favor in our contemporary world.

London's ship, The Snark. He loved the open sea.

London’s first successful story was something he wrote for a contest, in part because he needed the money. Despite being a school dropout, he won the $25 prize against competition that included Stanford journalism students and the like. Getting from first base to fame took a little more time, but he was determined. To expand his vocabulary he learned a new word every day, writing it on a piece of paper, placing it in his pocket and using it in conversations until it was totally embedded.

That’s exactly the kind of thing I look for in young writers today, not just making an effort to expand one’s vocabulary but deliberately and consciously striving to improve the various aspects of their craft.

* * * 

There are aspects of Jack London’s life that are less than flattering. To his credit, Labor did not attempt to sugarcoat London’s story. I was appalled by some of the letters he wrote to his daughter. They were cruel and unwarranted., which raises the age old question as regards the relationship between an artist and his or her art. Should we think less of the art when we discover that the artist was a jerk or was a fiend?

* * * 

Three decades ago, I had a writer friend who was a big Jack London fan. I must have been discussing Martin Eden with him which opened the door to another fact of London’s life, London the Socialist. His experiences in sweat shops and other early life indignities obliged him to speak out for the underdog.

In the latter part of his life he acquired land and planned to build his dream home on a thousand acre spread in Sonoma, California. Two weeks before he and his second wife were to move into the home London called Wolf House, it was destroyed by fire. Was it arson? Had he made too many enemies advocating for socialism? My friend believed so.

Earle Labor makes a case for an alternate explanation. In 1995 some forensic scientists visited the ruins of Wolf House. The fire occurred on a day when the interior of the structure had been rubbed down with linseed oil. It was an extremely hot day and combustible fumes were in the air as the oil dried. They believe the rags ignited due to spontaneous combustion and the disastrous fire was the result.

“A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem.”

London made his mark because he learned early the kinds of stories that would sell. Here’s some advice for writers that was published in The Editor in 1903. It is an excerpt from an article titled “Getting Into Print.”

Fiction pays best of all, and when it is of a fair quality is more easily sold. A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible — if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don’t do as I do, but do as I say.) Humor is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded… Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

Reading Labor’s London biography has prompted me to follow up with a return to reading some of the author’s other books and stories. How about you?

Related Links
My review of London's short story A Piece of Steak
Jack London: An American Life

One Minute Book Reviews

Yesterday the notion entered my mind to write a series of one minute book reviews. I arbitrarily selected a set of books off my shelves and will now write for one minute about each. If I enjoy this exercise I may write one minute reviews of top news stories or artists, or U.S. cities.

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
Tragic look at Africa's heartland, complex issues in an emerging Third World. Moving story and sad. Naipaul was criticized for his bleak portrayal regarding Africa's prospects as presented in this book.

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
A book filled with great insights and many quotable quotes. An ordinary longshoreman (if I recall correctly) and a wise man of his times, 1950's. I've quoted Hoffer many times over the years.

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
A world-famous architect is weary of the spotlight and hides himself in a remote corner of Africa's outback where he lives in a hut at a leper colony run by priests and nuns. Great story that explores the meaning of life.

Abel Sanchez and Other Stories by Miguel de Unamuno
These short stories moved me when I first read this book in my thirties. I forget the titles of the stories but remember the one about the priest and another about a writer who writes crazier and crazier things.

The Plague by Albert Camus
This was a required reading in our college Existential Philosophy class. The Plague creates a "situation" with no exit to which various characters respond.

The Sybil by Par Lagerkvist
Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This book is both disturbing and illuminating about God and humanity and the depths of sorrow.

Martin Eden by Jack London
Recommended reading for all who wish to be writers. Tells the story of a poor man who wants to "make it" as a writer and what it takes to achieve his dreams. And the consequences of this success.

The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy
Novella length Tolstoy story that shows the big consequences of "little decisions." Fast read, profound insights about life.

Demian by Herman Hesse
First Hesse book I read in college. Hit me powerfully, the story of a youth in a school away from home for the first time. He meets an exceptional person and... wrestles with life issues.

Isabelle by Andre Gide
This book is what the belles letres really means... beautiful writing. Unfolds like a Conan Doyle mystery, but is wholly other. Terrific book.

That's it. Today's recommended reading list from Ennyman.

The Big Read Does Gatsby

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." ~ Nick's opening lines in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

My last post mentioned I'd been listening to a CD series called The Big Read, produced with grant money from the National Endowment for the Arts. Yesterday my commute included a listen to commentary and an overview of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

I'd also mentioned that someone in the Steinbeck program said Grapes of Wrath was the quintessential Great American Novel. It was amusing to hear the same statement with regards to Gatsby. One critic mentioned that he reads it twice a year.

Jack London was the highest paid short story writer of his time, in the period leading up to World War I. Fitzgerald became heir to that pop throne during the Jazz Age, a phrase he apparently coined. His stories garnered a pretty savory three grand each, which was good money in those days. Unfortunately, despite being the rage in the short story scene, this book failed to catch the wave. The Great Gatsby received little more than a yawn from the public, selling about 25,000 copies over the next fifteen years.

By comparison, London's Call of the Wild sold out the first printing almost immediately, and the second, and has been translated into more languages than nearly any book by an American author, ever.

Pop adulation is apparently not necessarily the mark literary acclaim. Nobel Prize winner Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country sold 3,000 copies the first year. It's a beautiful book and worthy of the recognition it later achieved. But it was hardly a bestseller. And many of Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide's 80 books had print runs of only a thousand copies or less, distributed amongst friends and a few loyal readers. By way of contrast, some of today's best selling authors see opening print runs in the hundreds of thousands, due chiefly to our era of mass distribution.

So why is it that Fitzgerald gets the adulation from the critics, and London a courteous nod? It might be that London, who came up through the ranks from the working poor, simply didn't have the appropriate color of blood, as in blue. Or maybe, being an outspoken socialist who took the side of the working class in some of his books, he was politically out of step in his time. Or... maybe... he tweaked too many peoples' noses and stepped on too many toes of persons in high places.

Yet it is evident that London knew how to reach an audience with his gritty stories written as if he had lived them, which in many cases he had, from the Klondike to the high seas. And for this he was well paid. edNote: if you are serious about making it as a writer, be sure to read Martin Eden.

I admit that I have enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby several times over the years, but for some reason the book felt a little sappy to me in my latest read. Maybe the film spoiled it. Some of the lines felt more dreamy when written, but when spoken were clearly stilted and almost corny. Am I being too harsh here? It may be that I'm more jaded than I used to be.


Review additional comments on Fitzgerald and Gatsby here

A Piece Of Steak

Once upon a time short story writers could make very good money. In the days before movie theaters and television, magazines like The Saturday Evening Post offered some of the best entertainment around. And they paid well to get these marquis writers on their covers. Around a century ago the highest paid of these scribes was a writer named Jack London.

London was no artsy fartsy powderpuff sitting on hillsides waiting for inspiration to strike. For Jack London writing was a craft and a discipline. Day in, day out he slammed out one thousand words of prose. By age forty, though his life was cut short, his output had been immense – as many as fifty volumes of stories, novels, plays and essays.

Many of us know him for the short story “To Build a Fire,” an intense, tightly woven man vs. nature chiller that takes place up in the Klondike. Or perhaps we remember his “Call of the Wild.” And while there are many great London books and stories I could recommend, my all time favorite has to be “A Piece of Steak.”

First published in The Saturday Evening Post, Volume 182, November 1909, “A Piece of Steak” is the tale of an aging boxer. London places a lens on a single fight in boxer Tom King’s life and reveals the motivations, dreams and disappointments of this man’s entire life. It is a study of determination and will. It is also, by extension, a potent picture of the eternal struggle between youth and age, all of it hinging on a piece of steak.

Nothing makes the mouth water like a well-prepared cut of beef. Perhaps that’s why Americans eat more beef than any other meat. Indeed, no meat is more popular than steak. Whether Porterhouse, rib eye, T-bone or top sirloin, we know a good thing when we taste it.

For food value steak contains many nutrients needed by the human body. The vitamins you get from eating steak include niacin, riboflavin, and thiamine. Steak is an excellent source of protein, which is needed to build and maintain body cells. Iron and phosphorous are also important minerals our body needs. Plus it’s an excellent source of energy. Which brings us back to our story.

The opening sentence of “A Piece of Steak” not only tells the whole story, it foreshadows the end as well. “With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and meditative way.” Tom King is a professional prize fighter who has fallen on hard times. His wife looks on in silence as he wipes his plate clean, a meal of bread and gravy. That morning he had wakened with a longing for a piece of steak but it was not to be. And for want of this one morsel of nourishment Tom King will later fail.

Tom King’s opponent was a young boxer from New Zealand named Sandel. Since nobody in Australia knew what this kid Sandel was capable of, they were feeding him one of the “old uns.” That was King’s role, and King knew it because he had once been the up and comer, the hungry young fighter seeking fame and fortune.

As Tom King walked the two miles to the arena he reflected on his life as a boxer -- the big money, the sharp, glorious fights, the following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back “and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee’s ‘King wins!’ and his name in the sporting columns next day.”

But King now understood that it was the old ones he had been putting away. He had been Youth, rising. They were Age, sinking. This time, it was King who stood in the way of another young man’s dreams. Sandel was the aspiring young heavyweight. King was the barrier that Sandel would have to pummel his way through.

“And as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of youth, glorious youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, youth was the nemesis.”

London’s vivid portrayals of what goes on in the ring are probably unmatched in fiction. In fact, another of Jack London’s boxing stories was so powerful that Gene Tunney, after reading it, announced his retirement. Lest you be kept wondering, in “A Piece of Steak” Sandel puts the older man away.

Tom King fought a good fight, careful, deliberate and determined. But youth continually renews itself while the old un’s strength is expended.

The story, like many other great stories, is about something more than the action within the confines of beginning and end. It is a story about life. It is also a story with many applications. To see how I used this story to make application to the oil change industry where I am a columnist for the National Oil & Lube News, you can visit this link.

Of course it is more than that. And certainly it is an example of London's writing power, style and personal vision. At a writer's conference I attended years ago, Dennis Hensley (who had published three thousand articles by age 33) recommended to us Martin Eden by Jack London. It is a novel about a writer, revealing of the challenges and the games that industry plays. It's dark and cynical but shaped by a realism that packs a punch, much like A Piece of Steak Will London be forgotten in two hundred years? It's possible. Nevertheless, he wrote some great stories. I'll recommend him, even if the critics do not.